Nightmare Abbey

by David Longhorn

  ***

  “Why are British freeways so bendy?” asked Frankie Dupont. “We keep kind of swooping to the right and left, instead of going straight ahead.”

  “Probably because they had to avoid so many stately homes, historic sites,” suggested Marvin Belsky, leaning forward from the back seat. “Can't just put a road through Stonehenge or Windsor Castle, right Jim?”

  Jim Davison, the foundation's driver and general helper, laughed and shook his head.

  “Good try, Marvin, but no,” he said. “These motorways were deliberately built with curves to stop drivers falling asleep at the wheel. You have to keep moving your hands, just a little, see? Otherwise you'd go straight off into the landscape. They'd spotted the problem with your freeways. And German autobahns, of course.”

  Marvin looked slightly peeved at being corrected and Denny felt a twinge of satisfaction. Ever since the team had arrived in England, Marvin had been delivering impromptu lectures about what he called 'the old country'. He claimed some kind of aristocratic heritage. Frankie had already annoyed him by asking if he was related to the Yorkshire Belskys.

  “Are we there yet?” demanded Brie Brownlee, the younger of the psychics currently appearing on 'America's Weirdest Places', “We've been driving, like, forever. And the cell signal keeps dropping out.”

  “Shouldn't you know that already, darling?” Jim shot back, with a mischievous grin at Frankie. “Or are your powers intermittent?”

  Brie sighed.

  “I sense spirits, I don't read minds,” she said with heavy emphasis. “If you want all that Vegas stuff, try Mister Belsky.”

  Sandwiched as she was between Brie and Marvin, Denny felt the latter take in a deep breath. Wanting to avoid another pointless dispute over all things paranormal, she started to fire-off questions about their destination at Jim.

  “So how big is this place? Is it very run down? Is the power on, or will we be using lamps? And can we shower when we get there?”

  “Whoa, Nellie!” exclaimed Jim. “I've never even been there. I'm relying on GPS to find the way. But from what I hear, the place is a bit decrepit. Nobody lives there, just a caretaker who's based in the village, because–”

  “Because nobody dares spend the night,” completed Marvin. “We know.”

  The GPS system told Jim to turn off the motorway, and sure enough a moment later a sign appeared. Arrows pointed to the city of Chester, plus a variety of more obscure place names. Malpas was not among them. When Brie pointed this out Jim explained that the village was simply too small.

  “But it's not that remote,” he said. “You're about ten miles outside Chester, which is a nice enough place. When you're finished at the Abbey you could do a bit of shopping, see the sights.”

  “Sounds cool!” said Brie. “I love buying knick-knacks, little gifts for my boys. Maybe they'll have some Harry Potter stuff! Did they make the movies around here?”

  “Not that I know of,” said Jim. “How old are your boys?”

  “Well,” Brie replied, “one's just turned six, and the other's forty-three – my husband's the immature one.”

  As the two chatted, Frankie took out a lightweight camera and started to film the old city. Chester was picturesque, Denny thought. But after the flight plus a two-hour drive from Manchester airport, she was ready for rest, not sightseeing. She hoped Malpas Abbey would not be too Spartan. Matt had not been very specific about facilities.

  “Getting closer,” muttered Marvin. “I can feel it. Kind of pressure building up. The way some people sense a storm coming.”

  Aha, thought Denny, we've reached the ambiguous remark stage. He's limbering up for the performance.

  “I feel fine,” chirped Brie. “The sun's shining, and we're on an adventure. I only hope we can help some poor souls move on from the earthly plane.”

  “You're clearly one of life's optimists,” remarked Jim. “They've tried to exorcise the house. Twice. Once in the nineteenth century, again just after the First World War when they wanted to use it as an infirmary for disabled soldiers.”

  “What happened?” asked Brie, as Frankie swung her camera round to focus on Jim.

  “Not sure about the Victorian exorcism,” he admitted. “But they say the priest ended up in an asylum. The one in 1919 was worse. Two people died. The police concluded that the third man, who escaped, had killed the other two and then – well, entertained himself by rearranging various parts into a kind of collage. The bloke was deemed unfit to stand trial, though – totally insane.”

