The Cabinet of Dr Blessing (The Dr Blessing Collection Parts 1-3): A Gothic Victorian Horror Tale

by Rollins, Jack

  Niamh felt instantly warmed as she jostled through the throng to the shop door. She darted inside. A wall of fragrance welcomed her, saving her from the malodour of the streets. The candlelight reflected off the jars and vessels around the room like a thousand eyes watching her.

  It was then she noticed the two real eyes that watched her and the tall, skeletal man to whom the eyes belonged. His thinning fair hair and hooked nose added to his overall appearance which was scarecrow-like, and he wiped long, bony fingers on a scruffy apron as he asked, “Can I help you, my child?”

  Niamh was startled at the deep, rich voice. She had expected a much more sinister tone from the man, not the warm, gentle sound she heard. “Errr… yes. Yes. I have come for a present for… my Mama.” She felt the lie was easier than trying to explain her situation. The lie was easy, was comfortable and a spark of yearning presented itself in her heart; she wished the gift was truly for her mother.

  “Your Mama? How lovely. And what gift would you give to your Mama?”

  “I was thinking of perhaps a perfume. Or a rose soap.”

  The pharmacist frowned at Niamh and looked her up and down, tapping his long, discoloured fingernails on the counter. “You must be frozen, child. With no coat, I can assume that your Mama is unaware of your being here.”

  Niamh felt her heart pounding and drew in a short breath. Her back straightened. She was immediately aware of her error in stealing away into the city. This strange man caused her more discomfort than the darkness of the park and the shouts, screams and gunfire did together.

  “Do not fear, child. I shall keep your secret. I promise,” the pharmacist said, moving to the edge of the counter. His long fingers pushed up the hatch, opening the path from behind the counter, to the shop floor.

  Her nerve broke. “I have made a mistake. I must return home immediately!” Niamh cried, turning to the door.

  A gunshot roared outside, echoing up and down the lane. The echo mingled with panicked screams and cries.

  Niamh’s fingers reached the door handle, but as she pulled, a weight kept the door in place and she was instantly aware of the long, dirty fingers outstretched, holding the door closed. Bolts slammed into place, locking her inside.

  “Let me go!” Niamh screamed as the long arms and fingers snaked towards her, snatching her up, dragging her away.

  “Shhhhh, child! Be quiet!” the man hissed, dragging her with one arm loose around her neck. He blew on candles as he passed, extinguishing them, casting the shop into darkness. “Shhhhh!”

  Niamh shrieked as one of the windows banged and a woman’s face appeared pressed against the glass. The woman’s head whipped away into the darkness as suddenly as it appeared. Hands, arms and shoulders scraped along the windows as the frightened citizens of the night pushed past each other, fighting to escape some unseen threat in the lane.

  The pharmacist pulled Niamh down behind the counter with him and the two of them listened to the chaos of the street.

  “Sometimes the constables fire a shot to warn them away,” the pharmacist whispered, “to make them run home and bolt their doors. And sometimes they are firing at the vampires.”

  “Vampires?” Niamh rasped, pressing her fingers against the flesh of her neck. She was not in pain. The pharmacist had moved her quickly, but without applying much pressure. Her movement had been an unconscious one; protecting her neck from imagined vampire bites.

  “Yes, child. Devils of the night, I have seen them. Some of them nest near here. The cannons must have missed them last night.”

  “Cannons?”

  The pharmacist pointed into a doorway that led to his private quarters. “Go through there,” he said. “We will be safer there.”

  The back room was sparsely furnished and contained a desk and chair both littered with papers, an unlit stove and an untidy bed that looked to Niamh neither comfortable nor warm.

  “Move the papers, child, take a seat,” the gangly pharmacist insisted. He lit a candle in a vain effort to make the room seem less imposing.

  Niamh did as she had been instructed and did her best to block out the screams and shouts on the street.

  “Do not be afraid. We will be quite safe here. The creatures hunt the crowded streets when it gets dark. Fortunately for us, there are plenty of men with guns out there who keep them at bay.”

