Nightmare Abbey

by David Longhorn

  Nightmare Abbey

  Written by David Longhorn

  Edited by Emma Salam

  Copyright © 2018 by ScareStreet.com

  All rights reserved.

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  Table of Contents

  Prologue: England 1792

  Chapter 1: A Paranormal Partnership

  Chapter 2: Who You Really Are

  Chapter 3: Nightmare on a Sunny Afternoon

  Chapter 4: Little Girl Lost

  Chapter 5: Little Boy Lost

  Chapter 6: The Exchange

  Chapter 7: Night Moves

  Chapter 8: The Phantom Dimension

  Chapter 9: Showdown

  Epilogue: The Romola Foundation

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  Prologue: England 1792

  “What is evil?” asked Lord George Blaisdell. “Seriously, you fellows – what is evil, truly?”

  The two other men seated at the great dining table exchanged significant glances. They and their host had drunk a sufficient amount of port wine to remove all inhibitions, but not quite enough to hopelessly fuddle the brain. Fortunately, much of the alcohol had been mopped up by the feast the lord had laid out for them.

  “Evil is surely the rejection of Christian principles?” suggested Donald Montrose, a young Scottish writer of satirical verses.

  The two older men laughed.

  I've made a fool of myself, thought Montrose. Well, it was inevitable. I should not have accepted an invitation from such a man. I wish I was back in London among my fellow hacks. But I need a wealthy patron, and they are not easy to come by.

  “A very Presbyterian answer,” rumbled Blaisdell, raising his wine to Montrose in mock salute. “Your chapel-creeping, Bible-thumping Scotch ministers certainly spend a lot of time condemning sin. Especially sins of the flesh, eh? Never stop thinking about flesh, your average holy man.”

  The lord snapped his fingers and a serving girl came forward to refill his goblet. She was completely naked except for a generous layer of gold paint, as were the other two girls waiting at the table. At first, Donald had thought they were statues standing in alcoves along the walls of the great dining room. He tried to avert his eyes from the girl pouring wine for Blaisdell, but could not help glancing at her obvious charms. She smiled at him, and he felt himself blush hotly.

  “Simple lust, fornication, or any of your so-called deadly sins,” continued the lord, running his free hand along the breasts and thighs of the girl. “None of them are really more than animal desires, impulses shared by all living things. Evil? I think not. Off you go, Sukie!”

  Blaisdell gave the girl a playful slap on the rear and she retreated to her alcove. The lord turned to his guests and slapped his palm on the table to win back their attention.

  “No, my friends!” he declared. “Evil is not merely a falling short, a failure to observe some code or other. It is an active force in the world, a darkness at least as powerful as that of light.”

  Donald was puzzled by the question, and disturbed.

  “Do you mean to suggest, my lord,” he asked, “that the revolution currently underway in France is an upsurge in this force you speak of?”

  Blaisdell looked at the young man for a moment, then gave a dismissive snort.

  “Peasants banding together to chop the heads off their betters? Pah! Such uprisings are nothing new. But you have a point, Donald. Because if this revolution spreads, brings chaos to the whole of Europe – well, perhaps that will prove me right. Darkness will indeed triumph.”

  “Stop dancing around the subject, George,” said Sir Lionel Kilmain, the older of the two guests. “What do you mean by evil? Devil worship, perhaps, like that damn fool Wilkes and his friends of the Hellfire Club?”

  The lord mulled this over, staring into the blazing coal fire for a moment before replying.

  “You are right, Kilmain,” he said finally. “Now may be the Devil's time. And yes, a few short years ago the Hellfire Club made great play of toasting the Prince of Darkness and such. It was claimed that the infernal dignitary did put in an appearance at one of their gatherings. But there is nothing new in such practices.”

  Silly talk, thought Donald. Perhaps designed to get a rise out of me.

  “Surely,” he began, battling the alcohol to choose his words with tact, “only the ignorant peasantry believes in a literal Devil these day? Old Nick with horns, cloven hooves, a stink of sulfur?

