by Amy Cross
And still she watches me.
A moment later, I realize that the air seems to be becoming rather cold.
Turning, I resolve to set off and give the matter no further thought. No sooner am I at the end of the next street, however, than I hear another, rather different type of whisper coming from nearby. I glance in the direction, and I am startled to see another girl watching me from behind the window of a rather unkempt-looking house. She is barely visible in the gloom, but I can just make out her bare, featureless expression staring at me from the other side of a mottled glass pane. There can be no doubt that I am the object of this wretched creature's attention, and I am stopped in my tracks as I wait in vain for her to look elsewhere.
“Stop that!” I call out to her finally. “Go away! Leave me alone!”
Yet still she stares, still she seems to carve into my mind with her gaze. I raise my cane and use it to tap the window, but this does nothing to deter her.
“Absurd thing,” I mutter, turning and walking away. “The mad should be locked up, not left to bother decent people.”
When I reach the next corner, however, I hear another whisper, and then another. I turn and look over my shoulder, and I find that two more girls have appeared, and that they seem to be following me along the street. Now that I am stopped, they stop too, just a few feet away, but they stare at me with a strange intensity that I cannot deny leaves me feeling rather troubled. They are making no secret of the fact that I am the object of their attention, and they seem – though clearly poor and destitute – to think that they have all the right in the world to be troubling me in this manner. Whatever is the world coming to?
“What do you want?” I snap. “Go on, away with you!”
I wait, but they do not respond. After a moment, however, I notice a dark stain beginning to show itself on the front of the dress worn by one of the girls. It is almost as if blood itself is starting to soak through, although I know that this is not possible. I am about to tell the girl that she must attend to herself, when I suddenly realize that something about her countenance and face strikes me as being a little familiar. Obviously I could never have come into contact with such a creature before, however, so I simply turn and hurry on.
And the whispers follow.
At first I do not look back. I refuse to pay any attention to such trivial things, yet the whispers persist and perhaps even begin to grow in strength. Indeed, by the time I get to the next street corner I feel as if these infernal voices are poised to slip into my ears and penetrate my thoughts directly. I should continue to ignore them, of course, but instead I stop and turn, and I am shocked to see that now there are half a dozen of these pale, lifeless faces staring at me.
“Leave me alone!” I shout, waving my hand at them. “Whatever you want, you shan't get it from me! Now go away before there's trouble!”
“Are you alright, Sir?” a man asks, stopping nearby. “Do you require assistance?”
“Of course not,” I stammer. “I just wish to be rid of these horrific things! They've been following me for several streets now and I'm beginning to tire of their foolish antics.”
He turns and looks toward the girls, although he seems neither surprised nor shocked by the sight of them. Indeed, after a moment he turns and furrows his brow as he regards me.
“It is not right,” I continue, “that a gentleman should be pursued through the streets in such a manner.” I turn to the girls. “If you do not leave me alone at once, I shall have no option but to find a police officer and speak to him! Then you'll be in trouble, won't you?!?”
“Please do!” one of the girls says suddenly, stepping toward me. “Fetch the police. We should like to speak to them as well.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask, before turning to the nearby gentleman and seeing that he seems quite shocked, although his gaze is fixed upon me rather than upon these awful girls. “Do you see what I meant? I am being harassed! In public!”
“Perhaps you should wait right here,” he replies, and now a couple of other men have stopped as well. “I shall go and find somebody who can help you. Don't worry, they'll take good care of you, but I think you could use a little aid.”
“All I need is for these ghouls to leave me alone!” I roar. “What else am I supposed to do, when I am followed through the streets in such a manner? Why, this kind of treatment is intolerable. I've got half a mind to take my cane and whack them all around their heads, just to beat some sense into them!”
“Followed?” one of the other men mutters, before turning to his companion. “Is the man quite deranged?”
“Don't you see them?” I shout, gesturing toward the pale girls. “What's wrong with you? What -”
Suddenly my spectacles slip from my nose. I try to catch them, but they merely land in the palm of my hand. I quickly re-arrange them in their proper place, but when I glance at the gentlemen I see that they are staring at me with expressions of the utmost horror.
“What in the name of all that's holy is wrong with this fellow?” one of them asks.
“His eyes,” another man whispers, “they looked...”
“Are we going to the police now?” one of the pale girls adds, stepping closer and chilling the air around me as she does so. “There is so much we should like to tell them about you, Sir. We have tried, but they don't hear us. Nobody hears us, except you.”
“Intolerable,” I mutter, taking a step back. “Utterly intolerable. Whatever is going on in this once-proud city?”
“Yes,” one of the other girls says, her voice barely rising above a whisper. “What has London come to, that monsters roam the streets?”
“Come and sit down,” one of the men says, reaching out toward me. “You seem to be in rather a bad way, Sir, and we can send for medical help. I'm sure there's nothing seriously wrong, but it'd be a good idea to get checked out.”
“Yes, sit down,” one of the girls says, once again chilling the air as she comes closer. “More of us are coming. The dead of London are gathering, Sir. Sit right here and wait for us.”
