Dead of Night

by william Todd

  I turned and inspected the window, as well. It was true. As suddenly as the storm had begun, it vanished. The stars could even be seen twinkling in the night sky beyond the glass.

  “The constable’s house is only a few blocks away,” he continued. “As a lawyer, I must keep this scene just the way it is and keep all parties separated until the authorities arrive. Barabus, go retrieve Dr. McGinty from the banquet hall then retire to your bedroom and speak to no one until the authorities arrive. Mr. Croft, come with me, and I will dispatch my other associate to retrieve the constable.”

  After all the details were taken care of, I followed Mr. Strigoi back to his bedroom. “May I ask what the two of you were doing outside my room?” he asked as we slowly made our way back down the hallway.

  I felt embarrassed but decided to tell him truthfully of the house’s curse and who the dead Brother Geoffrey thought he really was.

  He laughed aloud when I had finished. “Come, I will show you what nefarious lights were burning from within my room.”

  The great heated light turned out to be a mammoth fireplace that churned out the largest fire I had ever seen inside a home.

  “The red glow you saw,” Mr. Strigoi said, “was probably the firelight filtered through my silk robe as I paced around the room.”

  Even as he spoke, perspiration broke out on my forehead and trickled down my face. “How can you stand such heat?” I queried as I pulled out a handkerchief and wiped my face clean.

  “I have a skin condition that worsens in winter time due to the dryness of cold air. One of the reasons why I moved here was because of the usually moist but rarely frozen winters. When it started to snow and the temperature dropped, my skin began to break out in a rash, which is why I could not stay in your company long. Perspiration, oddly enough, lessens the condition, so I had a large fire built to keep me from scratching myself into oblivion. I have had this for as long as I can remember. I can only assume my tolerance to heat is somewhat more than the average person’s.”

  I pondered his explanation for a moment then couldn’t help but smile. It seemed as though that I had been so caught up in Brother Geoffrey’s tale that all rationale had left me. There had been a sensible explanation to all the night’s happenings if they had been but given a chance to take form.

  “But what about your name?” I asked dutifully, making sure I left nothing to chance. “Brother Geoffrey said it meant ‘undead’ in your native tongue.”

  “Is not the name Miller given to someone who may not necessarily be a miller? And Baker given to a one who may not be a baker? And Archer given to a person who may never have picked up a bow in his life?”

  I nodded in agreement and felt a bit foolish.

  “If I were you,” he then added, “There are much more troubling things about which to worry at the moment.” My heart sank as I pondered the monk, whose death, though an accident, was at my hands. “What must I do? What will happen next? It was an accident. While trying to avoid colliding with your associate, the monk and I got tangled, and that, not anger, precipitated his fall.”

  The man went to a steamer trunk that was still packed but open on a chair next to his bed. From there, he withdrew a document and motioned me to him.

  “If you wish, I can represent you. You will need council on your end, if this matter is to be resolved.”

  “You do believe it was an accident, then?” I asked, hopeful.

  He smiled oddly and said, “If I didn’t then I would not have offered my services.”

  “What must I do?” “Sign here on this document, and I will represent you as your legal counsel. I do not think I have to remind you that the only witness to this accident seems to think he heard an argument before the dreadful event. That does not bode well for your defense. But I can say with honesty that I am the best at what I do.”

  He said the last statement with a knowing smile and devilish glint in his eye that I was too fearful at the time to recognize.

  I replied, “But I am a man of relatively meager earnings. How could I afford a lawyer of your caliber?” “Do not worry about recompense for the moment. I feel terrible enough that this unfortunance has happened within my home. I can assure you that my services will not cost you what you cannot relinquish. Just sign on the dotted line.”

  He offered me a pen, which I took in hand and looked down at the old parchment. “It seems to be written in a foreign language. What does it say?”

