by Dale Jarvis
Worried, Tom’s brother raised the alarm. Nearly the whole community came out, and when day broke the next morning, they set off to search for the missing man.
About seven miles along the road, at the same spot where Tom had met the black stag the day before, they found Tom. He was stretched out dead on the sleigh, cold as the grave. The contents of his powder horn had been poured over his face, but there were no marks of violence on his corpse. There were no tracks of animals or footprints of men anywhere in the snow, likewise there was no explanation as to how the horse had snapped its harness and freed itself from the sleigh.
When news of Tom’s death was brought to his father, the man shared the story of the black stag that Tom had encountered before his death. Tom’s demise was immediately blamed on some evil spirit, who had appeared on the roadway in the form of the great black stag.
As tragic and terrifying as the story is, it did not end there.
Tom’s widow gave birth to their child, and a few weeks later decided that the child must be christened. As there was no priest locally, she had to travel to the town of Placentia to have the babe christened. Off she set, accompanied by Tom’s brother and a man who worked for the family. They arrived safely in Placentia, the child was duly christened, and they resided for a few days with friends. Then the foursome started for home.
Like Thomas Conway, they never arrived home. When a search party went out, they found that all four of them had met a sudden and shocking death on the road, in the same vicinity as Tom’s strange demise. Tracks in the snow indicated that they had met something, and that they had run one way and then another to avoid whatever it was.
Like Tom, there was no mark of violence on their bodies. The weather was mild and all four were warmly dressed, so they had not died of exposure. They were well-stocked with food, and the friends in Placentia later stated that they had all been hale and hearty when they left. Whatever they had encountered, it seemed, had scared them to death.
The mystery has never been solved, and the strange circumstances surrounding the deaths of those five people along that stretch of road have never been fully explained. But if you ask the older residents of the area, they will place the blame firmly on a malevolent spirit, who for its own fiendish purposes, assumed the terrifying form of a black stag.
You will not find the community of Turk’s Gut on any modern map, so you will just have to believe me when I tell you that it exists. If you do manage to find it, drive down the old road toward the water and pull over when you get to the very last house. It is the only house there, a bright red one, so I am sure you will not miss it.
Beside the house there are a few trees, and under their branches, hidden among the tall grass, there is a long, flat stone. Stop there, and listen. For that flat stone marks the grave of the Drummer of Turk’s Gut. And though he has been dead and buried for longer than anyone alive can remember, there are those who say his drumming has never ceased.
Exactly where the Drummer came from is something of a mystery. Some believe that the Drummer was a prisoner of war, while others hold that he arrived as a stowaway on a sailing ship. All that is known for certain is that one day in the early part of the 1800s, the Drummer simply appeared. He was dripping wet, as if the ocean had tried to swallow him down, found him inedible, and had spat him out onto dry land.
None of the good people of Turk’s Gut knew where the man had come from, nor did they know his true name. The man himself could offer little assistance, for he seemed to know just as little about his own identity as they did. It was clear that the man was suffering from some sort of amnesia. There was no doctor to provide assistance, and it was thought by the local people that he had suffered some sort of memory loss, perhaps due to a war injury.
While the stranger could not remember his name, or where he was born, or how he had arrived in Turk’s Gut, he did retain one impressive skill. He remembered how to play the drum. When one was placed in his hands, he played it with a skill that astonished all who heard him. Because he seemed to have no name of his own, the stranger was nicknamed “The Drummer” by the local residents.
The Drummer was taken in and shown great courtesy by a local family, the Simmses. Over time, the Drummer was accepted as one of the community, and the sound of his drum became a part of the rhythm of local life. After living in Turk’s Gut for many years, the Drummer passed away. The Simms family buried the man on their property, and laid a long, flat stone over his grave to mark his final resting spot.
Eternal rest, however, seemed to elude the Drummer. After his death, ghostly hands could be heard beating on an invisible drum. Before long, stories began to spread along the coast that when people in the Drummer’s adopted home passed away, the Drummer could be heard for miles around.
The noise of the Drummer was heard only during the night, when all was quiet. It was as if he wanted no competition, so that there could be no mistaking his playing for what it was. It was also rumoured that on the eve of a local person’s death, the Drummer could be heard playing the drums under the windowsill of the person who was fated to die.
So if you can find it, do pause for a moment beside that long, flat stone and listen, preferably in the evening, when all is quiet. Listen very carefully. If you hear the sound of a rhythm being tapped out on an invisible drum, it could be the Drummer, playing the music he loved so much in life. Or it could be a warning, a sign that someone you love, or even yourself, will be the next soul to join the Drummer beyond Death’s shadowy veil.
Only a short number of years ago, there was a family who lived in a small wooden house on a fairly quiet street. The family had a young son. On those days when the weather forced him to play inside, the small boy was more than content to wile away the hours playing down in the basement of the old house.
