Since the mysterious death of Rand Brisbane, Prudence Pock couldn’t write a decent terror tale to save her skin. Perhaps we can lend a hand….Maybe she had forgotten how to scare people. Yet there was little doubt that Prudence Pock remembered how to get scared.
A stranger had been staring at her from the far corner of the shop. Staring right through her, it felt like. He was a man in his forties. Tall, maybe six two, with a receding hairline. He was wearing a smart gray suit, the kind with a signature on the inside pocket, not available at the mall. He must be a lawyer or a doctor, she thought. One of those highfalutin types everyone seems to admire but no one wants to see. He had her book in his hand: The Very Best of Prudence Pock. Why hadn’t he approached the table? Was he waiting for the “crowd” to depart?
In the midst of all that, Prudence received the mysterious invitation from an unseen girl with a clinking bracelet. And as you’re about to discover, that wasn’t even the creepiest part of the evening.
Prudence was on her way to her car when the stranger in the gray suit approached. Spotting him with her peripheral vision, she tried beating him to her car door. But he got there first. “Ms. Pock?”
“I’ll scream,” she said, trying to scare him off.
“Not as loud as I will. I’m your biggest fan!” He held up her book and took two steps back to prove that he wasn’t a weirdo—which proved nothing. Weirdos are weirdos, no matter how far back they stand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. Imagine that. Someone like me scaring Prudence Pock.”
She was scared; she had to admit it, if only to herself. “There’s a schedule on my website. You can visit me at the next event.” She reached for the door handle and the stranger reached for her hand. Prudence Pock heard the sound of her own heart beating, a cliché she’d used, oh, at least a dozen times. But being a cliché didn’t make it untrue.
“Don’t touch me,” she said, and she looked back to see if the store security guard was still watching. He wasn’t.
The stranger retracted his hand. “Once again, I apologize. I should have approached you in the store.”
“Yes, that would have been the appropriate venue.”
“I was nervous. I hope you understand. Being your biggest fan, I’ve played this out a million times in my head.”
“Played what out?”
“This moment.” He reached into the pocket of his fine gray suit, and Prudence felt the air leave her body. She had used that cliché, too, and it was only a matter of time before the one about her legs turning to jelly would come up. The stranger extended an item, his palms crisscrossed, like he was offering a communion wafer. “Will you accept this?” He presented her with an antique quill.
“It’s lovely,” she said, admiring the obsolete writing tool. “It looks very old.”
“Nineteenth century,” the stranger confirmed. “It’ll help you write your next story.” He grew breathless with excitement. “It belonged to the master.”
“The…master? And to whom, exactly, are you referring?”
“Poe,” he replied. “This is the actual writing instrument used by Edgar Allan Poe.”
Prudence slid her glasses to the tip of her nose. She needed to get a better look at the quill. It looked authentically old; she’d give him that. But Poe? If the stranger could be believed, it belonged to the greatest terror writer the world had ever produced. It was too grand a gift to even consider taking.
“I can’t accept such a gift.”
“Why is that? I’ve accepted gifts from you. For years, your words have kept me company. And I know from your biography that you’re a great admirer of Poe.”
“Who isn’t? He was the master. The rest of us are just his pupils.”
He placed his hands over Prudence’s, closing her arthritic fingers around the quill. “How does it feel?”
“It feels great,” she said. “It feels like history.” She momentarily forgot the acute swelling in her joints. “But I couldn’t possibly accept it. Not without giving you something in return.”
The stranger had an idea. “I know. How about this? I’ll settle for an autograph.” He extended his copy of her book.
In Prudence’s mind, the trade was wildly uneven. Still, she found it impossible to resist. “Sold!” She took out a felt marker to sign. “Your name, sir?”
“Ackerman,” replied the stranger. “Dr. Ackerman.”
“Oh, a doctor of what?”
“The mind,” he replied. “My area of expertise is madness.”
It was like an alarm went off in her head. Prudence stopped signing and looked up, carefully studying his face. “Was it something I said?” he asked. He hoped he hadn’t offended her.
