Stephen Jones (ed)

by The Mammoth Book of Zombies (mobi)

  I asked her if she had any reference books on local history.

  "Is there anything in particular you're interested in?" she asked. I noticed that the elderly gentleman - who I took to be the librarian - was looking across at me curiously above his glasses.

  "I'm staying with a friend who recently bought an old house near here. I was interested in finding out if there is any history attached to it. It's a hobby of mine," I lied as she thought for a moment, scanning the packed bookshelves.

  "Would that be Mr Poole you are staying with?" the librarian asked suddenly, rising from his chair and approaching the desk. He laid the catalogue carefully to one side.

  I said that it was. "You know him?" I asked.

  "In passing. He doesn't spend much time in the village, I'm afraid. Something of a recluse, I believe."

  "There's a lot of work to be done on the house," I explained. "From what I can gather, it was in a pretty bad state when he took it over. I don't suppose he's had much time to spare for socializing so far." I wondered just how much of this was true. The librarian, however, whether out of politeness or agreement, accepted my explanation with a motion of his hands. "One would not have thought the house worth all the time, trouble and expense.

  But there you are. But you were asking just now about books, I believe, on local history."

  "About the house really," I replied. "It just strikes me that there must be something about it of interest. Its past owners must have been people of influence locally at one time or another. Is there anything you can let me have a look at that might help me in this matter?"

  He smiled thinly. "There are several books I could recommend: Pitts' The Fenley Wanderer, or Albert Dudley's The Barchester Landscape, parts of which concern this area, but they are rather dry and somewhat pedantic. Not the kind of thing to spend a day like this reading through. Besides, they are neither of them very informative about certain darker aspects of the house your friend has bought."

  "Then there is something?" I prompted.

  The librarian nodded his greying head. "Something," he echoed. "Though exactly what I have never been able to decide."

  "Was it anything to do with witchcraft or Devil worship?" I asked, remembering the pentagram in the cellar.

  The librarian looked at me in surprise. "So you have heard something then," he said, "after all."

  "I've heard nothing," I told him. "All I know is what I've seen." I described the strange carving we found last night, though I left out any reference to what happened afterwards. When I had finished he glanced at his pocket watch. "Look here," he said, "it's about lunchtime. If you haven't eaten yet and have some time to spare, we could go down the street to the tea shop on the corner. I think there are one or two things I can tell you which you might very well find of interest."

  Agreeing to his suggestion, I waited while he told the girl he would be back in an hour, then collected his hat from a rack in the office and stepped out from behind the desk to lead me down the street.

  When we reached the tea shop, a quaint, rather old world place with fox hunting scenes on its walls, the librarian introduced himself as Desmond Foster. Although he had only lived in Fenley for the last ten years, a keen interest in local history had helped give him a knowledge of the district which he was sure few locals could match. My friend's house, Elm Tree House as it was known in the area, had long fascinated him. "It has had a very long and disquieting history," he said. "Disquieting enough, in fact, to dissuade most people, even in our enlightened times, from purchasing it. Its age, of course, is apparent from its appearance alone - its peculiarly miscegenous appearance."

  I said that I had noticed this about it. "It's almost as if succeeding owners had not possessed it long enough to complete their differing intentions," I re-echoed from my earlier conversation with Poole.

  "Quite so. Though of the house itself, not even one stone in its entire structure, from the ground floor upwards, is a remnant from the building which originally stood on that spot. Long before Sir Robert Tolbridge, a great nephew of the third Marquis of Barchester, decided in 1608 to erect a house near Elm Tree Wood, there were the ruins of an ancient and almost forgotten abbey there, whose lichened stones were rooted in the ground. It was, as I understand it, during the thirteenth century that monks came to Fenley to build an abbey. From the start they were made welcome, and received ample help with the building of their abbey. Relations, it would seem, could hardly have been more propitious than they were. But, unfortunately, things were not destined to remain at so harmonious a level for long. It has been chronicled that the monks fell into a bad humour, growing lax in their devotions and more insatiable in their demands upon the local yeomanry. It has been chronicled that men returning home late at night from the fields saw sights at the abbey which struck fear in their hearts and heard sounds which made them think of tortured beasts howling in pain."

  "Self-flagellation?" I asked.

  "Perhaps," Foster replied without enthusiasm, no doubt, I thought, having opinions of his own. "However, the details are too vague for precise conjecture, except to say that to those who perceived these things there was only one explanation satisfactory to their minds. And this was that the monks had been corrupted into the worship of the Horned One, the Devil. Revealing themselves as heartless, cruel and cynical men, who took a genuine pleasure in exacting every last ounce of servitude from those they could gather in the spreading net of their power and influence, the monks became the focal point of hatred for every man, woman and child in the district, culminating after months of harsh treatment in the complete and utter destruction of the abbey building itself and the murder of every monk. The Abbot himself, however, was secured for a crueller fate. In the village green, the very one we can see from this window," he added, pointing significantly through the panes to where several boys were playing with a ball, "he was executed. It would appear, particularly from a set of woodcuts in Adrian Weeke's Chronicles of Rural Life, published in London in the late eighteenth century, that with a sadistic butchery, incited no doubt by the degradation he had brought upon them, the Abbot was hung by the neck from the gallows rope till almost dead. He was then cut down in time to save his life, only for the executioner to rip out his bowels and burn them before his eyes. Whereupon, as he at last expired, he was sawn into quarters, his remains being locked in an iron gibbet for the rain, decay or the summer's heat to destroy."

