The Dead of Winter

by Chris Priestley

  ‘Master Michael!’ he said. ‘Thank God you’ve come back safe and sound.’

  ‘Well said,’ added Jerwood, picking up a decanter of port and pouring three glasses.

  Hodges told us of his current employer, who sounded like a thoroughly decent sort, and of Mrs Guston and Edith, who held posts in the same house. Even Jarvis, the garrulous coach driver, was there.

  ‘Edith asked me to send her special best wishes,’ he said with a wink. I blushed a little and Jerwood seemed to enjoy this enormously.

  On a sadder note, Hodges told me of the death of poor old Clarence. I reached into my pocket and brought out the whistle Hodges had made me that Christmas. I had carried it with me on all my travels and I told him it had brought me much comfort in my difficulties. He was very touched.

  The events at Hawton Mere were never directly spoken of by us. The subject was never prohibited by anyone, it was merely an understanding among the three of us. None of us wanted, it seemed, to revisit that place, even in words.

  But though I willingly complied for friendship’s sake, I had long before decided that the only way I would be free of those memories was to confront them. I decided that I would, one last time, look on the fallen remnants of Hawton Mere. The house and the things that had taken place there were never far from the forefront of my mind and, worse, they still came unbidden to my sleeping thoughts.

  I imagined that if I was to go to Hawton Mere, to see it as a ruin and nothing more, that this might in some degree serve as an exorcism. I was a child no longer. I had faced many dangers since that last day at Hawton Mere. I felt that I could stare it in its shattered face and say, ‘Be gone!’

  I did not tell the Bentleys or Jerwood where I was bound, though Jerwood, I am sure, had strong suspicions. I caught the train to Ely and hired a horse and rode through those flatlands with a quickening heart. I spurred the horse on and we careered down those lanes as if the devil was at our tail. Then, all at once, we were at the track that led to Hawton Mere, and I kicked the horse on one more time.

  I could sense the unwillingness of the beast to venture further. I could sense the fear in his great flanks and see the nervous twitching in his ears. I could feel his dread and he could no doubt sense mine.

  If anything, the house looked more daunting as a ruin than it had as a complete house, with its crippled roof, its shattered walls and skull-like empty window sockets. It was as malevolent as a dead house as it had been as a living one. More so perhaps.

  The land all about it now seemed utterly poisoned, as if the sickness of the house had leeched out into the surroundings. The moat looked filled with tar, or worse, to be some kind of void – the blackness of some bottomless chasm.

  I encouraged my reluctant horse to cross the bridge and it was a mark of its trust in me that it so successfully buried its fear and did as I asked.

  The courtyard beyond the gatehouse was almost unrecognisable. It had once been contained by the buildings around it, but half of these had tumbled to the ground. Sir Stephen’s tower remained, but only as a severely wounded survivor, the back of it having collapsed entirely. I dismounted and tied my horse to a post, where it looked at me with a wide-eyed entreaty to make my stay a brief one. I smiled and patted its neck and whispered assurances that I would not be long.

  It was as I spoke to him thus that I beheld, from the corner of my eye, a sudden movement some way off, beyond the broken tower. It was a fleeting glimpse and no more and I quickly began to wonder if I had imagined it when a flock of pigeons took flight from the roof and I smiled to myself at my own childish jitters.

  But it had not been a pigeon I had seen. Looking towards the back of the tower, I saw the movement again and realised that there was someone there, moving away from the main part of Hawton Mere, towards the end of the island on which it stood.

  I started to follow, my view forever limited by fallen masonry or branches, and as I did so I began to have sorry presentiments about who exactly it was.

  I had assumed that with Charlotte’s death, all ghostly activity would cease at Hawton Mere. It seemed not just lifeless, but lacking in all activity, all energy of any kind. I had hoped that Lady Clarendon was reunited with Sir Stephen and at peace now – or if not at peace, then at least at rest.

  But as I finally turned a corner I could see full well that about thirty feet away was Lady Clarendon’s ghost, her back turned to me, looking out in grim contemplation of the black waters of the moat.

  ‘Lady Clarendon,’ I said. ‘It’s me, Michael.’

  She did not move.

  ‘Lady Clarendon,’ I repeated.

  Again she made no move, but stood there pale and still. I walked towards her with mounting unease, for I wondered what new tragedy had entrapped her once again and forced her to haunt these ruins.

  When I was a few feet away, I called her name again. This time she seemed to hear, and slowly turned around. Her wet hair hung across her face, but as she raised her head I saw that it was not Lady Clarendon at all, but someone else – someone I recognised all too well, despite the burns that disfigured her face. It was Charlotte.

  As I recoiled in horror, her face shone with a light of pure evil. Her eyes that had been so bright in life were now white marbles, as if the fire had licked all colour from them. She was like some spider who had waited for this moment, and now the moment came she struck, lurching forward at terrifying speed. I ran as fast as my legs would take me to my horse, untying it with shaking hands and mounting just as Charlotte floated into the wrecked courtyard, her head to one side as if studying something peculiar – and then she rushed towards me.

