Hello everyone! I have turned my attention away from Whispers for just a tiny period of time to write this horror story, based on the Edgar Allen Poe short story The Fall of the House of Usher. Those that are familiar will certainly recognize the similarities, and I hope that everybody enjoys it! Comments and criticism are welcome too!
VVVVV
Upon my life, how I loved and cherished Wilheim Halliburton!
I remembered him in his youth, a brave adventurer, fearless pioneer who lit his torch and led the masses from the darkness into the light. Esteemed philanthropist and grandiose man, he laid the foundations of a great mining company that consumed the riches of the earth. How the world marveled at the headlines of his success, with his shining, youthful face pasted upon the paper! And how I marveled, oh, to see my childhood friend rise to success! Letters we wrote, for a decade or two, back and forth. Tea we had, once a month, at his old apartment house in the city, until he built the manor. Damn that manor, that accursed hell-temple in the marsh! Perhaps passing judgment upon a pile of shingles and wood is too much. Allow me to relay my story.
As Wilheim aged, he became more reclusive but no less friendly, still possessing that smile of his, the one that had illuminated our many late nights spent reminiscing of school days or poring over old texts rescued from the unenlightened depths of many an archaic stronghold.
Our contact slowed to a snail's pace as the years went by. The manor house was built, was the subject of many an exciting interview and inquisitive editorial. What was extraordinary about it was the speed at which it went up; one day it was supposedly a patch of dry earth in the middle of a lagoon, and a week later the sketches of a massive estate arrived. So quickly was this monstrosity built that many flocked out to see it from afar.
And for two weeks after the house was finished, I heard nothing of Wilheim. He was isolated, and with some heavy sadness in my heart I mourned the passage of our friendship. And then a letter, one day, in my mailbox. A curious piece. It read, simply,
My old companion,
Your presence is requested. My manor. You know where to find me. My need is dire and you are the one person I can trust the most. Fly to me.
Sincerely yours,
Wilheim
What scrawl this was! The hand of an aged man, I presumed. I was a few years younger than him at most, still of close age but possessed of my faculties. His writing had degraded for sure, and I began to feel some sort of worry grow in me like a seed. What was the meaning of this? No questions to be asked, and nobody to inquire of. So quickly I saddled a horse and rode forth from the city, at night, perhaps the most dangerous of times. I rode fast and hard, through woodlands and plains. Briefly I may have heard the rattling of bones or the snarls of mindless flesh automatons wandering endlessly, and perhaps the hiss of dreadful creepers, but without delay or trouble I reached the Manor of Wilheim Halliburton, that great patchwork of turrets and parapets and wood-and-stonework rising out of the tarn of the marsh, above the inky lagoons and muddy green mangroves that dominated it.
Perhaps it was time and age that had sculpted a withered man out of Wilheim, but he was not the jolly chap I had once known. Quiet, reserved, wrinkled and looking almost shrunk. His skin was wrinkled and stretched and discolored like old pudding, and his hair was now gray and wispy, where it had once been a strong, lush brown. He smiled as he greeted me but had long lost his luster and the effect was diminished by his wizened old form. Nevertheless I returned the gesture and he welcomed me into his home. So I entered his cursed hall.
From the entryway I was presented with a grand atrium, a few side rooms, and a long hall leading me to the rest of the manor. From the hall once could access a courtyard, which gave access to the main house, the kitchens, the storage area and the wardery. The main house had the basement and extra storage on the lower levels, with a main staircase leading up to the bedrooms and study. It was a beautiful estate, situated in a rather gloomy region but cheery when all the oil lamps were lit and the windows shone with fiery light.
"In my haste I fear I have forgotten provisions of any sort…"
"All will be taken care for. The serving staff have us prepared well," Wilheim told me. "I must say that Robert, Jacob, Ronn, Edgar and Alhas keep this dwelling in perfect form." He introduced his servants by checking off a list of their names and that was all I was told about them. Faces and names deprived of personality, and none spoke a word to me.
"I fear I might have disrupted your business by calling you out here on such short notice," Wilheim said as we sat in his study. I had been given a brief tour of his home and had vested much time in studying its architecture and learning where important rooms were, as well as where my sleeping quarters were to be situated. "I have had the most vexing of phantoms troubling me."
"A phantom?" said I, intrigued. Was this some old man's adventure? Had he called me out to play one giant game for his entertainment?
"A phantom, a creature of extraordinary fright and talent at menace. I wish I could have seen more of him. Alas, that wish may soon turn on me."
"You fear it, yet you wish to see it, is that so?" I asked.
"Wherever there is a mystery, there I am!" Wilheim laughed, sounding unusually jolly. "Ah, this creature I have spotted before in these swamps. I had this house built here simply to study and hunt it! Ah, my friend, the mysteries we will unravel while we are here! That is why I have called you."