  They drove on in silence for a while.

  ***

  “They'll be pissed,” said Matt, looking around the archaic kitchen. “They're used to hotels, or motels at least. Not doing their own cooking.”

  Gould ran a hand along a work surface, frowned at his fingers.

  “Could be a lot worse,” he pointed out. “There's electricity, a gas range, showers. The previous owners tried to turn it into a high-toned hotel, but–”

  Matt paused in his examination of cans and packets.

  “But the evil spirits drove them out?”

  Gould shook his head, gave a thin smile.

  “Not exactly, but things did keep going wrong. And that's all I can say.”

  “Sure, I get it,” said Matt, resuming his scrutiny of the supplies. “You don't want to taint the experiment by putting ideas in our heads. That's the bit I don't get. People can look stuff up online now, you know?”

  “True,” the Englishman conceded. “But there are a lot of things that don't make it to Wikipedia. Eyewitness statements, recorded interviews. The Foundation has a lot of material in its archives about this place.”

  Matt stood up, closing the doors of the cupboard, and leaned against the edge of the sink.

  “Okay,” he said, “it's not quite Buckingham Palace, but it's still an impressive place. I just wonder if–”

  Matt paused, frowning, then pointed up above Gould's head. The Englishman, puzzled, turned to look up into the shadowy corner of the kitchen ceiling.

  “What?” asked Gould.

  “Those marks on the wall,” Matt said. “You can just make them out. Parallel scratches.”

  “Oh,” said Gould. “Just the wear and tear you get in an old building. Settling of the foundation caused cracks to appear in the plaster work. Nothing unusual. Parts of this house are over five hundred years old.”

  “Right,” said Matt.

  They left the kitchen to continue their tour. As Gould led him out of the kitchen door, Matt looked back at the parallel lines. They were faded, obviously not fresh.

  Probably nothing, he thought as Gould led him along a dimly-lit corridor. But might be worth mentioning to the team. Could look pretty spooky in the right light.

  “This is probably the area you should focus on,” said Gould, turning a corner. “It's supposed to be the most troubled part of the house.”

  Matt stood for a moment, looking from Gould to the wall in front of them.

  “Troubled by what?” he asked. “The curse of sloppy workmanship?”

  ***

  The Mercedes SUV was almost too big for the country lanes that led to Malpas. On a couple of occasions Jim had to pull over to let a tractor pass, scraping the side of the vehicle against overgrown hedges. Denny dozed off a couple of times, having been unable to get much sleep on their flight. She tried to focus on the passing scenery, but there was little to see but farmland and the occasional cottage. Finally, they arrived at a set of impressive marble columns that marked the gateway to Malpas Abbey.

  “On the home stretch,” said Jim encouragingly as he got out to open the huge, cast-iron gates.

  “My butt will be DOA,” complained Marvin. “I'm paralyzed from the waist down.”

  “Aw, quit moaning,” said Brie. “Think of it as a free vacation.”

  Denny stared out at the spacious grounds of the Abbey. They showed signs of long-term neglect. There were straggling clumps of trees, an ornamental pond that w
as covered in slimy green weed, statues clad in dark green moss. Then the house itself came into view. Denny gasped. Everything about Malpas Abbey was distorted, out of proportion, and supremely ugly.

  It's the vilest place I've ever seen, she thought. I can't do this. I can't go in there.

  The house did not so much stand as squat amid a straggling array of shrubs.

  “Wow,” said Frankie. “That is amazing – like Dracula's castle. Cool.”

  “You think so?” asked Brie. “I think it looks kind of like Hogwarts. Old, dignified. I can imagine lots of venerable wizards giving lessons on spells and stuff in those upstairs rooms.”

  “Cold and inconvenient,” added Marvin. “But I must admit, it's a very fine building. If I have to stay in a mausoleum, let it be a handsome one.”

  Can none of them see how evil it is? Denny wondered.

