"The Case of the Churchill Haunting"
Arbogast returns with a Patrick Midnight tale
This tale is a reprint, as it appears in the latest issue of Tales of the Unreal published by our friends at Unreal Press. Please follow them here. Now, without further ado, we bring to you the latest Patrick Midnight adventure from Arbogast…
The wind howled through the trees, stirring them into a desiccated form of movement. Looking up, a crescent moon—pale and anemic—illuminated a rough country made of grass and lichen-covered stones. The air was wet with fog. Patrick Midnight shivered against the cold.
“I expected Virginia to be a little warmer,” the special agent said. To an onlooker, Midnight appeared to be speaking only to himself. In reality, the young man was communicating with Reverend Blackstone, his seventeenth century forebearer. The ghostly Puritan replied from somewhere deep inside of Midnight’s body.
“Aye, lad. Methought Virginia would be warmer, like Barbados. Maybe the chill is part of God’s wrath. This is a Cavalier country, and thus no better than pagan climes.”
Midnight sighed, for he knew that another sermon-disguised-as-a-lecture was close at hand. Blackstone thoroughly enjoyed haranguing his charge about his lack of faith and loose adherence to holy law. For his part, Midnight usually playacted as a meek mouse and agreed with his ancestral shade almost as if by rote. Then, after the stern talking to, Midnight would reach for his packet of cigarettes and glass of whisky. This was their daily dance: scriptural denunciations, followed by tepid agreement, then concluding with mildly sinful pleasures.
However, on the night in question, Midnight decided to interrupt Blackstone and redirect the old militia captain towards the object of their visit. There, at the crest of a small hill, sat Churchill Manor.
“Do you feel anything?” Midnight asked.
“I do, lad,” Blackstone whispered. “We are getting near to something…unnatural.” Midnight nodded his head in agreement, but walked forward, nonetheless.
The manor loomed large up-close. Its red brick edifice was consumed by a dull green ivy, while the once white porticoes had been rendered a sick shade of beige. The formerly black shutters were gray. Churchill Manor was in a wretched state of decay, which was fitting given the contents of the letter that Midnight had received a week prior. In that letter, the anonymous author, whom Midnight presumed was a woman given the tone and timber of the adjective-heavy and somewhat hysterical prose, spoke of a strange malady infecting the house and its owner. The letter proved light on details but heavy on suspicion. It spoke of an indescribable “sickness” and “possession” that had befallen Cromwell Carson, the last living descendant of the Carson family and the current owner of the sprawling Churchill plantation. The usually skeptical Midnight took the letter to heart and decided to make the journey by rail. The decision was also heavily influenced by Midnight’s history with Carson. The pair had served together in the Great War, and thus the special agent felt duty- and honor-bound to help a fellow veteran in distress.
Midnight pulled a long velvet cord near the front door. A gong sounded from inside the house, and seconds later, the door opened. And yet, no individual, neither servant nor Carson himself, greeted Midnight at the entrance.
“Please come into the study,” a disembodied voice said. Midnight recognized the voice as Carson’s, but he could not see his friend anywhere. The special agent made a quick investigation of the foyer. Gloom pervaded every inch. Midnight could tell that the dark wooden walls were damp without having to touch them. The circular staircase leading to the second floor had a certain pungency that indicated the heavy presence of dust. Along one wall stood both a suit of armor (Venetian, fifteenth century) and a sizable statuette of exotic appearance. Midnight stepped closer to the statuette in order to properly study it. It proved to be a depiction of Mara, the demon-king of Buddhism, made from yellow soapstone.
“A blasphemous idol,” Blackstone barked.
“Please come into the study,” Carson’s voice said again. Midnight looked up and saw a small speaker. The black object was part of a radiophone apparatus nailed to the wall. The curious special agent wanted to examine the novel device but instead opted to heed Carson’s command.
Midnight found the study on the first floor. Rather than electric light, the room was illuminated by a candelabra and a roaring hearth fire. Shelves upon shelves of books lined all four walls, and just like the foyer, the study included many figurines and statuettes of Eastern extraction. There were several paintings too, but Midnight struggled to decipher them in the near-black room.