I felt that queer sense of danger, as if I had stumbled, quite unwillingly, into the maw of something horrendous. I shuddered to think what kind of creature he spoke of.
"You have brought me out to hunt?"
"I have brought you out to learn, and to help me. I fear this creature, I do confess," Wilheim said, frowning. "It hunts me as much as I hunt it. Warily I bide my time in the safety of the house, trying to find some sort of...weakness in it." The jolly spirit had gone from him now that he had told his grim tale of failure.
"What is it, though?" I asked in dismay, trying to understand what I could.
"I will allow you to read. I need to try to calm myself, to put this out of my mind for a week or so. And that is why I have invited you here, yes. We are not to go hunting," Wilheim declared. I will admit, that was somewhat of a relief! His tale had caused my stomach to tighten and sweat to break out upon my brow. I had no interest in putting my life at risk in these dismal swamps. And so, having been invited into this rather agreeable manor, I took sleep for the night.
In the morning, Ronn was dead. This I found out by an assortment of scuffles and noise downstairs, and by receiving the news from Alhas, who relayed it to me quite clearly and calmly. Once the veil of sleep had been rubbed from my eyes and I had partaken of morning coffee I proceeded to speak to Wilheim, who seemed rather distressed about the affair.
"Dreadful fall, down the stairs," Wilheim chattered on, his hand shaking as he reached for his steaming tea. "I feel responsible for it. He was only doing his duty, and he had the ill luck to loose his footing and break his neck. So unfortunate, dreadful," he repeated.
"That it is," I conceded as well.
"I have him keep the lights in the lower level burning, especially the lights down in the basement. I want the candles lit, every hour," Wilheim told me. By this I was peculiarly disturbed; what kind of notion was this, some sort of foolish superstition? It was only one of many, as I had feared. He was enchained by numerous superstitions indeed, related to the realm of the supernatural and fear of what we all dislike, darkness and the unknown. He kept the lights in certain places on at night, ensured that the basement door was locked tight, and never allowed any two people to sleep in a single room. Indeed, five bedrooms were provided for five servants, so that each had his own. Curious matter, and a waste of space if I had my opinion. But I sat tight and listened as he spoke.
"I must speak with my servants. You are welcome to partake of my library, and read. Perhaps of this creature that haunts me so?" Wilheim suggested, without form of subtlety. So while he left I was free to pore over the volumes of pages that the old man had stored haphazardly in burnished cherry shelves, looking over reams of parchment covered with sketches of some terror, poorly drawn, illegible scribblings relating to it, and so many maps and layouts that my mind grew weary poring over the information. To be so obsessed with a creation! Wilheim was losing his mind.
I learned verily what the servants were in the house for, besides menial labor and cooking. Ronn had been set to light the oil lamps and candles, until his unfortunate passing. Now his job passed on to Alhas, who was also guardian of the main door. Robert watched the windows, for some odd reason, Jacob went down into the basement every night to inspect the premises, and Edgar would take each book out of the study library and replace it. Each activity rooted in superstition, it would seem, the superstitious fears and the turmoil of the old man's mind.
"I always like to sit in my study after dark and look out," Wilheim said absentmindedly, sitting in his lounge chair with a book open on his lap. The frenetic scribbles of a madman were on the page, but he did not read them; suffice to say I believe he could not at all!
"It is a beautiful house," I managed to comment. The view provided was that of the courtyard, which adjoined the main hall leading from the entryway. All around the smoky miasma of the swamp rose above the parapets and roofs, like fog, only darker and perhaps even sinister. What kind of house might exist here?
"A dangerous house. My faculties are weary and the hunt that I have endured leaves me old and withered, I do say detestably," Wilheim said. "I am afraid that the grip of terror shall claim my reason, and very soon my life."
"Don't say things like that!" I begged of him, shocked.
"You are appalled, but it is true. I fear of it. There is no chance of it passing, for I have a fair certainty of it. You know not when the creature will come, or whence it will come from, but when it does...you shall know."
The next morning Edgar was dead. His body looked almost placid, stretched out upon the carpet with no evidence of agony in dying upon his face. Oh, the horror and shock upon us! If it were even possible Wilheim grew paler at the sight of his dead servant. Robert and Jacob attempted to diagnose his cause of death but, to our dismay, there seemed to be nothing wrong. It was as if he had just given up the ghost upon a whim.
Robert had to check all of the books, with Edgar now passed. The body was tossed into a murky lagoon and forgotten, and Wilheim ensconced himself into his study overlooking the courtyard, refusing the come out and refusing to eat, lost within his scrawlings and scribbles. I tried to speak to him! Oh! how I tried, with remarks of optimism and charitable conversation. But he looked haggard and pale and the only words he spoke to me that day were
"I fear that this will kill me. The strain of terror and tension will sap me of my mind, and further my life," he whispered, deathly quiet. And then I was expelled from his keep of solitude and spent the rest of my day at a parapet as the dim sun passed overhead and the miasmic fumes of the swamp rose above the turrets and enshrouded the house.