  For a moment, Blaisdell looked as if he might take offense and Donald tensed. He had heard that the notoriously wayward lord sometimes had his serving men pitch annoying houseguests into his ornamental fountain. But then Blaisdell's broad face relaxed into a grin.

  “Scoff away, Donald,” the lord said. “I, for one, would not be surprised if Old Nick did not put in an appearance this very evening.”

  Kilmain gave a half smile, pointed a pale, bony finger at his host.

  “I suspect you have a surprise in store, my friend. But please, toy with us no longer.”

  Blaisdell stood up, swaying slightly, and rested his large, flabby hands on the tabletop.

  “What if I were to tell you,” he said slowly, “that the monks of the old abbey were in thrall to Satan? According to the locals, they made sacrifices. My tenants still whisper darkly about blood rituals. Chickens, lambs. And even, on occasion, an orphan child. All slaughtered in a solemn ritual on a pagan altar. An altar that my workmen discovered lately while draining an old, mill pond.”

  Nonsense, thought Donald, the man is merely showing off. But he felt an undeniable chill despite the roaring coal fire in the hearth.

  “Nothing would surprise me about a bunch of Papists,” observed Kilmain, who Montrose knew owned extensive lands in Ireland. “Superstition and shenanigans all the way with your Catholics, I've found – an absurd mix of the Christian and pagan. I've lost count of the number of times some old biddy has put the evil eye on me for turning her family out of their hovel. But what of it? The monks of Malpas were driven out in the days of Henry Vlll. And good riddance.”

  “Yes,” agreed Blaisdell, “and my ancestors acquired their lands at a very fair price. But the altar they used for their unholy rituals still exists, as I say, although a little worse for wear. It is, in fact, the centerpiece of a little temple I have had built, dedicated to the gods of pleasure and debauchery.”

  Kilmain frowned.

  “A temple? I saw no new buildings in your splendid grounds,” he mused. “And no sign of building work in the abbey ruins. So this temple must be–”

  “Underground!” exclaimed Montrose, then felt himself blush again.

  “Quite right,” said the lord. “Beneath our feet, in fact. Come, my friends, let us descend into the ancient cellars of long-defunct Malpas Abbey! I have been quite busy. See what you think of my – my very personal conception of an unholy temple.”

  Montrose, unused to wine of any sort, wobbled slightly as he followed his social superiors out of the room. As he left, he caught the eye of the brazen Sukie, who gave a distinctive wink as well as a smile. Montrose had a sudden, vivid image of her slipping into his bed that night. He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts.

  I must not have lustful thoughts, he told himself, and made an effort to recall his toothless grandmother eating porridge.

 
; Blaisdell led his guests through what seemed to Montrose, in his wine-befuddled state, to be a maze of corridors. Eventually they arrived at a doorway decorated with a Grecian lintel. Kilmain remarked on this, asking if the stonework was genuine.

  “Marble, taken from the Sibyl's Temple at Cumae,” Blaisdell explained, as he unlocked an obviously new set of double doors. “But there's a stone down here that's far older than the most ancient Greek carving, if I'm any judge.”

  Which you're probably not, thought Donald, tiring of his host's pretensions to scholarship. So far as he knew, Blaisdell had been thrown out of Oxford University in his first semester for beating up one of his lecturers.

  They waited for a few moments inside the doorway while Blaisdell lighted torches from a tinder box. With each man bearing a light, they began to descend into the cellars of the medieval abbey.

  “Quite the Gothic atmosphere, Blaisdell,” remarked Kilmain. “Very much in fashion.”

  “Fashion?” snorted the lord. “Perhaps. But I like to think it reflects my own unique taste, uninfluenced by the pulling milksops they call artists these days.”

  The temple was an opulent display of wealth, a circular chamber fringed with marble columns that – Blaisdell explained – had been imported from Sicily at great cost. The walls were decorated with friezes showing various scenes from mythology. Montrose noted that all of them depicted depravity and violence, invariably sexual in nature.

