The Dark Boatman

by John Glasby

  Plainly there was the possibility that this might be just such a thing, and sitting there in that quiet parlour, I found nothing absurd about it. For the rest of the evening and well into the early hours of the morning, we discussed the situation as calmly as we could, trying to decide what to do about this outburst of terror that had descended upon the village. It seemed acutely uncanny even in a part of the country where strange and often frightful things were commonplace. From my uncle’s description, it was clear that nothing would be gained by further questioning of the central figure in the drama—Trelawney himself—and whatever we did, it would have to be done by ourselves. In quite a short time, we had reached the conclusion that the only way to satisfy ourselves would be to stay for a night in the Carter house, to discover at first hand what untold horror had sent Trelawney screaming wildly from the place to throw himself off the cliff in an effort to end his fear-crazed life, an attempt which only a blind and merciful providence had foiled.

  Accordingly, we resolved in our minds on the best course to take; which weapons we should take with us in order to protect ourselves against any contingency, and how to track down this blasphemous nightmare which had, if we had read the signs correctly, been responsible for the disappearances of six people and the near suicide of another. When we finally ended our discussion, it was almost four o’clock, and as I made my way upstairs to my room, it was with a feeling of oppressive fear mingled with a sense of growing excitement.

  I undressed quickly, for I was very tired, and my brain was reeling with a chaos of half-formed thoughts and ideas, some idiotic, others making a little more sense; and I could not escape the sense of dread and impending disaster as I thought of that terrible and lonely place out there on the edge of the cliffs. Was it possible that there, in this wild, isolated region, lurked nightmare, supernatural forces such as are undreamed of by present-day science, denied by the church, and come only in dreams to a few sensitive people?

  Switching off the light, I stood by the window for a moment, looking out into the star-strewn night. The sea was a dark shadow on the edge of the land, and the muted thunder of the surf was a pleasant, normal sound in my ears. There were no lights showing in the village and the houses were dark, squat shapes lying silent in the vague, dim starlight. Instinctively, almost, I glanced in the direction of the Carter house, just visible as I craned my head forward until my forehead touched the cold glass of the window.

  I had no wish to gaze long upon it for I wanted to sleep, but the tales that my uncle had told me tormented my restless mind. I had expected to see it looming there, a grotesque shadow, standing high on the cliff edge, dark and empty and full of malevolent, blasphemous influences. What I did see, however, was something vastly different, something soul-destroying and so utterly unexpected that I did not know whether I was awake or dreaming. Surely nothing sane and normal could have caused that weirdly flickering bluish-crimson glow that shone forth from every window, through each broken pane of glass in that accursed house. The rambling tale told by those two fishermen who had watched Trelawney run from the place came rushing back into my confused mind. A practical joker, someone playing on the simple, superstitious villagers? Or something of a far darker and sinister nature? Desperately, I attempted to pull my scattered thoughts together, stop my hands from shaking convulsively where they gripped the window ledge until all the blood had left them and there remained no feeling at all in my fingers. As I watched, unable to move a single muscle, unable to think coherently, that monstrous glow waxed brighter until it seemed to form overlapping shells surrounding that ghastly house on the cliff.

  Whether that vision was a reality or born of illusion, I shall never really know, nor how long I stood there shivering from a mixture of cold and utter fear. I must have staggered back to my bed and fallen upon it in a semi-conscious state, for when I finally awoke, I was lying on top of the sheets, my limbs icily cold and the bright early morning sunshine shining in through the window onto my face.

  My first decision was to inform my uncle of what I had seen, but in broad daylight everything seemed as ephemeral as a bad dream and I put it down to an overwrought imagination, keeping my fears to myself. Thus it was that we spent the day making all possible preparations for the coming night. We would take loaded revolvers with us, although neither of us believed that these forces, whatever their true nature, could be defeated by bullets. In addition, we had powerful torches and a portable recording machine with which we hoped to capture on waxen cylinders any strange sounds that might manifest themselves. My uncle had also procured a large plate camera and tripod, equipped with powerful flashbulbs with which to photograph any visual apparitions.

  All of this took us several hours, but by mid-afternoon everything was in readiness. In order to learn as much as possible of what we might expect to find, I spent some hours in my uncle’s well-stocked library, going through old reports appertaining to the Carter house, seeking some clue which might aid us in our search for the horror which was reputed to lurk there. Here, I was surprised to find several volumes of ancient folklore concerning the district and other dusty manuscripts, which shed a terrible light on the region, yielding information that brought a shudder of dread to me. Terror had lived in this wild region for more than half a millennium. There were records of a certain William Stanthorpe, who had been dragged from the village in the June of 1586 and burned on the hill overlooking the cliffs, accused of calling the Devil himself out of the air and of bringing a terrible blight to the village and the surrounding countryside.