He hadn’t. It was just the opposite, in fact. Prudence was poring over his features because his was a face she knew. Dr. Ackerman was a semi-celebrity in his own right. “You’re the Dr. Ackerman? I used your books in my research.” She felt a little silly saying the next bit, but since she liked hearing it herself, why not give him the same courtesy? “I’m your biggest fan!” Now it would be Prudence prolonging the meeting. “I hope this isn’t too forward, Doctor, but would you have coffee with me? I’d love to pick your brain.”
The doctor was taken aback by her proposal. “As would I, as would I! But I have an even better idea. Join me in my home. I make the perfect cappuccino. Puts World o’ Coffee’s to shame.” And then he put the cherry on top. “You simply must see my collection.”
“What sort of collection?”
“My Poe collection, naturally. I own some of the rarest items in the world. Including the very desk he used to pen ‘The Raven.’”
If Prudence Pock had any thoughts about turning down his invitation, they were already lost in the fog. A night like that would be too great to pass up. Cappuccinos with the exalted Dr. Ackerman. The world’s rarest Poe collection. It sure beat falling asleep in front of a TV.
“Yes!” she responded, unable to mask her enthusiasm. The very thought made her feel like writing again.
Dr. Ackerman was telling the truth: his cappuccino was infinitely superior to World o’ Coffee’s. Prudence was sipping her third cup as she circled the doctor’s great room. There was an old-fashioned fireplace and finely restored furnishings of considerable age, with golden light supplied by oil lamps. The doctor was a romantic, she decided. An old-fashioned gentleman at heart. She paused by a bookshelf to admire his set of Poe first editions. “Is this real? Or am I dreaming?”
He responded with a favored Poe line: “‘All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.’” She looked away and saw the master staring back at her. There was a portrait of Poe hanging over the mantel, along with related artifacts: skulls, masks, stuffed ravens. But it was a brass shelf clock with a marble figure of the Red Death that betrayed the time. “Oh my, Doctor. We’ve talked for hours. I’m afraid I’ve overstayed my welcome.” She placed her cup onto a tray and extended her hand. “Thank you for your hospitality. It was a most enjoyable evening.” But the doctor did not shake her hand.
“I couldn’t possibly let you leave, dear Prudence.” He stood between her and the door. “Not before you’ve seen the collection.”
“The collection?” She chuckled, slightly nervous. “I thought we were looking at it now.”
“This?” The doctor laughed with mock disdain. “Nonsense. The real treasures are down below.” He cupped his hand over the head of a ceramic raven and twisted the neck like a corkscrew. The fireplace wall parted, revealing a hidden passageway. “Are you up for the midnight tour?”
Prudence’s shoulders tightened. Her intuition was telling her to say no. It was all too strange. Yet despite that, she had an insatiable curiosity, especially when it came to the strange. “I am wondering. What’s down there?”
“The spirits of the dead,” he replied. “Do you dare come see for yourself?” The doctor removed a lit candle from an iron sconce for light.
The dormant writer was alive inside her, dying to kno
w what might be lurking within the dark passages below the handsome home. The seeds of a new tale, perhaps. The tale that would win her the top prize at Amicus Arcane’s grand celebration the next evening.
“Okay, Doctor. A quick tour couldn’t hurt. Fifteen minutes, then I’m on my way.”
The doctor smiled. “That should be just enough time.”
She shuffled over, barely lifting her feet. It almost looked like she was sleepwalking.
“This way, dear Prudence. Come meet the master.” The doctor led Prudence into the entrance of the hidden passageway. On the opposite side of the fireplace, there was a narrow stone staircase that plunged into darkness. They made their descent. Once again, it was like a scene out of her fantastical fictions. The steps kept coming; Prudence lost count after twenty.
She noticed the air growing more repellent the lower they got. It was the fetid scent of death and decay; she recognized it from her research trips to crypts and morgues. “I’m afraid.”
“You, Prudence Pock, afraid?” He laughed, and that time she could tell he was acting. The doctor didn’t find her funny at all.