  “Not bad, eh?” shouted Blaisdell. “Your classical mythology is full to the brim with amusing filth.”

  “I fear our young friend is not so keen on the classics,” Kilmain observed dryly.

  Donald followed Kilmain's example and placed his torches in a sconce at head height. Meanwhile, Blaisdell walked around the circumference of the room lighting more torches. In a couple of minutes, the room was filled with flickering orange-red light, plus the inevitable smoke. Donald's eyes began to tear up, and he took out a handkerchief to wipe them. As he did so, he thought he saw a small, spindly shadow appear in an alcove where there was no one to cast it. But once his eyes were clear nothing was visible.

  “Behold!” roared Blaisdell, making a theatrical gesture. “The altar of evil! Imagine what monstrous deeds those wicked monks performed in this hidden chamber, eh? Let us hope we can live down to their standards, Kilmain.”

  While the gentry bantered, Donald observed the prize exhibit, which stood in the exact center of the circular space. The supposed Satanic altar was disappointing after all Blaisdell's boasting. Donald had expected something brutally imposing, but it looked like a nondescript lump of limestone or some other pale substance, about four feet high and roughly as wide. The upper surface was flat, certainly, but the rest of it seemed like outworked stone. It was only when he stepped a little nearer that Donald could make out some worn – but still discernible carvings – that looked nothing like the classical Greek and Roman sculpture he was familiar with.

  “Celtic,” he mused. “Or pre-Celtic –Turanian, perhaps. Certainly dating from well before the Romans arrived in these parts.”

  “Good!” said Blaisdell, “Very good. It seems we do have a man of learning, Kilmain. I had wondered. Well observed, lad. But do you have the stomach to put these antique artifacts to its original purpose, eh?”

  Donald gave what he hoped was a worldly smile.

  “I am sure such pagan relics have no real power, my lord, whatever superstitious villagers may say. The days of the old gods are long past.”

  Blaisdell and Kilmain exchanged another one of their glances. Donald, suspecting that he was excluded from some joke or prank, tried to look dignified.

  “You may be right, Montrose,” said Blaisdell. “But let us see.”

  The lord looked up toward the top of the stairs, and Donald turned to see a stout serving man descending with a bundle in his arms. It was an object about a foot long and swaddled in a white blanket. Suddenly it wriggled and for a horrible moment, Donald thought that it was a baby.

  “What is this?” he demanded. “Surely that cannot be–”

  Then the bundle emitted a squeal, and he laughed in relief.

  “A piglet!” he exclaimed.

  “Yes,” said Kilmain. “At the very least we'll dine on fresh pork tomorrow. You can't conduct human sacrifices in England nowadays, lad. Too many busybodies around, too much officialdom.”

  Donald gave a hesitant laugh, unsure if his host was joking. He and Kilmain watched as the servant crossed the room and laid his burden on the altar, then withdrew to a respectful distance. Blaisdell, meanwhile, had donned a black robe like that of an old-time monk and stood over the wriggling animal.

  “Surely, my lord,” Donald began, “you are not going to actually kill–”

  “Silence!” hissed Kilmain, drawing the Scotsman aside. “He may seem playful now, but if thwarted he can turn very nasty. Let him have his fun.”

  Donald nodded, watching as Blaisdell produced a dagger with an ornate handle from his robe. Raising the weapon over his head, he began to chant in a resonant voice.

  “I conjure thee, Lucifer, Lord of Light! Look favorably upon our devotions, O Prince of Powers, and reveal yourself to us!”

  Then he stabbed the piglet. There was a final squeal, and bright, arterial blood seeped out of the swaddling and pooled on the altar. Donald, having grown up on a farm, could not help but feel a pang of sympathy for the young animal. And, for the first time, the pure contempt he felt for decadent aristocrats like Blaisdell and Kilmain rose to the surface of his mind.

  How typical of the idle rich, he thought. To take the life of a defenseless beast for fun. I despise these people. I would not accept this man's patronage if he offered it.