  Mr. Strigoi smiled sheepishly. “I apologize. I am fresh from my home country, and this is the only document I have on hand. I can assure you of its authenticity. Even though written in my dialect, it will stand up legally in your court system. It is just a matter of translation when the time comes. Please, sign here and let me help you. I can assure you that you will not go to jail for this. It is my word. I guarantee my word.”

  Beginning to get uneasy about the possible ramifications of this terrible accident, and at last believing that the lawyer could save me, I signed.

  Suddenly, that devilish grin re-appeared on his face, more severe in its creases, as the skin around his cheeks piled in crimson waves. When he spoke again, it was as though that great bass voice dropped an octave, but even then I had no idea what had just transpired.

  “Follow me,” he said in a frighteningly deliberate tone. I followed him back to the top of the stairs and looked down upon Brother Geoffrey leaning up against the railing, feeling the back of his head. His great bulk rested wobbly on his feet, but he seemed none the worse for wear.

  Brother Geoffrey, you are alive!” “Alive but not well,” he said groggily, as he examined the blood on his retrieved hand. “I must go and see the doctor and leave this place. You would be well advised, Mr. Croft, to do the same.”

  With that, the friar stumbled down the stairs to the entranceway below.

  I smiled at Mr. Strigoi. “I thank you, sir, but it looks as though I will not be needing your services.”

  “Ah, but my services have already been rendered.” I turned and pointed down the stairs. “But what services have you rendered? Didn’t you see? The monk was not killed in the fall.”

  His grin had by this time turned into an impossibly grander smile. “Yes, my dear Mr. Croft, he was most certainly dead. However, you cannot be tried for murder if the deceased gets up and walks away—that was my service to you.”

  As he turned his back to me and began walking away, he said without looking back, “And I will be back in exactly one year to collect my fee.”

  It was at this moment that I knew without a doubt with whom I was dealing. As I pondered my fate in the fires of the netherworld, I silently watched him walk slowly back down the corridor to his blood colored room. I am certain that, as I watched, his faint footsteps turned into the clapping of hooves upon the wooden floor.

  And it is that same sound I now hear outside my bedroom door. My heart now pounds so heavily that it threatens to break free of my chest. He is here! The knob on my bedroom door is turning. The Devil has come to ta—

  I’m Still Alive

  1

  D octor Arless slowly descended the stairs, wiping a restless sleep from his eyes. Sleep, as well as sanity, seemed to leech from his pores nightly, until day upon day of the last six months molded into one hazy, waking nightmare.

  At the bottom of the stairs, he stretched his tired limbs and yawned—his body’s failed attempt to force upon itself an energy for the day it did not at the moment have, nay seemed to have an exquisite aversion to.

  He blinked into focus the once warmly decorated foyer around him festooned with flowery accents, lace, and polished surfaces. A large mahogany grandfather clock ticked softly against the wall, and an oval, stained glass window spilled a kaleidoscope of colors across the entranceway from its perch above the front door; they were now but ornamental scabs that covered a deep and festering wound.

  To the right of the entranceway was the broad archway to the living room and the dining room beyond, no doubt alre
ady set with a cold breakfast, which their housekeeper, Olivia, faithfully put out each morning before going to market. The habit of eight years prevented her from setting less than two places at the table, yet only one was needed, had only been needed for some time.

  He hesitated only briefly before finally casting his weary gaze to the closed door on the opposite wall, clenching and rubbing his hands, as if unsure what to do with them. Finally, he settled on burying them in his housecoat pockets.

  One long sigh later he was at the door.

  This was once a sitting room. Now it was a dying room. He gently turned the cold, brass knob, hesitated, then opened the door and disappeared inside, feeling as though he was but morsel being forced down the gullet of Death itself.

  Laying in the bed, covers pulled and tucked up to her neck, was Mrs. Arless—the reason for his unstable mind these past months. She looked even paler than usual, with dark rings round about her eyes. Small, weeping pustules dotted her forehead and settled cheeks. Her breathing was shallow and stuttered.