  Niamh nodded, and asked, “Did you say they had fired cannons?”

  “I did my dear. It must have been the navy. I thought the world was coming to an end, let me tell you!” the pharmacist laughed at the memory of his fear.

  Niamh chuckled too, feeling slightly easier about the unusual looking man before her. To think, that she had been afraid of a man so ready to admit his own fear! She began to think of him as some woodland creature in clothes, who had made a little burrow for himself in the middle of the city. She observed that even the candle he had lit resembled him: skinny and tall and looking as though it would break any moment!

  “What do they call you, young lady?”

  “Niamh. Niamh Blessing.”

  “And I am Stanley Sacks. And you said earlier, Niamh, that you had come here for a gift for your Mama?”

  Niamh nodded.

  “What a strange time of day to come calling for such a thing. One so little as you should be tucked up safely in your bed.”

  Niamh was about to agree when the noise from the street intensified. The twin plate glass windows rattled in the shop front once more. She felt certain that the glass would shatter any moment. Her shoulders hunched up and her fingernails felt as though they would cut through her palms.

  Stanley frowned as the frantic banging persisted. “Here, Niamh,” he said, passing her a blanket from his bed. “If the glass breaks, you must dash for the back door, throw the bolts and flee into the night.”

  He rose to his feet and blew out the candle before tiptoeing out of the room. The banging was ceaseless; a loud cracking sound followed some of the impacts.

  Niamh rose to her feet and positioned herself by the door.

  The banging intensified. There were many hands, many more, more joining the throng all of the time.

  “Niamh?” Stanley called.

  “Yes?”

  “Run for your life!”

  It was then that the windows exploded inwards. Niamh raced for the back door. She threw the bolt at her feet, threw the bolt by the handle and reached for another that secured the top of the door. Her fingertips reached the lock, as she stretched onto the very tips of her toes.

  Stanley screamed from back in the shop, as what sounded like a pack of wild animals ran amok.

  Niamh heard glass cabinet doors shatter, and jars break against the walls and floor. She glanced over her shoulder for only a moment and could see shapes darting about in the darkness. She heard a sniffing sound as a shape shifted through the gloom, stalking into the passage where she stood.

  With only a second to decide, she abandoned the door and dashed for the stairs to her right. It seemed foolish to enter the first floor of the building as for all she knew, escape was impossible from there, but it seemed even more foolish to remain, with who knew how many creatures in the shop.

  Bounding up the stairs, Niamh heard the chattering of teeth close behind her. Her heart pounded all the quicker, pumping her precious blood through her limbs, urging her on, faster, faster.

  From the street she heard a whistle and a man call, “Sacks! Your windows are put through!”

  A rasping voice replied from within the shop, “We know it!”

  “My God,” came the reply, “they have murdered Stanley Sacks! Fire at will, men!”

  A rattle of gunfire filled the air as Niamh rounded the head of the stairs, up onto the passage. To aid her turn, she swung around the wooden stair post to try to maintain her speed. Before she managed to snatch her hand away, icy fingers tore at her skin, opening up her skin with savage speed. The blanket had been discarded somewhere on the stairs and she was able to run as free as her d
ress would allow.

  Ignoring the pain in her hand, she pressed on past two doors that she assumed were normally storerooms. Ahead there was another door. The room beyond must have been directly above the one Stanley appeared to sleep in.

  Niamh felt the hot breath at her neck, which sent a shiver from the top to the bottom of her spine. She heard the screams and howls from the shop below. She prayed the door would open. She extended her fingers, grasped the handle and turned it.

  Her pursuer crashed into her back, knocking her through the open door and sending her sprawling across the floor. Instantly she scrambled to her feet, unable to see around her. She kicked at the bedroom door and knocked it shut, scrambling to find a lock she could throw to lock the creature outside.

  Then she heard the chatter once more; she felt the breath on her neck.

  “I have tasted your blood, pretty. And now I will have all of it.”