  Going even further back in time, one chronicle spoke of a nightmare happening in 1417, when unwary travellers along the coastal road were snatched from their horses by a terrible, whirling shape and carried off in the direction of the old mansion perched high on the cliffs—my reading soon confirmed that this mansion had stood on the very spot where the Carter house had later been built in the nineteenth century. Many of the tales were of a deliberately vague nature, merely hinting at fearsome, obscene occurrences, of demons which inhabited the area and which could be called into existence by those who knew the correct formulae and incantations, who knew just when the signs were right, and who fed these creatures on the right kind of sustenance. It was this last phrase that brought a wave of nausea into my stomach and the sweat popping out on my forehead and along the small of my back. Evidently the horror that now held East Wisterton in its grip was of no recent occurrence. It had been there for five hundred years, half-forgotten, it is true, but lurking just below the surface of everyday life like some malignant growth, biding its time, waiting once more, until the signs were right, and someone came along who knew the words which could bring it into being again to terrorise the neighbourhood. I could see now why the police were forced to confess themselves baffled by the disappearances of those six men during the past few months, why my uncle did not dare to confess his private fears to anyone but myself, for who apart from the naturally superstitious villagers would listen to him, let alone believe him?

  As evening approached, so did my inherent dread increase, and by the time the sun went down in a flaring of red and gold over the hills, I could scarcely contain my fear. Had it been possible to think up some excuse for not accompanying my uncle on this nocturnal mission—for he, it seemed, had already made up his mind to go through with it—I would have seized it gratefully. As it was, I knew I had now irrevocably committed myself, and it was with a sense of acute trepidation that I piled our apparatus into the back of his battered old car and clambered into the seat beside him.

  We did not indulge in conversation during the short drive along the cliffs, for each of us was engrossed in his own private thoughts. As I have said, my uncle, in company with the police, had searched the old house from top to bottom on two occasions without finding any trace of anything out of the ordinary.

  On the face of things, this was exactly what we found as we pushed open the creaking outer door and manhandled the items of our equipment inside. Ther
e was still sufficient light streaming in through the smashed windows by which to make out details of the interior of the house and my first incredulous impression was of white dust which lay over everything, covering the floor to a depth of almost an inch. The main chamber of the lower floor was extremely large, measuring almost twenty-five feet along each wall, with a wide, double-window which looked out on to the overgrown lawn sweeping down to the edge of the narrow road bordering the cliffs. It must have been across that rough, knee-deep grass that Trelawney had run, screaming aloud his fear three nights before. For several minutes we busied ourselves in setting up the recording machine and the camera on its heavy tripod, fitting one of the flashbulbs in place ready for instant use.

  Not until this was done were we able to relax and look about us and almost at once, now that the work of preparation was over, I was struck by the air of malignancy which hung over the house, an atmosphere which stirred me strongly. Most vivid of all was the thick carpet of dust, and it was abundantly clear that Trelawney had not been imagining this in his wild ravings at the hospital. There was a shifting hint of untold terror here, exemplified by the thick dust underfoot, dust which could not ordinarily have gathered in anything less than a thousand years of slow accumulation. The place disturbed me curiously, and to say that I was prepared to see anything there is a gross understatement. We settled ourselves down in front of the wide window where, in spite of the faint draft, which came in through the shattered panes, we felt relatively secure. We had no means of knowing from which direction danger might come, but here, at least, we had two avenues of escape, back into the house or out through the weed-tangled grounds.

  As it grew darker, the air of menace became stronger. There were no lights in the house, and we were loath to use our torches until it was absolutely necessary. It was our idea to switch on the recording machine the moment we heard anything abnormal, and then stand by the camera which had been set up at the entrance to the large chamber so that it was possible to swivel it on its tripod to cover the room, the long passages outside, and the wide, spiral stairway which led upstairs.

  So far, we had noticed nothing visually unnatural in spite of the abnormality of the atmosphere in that large chamber, but as my uncle walked up and down before the window, I saw something that brought a fresh rush of noxious horror to me so that I cried out aloud. There was not a strong light shining through the windows now. The pale rays of the setting moon, near its first quarter, gave just sufficient light to cast a leprous radiance upon the floor of that accursed room, and the perspiration broke out on my forehead as I saw my uncle’s footprints in the greyish-white dust were slowly being obliterated, smoothed out of existence as the dust, moving of its own volition, with a hideous life all of its own, flowed back into place, erasing them completely!

  At the same time, even as the shock of this discovery was numbing our minds, a fresh horror attracted our attention. For a moment, it merely appeared as though the pale moonlight was waxing stronger, lighting the room with an unhealthy glow, and a chill of unutterable fear settled on us as we saw that this was no natural yellow glimmer such as might be cast by the moon, but was something far more monstrous and—familiar. It was that hell-born, blue-crimson glow I had seen the night before, and which had been visible over the house shortly before Trelawney had attempted to hurl himself to his death over the cliff edge.