  She mustn’t have heard him enter the room, for she never wrestled from under her covering, eyes never flittered from under their gray lids. It was still early, and she was rarely conscious for more than a few hours a day, anymore.

  Her labored breaths made her husband pull in deep breaths of stale air reflexively, as though he too found it difficult to breath.

  In taxing his lung capacity while listening to his wife labor to fill her own chest, he realized she hadn’t soiled herself in the night. Good. He hated cleaning up after her when she had, usually leaving that task to Olivia. With his housemaid at market, it would have been an unavoidable, if not malodorous, condition in which to leave her until Olivia returned.

  Dr. Arless slowly approached her bed and tried to look upon her with the same affection and sympathy he’d had for her in the early stages of her illness. However, all he could now muster was a cold apathy that daily grew ever closer to a full-blown odium.

  The reason for this slow but steady degradation was a simple if not narcissistic one: At one time, not that many months prior, he and his were the epitome of style, grace, and beauty. Everyone loved them, respected them, envied them.

  Now, however, when he looked upon his patients and walked the streets of Halverton-Upon-Dees, he could see the pitiful stares. Their expressions may have meant to convey sympathy, but in his eyes they were stares of disdain, disgust—How could this have happened to the Arless’s? He’s is a doctor; why can’t he make her better?—As though that profession somehow precluded one from being affected by disease, maybe even death itself, knowing the mental capacity for superstition rampant in this village.

  Being a physician, however, this “noble profession” was only a hobby, really—the way some approached botany or lepidoptery. His true calling was helping his wife spend her money, an occupation for which he was truly born and dutifully undertook. They were not nobility but were well off enough financially to run in upper circles, even if running meant the shoving of some shoulders and jockeying for a position they might not otherwise have, if not for the effort of attaining it. And certainly, being a physician had helped to forge friendships that would otherwise have been off limits to them.

  Now, however, he who regularly graced the Coliseum Opera, spent many an afternoon fox hunting with Sir Audley at his estate in Oxford, and frequently spent holiday on the continent, no longer found time for these fancies; when not seeing other patients, his day was consumed with his ill wife’s care. He wished with all his might that this burden would be taken from him, but daily she suffered, and daily he suffered more still.

  She lay as still as death itself, save for the slight rise and fall of her chest. He stared for a long while, motionless, watching with open eyes and closed heart. At one point, his hand started towards her snarled and lubricious hair in an unconscious movement to push that matted mess from her eyes. Yet before his hand could accomplish its task, he jerked it back suddenly, as if touching her would seal upon him the same sickening fate.

  The room was moist in the warm August morning and oddly quiet. Although larks sang hidden in the wheat field, which separated their parcel and the priory at the top of the hill beyond; and although their song was borne on a gentle breeze that ruffled the curtains at the far end of the room, the doctor neither heard nor noticed any of it.

  He seemed deaf, now, to any and all splendor. At once, the body under the covers began to stir, slowly at first. Heavy, crusted eyes blinked open, and her cracked lips stretched to a weak smile, as her gaze fell upon her husband.

  There in that place, a malevolence, which had slowly taken root in the oft shadowed corners of the room like a dark weed, found a crack in the soul of that man and entered— as weeds are wont to do— into a place it did not belong. A blackness that had been held at arm’s length for so long finally found embrace in the most unlikely of people—a physician, a husband.

  He returned a feeble smile and leaned over his wife in an embrace yet immediately retracted with a pillow, her head briefly bouncing off the bed underneath. Her eyes blinked in confusion at first, then suddenly widened in fear, as the pillow was pressed down over her face with vice-like force.

  His wife, with what little strength remained, tried desperately to get out from under his grasp, screaming as best as her failing body would allow. Those muffled screams of terror, however, were trapped in a web of down, barely audible to the ears on the other side.

  It seemed the harder she fought, the quicker she slackened. The woman tried in feeble desperation to free her hands from under the silken covers to fight the devil disguised as her salvation, however they were stretched tight over her body, making the simple task difficult even for an escape artist.