The boy played by himself, but at the same time he never seemed to be alone. His mother could hear him talking as he amused himself, as if he were chatting with someone else. One day, she asked her son to whom he was speaking.
“My dog,” said the boy.
“Does your dog have a name?” asked his mother, smiling to herself.
“No,” said the boy, seeming quite content that his invisible pet should remain nameless.
“Does he go with you to school?” she asked, playing along.
“No,” said the boy again. “He can’t leave the basement.”
The mother thought that having an imaginary pet was relatively harmless. In fact, she was more concerned about the state of the basement itself than she was about her son’s active imagination. The walls had never been finished properly. The concrete floor was uneven and cracked, and looked as if it had been poured in great haste.
She found a workman who was willing to redo her basement, and on the first day he was available the woman showed him exactly what she wanted done.
“My son plays down here all the time,” she told the workman. “He has an invisible dog which he claims can’t leave the basement.”
The workman only nodded, more concerned with the practical issues of how he was going to start work than he was about an imaginary beast. The mother went upstairs, and the man set to work with a sledgehammer, breaking up the concrete floor.
The house rang with the sound of the man breaking up the old floor, and dust started to seep under the crack of the basement door. Then, suddenly, the sound of the blows ceased.
For a while, there was silence, then the sound of footsteps slowly climbing the cellar stairs. The workman emerged from the depths, and called out to the owner.
“Miss,” said he, “I think you better take a look at this.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“I think you better just look,” he replied.
Together they went back down the rickety stairs to the basement, through a cloud of dust. The man brought her to where he had started to break up the old concrete floor, revealing the dirt beneath the house. The man picked up a heavy iron pry rod and slipped one end of it un
der a large chunk of concrete. He heaved up the concrete, flipped it over with a great thud, and then stepped back out of the way. The mother gave a great gasp and felt the blood drain from her face.
There, uncovered from where it had lain hidden for countless years, lay the skeleton of what could only be a large dog.
In shock, the woman stared down at the skeleton of the hound, speechless.
“Get rid of it,” she said, finally. “I don’t care what you do with it, just get it out of my house.”
The man nodded as the woman fled the basement. He removed the old bones along with the rest of the broken-up concrete. Work progressed without further incident. A new floor was laid, the walls plastered and painted, and before too long the basement was finished. The workman was paid and went on to his next job in another part of the city. The wife never mentioned the bones to her husband, or to her young son.
From that point on, on those days when the weather forced him to play inside, the small boy was more than content to wile away the hours playing down in the new basement of the old house. But he played alone, quietly, and his imaginary dog was never mentioned again.
Years ago, there were few paved roads joining small towns. People would go from town to town by boat, or would walk along the paths that had grown up, linking communities. One day, a man was walking along one of these paths, heading toward home. It was a fine day, but the man walked alone, with no one to keep him company.
At one point along the path, he stopped and looked back. There, off in the distance behind him, he could see another figure, that of a man, following the same path, and heading toward him. The stranger was a fair distance away, so the first man turned his face back toward the trail, and started walking again.
Eventually, he came to a spot along the path where a stream cut across it and trickled down into a small pool in the rocks. He looked back in the direction from which he had just come, and there, off in the far distance, he could see the stranger still walking along.
At this point, the traveller thought that he would stop there for a rest, have a drink of water, and wait for the stranger to catch up. He figured that having a companion to talk to along the path would shorten the journey. He went to the small pool of water, and knelt down to get a drink.
The man reached out, planning to cup his hands in the water and scoop up enough for a sip. Looking down into the still pool he saw the reflection of his own face. He also saw the reflection of something that gave him quite a start, for reflected in the water, just above his own face, was the face of another man.
Shocked, the kneeling man looked up to see a figure standing immediately behind him. Twisting his head up and looking at the stranger, the man realized that it was the same person who, only moments before, had been far off in the distance along the path.
The mysteriously-arrived stranger stood above him, smiling down at the traveller. Then as the man watched, the stranger’s smile grew wider and wider, spreading an unearthly distance, all the way from ear to ear. Then, much to the man’s horror, the lower half of the stranger’s jaw dropped down, to reveal row upon row of tiny, sharp, pointed teeth.
The man was so shocked by this that he fell over backward, floundering in the water and struggling to get away from the creature. By the time he got himself straightened up and poised to run, he realized that the stranger had vanished completely.
There was nothing warming or welcoming about the light. Even from a distance, it seemed devoid of heat, like a full moon on a cold winter’s night. But it was not a dull light, or a dim one, and it was possessed of an unwavering brightness. It was not the homey light of flames licking through the coals in a grate, nor the romantic glow of flickering candles. It was a light like those seen of marshes late at night, or of phantom ships in stories told to frighten children.
The young squire had seen the light in the central window of the abandoned hall while out riding early one night. The evening sky was like molten copper, and the shadows were extending their reach along the ground. The owners had long deserted the house, and it had no occupants, so the strange light had drawn his attention. He had slowed his horse to look, and then turning away, had ridden on.