“No!” I shout, pushing them all away and rushing along the street. “Never!”
“Sir, come back!” a man shouts. “Sir, you're not well! Let us help you!”
Chapter Ten
Maddie
Today
Sitting in abject, terrified silence, I listen as a voice continues to whisper in the darkness. Most of the time, the voice is too soft and too quiet for me to make out what it's saying, but occasionally it seems to become a little stronger and clearer, and I can pick out snatches of sentences. Sure enough, a moment later I manage to hear a few words:
“I can still feel her trying to open her mouth, Sir. If I let go, even slightly...”
And then it's too quiet again, although I can still hear the faintest whisper. And at the same time, I've begun to notice that every time the words become clear, I experience the taste of peaches in my mouth. I lick my lips, convinced that the taste has to be some kind of illusion, but if anything it seemed to be getting even stronger.
“Who are you?” I whisper, pressing myself back against the stone pillar. “Please, who -”
Suddenly I hear a loud bumping sound, as if something metal just dropped against the floor. I turn and look into the darkness, and almost immediately I hear the sound of footsteps coming closer. I flinch, but the footsteps move past me and head toward the darkness at the far end of the basement. The air all around is getting colder, and there's no doubt now that somebody is down here with me. And although the taste of peaches seemed strong a moment ago, now it's almost overpowering.
“Please let me go,” I stammer as the low whisper continues, and as tears run down my face. “Please, whoever you are, you have to let me go.”
“What of the kidneys and the liver?” the voice asks suddenly.
“What?” I reply.
All I hear now, however, is more faint whispers. Whoever's down here, they seem to be completely ignoring me,
but they're also not trying to hide their presence. I don't understand how they can be working in the dark, but I guess maybe they have some kind of night-vision system. I can hear occasional bumps and footsteps, as if they're getting on with some kind of task.
“Please,” I whisper, “you have to let me go, I only -”
“Doctor Grazier,” the voice says suddenly, sounding a little fearful, “I -”
And then it's gone, this time sounding as if it was cut off in mid-sentence. I hear footsteps again, and I pull away as they seem to march straight past me. Then I hear a bumping sound coming from straight ahead, I think from somewhere near the slab in the middle of the room. The sound returns a couple more times, accompanied by a faint rattling, and then I hear a tired, heavy gasp.
Then silence.
Absolute, yawning silence, without even a whisper.
“Please,” I say after a moment, “I don't know who you are or why you're doing this, but -”
Suddenly the room is filled with an ear-splitting scream. I instinctively reach up and try to put my hands over my ears, but the ropes are just a little too short and all I can do instead is listen as the scream gets louder and louder. If anything, however, the scream seems almost to be coming from somewhere inside my head, shaking my skull so much that a pulsing pain runs across my forehead. And then, with no warning, the scream ends as abruptly as it began, and I hear a shuffling sound nearby.
“As I warned you,” the voice says, “there has been no change. Sir -”
And that's where it stops, seemingly cut off in mid-sentence.
Suddenly the scream returns, sounding even louder than before. This time I start pulling away, shuffling around the stone pillar in what I already know is a futile attempt to get away. The ropes allow me to get all the way around to the pillar's other side, but the scream seems to be ringing out through my skull, and finally I let out a scream of my own. As soon as I do so, however, the sound stops. I cry out for a moment longer before managing to fall silent.
“I assure you, Doctor Grazier,” the voice says seconds later, “I did what I was told, and nothing more or less. I have learned from the mistakes I made in the past. I cannot claim to know what is wrong with your wife, but I am absolutely sure that it is not of my doing.”
Doctor Grazier?
Why is the voice saying that name? Doctor Charles Grazier has been dead for more than a century.
“Are you sure that it is your wife, Sir?” the voice adds suddenly. “She does not seem human, Sir. I am sorry.”
I hear more whispers, but they seem a lot fainter now, as if they're fading away. I don't dare call out this time, so instead I simply sit in the darkness and wait as the basement falls silent. I'm convinced that the man's voice will return at any moment, and I'm shaking with fear. In the back of my mind, I'm already starting to think that somehow I heard ghosts, but I keep telling myself over and over that there's no such things.
I refuse to believe that I heard the voices of dead people.
They were just hallucinations, like all the other things I saw while I was on the streets. Clearly there's something wrong with me, something that makes me imagine crazy scenarios whenever I'm scared or stressed. That's got to be a pretty major flaw in my character, and I'm going to have to figure it out later, but right now I have to stay focused. Despite the tears that are streaming down my face, I tell myself to stay calm and focus on getting out of here. If I let my fears take over, I'm going to end up losing my mind and dying down here. At the same time, I can't help replaying those voices over and over in my mind, and I'm not sure I'm strong enough to keep them out.
“Please,” I whisper, squeezing my eyes tight shut even though I'm already in darkness. “Keep it together, Maddie. Don't lose your mind, don't -”
Suddenly the peach taste bursts into my mouth, and this time I let out a chocking gasp as I feel hundreds of tiny, sharp edges rushing up from the back of my throat. Unable to breathe, I try to pull away from the pillar, but now there are even more of these hard little legs scurrying into my mouth, and I can feel bugs or beetles swarming out onto my face. I try to spit them away, but my throat is swelling as more and more of them rise up through my body, and finally I bite down hard, hoping to kill them so that I can try to get a breath of air.