  Heavy footsteps sounded up the stairs.

  “They come for you! They come to save me!”

  “I will have another taste,” hissed the creature.

  Niamh shuddered as jagged, cracked teeth scraped her neck. She cried, “They will find you before you even spill a drop!” Knowing there was no reasoning with the monster, she screamed from the top of her lungs.

  A voice came from the landing, “In here! Stanley said there’s a child up here!”

  A Scottish voice called out, “To the floor, child!”

  Niamh dropped to the ground immediately, feeling the back of her dress snag and tear in the creature’s hand.

  Revolvers popped from out on the landing and the door thudded and splintered as the bullets whizzed above her head. Shafts of light appeared through the gloom, cast by the lantern her saviours carried.

  The creature moaned in pain and staggered backwards.

  Niamh heard a window shatter, and cries rose up from the lane below. It was then that she turned and stayed low, moving for the broken window, hoping to catch a glimpse of her attacker. “He is gone!” she cried, knowing that the men outside were reloading their revolvers. “You blasted him through the window!”

  She looked down into the lane that ran alongside the shop and could see several bystanders pointing up at her, shouting.

  The bullet-riddled door burst open and two large men in suits entered the room, one of them holding up a lantern. “Are you alright, lassie?” came a Scottish voice.

  “Yes. He managed to escape, I think.”

  The other man, the man with the lantern, spoke with an educated accent and barked, “Get away from the window!”

  Niamh was about to comply, when an arm swept around her from through the broken frame and she was yanked out into the freezing London night.

  Her cheeks stung in the bitter cold as her tears ran and mingled with the snow that clung to her face as her captor hauled her over the slippery roof tiles. If this creature was worried about the slick surface beneath his feet, he did not show it, using the sloping roof to gain height before shifting his weight to turn and spring back, vaulting over the gap between the pharmacy and the next building.

  He landed running. His feet clattered on the tiles as he scrambled forward with Niamh tucked under one muscular arm, his other arm probing and grasping, seeking out ways to support his flight – a chimney pot here, a rafter there.

  Niamh felt sick. She heard shouts and gunshots from the street below. She heard the whizz of the bullets as they cut past, inches away from her ears. The authorities were no longer worried about saving her life – to them she was clearly already dead, food for their enemy, or another enemy in the making, perhaps. All the same, Niamh thought, it seemed to be their opinion that a bullet was preferable.

  They took off again on another leap from one roof to another. The landing was not as graceful, the roof not as stable. The tiles cracked under the weight of both of them and down they tumbled, into a crooked, dirty lodging house.

  Niamh hit the floorboards hard. There was no carpet, no rugs to warm or cushion the wood. She lay still. Her battered body ached if she even thought to move. How easily she had become accustomed to the comforts of a proper home. She thought angrily about how soft and foolish she had become. Her life was to end and all because of the silly notion of a kindness. Any happiness she could have brought to Mrs Burton was undone a hundred times by the fact that by morning, she would be dead and Mrs Burton would have a reason to continue wearing black.

  The sound of sniffing made her more alert. Her instincts bristled at the strange, ragged sound.

  “No, stay away from her!” her captor roared. “She belongs to me!”

  The sniffing became more pronounced and was joined by the occasional chattering of teeth, much as she had heard during her flight in the pharmacy.

  A broad, thick, strong hand appeared in her vision. The fingers wrapped around a broken tile, brandishing it as if it was a blade.

  “Stay away!”

  Niamh remained silent, she turned her head slightly. The effort was monstrous. The sight she saw even more so, but trumped even by the consuming stench of death.

  The lodging house attic was lit by only a few stubs of candles. The intrusion of the night air had disturbed the flames and made them so weak that they would die any second. She knew that the moment the light died, the murdering would commence.

  Lurking in the light were a dozen withered bodies. Some of them lay still, lifeless, naked. Others crawled like the lowliest of creatures, bony, sunken, putrefying, but somehow alive. Each of them showed livid bites on their torn, papery skin.

  “Vampires,” she thought.