  The dark deed was done in less than two minutes. It was surprisingly easy, yet catching his breath was difficult, and the doctor’s heart thumped like a drum in his chest.

  After wiping cold beads of sweat from his forehead and drying the dampness on his housecoat, Dr. Arless replaced the pillow under her slackened neck, first turning the ooze- and saliva-stained side down, away from any questioning eyes. He then pressed and tucked the disheveled bedding back into its creaseless perfection, as smooth as a pond on a windless day.

  He looked down on his beloved’s lifeless body. The newly late Mrs. Arless looked quite peaceful. More at rest than she had been for months.

  A tear trickled down his cheek, which he promptly wiped away. In the forest of his heart, it was the last falling leaf from a tree reluctant to cede the warmth and sun of summer to the cold, dark, barren winter.

  Yet winter came to him, nonetheless, and with a vengeance.

  At last, a shadow of a smile creased the edges of his mouth.

  Dr. Arless finally let out a long sigh of exhilaration, turned, and went back upstairs to get ready for his day.

  2

  The doctor was looping his tie around his neck when he heard the scream. Olivia had been home for fifteen minutes; he was surprised he hadn’t heard the exclamation sooner.

  “Sir!” she screamed from the bottom of the stairs.

  The doctor appeared at the top finishing his tie. The young lady was ashen faced and breathing heavily. At that rate, he knew, her corset would prevent her from receiving enough air, and she would soon faint if he didn’t calm her down.

  “The missus…I think…She’s…” She couldn’t finish her sentence and ran back into the room. “For god’s sake, woman,” he said under his breath, as he descended the stairs, “what on earth did you expect the eventual outcome to be?”

  When Dr. Arless finally entered the room, Olivia was standing next to the bed sobbing. She turned to him with tears in her eyes. “She’s dead, sir. She must have passed after I went to market. I looked in on her before I left. Oh, I should never have left her.”

  He put a reassuring hand on her shoulder then passed by her to look over his work. The doctor felt for a pulse but couldn’t feel one, didn’t expect one. His wif
e was still warm, however that was probably due to her being under the covers and the warming morning.

  He sighed. “Rest in peace my dear.” He then turned to Olivia. “I hate to ask this of you, but would you be a dear go over to the priory and have the vicar come by at once. Then go to the village and fetch Chief Constable Bowers and Mr. Timmons.”

  “Mr. Timmons?”

  “He is the executer of Gwen’s will.”

  “Pardon my asking, sir, but why do we need him at this point?” Dr. Arless put his arm around her and led Olivia out of the room. “Because in her will, Gwen lays out how she wants her remains to be treated.”

  “Oh,” she said knowingly. “Because of her—“. “Yes,” he replied cutting her off. “Now, go. I’ll change into my mourning clothes, get the house in order, and sit with her till you return. Protocol, my dear. Protocol.”

  . . . . All was quiet. Olivia had been gone a half hour. Depending at which of his daily tasks she found him, the vicar should be arriving at any moment.

  The doctor had donned the traditional black suit with a black band around his left arm, carried out the customary traditions of stopping the clock at the time of death, covered the mirrors, and drew the curtains in every room.

  He now sat at her bedside wiping his forehead with a black handkerchief; the day was warming quite nicely and with the curtains drawn, no breeze could bypass the thick, velvet curtains.

  He smiled a genuine smile at her, as he pulled and primped absentmindedly at her sheets. The relief he felt was monumental. Now he could get on with his life after the proper amount of mourning. The grieving time was an inconvenience he would be happy to endure to free his life from the burden of her care.

  He closed his eyes, imagining the blissful times that lie ahead, times he sorely missed. However, when he opened them back up, his heart leapt into his throat when his wife’s own eyes opened, and she engaged him directly with a slight bend of her neck, the way a dog cocks its head when it hears an odd sound. Her cold, dead stare sent a snake of ice slithering down his back.