The Infernal Incident of the Spectral Screamer (Part Two)

The place was inexorably different. Silas’ furniture, mostly Georgian with its fine wooden fixtures, had been replaced by similar items but made of odd materials I could not quite recognise. The gas lamps on the walls were gone and in their place were balls of light I couldn’t look at directly hanging from the ceiling. To steady myself, I rested my shaking hand on the strange desk and found a newspaper. It was The Times, apparently, but it was printed on different paper and had photographs in colour. I clocked the date on the top of the front page and my heart rose in my chest; 19^th October in the year of our Lord 2012.

I was brought back into the grotesque world I had somehow wandered into by the piercing sound of a young woman screaming at me. She stood in what should have been the dining room, staring right at me, wearing a form of workman’s clothes.

I take no pleasure in recording herein that at the very epitome of my lungs, I screamed also, clamping my eyes shut as I did so, until both mine and the spectral woman’s screams subsided.

Then, for all the world, the sound of familiarity washed over me like a welcoming bath; I heard Silas’ crisp tones calling my name.

‘Smedley? Smedley my good man, tell me what is it? What is it?’

I opened my eyes with a snap. My hair felt damp against my moist forehead and my moustache had drooped somewhat also. I did not care for my sorry state, however, as I was back in Silas’s house, as I recognised it, and everything was as it should be. My companion was standing over me, as I found myself on the floor of the hall. His alert grey eyes darted around in search of something.

‘I… ‘ I began to speak but could not form the words in my parched mouth.

‘Was it something strange?’ He said.

‘Indeed.’

‘Good. Something uncanny, carnivalesque?’

‘Yes, Silas. By Jove, it was.’

He raised his pointed chin in the air. ‘That will be for me. Oh, I wish I could explain it all to you, Smedley.’

‘Actually, Silas, I think it was my story.’

‘You? But why would it be about you?’

‘I’m afraid I can’t say. It is to do with my dark and enigmatic past which can never, ever be shared…’

 

The Infernal Incident of the Spectral Screamer (Part One)

There was a knocking at the door.  My friend, Mr Silas – surname unbeknown to myself and, I believe, no one else on this Earth – gazed up at me at the sound. He did not get many visitors to his home. Especially not after midnight.

Silas was new to the area and so had not yet acquired the services of a maid so it fell to me to fetch the door. God forbid that Silas would perform such a menial task!

When I opened it I found no one waiting there. I saw the great swamp to the left of the house, glistening like oil underneath the thick mist of the night. I saw the wilderness of the forest far beyond it and the dim lighting of a distant village, like fireflies in the air, but I did not see a single living soul. Or a dead one for that matter.

Silas appeared at the stairs, his prominent brow furrowed.

‘My dear Smedley, what is taking you so long? Who is it at the door? A dark, enigmatic figure from my infinitely more enigmatic past, I presume. Here with the intention of brewing trouble in my new life in the barren countryside.’

‘Actually no,’ said I. ‘There’s no one out there.’

‘Oh. How disappointing.’

As I turned away, I heard the drawing room door slam as Silas, uninterested now that there was no one new to show of to, returned to his thoughts. I, on the other hand, was not finished. My naturally-curious mind was set on finding out who had rung the door bell.

I stepped outside into the cold, night air and a strange sensation came upon me. For one small aspect of a second, the world around me lost focus and all went dark. However, as quickly as it had appeared, the sensation went and the lights came back on, so to speak. But all was not well. I looked around me and saw dozens of firefly-like lights in the distance, far more than moments before. There was also a queer whirring from somewhere around me. Or, more precisely, above me.

As I stood outside the house, the most colossal machine, like a vast eagle fashioned from metal flew over the house miles and miles up in the night sky, accompanied by blinking lights. I must confess I nearly fainted at the sheer sight of it.

Before I could gather the maelstrom that was now my thoughts, I lunged back to the door and wrenched it open to reach the solace within. However, all I discovered was the opposite.

 

To find out what indeed I discovered once I had opened the door return tomorrow to hear the rest of this tense tale...

The Bizarre Occasion of the Scratching in the Walls

It was a calm autumnal evening when it happened, rather than the storm-laden nights these events usually occur on. My dear friend Silas and I were sitting round the fire in his living room, myself lost in a book and he absorbed in his thoughts of which I am never privy to. All was completely silent. As silent as the grave. Until an unholy sound wrenched us from our activities.

There was a scratching coming from somewhere near us in the house.

Silas bolted upright in his armchair at the noise, his dark eyes darting in all directions.  

‘Smedley,’ he exclaimed – for it was my name. ‘Do you hear the scratching? Do you hear it?’

‘I do, by Jove!’ I cried, glad - or perhaps perturbed – to know it was not just a product of my own imagination. ‘What could it be, man?’

Silas, standing now, turned his aquiline nose to the ceiling at my query, as if he was on a theatre stage. ‘Any number of things,’ he said, looking away from me. ‘Something from my past, no doubt. And my past is murkier and more dangerous than the deepest end of the Great Grimpen Mire.’

‘Yes, you’ve said before, Silas. You know, for a man who apparently dislikes hearing about his past you do bring it up a lot.’ 

‘Ssh!’ He put his finger to his pursed lips to quieten me. I listened and realised the scratching sound was getting closer.

I leapt from my chair at the desk, unable to control the surge of pure terror within me. I suddenly felt light-headed and heavy, like I had swallowed a lump of coal.

‘What in God’s name is it, Silas?’                                                                                               

In one swift movement, my friend pressed himself against the wall nearest to him with all the energy and passion as if it was a long lost love he had finally been reunited with.

He spoke without moving his body, his voice a mere whisper. ‘It is coming from inside.’

Before I could utter a reply, Silas was positively bouncing and forth along the wall, his long, nut-brown hair wafting around him as he went, keeping his ear close and tapping the woodwork with his knuckles. All the while the scratching continued.

‘The sound comes from here,’ he said, still a whisper, pointing to a specific spot on the wall.

‘What does it matter?’ My heart was pounding hard in my chest and my moustache was getting moist through sweat. ‘We must flee from it!’

‘Not so quick, my friend,’ said he. Halting my leave, he bounded to the other side of the room to my desk, took a hammer from the draw and brought it back to the wall where he launched it into the wooden panels at the point he had noted.

The loud thumps of metal against mahogany immediately drowned out the sound of the scratching but in the second that the hammer was pulled away for the next swing, I could hear it still. It took only a few swings with the tool before a sufficient hole the size of two fists together had been made. And a face could be seen in the wall.

It was runt-like and bald with brittle chalky skin. It wore a rictus grin showing blackened teeth.

‘Oh, hello Roderick,’ said Silas. ‘I thought we agreed you could scrounge around in the walls looking for rats tomorrow night?’

‘No, sir,’ the man croaked. ‘We said today.’

‘Fair enough, carry on then.’ Silas smirked at my bewildered expression.

‘I could explain, my dear Smedley, but it would involve a mention of my past. And you know how I abhor talking about my past; it is more unknowable than the darkest moors of Yorkshire.’

‘Yes, all right, Silas.’ I grumbled and returned to my book.