CARNACKI: The New Adventures (6 page)

BOOK: CARNACKI: The New Adventures
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“‘Their manifestation was a horrible spectacle to b
ehold: never in any of my investigations had I come across such a feeling of deep dread and horror as was engendered by these denizens of the lower planes. Truly these were outer monstrosities of the most grotesque kind.

“‘
Hours stretched longer as the night bled out before us. Forever swirling around the premises so as to gain access to the lodge, the unspeakable monstrosities would howl in a soul-destroying fashion when foiled in their attempts at entry.

“‘
Then it happened. The electrical generator that powered the lodge’s electric lighting blew, and all was in darkness.

“‘The only source of light was the lamp outside, which flooded through into the parlour and afforded us some respite against the complete blackness of the night.

“‘Mr. Carnacki, I think that the haunting has stopped!’ Parkinson gasped.

“‘Both of us stood together in
silence, listening and watching. Then we heard a dreadful, hollow sound that can only be described as someone blowing across the neck of a bottle.

“‘A
sixth sense drew my attention suddenly to the fireplace, and in my funk I could make out misty tentacles feeling their way out of the hearth and into the room.

“‘
My God, they are coming down the chimney!’ screamed Parkinson.

“‘
We must get to the electric pentacle now!
Run!’


Both Parkinson and I fled at full speed up the stairs to the safety of the electric pentacle where Mrs. Parkinson lay asleep, oblivious of our danger.

“‘
Positioned at each corner of the lower end of the bed within the pentacle, both racked with fright, we watched the approach of these misty fiends as they made their way up the stairs into the bedroom.

“‘
Will this device of yours work, Carnacki?’ Parkinson said, hopeless with fear.

“‘
Yes, I think so, but we are in for a terrible time. Whatever you do, do not leave the pentacle at any cost!’

“As we both watched
the bedroom door, which stood half ajar, we saw the horrors slowly ebb their way in. This was too much for poor young Parkinson; he fainted out of sheer terror as the abominations leered forward to the edge of the pentangle. I caught him in time and laid him out on the bed alongside his wife.


My hands were wet with perspiration as I saw first-hand and up close what sort of monstrosities these manifestations were. The sheer menace that they conveyed to me was, I felt, to be extremely real. Each time the unspeakable horrors tried to breach the defence of the pentacle and, thankfully, could not, their shrill, horrifying howl would sound throughout the lodge.


I checked my pocket watch with a hope that it would give me some good news as to the arrival of the dawn, but that relief was still some time off.


Thankfully, daybreak at last crept up steadily and the haunting ceased. I revived Parkinson with smelling salts and a hearty swig from my hip flask.


Parkinson sat up and looked around. ‘Is it over?’

“‘
Yes, for the moment, but we must act today to make sure we end this.’

“We left the pentac
le and the still sleeping Mrs. Parkinson, and made our way to the kitchen. Numbly, we managed a makeshift but hearty breakfast of tea, bacon, eggs, and kippers.


Over breakfast I told Parkinson of my suspicions and of how we must proceed to prevent more hauntings. Above all, he must not inform Mrs. Parkinson of our conversation that morning. He agreed, and after we had completed our breakfast we made our way to the lamp outside and recovered, with all care, the buried locket. I immediately put it into a large glass tumbler for examination.

“Upo
n opening the locket, under my special conditions in Parkinson’s parlour, Parkinson gasped in horror at its contents. Within the locket were two photographs of both Parkinson and his wife. Each photograph had a pearl-ended needle perforating the face of their respective portraits, under which was a small, but still living, spider that, when the daylight glinted upon its body, gave off a green metallic sheen. Also within the locket was a small parchment that had unique symbols on the like of whose archaic origins I can only speculate.


I informed Parkinson that from here on I would deal with this find and that he and his wife might be the receivers of bad news concerning Imogene’s stepsister, Clara.

“‘
I will check back with you this evening to see if all is well. I suggest you get your electric generator up and working again, as I believe your electric lighting saved you by postponing a horrible end for you both.’


All is now well with the young couple. I have stayed over a weekend with them without incident.