  "Harsh justice," I remarked, "even for a man like that."

  Foster raised his eyebrows in speculation. "Perhaps," he said, "though one wonders. Indeed, reaffirming whatever arguments might be put forward in favouring the justice of his fate, is the very fortitude with which he is reported to have faced it, saying as the rope was being placed about his neck - and with a sneer in his voice - a phrase of damning implications: "Exurgent mortui et ad me veniunt!" Or: "The dead rise and come to me!" Foster paused, watching me with inquisitive eyes above his spectacles. "It is a phrase which I happen to have come across before reading the account of his death, and which made me wonder then if the people of Fenley had not been more than justified in their dire suspicions about the abbey, culled as it is from an old book of magic, often attributed to Pope Honorius, called the Red Dragon."

  "The phrase, said in a certain way, I suppose, could be made to sound like a threat," I suggested.

  "Indeed it could. A thought which must have stirred itself in many a mind in Fenley when, on the day following his execution, it was discovered that the Abbot's remains were no longer confined in the gibbet, but had gone, utterly and without the slightest, least tangible trace. Perhaps falling back on the superstitions of the Church in hope, some said, that the Devil had come during the night to claim his own and carry him off to Hell. Personally, and not unreasonably, I think, I feel that one or more of the monks must have escaped the holocaust that took the other brothers, returning after the Abbot's death to claim his corpse, no doubt to bury it with the rites, such as they were, of their own corrupted faith.
But we shall never know for certain, and the more colourful idea of a horned devil plucking out the Abbot's bones through the bars of the gibbet with his clawed fingers, as one woodcut in Weeke's book depicts, will still be the one to attract more attention from collectors of such tales."

  "The pentagram would date back to the time of the abbey, I take it," I said.

  "I would suppose so. The cellars were no doubt incorporated into the building erected on its site."

  "With all of this I must admit to being surprised that anyone would have chosen to build a house on this spot."

  "Sir Robert Tolbridge was a man, even then, I think, who would have built his house on the threshold of Hell itself if that was where he wanted it built. He didn't care a damn what others were frightened of. In fact, I really believe that this may have been one of the reasons why he built it here."

  "And was he contented with it?"

  "Unfortunately he did not live to enjoy the house for long. Shortly after moving in he was murdered in the grounds one night."

  "Which must have brought to light the fear of ghostly revenge on every local's tongue."

  "In this case, no. Two men were hanged not long afterwards for his death. It was claimed that they killed him for money. But the house has not had a happy history. Violence has seemed to hang around it. It is said to be a place of ill luck."

  "What, no tales of wandering revenants?" I asked. "No screaming skulls or bloodstains on the floor?"

  Perhaps taking my remarks as derisive, Foster said, stiffly, that it was not the inside of the house that was considered unlucky.

  "The only deaths in there have been from natural causes," he said. "But the grounds…" He paused emphatically. "The grounds are a different matter altogether. Superstitious foolery, some people might say, but it is said that it is an incautious man who will wander at night through the grounds of Elm Tree House."

  "Well, there's at least one local man who thinks nothing of the sort," I remarked.

  "A local man, you say?" Foster asked, genuinely interested. "You surprise me. There are few men in Fenley - though fewer still who would admit it - who would willingly venture into that ill chosen ground at night. Do you know who it was, by any chance?"

  I'm afraid not. It was late last night and the darkness was too dense for me to make out his face. I took him for a tramp, though Poole, who's seen him before, has the opinion that he must be a local poacher taking a short cut to the woods."

  "This surprises me indeed," Foster said, "though it just goes to show how poorly one can really know a place even after nearly ten years. It is generally supposed that the only poacher in recent times to venture there was Young Teb back in the late 90s, whose torn body presented the local constabulary with an embarrassing problem for months afterwards. His murderer was never apprehended, and the example the poor fellow presented is said to have dissuaded others from going there ever since. But this was nearly thirty years ago and I suppose the younger men might think nothing of going there now." Glancing significantly at his watch, Foster said that he really had to return to the library now. "It has been a pleasure talking to you," he said in parting, "but there is much to be seen to at the library before we close tonight. However, I hope you will call in to see me some time whenever you are here again. And if ever you want to know anything about Fenley you know where to ask."

  Although I had learned a great deal during my stay in Fenley, I decided as I drove back along the lane that it was of little use to me in quelling Poole's rapture for the house. It was, in fact, just the kind of thing to allay his unease about the cellars and awaken in its place an interest in its history. I realized then that my initial idea had not been as promising as I had originally thought, and it was therefore with a feeling of frustration that I eventually pulled up before the house.