Days like this, I felt isolated from the rest of the world. Perhaps coming here was a mistake? No time for regrets, no time for foolish retrospect. Wilheim was requiring me! Oh, to leave this dreadful place...how dreadful it would become, I was not aware at the time.
On the third day poor Jacob died. The basement door was found locked and Robert had to go fetch a key early in the morning in order to unlock it. Whence to our horror, the poor Jacob! Slumped against the heavy stone door, slaughtered in a manner that I scarce can recall without the most vile of horrors, without feeling the heave rise from my stomach. Oh, the sight of it! Disgusting in all forms, and horrifying, so much that Wilheim must have aged another year at the very sight, or so I would suppose. Upon finding the body and seeing the torches in the basement had all gone out, and the lower caverns were shrouded in the most primeval of darkness, he ordered Robert to shut the door and lock it tight. Jacob's body was let rest in the darkness; in his haste, his fear-borne haste, the old man had not even retrieved the passed lad's corpse. And so it lay in the darkness, with whatever dreadful deceit had done him in.
"What unfortunate circumstances befell these men, as to waste them away in such short of time!?" I asked aloud, to nobody in particular, as I sat in the study. A quick conversation with Alhas gave me little to work on. He was concerned, but did not seem to be frightened.
"It is only poor luck. Fate does not shine upon us," he said, shaking his head. Robert was too silent to speak, frightened now. How could one not see the pattern? Oh, for the love of any god! We began to feel that creeping dread, I know it! With only four left remaining in the house, it was beginning to feel isolated.
At midday, when normally I would see at least three servants about, I only saw Alhas, relighting a brazier down in the courtyard. The humidity, oppressive; the sky, murky and smoky, filled with the swamp fog. The halls were empty and desolate, with only the main staircase leading up to the bedrooms and study lit; side rooms and the entryway remained unlit, and the basement was barred shut to us, along with poor Jacob's corpse. I was now beginning to seriously regret my coming, and with Wilheim shut up in his own personal study, and Robert unwilling to converse, the manor was very lonely and desolate.
"What phantom walks these halls? Surely this cannot be an isolated act!" said I, to no one in particular once more, for there was no one to hear. I stood at the window until darkness obscured every color in its veil of black, and without lit lights I was forced to retire to bed. Alhas had perhaps retired himself, and neglected to continue his duties, or was perhaps simply too busy to keep everything lit. But in the darkness and gloom I pressed on, finding my way to bed and praying that perhaps tomorrow I could break away.
Alas, I was not the first one to have such thoughts. Oh! roguish traitor, breaking away from his employment! Robert, coward, fled. I was considering the same, but after seeing his leavetaking, I thought perhaps it was not for the best? Now, with the young Robert fled from this house of horrors, the three of us were left. Only the braziers in the courtyard and the candles up the main staircase were lit before Alhas retired to his room and locked the door. Forsooth, there was nobody but me in the entire manor! Oh, how gloomy the day passed! The oppressive heat spoke of storms, and with the only other living things in the house locked away I was left to wander the courtyard and tend to the braziers myself, out of sheer anxiety and fear that if the lights went out, darkness should consume us all.
It was I who anticipated that Wilheim would now be at his most unstable. As I climbed up to the top level, I heard a rumble of thunder, distant but present, and knew that soon a summer thunderstorm would be upon us. The braziers in the courtyard would go out, for sure. I felt dread burning into my stomach.
When I reached Wilheim's bedroom and proposed that we read in the study, the idea initially appeared dubious to him but he relented and we both sat in the black chairs in the study room and watched the sky outside grow a dark jet black mixed with brackish-gray, a sure sign of a storm. The treetops were beginning to shake and bestir themselves in the wind and I was certain that the humidity would be nearly unbearable outside.
"Alhas...is he checking the lights?" Wilheim asked weakly. The poor man seemed frightened by the very presence of the storm itself! I, for one, could not place any blame upon him.
"I will see to it," I promised, looking over the mahogany shelves before heading for Alhas' room. The servant spoke no words but nodded as I relayed the instructions and, dressing in a warm black coat, went down the stairs, checking each candle along the way.
I returned to the study and found a fat book, bound in discolored purplish-black leather, that appeared to consist of all sorts of fictional tales. How could this not entertain? I showed it to Wilheim and he nodded in assent, desiring for me to read it. And so I sat as thunder roared again, and peeled through the yellowed pages until I found an interesting tale: The Epic of Steven.