They reached level ground and Prudence felt something splash by her feet. She could see what looked like a pink shoelace squirming past. It was a rat’s tail. “Mind your step, dear Prudence. It can get slippery down here.” He shifted the candle back and forth, introducing a path. They were at the far end of a long stone tunnel. Dark liquids were oozing down the walls, as if the house itself was melting. The place was old and corrupt, she decided. Something terrible had happened down there. And something terrible would happen again. Prudence could tell just by standing in it.
“Where are we, Doctor?”
“In the catacombs below my home. The tour starts here. A Vincent Price narration would be most apropos, wouldn’t you agree?”
Taking Prudence by the arm, he led her deeper into the tunnel. “Look about. Feast your eyes! Gorge yourself on its horrors. Its putrid decay!” Prudence noticed four chamber doors, two on each side: a medieval version of the dungeon below Shepperton Sanitarium. The doctor was eager to explain: “The estate once belonged to an unsavory gentleman. A baron from the old country whose cruelty was legendary—a cruelty worthy of Poe’s tales. The story goes, he built this section for his wife and children. Seems they spent a lot of time down here. Years, in fact. Years.”
He steadied the candle over the first door, allowing Prudence a look through its peephole. There was a collection of bones, a skeletal figure, hanging from shackles against the stone wall. The ribs were exposed, and Prudence saw a large black spider spinning a web where the heart used to be.
“That’s a prop, I take it.”
Dr. Ackerman smiled. “It’s amazing what you can pick up at Parties 4 Smarties these days. Shall we continue?” He shifted the candle, leaving the first chamber in merciful darkness. Prudence felt her legs turn to jelly. She stumbled, and Dr. Ackerman had to catch her before she went down all the way. “Careful not to break your neck, dear. We’re almost there. The highlight of the tour.”
The doctor led her to a second chamber door. Through that peephole, Prudence saw a skeleton chained to a table, its torso sliced in half. “‘The Pit and the Pendulum’!” exclaimed her tour guide, Dr. Ackerman. “I had Poe’s ingenious device meticulously re-created, down to the most minute detail.” With admiration he watched the pendulum swaying back and forth, and for the first time that evening, Prudence decided that her host was insane. We here at the mansion refer to that as a slow learner. Or is it “slow burner”? I never can get that right. She had to figure out a way to leave that dungeon. Sensing her trepidation, Dr. Ackerman grabbed her hand. “This way, dear Prudence. There’s more! There’s more!”
They stopped by a third chamber, and in horror beyond all reason, she saw a skeleton encased inside a glass coffin, frozen in the moment of death, the hands still pressing against the lid, fighting to free itself from…
“A premature burial!” exclaimed Dr. Ackerman, raising both arms into the air. Now he was boasting.
“Why are you doing this? I don’t understand!”
“No, I don’t imagine you would. I’ll try to explain it in layman’s terms. I was born with a dark impulse. My parents noticed it when I was a child, and did their best to discourage it. They sent me to the best doctors and, ultimately, to the best schools, where I became a leading expert on diseased and troubled minds. Minds such as my own. But that didn’t squash the terrible urge.
“You, dear Prudence, did that for me, with your books, with your words. Those tales you wrote. They spoke to me. Your stories saved my life. And, in turn, the lives of others.”
Prudence Pock nodded as she recalled: “I remember. One of your early books covered this disorder at length.”
“Yes. The person I was diagnosing was me. Your words, Prudence Pock, gave me stability. I was the sanest person I knew.”
“But since I stopped writing…”
He gestured toward the chambers. “Without your stories, I had only the master. But Poe only dreamed it. I made it a reality. I am the dream within the dream.”
Prudence hadn’t realized she had already stepped inside the fourth chamber. There was a desk with a lighted candle in a holder, along with a ream of paper and a quill. Despite the madman in front of her, curiosity got the better of her. “Is that it?” she asked. “The desk of Edgar Allan Poe?”