The image of that lit window in the abandoned hall stayed with him. Any light in an empty house was strange. But the more he thought on it, the more he was convinced that there had been something strange about the quality of the light itself. The squire was not an imaginative young man, nor was he one given to the contemplation of the world’s mysteries. But the light he had seen in the window somehow seized upon whatever small bit of curiosity he possessed, and it tugged upon his mind like a fish on a well-baited hook.
He thought about that window for a long time, silently.
A few weeks later, he was sitting in the warmth and safety of his study with a visiting friend. Once they had a good quantity of port wine under their belts, the squire told his friend of the illuminated window in the old hall.
“You’ve spotted a ghost,” joked his friend. Then, made bold by the drink, he added, “Let us go see if we can catch him!”
The squire looked to his glass, and swirled the last bit of port remaining. He seemed not to have heard his friend’s words for a moment, but then drained the glass in one decisive motion and rose to his feet.
“We go tonight,” he said, and strode from the room.
They mounted their horses, and rode off to the old estate. The property had been vacant for many years, for so long in fact that there were few who knew the names of the original owners. There was a caretaker, however, this much the squire knew. The caretaker was an old man from the village, who lived in a small cottage on the grounds of the estate. It was the caretaker’s job to keep the gates locked, to keep unwanted visitors out, and to keep the wild from engulfing the property completely. The latter was a task which seemed to grow more formidable with every passing year.
The two men approached the house, and as they came close, the friend drew in close.
“Sure enough,” he said, pointing to a window illuminated with an eerie, forlorn-looking glow. “There is your light!”
The squire glanced once at the window and rode on, up to the door of the caretaker’s cottage. He knocked on the door, and when the caretaker answered, the squire demanded entry to the main house.
The old man shrugged, and shuffled off into the shadows of his cottage. He returned, bony fingers clutching a ring of old iron keys. He unlocked the front door of the house, and ushered the two men through the darkness of the house to the door leading to the upper chamber.
The caretaker selected one long key from its fellows on the ring. He slid the key into the heavy lock and turned it, once. The click echoed through the empty hall.
“I’ll not go in,” murmured the caretaker, taking a step aside and backing away from the still-closed door.
The two men entered, and found that the light in the room was sufficient for them to see the various articles of furniture still remaining in the room. What struck them most was the fact that there was no lamp or lantern to be seen. The room had a light of its own, and it was as strong under the tables as it was above. Indeed, there was not a single shadow in the room, nor did the two visitors seem to cast any shadows themselves.
Running the full width of a great mantelpiece was an enormous gold-framed mirror. In it, every detail of the chamber was reflected: the table, the chairs, the pictures on the walls. Gazing into the mirror, the squire beheld his own frightened face staring back at him. Alongside it, everywhere he looked, he saw other faces, thin, drawn, and shining, hundreds of translucent faces all bleeding the eerie light. Hundreds of eyes glared at him from the midst of the glass.
The squire gasped in horror, and his friend turned and uttered a similar, strangled cry as he looked upon the mirror. Both realized as if with one thought that the room was not haunted by one ghost, but by a countless number of spectres, their intangible bodies emitting the cold luminosity that filled every corner of the chamber.<
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They had been in the room only a few seconds. As they looked in horror at the glaring, silent faces, a strange faintness stole over them both. It was a numbing sensation, and both felt as if their very lives were being sucked out of their bodies.
The two quickly left the room, slamming the door shut on the awful light. They left the property immediately, and returned to their homes by separate paths.
Neither man spoke of the incident to another living soul, but the deathly and deadly luminousness took its toll. Each man fell sick and grew weaker with each passing day. Before one year had run its course, both men lay buried beneath the sod of the old churchyard. They were mourned by their loved ones, and all remarked how sad it was that two such men should be taken away so young.
And in the abandoned hall on the old estate, the luminous chamber glowed all the more brightly, an additional pair of cold, white faces staring out from the gold-framed mirror.
Mr. James Curran was born in County Waterford, Ireland, in 1794. He immigrated to Newfoundland in the early 1800s, and lived much of his life in and around the Southside of Holyrood, in Conception Bay.
In the 1860s, the local parish decided that it needed a new cemetery. Land for the graveyard was donated by a local man, John McGrath. With free labour supplied by the men of the parish, the land was cleared and a fence was started. Word spread that every man in the parish was expected to supply the materials and labour to erect one length of fence.
A pious man, James Curran, was one of the volunteers who worked on the cemetery, and he dutifully erected his portion of the graveyard fence. Many of the local men went away to work in the fishery, and work on the fence slowed. James Curran took it upon himself to make sure the fence was finished, and finish it he did. But the work proved to be too much for him, and shortly thereafter, he grew gravely ill. As he lay close to death, he called a close friend and countryman to his side, and asked that he be buried in the graveyard he had helped construct.