  Time passed. The blood that had spread over the altar began to darken. Kilmain gave a quiet chuckle. It seemed apparent that nothing was going to happen, and Donald had to suppress a desire to laugh. Then he gave a yelp and clapped his hands over his ears. The air was torn by a high-pitched sound, somewhere between a shriek and a whistle. A few months earlier, Montrose had witnessed a sudden escape of steam from one of the new engines used to pump water out of mines. The intense, piercing sound now assailing his ears was even worse.

  The sound ended as suddenly as it had begun. Donald felt a ringing in his ears, removed his hands from the sides in a gingerly fashion in case the noise resumed. Looking around he saw that Blaisdell was trying to say something to Kilmain, but the Irish landowner shook his head. They were all clearly all deafened. But after half a minute or so, their hearing began to return.

  “What the hell was that?” demanded Kilmain, sounding annoyed. “One of your tricks, Blaisdell?”

  “Shush, man!” returned the lord, holding up a finger. “No tricks! Do you hear? What is that?”

  A quiet, barely-audible sound was becoming perceptible over the crackling of the torches. It was a gentle rustling, like someone trying to walk stealthily over dry leaves. Donald looked around the room, but saw no sign of movement. Then he glimpsed a dark form appear for a split second around the side of the altar, on the same side where Blaisdell stood. He got the impression of something that might have been a head.

  But there were no eyes, he thought, starting back towards the stone steps. Can't have a head without eyes.

  “What is it, lad?” asked Blaisdell, glancing at the floor around him, his voice betraying nervousness. “What did you see?”

  “There was something, perhaps an animal,” Donald replied. “It looked at me around the side of the altar. It must have been around your feet, my lord.”

  “Nothing here now,” Blaisdell said, but he moved quickly away from the altar.

  “Ghost of the piglet, perhaps,” suggested Kilmain. But despite the sarcastic remark, he sounded unsure of himself.

  “That sound,” Donald said. “Has it happened before?”

  “We never done this before, sir,” replied the servant, who had backed halfway up the stairs. “Never should have meddled.”

 
; “Oh, shut up man!” bellowed Blaisdell. “You're as bad as the villagers. Clearly we have failed to conjure the Evil One, but perhaps we heard a soul screaming in purgatory, eh?”

  Kilmain's eyes widened at the suggestion.

  “It reminds me of the Irish tales of the banshee,” he said. “A screeching spirit. Invisible, some of the time.”

  “And what does this banshee do?” asked Donald, timidly.

  “Portends the death of a person of note,” Kilmain replied. “The peasants love stories in which the banshee heralds the demise of a cruel landlord. But that is in Ireland, of course. No reason for it to manifest itself here in England.”

  Again, thought Donald, your tone is less confident than your choice of words. Perhaps you fear the cruel landlord's fate?

  “Oh, come in,” said Blaisdell, starting to climb the cellar stairs. “Enough of these fireside tales for infants and addle-pates. We can finish another bottle or two of port, eh? What do you say, gentlemen?”

  “I fear I must retire for the night, my lord,” said Donald. “I am not as used to strong drink as you.”

  “Pah! What about you, Lionel?” demanded the host.

  “Lead on, George,” replied Kilmain, apparently recovering his good spirits. “I will help you demolish a bottle – or a cask, if you like!”

  Donald was the last to leave the cellar, and felt a disturbing sense of being watched as he reached the doorway. It was a chill sensation in the back of his neck, causing the small hairs to rise.

  Don't look back, he told himself. No need, nothing there.

  He glanced back, unable to stop himself, and saw only the circle of guttering, smoking torches and the crudely worked slab of stone in the center. It was as he turned his gaze away from the so-called temple that he glimpsed a movement near the altar. He paused in the doorway, twisting his head around to stare directly. There was nothing there, of course. The altar was bare.

  Did the servant remove the piglet's body? He must have.

  “Come on, lad, your bed-warmer will be getting cold,” roared Blaisdell from up ahead.