  Jim stopped the SUV by the main entrance, and within seconds, the team – minus Denny – was approaching the huge ornate doorway. It was gaping open, and Denny was sure she could hear breathing from inside. Long, slow, deep breaths, like those of a huge animal.

  The house is alive, she thought. It knows we're here.

  She scrambled out of the car and started to run after the others.

  “Stop!” she shouted. “Don't go in there!”

  Frankie was already across the threshold, glancing back at Denny with a puckish grin as she entered the house. The others were close behind, despite the breathing sounds that were now much louder.

  “Can't you hear that?” Denny shouted. “It's alive”

  Marvin gave her a disdainful glance as he stepped inside.

  “It's not a live show, honey,” he said, his voice growing faint as he receded into darkness. “Everything is edited.”

  Denny tried to run, but she was frozen to the spot. Then a monstrous tongue unrolled from the house's doorway, a living carpet of dark red, glistening meat. The tongue wrapped itself around her, lifted her effortlessly, then began to draw her into the maw of the house. She tried to scream, but had no breath in her lungs. The doorway grew closer as she made futile efforts to break free.

  “Wake up sleepyhead! We're here!”

  Denny jolted upright, realizing that she had been leaning on Brie's shoulder. The SUV had stopped. Frankie was already unloading gear and Marvin was standing with Jim looking up at the front of the house.

  “Whoa, sorry,” Denny said, rubbing her eyes. “I had this weird dream. The house – well, let's just say it was surreal. It seemed like a monster, like it was alive. And hungry.”

  “Well, if it is alive, it's having a nap,” said Brie cheerfully as she unbuckled and got out, stretching her arms and legs with exaggerated pleasure. Frankie was still filming, of course. And I look like an idiot, Denny thought, fixing a smile as she followed Brie into the autumn sunlight.

  The real Malpas Abbey was nothing like the grotesque structure of her daydream. It was a large, red brick house with two floors. It reminded her of some of the fine old houses they had passed in Chester, only wrought on a larger scale. The windows were tall and narrow, and a small bell tower stood at one corner. There was little decoration on the outside, and as she looked closer, Denny could see signs of weathering and general neglect. Old mortar had fallen away, chimney pots were missing, and there were small cracks and flaws everywhere.

  Maybe it's not an evil place, she thought. But nobody's loved it for a long time.

  “Okay guys!” she said brightly. “Frankie, we need some reactions from the team. Nothing fancy, just first impressions.”

  Predictably, Marvin repeated his 'gathering storm' remarks almost word for word. Denny knew it would play well with their audience – the two psychics had been chosen precisely because they were opposites in almost every way. Marvin's snarky pessimism provided the perfect contrast to Brie's positive but humorless, and somewhat preachy, take on the paranormal. Or, as Frankie had once put it, each made the other more bearable.

  Denny was surprised, therefore, when Brie's turn came, the normally ebullient woman seemed almost lost for words.

  “I guess we'll find out if it deserves its evil reputation,” said Brie. “I hope we haven’t had a wasted journey, of course, but – well, I guess I'll just wait and see.”

  Over their years of working together, Denny had worked out a series of hand gestures for the team. From behind Frankie, she signaled Brie to 'jazz it up', but the psychic's only response was a slight shake of the head. Brie gave a brief smile, then looked up at the house with an uncertain expression.

  “Yep, just wait and see.”

  Denny shrugged, and Frankie swung her camera round to point at the front door as it began to open. Matt appeared along with a bald, pleasant-looking man introduced as Ted Gould. The team was used to staged introductions, pretending to meet local experts for the first time for the benefit of the show. Frankie gave Denny a questioning look, and received a nod in return.

  Keep filming, we'll do it live, re-shoot later if it's clunky.

  Gould turned out to be a natural, every inch the English gentleman with a wonderful accent. Denny could imagine him as the lord of Malpas, graciously welcoming his guests. Or she could up to the point when he led them inside and through the house's murky interior, and showed them what he termed 'the dark heart of the house'.

  “So, this old doorway was bricked up at some point?” Denny asked.