Without getting an answer, she heard hinges creaking behind her. Prudence turned to see the doctor pulling closed a barred door, trapping her inside the chamber. She took a breath, tried playing it cool. “Bravo, Doctor. Bravo! You’ve made your point. You scared Prudence Pock. Now I really must be going.” She stepped over and gave the bars a tug. The door was locked, and Dr. Ackerman, peering in from the outer corridor, didn’t seem to be joking.
Prudence took out her phone to call for help but couldn’t get a signal. Cell service in medieval dungeons is practically nonexistent. Prudence knew she was in serious trouble. “The skeletons,” she began. “They’re…real?”
“As real as you and I,” replied Dr. Ackerman. “They were my patients. The ones who won’t be missed.”
“You won’t get away with th—” The chamber became blurry and started to spin. Prudence teetered back. The enormity of the situation hit her like a ton of bricks. She was going to faint, and there was nothing she could do about it except crumple to the ground.
Prudence Pock opened her eyes. Had she been out for a minute? An hour? A century? Her surroundings were still a blur. Had she been dreaming? Was the entire night a dream within a dream? She could hear her tormentor, Dr. Ackerman, delivering some insane soliloquy, like a villain from one of her stories. One of those villains who didn’t know they were mad. “Welcome back, dear Prudence. So good of you to join the party.”
Prudence latched on to the desk, pulling herself to her feet. The world was just coming back into focus. She saw the figure of her tormentor beyond the chamber recess. A sense of unspeakable horror overwhelmed her.
The doctor was holding a trowel and standing next to a pile of bricks. He was erecting a wall beyond the bars! Like a moment out of Poe, he was walling Prudence Pock into the chamber. Walling her in alive.
She tried to scream and could hear the shrill sound bouncing around in her skull, yet nothing emerged from her mouth. All she could do was sit there and watch—watch as the doctor whistled while he worked.
Before long, Dr. Ackerman completed the first tier.
Prudence’s eyes were tearing up, but her lids never went down and her pupils never wavered. All she could do was watch as Dr. Ackerman piled brick on top of mortar on top of brick on top of mortar.
Two hours passed. Then three. Then four.
Dr. Ackerman was close to the end now. Without a choice, Prudence had sat, paralyzed, for what felt like eternity, witnessing the creation of her tomb. Her final resting place. Not.
Dr. Ackerman was down to the last brick. She could see his eyes peering in throug
h the rectangular slot. “You may think me cruel. On the contrary: I’ve come to help you. As your biggest fan, I offer you this gift: the chance to eradicate your writer’s block. On the desk before you—Poe’s very desk—you will find a ream of paper and a quill, along with enough candlelight to last you till morning. Write your way out of your tomb, Prudence Pock. Pen your most terrifying tale and you’ll be released. Otherwise”—he brought the final brick into position, ready to insert it—“you will be the first known author to die from writer’s block.”
Dr. Ackerman placed the last brick over the hole, wiggling it into place. The chamber was completely sealed.
“Heeeelp!” she cried. “I’m trapped! Somebody help me! He’s insane!” No one could hear her—not from the recesses of a facility built for swallowing screams.
Prudence had to calm down, to think rationally. She had two clear options. One: she could die and become the latest exhibit of Dr. Ackerman’s tour of terror. Or two: she could give him what he wanted. She could sit behind Poe’s desk and write her most terrifying tale of all.
The solution came in a flash. Writer’s block, be gone! Prudence sat at the desk and picked up the quill. Her hand was trembling. It had been a long time, and the stakes had never been higher. Life and death, literally. Was she still capable of eliciting screams? She had no choice but to try.
By the shimmery glow of a solitary candle, Prudence began to write.
She wrote the tale of a madman who kept his patients locked away in a dungeon. Her arthritic hands couldn’t record the details fast enough. Working from inside a tomb was an inspiration. The words flowed out of her. Indeed, it was her most terrifying tale of all. It was the tale of her own death.
Dr. Ackerman waited an entire month before venturing down into the secret catacombs below his home, his assumption being that Prudence Pock would have expired by then. Without food, without water, that was a given. But he was excited about the gift she’d left behind. The first new Prudence Pock story in years was his, all his.
Tales from the Haunted Mansion, Volume 4 Page 9