I lean forward, spewing the corpses out, but there are fresh live bugs already crawling up into the back of my mouth. At the same time, the taste of peaches is somehow becoming even stronger, and I can feel my eyes starting to bulge as I begin to suffocate.
And then they're gone.
Suddenly all the bugs vanish, and the peach taste goes away.
“He was a good man,” the female voice whispers suddenly.
Startled, I let out a cry as I pull away. The ropes hold tight, keeping me against the stone pillar, but I'm shaking violently now and I can feel myself giving in to the madness. I'm struggling to get my breath back, and I'm terrified that the bugs are going to come back at any moment. I know they weren't real, that they can't have been real, but at the same time I'm frantically scared that I might feel them again. I want to be strong, and to hold my mind together, but the voices are just too clear and too powerful. I know that I have to push the voices away, and that I have to get out of here before the bugs come back.
“He was the greatest man I ever met,” the female voice says. “He was -”
“Go away!” I scream, pulling harder than ever against the ropes. “Leave me alone! Get out of my head!”
“He was so proud and so good,” the voice continues, as if it didn't hear me at all. “He was just led astray, that's all. He wouldn't let me go. People mustn't think that he was a monster. I loved him, and he was no monster. He was my husband.”
“GET OUT OF MY HEAD!” I shout again, before breaking down into a series of heavy, shuddering sobs. “Get out of my head,” I whimper through the tears as I start rocking back and forth as much as the ropes will allow. “Get out of my head, get out of my head, get out of my head...”
“It was love that made him do what he did,” the voice whispers. “Love for me. I would do anything to get him back. Anything. When he killed the child, his mind shattered.”
“Leave me alone,” I sob through gritted teeth, still shaking all over. “Go away!”
I'm crying so much, it actually takes several minutes before I notice that the voice has finally stopped. I open my eyes in the darkness and sit listening to the silence all around. Terrified that the voice is going to come back at any moment, or that I'll feel the bugs again, I don't dare believe that I might have actually pushed the madness away. I keep telling myself that the voices were only voices, that they can't actually hurt me, and that the bugs were all in my imagination. If I can hold onto that simple fact, maybe I can pull myself together.
Suddenly I hear a scraping sound over on the far side of the basement. I turn and look into the darkness, and a moment later there's a metal bumping sound. I wait, too scared to even call out, as the scraping sound returns and starts moving this way. Something's coming across the floor, making its way straight toward me. I try to pull back, but I can't really maneuver properly and tears are streaming down my face as I hear the sound getting closer and closer. If it's another bug, or a swarm of them, I think my heart might give out.
“Please don't hurt me,” I whimper, finally unable to keep from panicking. “Please, leave me alone.”
The scraping sound continues.
“It's just a noise,” I say out loud, hoping to regain control of my senses. “It can't hurt you. It's just a noise, it can't do anything to you.”
I start kicking frantically, desperate to get away.
“It's just a noise!” I scream. “It's just -”
Before I can finish, something bumps against my hand. I let out a loud shriek and pull away, but then the scraping sound returns and my hand is hit again. This time, however, I feel what seems to be something small and solid. I hesitate for a moment, still terrified, before finally reaching th
rough the darkness until my fingers brush against the object. I wait a moment, in case anything else happens, and then I start feeling the rest of the shape as I slowly realize what I've found.
It's a knife.
One of the knives from the counter has somehow ended up over here, and a moment later my fingertips brush against the serrated blade.
I hesitate for a moment longer, before grabbing the knife and furiously starting to cut through the ropes.
Chapter Eleven
Doctor Charles Grazier
Thursday October 4th, 1888
I take a knife from the side and step around the slab, before reaching down and cutting Delilah's throat as she continues to wriggle and squirm.
***
“No more!” I shout, pressing my back against the front door, causing it to slam shut. “No more,” I gasp, “please, no more...”
Slithering down to the floor, I feel a shudder pass through my chest.
“No more,” I say again, “no more, no more...”
I wait, hearing only the sound of my own breathlessness. After a moment, however, I realize I can hear the whispers once again, coming from outside. Getting to my feet, I slide the bolt across the door and hurry to the window, and when I look outside I see scores of those pale dead girls coming along the street. It is as if I drew more and more of them to my side as I rushed home, but I am certain they shall not bother me now, not in my own home. They cannot get in here. An Englishman's home is his castle and I refuse to let those things through my door.
“What madness is this?” I whisper, taking a step back. “What -”
Suddenly I hear the most tremendous banging sound, strong enough to make the floorboards shudder beneath me. I look down, lost in confusion and panic, and it takes fully a few seconds before I remember what I left in the basement before heading out this morning. I was hoping to come home and find that Catherine would have recovered her proper mind, yet the continued banging seems to indicate that the beastly creature retains control of her body. Still, I am certain that success will come soon. I must simply stay strong.