By and by I read, hoping that Alhas was caring for the braziers. The old man seemed almost intrigued by the words, his vivacity increased by the very meter of which I peeled the black, inky words from their crusty parchment and converted them effortlessly into spoken language, and momentarily I congratulated myself upon the success of this design, determining it a success as it drew his worries away from the howling storm that had blown up outside and closer to the tale at hand. And now I had reached a more interesting passage of the book, which is at hand:
And so Steve found himself on the ledge, pondering the depths to which the stone walls plummeted, down to the rocky bottom below. Ever so slowly he inched along the precipice, coming closer towards the stronghold. As if by unfortunate fate, his limb jerked and his foot struck stone and sent bits of rock cascading down into the abyss, to land one by one with loud, dull thuds on the floor.
Upon resting for a breath I was drawn from the reverie of written word to a strange noise near at hand, as if that of someone pounding on metal or perhaps stone, a distant and dull thud that was barely audible above the whiplash of wind and the pounding cry of barbaric, primitive thunder, but still there. I designed it as trivial and, ignoring the tempest howling outside, continued to read:
And when he had reached the iron bars of that stronghold, he found himself unable to rend them in two with his bare hands. Weak, perhaps his muscles were, but strong the tools that he had designed out of the raw resources around him! And so drawing a mighty pickaxe that had a hammer's head, he bashed down the iron grating, smashing the metal into pieces and throwing it down unto the floor, where it lay shattered by his hand.
It came to me that the sudden smash that I heard from within the manor could not be thunder, but something falling. Loud and metallic it was, a single loud crash that was not repeated. Thunder boomed afterwards, and I could distinguish the two sounds and began to wonder what, perhaps, Alhas could be doing? I glanced outside and saw the wind sweep over the courtyard and the braziers become extinguished by the gust as it shook the window and the casements. And lo and behold, a figure marching through the rainy gloom! Tall it was, and draped in black. Alhas, returning, out of sheer vexation with the storm? I could see the cloak on him, darkest black it was, and hoped that he was retreating to the safety of his quarters. So I continued, quite alarmed by the storm but hoping to keep Wilheim satiated:
And whence he entered the stronghold and brought himself to the portal room, he saw the glimmering black void suspended above magma, knew that he had built himself up to this. No turning back, he knew; this was the End, the prophesied terminus! And without further ado he leapt into the void, swimming into the blackness between dimensions, as a terrible screech rent his ears and he heard a thousand cracks split his skull.
And then there came, from even closer, a screech as loud as any nails upon blackboard, and the sound of wood cracking and splintering into smithereens, as if someone was bashing the door down. At that very moment Wilheim Halliburton sat up, his eyes rising to meet mine, as if the tale had concluded and he was prepared to give an ovation. There was another crack and crunch, and the sound of grating upon wood once more.
"Do you not hear it? Do you hear the storm? Of course, yes, you hear the wind and the thunder...but can you not hear it? You do, you...do," he licked his lips, almost smiling, dreadfully, hideously.
"I hear what?" asked I, setting the book down in concern. Footsteps, coming up the stairs.
"Oh, hideous imports we are...this is not my house!" Wilheim declared. "However old the manor is, I have taken it. It was living here! The hunted creature called it home and I made the decision to lock it in the caves. Oh! Poor Jacob, oh the caves! It stalks me, terrorizes me, knows that I know it is here. Oh, do you not understand? The creature! It walks amongst us even now! The sounds, do you hear? The pounding on the door, the hinges breaking and cracking, the stairwell door splintering! HORROR!" he cried.
"It has come for final retribution, come to chastise me for my mistake! Would that I have slain the beast instead of holding it! For it walks now, HORROR!" he shrieked, rising and pointing at the door. "HORROR! I TELL YOU NOW THAT IT STANDS AT MY DOOR AND KNOCKS!"
And then came a fist and the smashing of the door, and there stood the phantom in noir, a tall revenant black as soot, with glowing purple eyes and the most terrifying, spindling limbs borne unto this world. Its mouth opened agape, revealing a purple void that could swallow happiness and delight in a second, and its screech rent the very air. It lunged at Wilheim and they fell together, the old mortal man dead before he reached the ground. His terror was finished, and as he had anticipated, the phantom had led him to his grave.
I fled into the rain and wind, hastening away. I fled aghast, beside myself, fearing for mine own life. I never found Alhas, the poor soul, for I stumbled into the atrium and ran out the main door, lashed by ferocious winds. Not until I was into the trees did I turn around and see, within the doors, the phantom creature watching me, eyes wide with fury and grim hate, curling its hands into fists and meeting my own gaze. I stood there, horrorstruck, but only momentarily, for within the space of an instant the phantom vanished in a flash of purple effluvium and I was left alone in the rain. And so I ran, turned my back upon the manor of Wilheim Halliburton and upon the remnants of the Phantom in Noir.