It seems that Imogene’s late stepfather had left a sizeable amount of money for her in trust. She was unaware of this as well as the stipulation that the trust would be awarded should she marry.


Clara, it seems, may have been jealous regarding her late father’s love for her stepsister. It is also possible that she knew about the contents of her father’s will regarding Imogene.


Alas, regarding Clara, we shall never know the truth. The evening after Parkinson’s last haunting, she was fatally involved in a tram accident at Brighton.


The local press covered the incident, in which a freak small mist had seemingly drifted up from the beach front and obscured both the driver of the tram and, indeed, Clara as to the impending danger. The driver could not be sure, but it seems that he heard the most terrifying howl prior to the fatal accident.


So ends, gentlemen, the haunting of the Parkinsons.”

There was
, as always, the usual lull of silence as we digested Carnacki’s latest account of a world that thankfully is unknown to most.

Then
, as per his custom, Carnacki would disturb our reverie by exclaiming in a friendly manner the words, “Out you go!” to which we all responded by thanking our host as we made our way out into the night.

Carnacki and
the President’s Vampire
Robert Pohle

 

 

C
arnacki's usual card of invitation to have dinner and listen to a story arrived on March 4, 1909. There was a note scribbled on the back in his distinctive handwriting: “Now that Mr. Roosevelt has left office, perhaps this tale can at last be told.”

I have to admit that my interest was whetted eve
n more than usual, and I made my way promptly at 427, Cheyne Walk to find that two of the three others who were always invited to these happy little times had arrived there before me: Arkright had sent a message of his own that he “abhorred political rows” and was not coming!

A few minutes later, Carnacki, Jessop, Taylor, and I were all engaged in dining on a most excellent dinner of oysters and a brace of grouse, followed by a bottle of red Beaune.

“White Beaune might have gone better with this delightful meal,” said Jessop, rather ungratefully, loosening his waistcoat buttons.

“Pefectly true,” replied Carnacki, finishing his soup, obviously nettled by Jessop’s comment—so much so that he violated his own ironclad rule and broached the subject of tonight’s story before the meal was quite fi
nished. “But I thought the red Beaune was better suited to a tale of blood.”

We were all
, I think, as stunned by his breach of his own custom as by the hint of the subject.

“Blood and the American
president?” I blurted, remembering the note he’d scrawled on my own card.

“Yes,
” said Carnacki, “exactly so. May I pass you a bit of the trifle?”

And the conversation, on this hint, turned to other topics.

After dinner, as Carnacki was snuggling himself down in his great chair and lighting his pipe, he took up the red thread.

“As Dodgson was remarking just now, I have indeed decided to tell you rather an old tale. It must be told eve
ntually, if only as a warning. Fate alone knows how many more of those horrid creatures may yet be buried in the soil of our little world—or, perhaps, yet to come from some far star.

“In fact, I think I may truly say that this was one of the most
outlandish
cases (in the most literal sense) that ever came my way.

“As to my own opinion about the horrors about which I’m
going to tell you, I’m not sure whether the greater horrors came from the unimaginable vastness of interstellar space or the equally unfathomable (and perhaps even darker) depths of the human psyche.

“This case was, in fact, one of my earliest, and act
ually predates my formal career as such. I only tell it now, at last, because my friend Mr. Roosevelt left office as the American president just this morning, and I feel that no harm can come from sharing it to the few of you now.

“It was in the last week of November 1886 that I was startled to encounter several Red Indians from the
United States, attired in war bonnets and buckskins, waiting for me on my doorstep at Cheyne Walk.

“‘
Forgive this intrusion, Mr. Carnacki,’ said the most regal of them, in most excellent English, ‘but I recognise you at once by the description of our mutual friend Mr. Roosevelt, and he has sent us to request that you wait upon him and his bride-to-be at their hotel.’

“‘
Teddy getting married?’ I cried. ‘What? Here in London?’

“‘
Indeed,’ replied the Indian, who, it developed, was a Lakota medicine chief by the name of Fire Dog. ‘At a little church called St. Giles—’

“Now, I may tell you at once,”
said Carnacki, “that I let the chieftain go no further. There are a few churches in London of that name, and were a few more twenty-five years ago, but my instinct told me at once that he referred to the one I feared, and I invited him and his fellows into No. 427 at once, that I might question him further and consult my files.