  The horse needed little encouragement to bolt and it launched itself through the gatehouse with such enthusiasm that I think it would have cleared the moat without the benefit of a bridge. We galloped down that road away from Hawton Mere and I made no move to turn my head and look back. I would never look at that place again.

  I decided in that instant that I would quit this country.

  Epilogue

  So now I sit, pen in hand, about to lay that pen down for good, having told my story to the fullest of my abilities. As I began, so I shall finish: if you have read these words and still cannot find yourself to consider the narrative anything more than the fevered imaginings of a young man who has read too many novels of a Gothic bent, then I can say no more than to assure you once again that I have said nothing but the truth on every line.

  I telegraphed Captain Mayhew when I returned to London and told him that I wished to sail with him wherever he was bound. His response was that he would be delighted to have me and that he was to sail to Argentina in a week’s time.

  My parting with Jerwood was a solemn affair. I did not tell him about my visit to Hawton Mere and Charlotte’s ghost. I saw no need to burden him further.

  The Bentleys were distraught of course. Mr Bentley was so upset I do not think I saw him twitch once – not even the merest spasm. Mrs Bentley seemed intent on making my departure impossible by breaking every bone in my body with her bear-like embraces. She assured me that the entire population of that part of the world were either cannibals or Catholics.

  ‘All will be well,’ said Bentley quietly as we stood together on the platform. ‘All will be well.’

  ‘I hope so, Mr Bentley,’ I said, and boarded the train.

  So here I am in my hotel room in Bristol. Tomorrow I join Mayhew’s ship and sail for Buenos Aires. From there I will head inland. I have heard that there are great opportunities in that country and I relish the chance to lose myself in a foreign land once more.

  The voyage cannot come quickly enough, for though I have seen nothing to speak of, I have felt pursued ever since I saw the spectre of Charlotte at the ruins of Hawton Mere. Some of the tension I felt in that house has returned and I seem to start at every floorboard creak. I am like a frightened child once more.

  But what is that? Something comes, I can sense it. The wind outside has dropped and there is a deathly
hush about the place. I am in a low and lively quarter of the port and yet an uncanny silence has descended upon the area.

  Yet there is a whispering. No – not a whisper: a dry slither, like the scales of a snake. And now there is a tapping. It was light at first, but is getting stronger. Tap. Tap. Tap, tap, tap. It is on the window-pane on the other side of the heavy curtain of the room I am renting. Tap, tap, tap. I have heard that sound before.

  Looking at the curtain in front of me, I am reminded of that tapestry curtain at Hawton Mere that I pulled aside to reveal the portrait of Lady Clarendon, or the bedroom curtain that concealed her ghost on the moat’s edge. What does this curtain conceal? I think I know. Oh God, I think I know.

  The only way to be certain is to lay down my pen and open it.

  Read on for Chris Priestley’s Guide to Horror?

  Things that go bump in the night – why we love Horror

  Chris Priestley’s favourite spinechillers

  Creative tips for writing creepy stories

  A conversation with the author

  Things that go Bump in the Night – Why We Love Horror

  I have a suspicion that horror is one of the oldest genres in fiction. Just as I can imagine our hunter-gatherer forebears coming home and telling a funny story, I can easily see, as night fell and the clan was gathered around the fire, that scary tales were told.

  Horror has always been part of myth and religion. If religion is an attempt to make sense of the world, then maybe horror is an acceptance that we cannot know everything – that there will always be areas of impenetrable darkness.

  Certainly folk tales and fairy stories often contained large doses of horror. Anyone concerned about the effect of horror on the young should go and have a look at any of the pre-Disneyfied stories of the Brothers Grimm.

  I deliberately began Uncle Montague’s Tales of Terror with a walk through a wood, because I wanted to make use of that fairytale opening. The stories themselves are set not so much in the real Victorian or Edwardian era, but in the world of Victorian and Edwardian ghost stories.

  Some genres seem like literary constructs: completely a product of writing. But horror, like love, is there in the world. I don’t mean that vampires or zombies are there, but the dread that produces these nightmares certainly is. Fear is ever present.

  But whilst it is obvious why people want to read love stories, it is less clear why people want to frighten themselves unnecessarily, whether through books, movies or hurling themselves into a ravine with a length of elastic attached to their ankles.

  We seem to enjoy scaring ourselves. Maybe we want to test ourselves; to see how we would cope with real fear. Of course, this is utterly spurious. We know we aren’t really going to hit the ground. We know it’s only a story.

  But even so. Maybe we just need to push that button every now and then to make sure it still works. Maybe through horror stories we get a chance to leap headlong into the dark – in the comforting knowledge that we have elastic tied to our ankles.

  Chris Priestley’s Favourite Spinechillers

  Any list of favourite books is, by nature, temporary. But these are a few I think will always stay with me.

  Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe

  I remember being quite shocked by Poe when I first read these stories. I had seen the Roger Corman adaptation of several of them, but they did not prepare me for the weirdness of the actual tales. This is bizarre, hallucinogenic horror that, despite the florid language, seems very modern in its focus on the psychology of its characters – on their obsessions, anxieties and very dark desires.