  My mind, as sharp and alert as my senses, recognised the danger instantly. With a wild cry of warning, I leapt to my feet and ran towards the camera, intending to gain a permanent record of this horror, but before I could reach it, there came such a scream of malignant, mocking triumph from the top of the wide stairs that I fell back as though struck by a physical blow. As I lifted my head to peer into the dim shadows, lit by that weird, evil glare which flared and writhed in cocoons of cold flame, I dreaded what I was to see. A wild desire to turn and flee from that place seized me so strongly that it needed all of my courage to fight it down and stand my ground. I sensed my uncle moving close behind me, could hear his harsh, irregular breathing, felt his grip tighten on my arm. There was a sudden ghastly stench filling my nostrils and then, horror of horrors—out of the floor at the top of the stairs, there rose a monstrous spinning column of dust, a damnable hideousness which defied all human comprehension, bubbling and surging out of some hellish realm of untold blasphemy. From what far void that thing came, by what madness unknown to the laws of nature and science as we are aware of them it was able to take on shape and substance, I shall never know. My brain was a shrieking chaos as I stood rooted to the spot, watching that fearsome apparition move towards me, changing form as it approached. It bore no human resemblance, although there were eyes as Trelawney had muttered in his delirium; hellish, red eyes that flickered with a rapacious greed beyond life.

  Dimly, I was aware of my uncle stumbling forward, his face working horribly, the contorted features mouthing and writhing as though he was struggling to mutter some of the odd incantations we had found in those forbidden tomes locked away in his library. As he reached the foot of the stairs, barely twenty feet from that accursed thing, a few disjointed fragments came to me above the roaring of the blood in my ears. He was not, as I had first thought, speaking in English. Indeed, as I now remember in retrospect, the words were in no language I had ever heard spoken before, mad phrases drawn out of the nightmare beginnings of mankind.

  There seemed to come a halt in the descent of that whirling, gyrating column. Putrid, shimmering, unutterably alien and evil, it hovered there in that fiendish crimson glare, gigantic and hostile, and then the final culmination of our vigil, the most apocalyptic horror of all. Inwardly, I had somehow steeled myself to meet all that might transpire, even this abysmal fiend from the bottomless pit of cosmic, gibbering lunacy, but what happened next sent me staggering, screaming, back into the room, my shaking fingers clutching frantically at the door posts for support. For even as my uncle moved forward, thrusting himself towards the bottom of the stairs, as though fighting his way against some terrible, invisible force, a rope-like tendril of animated dust, directed by some fiendish intelligence, swept down, caught him around the middle and plucked him off his feet, carrying him through the air, finally smashing his helpless form down onto the wide landing at the top of the stairs.

  As I crouched against the bottom of the door, shivering uncontrollably, fingernails scrambling insanely at the wooden panels, I tried to shut my eyes to the sight of what was happening there, tried to close my ears to the terrifying screams which rent the air and hammered on my seething brain. The frightful stench had all but overpowered me, my breath became stopped in my constricted throat. But my resolution failed me. It was impossible to keep my eyes shut at the sight of that ghastly spectacle. Some little germ of reason told me that this was nothing more than a hideous, nightmarish illusion, a figment of my terror-stricken brain.

  The shrieks swelled to an indescribable babble of sound and other noises were superimposed on the screams of my poor uncle as the dust all about him humped and writhed, flowing over his prone body, clogging eyes and ears and nose, choking his lungs with every shuddering, gasping breath he took.

  Who can be sure of what actually takes place under such circumstances as these? I saw that whirling column pause then move as though sightlessly, yet with a terrible singleness of design, drifting in my direction. I have tried to hint at my feelings during those fearful moments, although even now I cannot be certain what was fact and what was sheer fantasy. Madly I stumbled back, my legs quivering under me, unable to tear my gaze away from that horrendous, soul-destroying demon. Vaguely, I remember emptying all six chambers of the revolver at it, then flinging the empty, useless weapon away. That my uncle was dead, or nearly so, I did not doubt and I knew that the same fate awaited me unless I could get away from that terrible place. Arms held in front of me, I retreated towards the windows that looked out upon the grounds and in doing so, my shoulder caught some obstruction immediately at my back. What occurred nex
t was so sudden, so startlingly unexpected, that I could scarcely take it in.

  There came an explosive crack, a vivid blinding flash of actinic light that blinded me temporarily; and close on its heels a demonical roar of sheer fury which drowned out every other sound. When I could see again, there was only the diabolical carpet of grey dust on the floor and on the stairs and at the very top of the stairway something virtually unrecognisable that crawled and moaned and tried to stand upright.

  Shrieking madly, I turned and ran, half-falling through the broken panes of the windows. Madly, I knew what must have happened. In my clumsiness I had ignited the flashbulb on the camera, and that savage, eye-searing glare had somehow been sufficient to stop that monstrosity intent on my destruction.

  But coherent thought did not come until much later. What blind instinct guided me through the clinging fungus-like growths, past skeletal-armed trees that writhed and clawed at the star-ridden sky, I do not know. Somehow, I reached the car parked by the side of the narrow lane, dropped into the seat behind the wheel, and drove back into the village, where I aroused the local police sergeant with my frenzied hammering on his door. My distraught condition and the oddly rambling tale that I managed to stammer out prompted quick action on his part. Within ten minutes he had gathered together a small party of men, and although I dreaded what I knew I might see, I agreed to lead them back to that accursed house on the cliff.