“I may tell you that Mr. Theodore Roosevelt in 1886 was already a person of some renown, lately candidate for mayor of the great American city of New York, and before that a g
entleman rancher (and sometime deputy sheriff) in the far west of his country, where he had struck up friendships with the Red Indians sufficiently warm to invite them to his London wedding.

“Teddy and I had kept up a lengthy and most enjo
yable correspondence ever since a book he had published in 1882 had aroused my interest, and we had found that we shared many interests—especially concerning the more occult practices of the Red Men.

“I was somewhat surprised to learn that he was to be married here in
London, and asked Fire Dog if Teddy’s fiancée, Miss Carrow, was an Englishwoman.

“‘Indeed not!’ laughed the medicine c
hief. ‘She’s as American as am I. But her mother and sister moved over to the Continent over yonder because they reckoned they could live there more cheaply than in our country.’

“At this the Indian shook his head sadly, no doubt thinking of the tents and starry skies under whi
ch his own people richly dwelt.

“‘
Miss Edith was helping them with the move before she and Mr. Teddy had completely come to terms, you understand,’ added Fire Dog, bringing to my mind an image of Teddy giving many horses and buffalo robes in payment for his bride.

“‘
And I suppose he figured that he could have a quieter ceremony over here, too,’ added Fire Dog, ‘as he is not so well known in these parts.’

“It was difficult, my friends, to reconcile Mr. Roos
evelt’s alleged desire for anonymity with his choice of wedding guests and their attire. But of course his subsequent career has shown us that he has overcome his shyness.

“I learned from Fire Dog that he himself had just come from attempting to make arrangements for the wedding rehearsal at the church, St. Giles, but found it locked and dark; and that, with
his training as a medicine chief, he had a ‘bad feeling’ about the place.

“‘
It’s a little church in a courtyard off a tiny street near the big museum you have here,’ explained the Indian, ‘called St Giles de Rays, or something like that.’

“Well, gentlemen, my fears were confirmed.
I wondered just how that particular place came to be recommended to these visitors to our city, as I began to rummage through my files, which even in those early days were, I will boast, already extensive. But I will confess that my filing system was still a bit haphazard.

“After fruitlessly trying the files for G, D, R
, and even S for Saint, I desperately tried T for ‘The’ before at last I had an inspiration and found what I wanted under B for Bluebeard.

“Did all of you know that Perrault’s fairy tale of the
seventeenth century was inspired by the bloody career of that horrid monster Giles de Rais in the fifteenth? He was a comrade-in-arms of Joan of Arc, and really did dye his beard blue.

“They
say that the Pope is going to beatify poor Joan next month . . . but that her lieutenant, that unspeakable beast, would ever skulk among the Blest again is a noxious thought.

“I handed the file to Fire Dog, who was as able to read English as to speak it.
He read with some curiosity, but as his gaze fell further down the page his face became as grim as stone, and he exchanged a few words in Lakota with his companions.

“‘
But this is horrendous,’ he muttered when he’d finished. ‘I’ve known men not unlike this, of course, who went from being warriors to developing a . . . taste for cruelty . . . and even death. But this creature was unspeakable!’ Fire Dog covered his face with his gnarled hand for a moment and then spoke again. ‘Who’d count him a saint just because he recanted on his way to the gallows?’

“‘
Some have done so,’ I replied, ‘particularly back in those centuries when such things were often local affairs unregulated by pope or even archbishop—and London is an ancient city, you know. . . . Somehow I’m not surprised that this place is in use near the British Museum: they say the Egyptian Room there sees some strange rites of a night, now and then, when the museum is closed to the public . . . But I don’t think this, er,
church
will do at all for Mr. Roosevelt or his Mrs. Roosevelt-to-be! Shall we be on our way to meet them?’

“And, tucking my copy of the Sigsand Manuscript into my frock coat, we set off.

“An hour later, Fire Dog and the other Indians and I were sitting in the parlour of a suite of hotel rooms belonging to the celebrated American politician, rancher, and writer.