  The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

  I didn’t read The Haunting of Hill House until quite recently. The 1963 movie of the book has always been a favourite of mine, but Shirley Jackson’s book is far more complex than the movie and is superbly written. Both The Haunting and Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher were influences on my last book, The Dead of Winter.

  Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M. R. James

  Like Shirley Jackson, I came to M. R. James via adaptations. His work was filmed in the 1970s by Lawrence Gordon Clark for the BBC’s A Ghost Story for Christmas. The tales are stranger and darker than you might think if you know them only by their cosy ‘traditional ghost story’ reputation. ‘A Warning to the Curious’ is one of his best and could almost stand as a theme for a lot of his work.

  I am Legend by Richard Matheson

  Is this a horror book or a sci-fi book? Actually, it’s neither and both. The writing is taut and though the scenario is fantastic (a man holding out against the mass victims of a kind of plague of vampirism) it is never less than horribly believable. Tense and nerve-jangling to the very end.

  The Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft

  H. P. Lovecraft is often cited as an influence by American writers of uncanny fiction. This book knocked me sideways when I read it – it is so strangely written. The opening passages are particularly good. As with Poe (and Robert E. Howard, another writer, like Lovecraft, whose work graced the pages of pulp magazines in the 1930s) there is something deranged – almost hysterical – about the prose style itself. But I mean that in a good way.

  Creative Tips for Writing Creepy Stories

  The first thing is your work environment. This has to be just right. It should be gloomy, of course, but not enough people appreciate the importance of dankness in the creative process. I myself work in a crypt by the light of a single flickering candle.

  There must be no computer, phone or iAnything, naturally. Did Edgar Allan Poe tweet? Did M. R. James check Facebook every ten minutes? No, no, no. Horror must be written by hand, alone, undisturbed (at least by the living).

  I favour a quill pen myself and find that only a feather from a raven will do. I tried a goose feather once, but nevermore.

  For an inkwell, I use the hollowed out human skull of a man hanged at Tyburn for murder in 1725. But really any skull will do.

  Actually, much of that isn’t strictly speaking true.

  I write creepy stories the same way I write everything else. First of all I fill notebooks with ideas. There is a tip right there – always carry a notebook. Always. And try to do a better job than me in remembering where you last put it.

  The ideas in the notebooks can range from a whole concept for a story, to a snatch of dialogue or the solution to a problem that has been bugging me for weeks.

  These notes then turn into pages on my computer – all right, yes, I do use a computer – and these pages find their way into folders that may become books.

  But these ‘ideas’ I scribble in my notebooks for creepy stories are often ideas for endings. Often the work is in how you get to that ending, and how you stop your reader from guessing where you are headed. Ideas are obviously important, but they are only the start and they are never enough – however good – to carry a story on their own.

  Like a good joke, a good piece of horror fiction is all about the way it’s told. Be prepared to rework and rework it until it flows naturally. Horror is a particularly contrived area of fiction, but it must not seem like that to the reader. You must make the unbelievable believable. And that takes time and a lot of effort.

  Obviously – as with all writing – it’s a good idea to read things by other writers you feel are good at it and see if you can figure out what it is they are doing that works so well. Read some Edgar Allan Poe. Or some Shirley Jackson. Or see if you can come up with anything half as creepy as The Family of the Vourdalak by Tolstoy. Watch The Innocents … or The Haunting (the 1963 original of course).

  But I’m showing my prejudices here. Horror is a very wide genre and I am talking mainly about the understated wing – the dark one, with creaking floorboards and something twitching and scratching in the shadows.

  There is a much more bloody face to horror of course. But I am not especially interested in gore as the punchline to a story, either in a book or in a movie. Gore has its place – and
gory things do happen in my stories – but I’m looking for something else usually as a reader and a writer.

  I might not know what it is when I start out, but I’ll recognise it when it slithers towards me.

  A Conversation with the Author

  How would you describe your Tales of Terror collections to potential readers?

  The Tales of Terror are collections of short creepy tales, but they are told by a different storyteller in each book. During the course of each of the books, we learn about the storyteller and about the listeners. Each of the books is set in the past – in the Victorian and Edwardian era that is the setting for so many classic English ghost stories.

  What was the original inspiration behind these terrifying tales?

  There were lots of different inspirations, but more than anything they came out of my love of short uncanny fiction – ghost stories, weird tales, sci-fi, horror. I wondered if I could write psychological chillers for a young readership. I wanted to see if kids today would like the kind of stories I liked when I was thirteen or fourteen or so.

  You’ve added bonus stories to the back of each of the Tales of Terror that bring all three books together. Were these difficult to write?

  It was actually a lot of fun to return to those books and those characters after writing a couple of novels. I am really pleased with the way the stories have worked out. I was determined that we shouldn’t just tack a story on to the end. I wanted the books to be better for the addition, and I think they are. The new sections link the books together in a way that did not happen before.