  “It's been sealed more than once,” corrected Gould, stooping to point out details. “See? The brickwork down here is centuries old, Georgian or Regency, while up here you see twentieth century work.”

  “Okay,” said Marvin. “So what's on the other side? What did people wall up? Torture chamber?”

  Gould shook his head.

  “Close, but in fact it's a staircase down to a cellar. It's commonly believed to be the Satanic temple of Lord George Blaisdell.”

  “Wooh, that's creepy!” said Denny, looking to Brie for a similar reaction. Again, though, Brie seemed subdued, staring vacantly at the wall.

  “Getting anything?” Denny prompted. “Sensing a presence?”

  Brie looked startled by the formulaic question, and shook her head wordlessly.

  Crap, thought Denny, this is not exactly fizzing.

  “Okay,” she said, “is the plan to actually bust through this wall? See what's on the other side?”

  Gould nodded gravely.

  “I hope so. A good swing with a sledgehammer should bring this old stuff down. Then we'll see if there's anything unusual there. It could just be an empty space.”

  “Let's hope not!” Denny said brightly, turning to the camera. “Because we didn’t fly three thousand miles to look at an old-time broom closet!”

  She was about to signal Frankie to stop filming when Matt's voice echoed down the corridor.

  “Hey, guys? There's something here. Something on the wall.”

  Denny saw the flicker of a flashlight, made out Matt's face peering up. The group parted to allow Frankie through, followed by Denny and Gould. When Denny saw what Matt was looking at she felt her heart sink.

  Aw come on, she thought. This is so fake.

  YOU LET HER DIE

  At first glance, the writing on the wall looked as if it had been daubed in some kind of dark paint. But as the beams from Matt's torch and Frankie's camera light played on them, it became clear that the words had been gouged out, maybe half an inch deep.

  “This wasn't here when we passed by earlier,” said Gould. “I would take an oath on that.”

  Denny gave him a hard stare, but could see no sign of embarrassment. She looked up at the wall again, wondering which of the two men had created the message and how they had done it.

  Quite effective, she thought. Though it's a bit pretentious. Still, now it's here we've gotta use it.

  Chapter 2: Who You Really Are

  “Blaisdell had a reputation for hiring actresses, dancers and the like, and getting them to take part in kinky – well, I guess you'd call it role-
play nowadays. Orgies on a classical theme – Antony and Cleopatra, Zeus abducting a nymph, stuff like that.”

  “Gross,” said Denny. “So he was a bad guy?”

  “Not exactly evil,” Gould pointed out. “A lot of aristocrats were very depraved in those days, but had no paranormal encounters. Blaisdell, however, seemed to have gone too far.”

  The team was seated in the great dining room on furniture that, as Marvin had observed, had apparently given up on life some years before. However, the elaborately decorated chamber made a good backdrop for the routine Q&A, included in every episode of the series.

  “So what happened to this sleazy person?” asked Marvin.

  “Well, that's where the story gets murky,” Gould said. “One dark night in November, 1792, Blaisdell is thought to have held some kind of black magic ceremony.”

  “Thought to have?” Denny put in. “You mean nobody really knows?”

  Gould, smiling slightly, shook his head.

  “The morning after, the entire household was either killed, or vanished. The only survivor was a Scottish journalist called Donald Montrose. But he did not tell a very coherent tale. However, a gamekeeper was out chasing poachers in the grounds on the night in question. He said nothing at the time. But that man did claim – many years later – that the Devil had come to claim Lord George Blaisdell.

  “In person?” asked Denny.

  “The gamekeeper – who was apparently on his deathbed – said he actually saw the Devil, horns and all, through the windows of the Abbey. It was dismissed as local gossip, of course. Illiterate commoners were not given much credence in those days.”

  “But we are talking about the literal Devil, with horns, a tail, all that?” Denny persisted.

  Gould paused, then spoke more seriously than before.

  “Perhaps everyone encounters the Devil they deserve,” he suggested. “In olden times, most people really did believe in Hell, Satan, as literal concepts, not metaphors. Even cynics like Blaisdell, who mocked religion, could not have been free of the idea of damnation, eternal punishment.”