“We all rose as he burst into the room, more like a whirlwind than a man.

“‘Bully to meet you in person at last, Carnacki!’ he exclaimed, all smile and teeth, like Dr. Dodgson’s Cheshire cat—perhaps just after it has been tearing up the catnip patch.

“‘
But what’s this about our church, Carnacki?’ he exclaimed, turning his pugnacious little head quick as a bird to Fire Dog and then back to me. ‘Edith was specially recommended it by a friend on the Continent. We want somewhere quiet and out of the way, you see.’

“I leant forward and pressed my fingertips together.

“‘Mr. Roosevelt,’ I said, ‘I feel that you are someone who would rather be
shown
something than be talked at. Am I right?’

“Teddy’s eyes glistened like marbles behind his thick spectacles
, and he called immediately for his carriage. It was only a matter of moments before he, Fire Dog, and I were rattling through a cold, crisp London morning for the lonely bye-streets that sheltered St. Giles. Fire Dog by now had changed into more normative urban dress and a soft cloth cap, and except for his pigtails looked as much like a Londoner as any of those past whom we careened.

“As our carriage turned at last into the little cour
tyard where the church nestled, it seemed as if a cloud had suddenly covered the sun—no, I tell a lie: it seemed as if the light had been sucked out of the part of the world where we were.

“I was no expert on church architecture at that time, but from the exterior I took St. Giles to be a structure of the late medi
aeval period—perhaps erected not long after de Rais himself went to the gallows in 1440.

“The prevailing Gothic impressio
n was complemented by what seemed at first impression to be gargoyles perched here and there around the entrance above our heads . . . but they weren’t gargoyles of the usual sort.

“Fire Dog noticed them first—no doubt his eyes were keener—and he pointed aloft.
My eyes and Roosevelt’s followed his, and Teddy, who was usually the epitome of a gentleman, could not restrain a curse.

“‘
Do you see, Carnacki?’ he cried. ‘They’re not gargoyles! They’re statues of women and . . .
children,
writhing as if they’re suffering . . .’ And he wrenched his head from the sight, tore his glasses from his eyes, and wiped them vigorously with his handkerchief.

“‘
I’ve seen enough,’ he rasped. ‘This is a hellish place. I don’t want to go inside.’

“We were about to leave when Mr. Roosevelt had his worst shock of the day.

“The incredibly ancient, thick door of the building creaked open, its hinges making a sound like a living creature, and out of the yawning darkness stepped Miss Edith Carrow.

“‘
Teddy!’ she cried. ‘How good of you to come to fetch me!’

“She smiled up at him innocently an
d happily, and then fainted as of one dead into his muscular arms.

“Before I could stop him from moving her, he’d lifted her into the carriage, but at that point I asserted myself and took charge, refusing to allow further action until I’d made some basic inspection of her state, both med
ical and psychic.


Her pulse was very weak, and her colour was extremely pale. As I went to loosen her high collar, I noticed that her skin was as white as her linen, save for a tiny reddish inflamed wound on the left side of her throat.


After a few more quick glances and the recital of a few words from the Sigsand Manuscript over her, under my breath, I summoned her fiancé.

“‘
Mr. Roosevelt,’ I said, ‘I know not how, yet, but it appears that your young lady has lost a dangerous amount of blood.’

“The American’s strong jaw clenched.

“‘How can you help her, Carnacki?’ he asked me.

“I was silent and deeply troubled.
I knew of Blundell’s work with blood transfusions, but his results had been erratic. (This was, of course, fourteen years before Landsteiner’s discovery of the blood groups.)

“‘
I fear, sir, that prayer is your own best resort,’ I replied, remembering that he was a Sunday-school teacher, ‘but you should certainly take her away from this place to do it.’

“‘
Then you can offer me no medical or scientific recourse?’ he asked me. He scrutinised me closely behind those thick glasses, because he’d noticed my hesitation.

“‘
There’s a method of transfusing blood,’ I admitted, ‘but I haven’t seen it tried, and it is never 100% effective.’

BOOK: CARNACKI: The New Adventures
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