  Her captor stood close to her, his back turned. He was unconcerned with her at that moment. He was occupied with the others in the room.

  “Stay back! Keep your disease to yourself!”

  “Sick vampires,” she thought.

  A glance at her captor’s leg revealed why he had not pounced on his enemy immediately. A chunk of wood had become embedded in his calf muscle. Flesh and blood waxed and waned at the site of the wound, wanting to heal but unable to do so with the foreign body in place.

  Two of the slithering, diseased creatures moved from the shadows to her left as one. Their skin was so corrupt with lesions and pus that they seemed to have melted together. Drawing closer to her, they peeled apart, rending open the unhealed wounds. They moved to attack the vampire who threatened them with the tile shard. She could smell the overpowering scent of decay from their open sores as though a foul fog had descended upon her.

  The candles flickered as a breeze drove spiralling snowflakes through the gaping cavity in the roof.

  Niamh knew that she had perhaps one chance, if she had any chance at all. Willing her body to fight the pain, she twisted her head to the right, lifting her shoulders slightly.

  “Jusssst a little drink!”

  “Stay away!”

  Her eyes searched the floor, hoping to see a handle, a pull ring, anything.

  The two creatures on the floor pounced. They tore at her captor’s legs, dislodging the wood from his wound. The vampire slashed wildly with the tile shard, his muscle mass allowing him to cause devastating damage to the emaciated bodies of those who clawed at him. Others joined the scramble, though, crawling over each other, their skin peeling off across the floor, tearing as they reached out to attack the outnumbered vampire.

  Niamh recognised that moment as the time to move. She urged her muscles into action, drawing up her legs. She noticed the hatch, but winced when she realised that it was pinned shut by a decomposing body. Scrambling to her right, she reached beneath the sweaty, slimy corpse, her fingers slipping over the metal ring. Trying not to vomit, she pressed her shoulder against the cadaver, desperate to shove it off the hatch.

  Her shoulder sank into the putrid flesh. As her cheek met the oozing, festering mass, Niamh could not tell if the body was moving, or if she was simply moving into it.

  One glance at her captor told her she had perhaps a minute, perhaps more. His
arms swung in wide arcs, the creatures he battled clawed to stand upright. Teeth sank into his legs. He cried out, terrified of their disease. The vampire stabbed downwards, slashing into a neck. With his free hand he grasped a clump of thin, straw-coloured hair. The hair tore free, bringing with it a chunk of scalp, exposing a portion of skull.

  The body was moving as Niamh heaved further and further. Her fingers slid over into the flesh. It felt like the skin on custard.

  Teeth chattered, close to her. Niamh looked beyond the corpse, expecting to see another of the diseased, wasted creatures coming to ambush her, but there was nothing there.

  The corpse slid more easily, moved further. She could see the hatch was free of obstruction.

  That was when the corpse turned its swollen head towards her. Teeth appeared between strings of saliva and the webbed flesh of rotten lips.

  Her hands found the ring of the hatch; the slime prevented her from gaining a solid hold.

  Fingers reached for her, torn skin hung loose, exposing the bony knuckles and every muscle and tendon in the hand.

  A rattling chuckle broke free of the creature’s monstrous mouth.

  Niamh squeezed the pull ring and heaved the hatch open. Beneath her, there was nothing but darkness. She did not know how far she would fall, or what awaited her in the gloaming. The room could be filled with more creatures and more danger than the attic in which she stood, for all she knew.

  The mouth surged forward, homing in on the open scratches on the back of her hand. Saliva and scum slid across her skin.

  Niamh decided in an instant.

  She dropped through the hatch.

  Into the darkness.

  And then came light.

  “Look! The lassie!” came the Scottish voice.

  “That smell!” came the local voice.

  “Grab her! Grab her! Let us get her clear and burn this damned place doon!”

  Giles.

  “Where can she be?” Charlotte sobbed as the coach came to rest at the steps of the Burton household. “Why would she desert us? Was I unkind to her?”