  When I stepped inside the hallway I was surprised to find that Poole had gone out. Having told me before I left for Fenley that he would not be going out this afternoon, his present absence was inexplicable. It was totally unlike Poole to say one thing and do another. With more urgency, therefore, than the superficial reasons for it might explain, I began to search for him. Perhaps he had had an accident, I thought, remembering the patches of decay in several of the uncarpeted floors upstairs. As the minutes passed, room after room revealing itself empty of the least sign of him, my intangible fears began to intensify into alarm.

  "Poole! Where are you?" I shouted as I strode through the hallway, looking up into the grey-brown gloom of the stairs. But my cries were re-echoed without reply through the cacophonous depths of the house.

  A cold, insidious feeling of solitude began to oppress me. Enmixed with this was a feeling of foreboding, a strange premonition of doom. I knew that if Poole was in the house he would have answered me by now. I scorned myself without conviction as a panicking fool who would laugh at himself with derision when Poole, unaware of my childish alarm, returned home. But I could not suppress the feeling that something was drastically wrong. What it was, I did not know. It was too enigmatic for explanation in words. And yet, subjective though it may be, and, like hindsight, made stronger in my memory now by what happened afterwards, it was as if the very atmosphere of the house, changed or transmuted in some subtle way, confirmed for me then that something had happened while I was away. Something so awful that its presence, like the last reverberations of a scream, had not completely disappeared. Earnestly though I searched through the house, from the ground floor upwards, even to the attics themselves, there was still one place which I had ignored - perhaps, I thought guiltily, on purpose - and it was, even when all else had proved fruitless, with a feeling of reluctance that I eventually approached the cellar door. One glance, however, at the shelf alongside showed how futile my reluctance had been, for one of the two paraffin lamps stored there had gone.

  Grasping the remaining lamp, I ignited it with a match and stepped to the cellar door. It came open at the merest touch. Glancing down, I saw that it was unbolted and must have swung shut - or so I surmised - after Poole had stepped inside. But why had he decided to come here? Pausing nervously at the head of the stairs I stared down into the cloying darkness, whose depths were but tenuously touched by the feeble light from my lamp. The amount of resolution that Poole must have needed to go down into that seemingly sentient darkness alone impressed itself upon me. I was afraid, and I could not deny it. After a momentary hesitation, I called out for Poole. There was one sharp, empty echo to my cry. Then, feeling even more lonely than before, I slowly began to descend the steps. I held the lamp high so that its light would spread over as wide an area as possible. Faint grey speckles of spiders, fleeing across. the floor into the darkness, were the only signs of life as I crossed it; the deep shadows of the pillars gliding like massive bars, merging and mingling together as I passed between them. There was only one part of the cellar I was interested in, for although the very thought appalled me, I knew that Poole must have gone to the chamber we had investigated the day before.

  Before I reached the extension leading to it, however, I saw what I at first took to be a large pile of rags lying on the ground a short distance ahead of me. As I approached it, though, I realized suddenly that it was Poole. A thin trickle of blood formed an aimless line along the flagstone beside his head. Kneeling, I felt at his face; it was as cold as the stone it had struck, cold and limp and white. I did not need to hear the harsh gasps of breath that were rasping through his lips to realize that he had been seriously hurt. It was obvious -perhaps too obvious - to me then what had happened. Firm though his resolve must have been when he started out on his way through the cellar, the darkness must have eventually unnerved him, that and the arcane evil that struck one about the chamber and its festering burrow. Panicking, he ran back along the passageway, tripped over an uneven paving stone and struck his head against the floor when he fell.

  "John, John," I whispered, "why did you have to come here? Why did you have to try to prove to yourself - or to me - that there
was nothing to fear in this place?" As my words were murmurously echoed I suddenly realized that I was not alone with Poole. Though nothing moved, nor any sound could be heard to disturb the profound silence around us, I knew that I was being watched. My mouth dried as I looked up from my friend and glanced along the tunnel to where the light dimmed into darkness. There, submerged in a shadowy hinterland between the two, half seen like something in a fog, I saw a motionless figure regarding me. I raised the lamp; its light spread faintly upwards, seemingly dispersing what I saw into oblivion.

  When I stood up I realized that there had been nothing there, only the inhospitable void of the mouldering passageway. And yet, even now, even as I saw that I had been mistaken, I could not shrug from myself the feeling of being watched. Moment by moment the feeling grew in intensity till I felt that I could bear it no longer. Why Poole had panicked no more bewildered me. There was something about the cellar, and especially here in the extension to the chamber we had been in the night before, that could not be ignored. It had the dull persistence and mounting intensity of an aching tooth.

  More hurriedly than I had intended, I pulled Poole to his feet and lowered him onto one of my shoulders, before retracing my steps towards the staircase, mounting it in an instant to make my way into the hallway. As I laid Poole out on a couch in his study he began to groan, as if he was starting to wake up. A few moments later I realized that I was mistaken. In between outbursts of unintelligible mutterings, I caught odd words and phrases that disturbed me as I tried to calm him in his delirium.