“Good to see you again, friend,” said a small, frail voice near the fire. There, seated in an ancient chair and covered by a wool blanket, was Carson. Midnight could not hide his shock upon seeing his old friend. The daring and dashing airman of the Western Front, who had scored multiple victories in the skies as a member of both the Lafayette Escadrille and the U.S. Army Air Service, looked skeletal and much older than twenty-nine. Flecks of white accented his brown hair, and even the small goatee could not entirely hide Carson’s receding chin. Midnight had never seen a man look so rough and still live. Even during their shared convalescence, when Midnight and Carson had bonded over their terrible injuries (a lung injury caused by cholerine gas for the former, and major burns incurred during a crash for the latter), the Virginia airman had looked more vigorous. Six years of peace had done to Carson what three years of war could not.
“It’s good to see you too,” Midnight said. He spoke as softly as possible, for he could not help but feel like he was standing in a mausoleum.
“Please do not lie to me,” Carson moaned. “I know how I look. Every mirror in this home has either been smashed or turned to the wall because of my horrid visage. So, please do not lie to me.”
Midnight retrieved a second chair and sat down opposite his friend. The fire felt nice and warm on his cold skin. Carson apologized for not being physically able to provide Midnight with either food or drink.
“I cannot do much of anything anymore,” Carson said behind mostly closed teeth. “Just waking up is a chore.”
“Is it the flu?” Midnight asked.
“I wish it were the flu. Even a return of the Spanish variant would be preferable to whatever ailment afflicts me.”
“Well, what is it?”
“That’s the problem,” Carson intoned with a visible air of dread in his eyes. “I do not know. Or rather, I do not know according to strict medical science.”
Carson’s clarification intrigued Midnight, who asked for more information.
“I told Amanda to send that letter to you because I have heard rumors about your work.” Carson admitted that Amanda Dabney was a close confidant and a long-time family friend. He also admitted that the young lady entertained more romantic notions about him as well. “I cannot please her in that regard,” Carson confessed.
“What have you heard of my work?” Midnight asked.
“The extended grapevine speaks of you as a great traveler. Always going everywhere, from the furthest corners of this country to the distant shores of Europe and Asia.”
“The rumors are true,” Midnight said with hesitancy. He could not admit the fact that he was the premiere special agent for the Society of Gentlemen Geographers, and thus dealt in matters of top-secret espionage and international adventure. Instead, Midnight told Carson that his lifestyle was funded by his inheritance, and thus he was nothing more than an idle playboy.
“We continue to be brothers,” Carson said. A thin smile appeared on his lips. “I too spent the years after the war chasing my fancies. You have no doubt noticed the preponderance of Asiatic statuary in my home.”
Midnight nodded.
“For several years I traveled the Orient. My intentions were entirely innocent at first. My goal was to go places long forbidden to the white man. What a lark that proved to be! I met Englishmen in Tokyo and Swedes in Shanghai. The world is much smaller than one assumes.”
Midnight chuckled and agreed. He quickly told his own story about a strange night in Rangoon.
“I experienced something equally strange in Hong Kong. That island fortress is an empire of the bizarre. It captures souls and drags them to Hell, even when the damned don’t know it. I was one such victim, and as you can see, I am still paying a terrible price for it.”
“What are you talking about, Carson?”
“All of my problems stem from Hong Kong. You see, more than a year ago, a peddler in that city tempted me with the world’s greatest adventure. The wizened Cantonese spoke of a hidden monastery in Tibet wherein the Akashic Records are kept. If you do not know, the Akashic Records are the compendium of everything that has occurred and will occur for all time. The complete collection of every emotion, thought, belief, etcetera in existence. The pure essence of knowledge and wisdom, and, for me, the greatest temptation since the serpent suggested the apple to Eve in Eden.”
“So, you journeyed to this monastery?”
“Yes. It took me months, and at one point I was drafted into the army of a Chinese warlord, but I managed to reach eldritch Tibet. What a wonderful, yet terrifying civilization!”
Midnight could not hide his enthusiasm. “Did you find the records?”
“No.” Carson’s face became the epitome of crestfallen. The already shrunken and sallow man became even more defeated. “I did not find them, nor the god that supposedly guards them. Imagine that—seeing the face of a divine entity. What bliss!”
Midnight suppressed the growing and growling rage in his stomach, which was nothing less than a bellowing Reverend Blackstone. The Puritan was incensed by the inherent paganism of Carson’s statement. The sickly aristocrat seemed puzzled by the strange noises coming from Midnight, but he was mollified by a single excuse: “I put too much mustard on my roast beef sandwich this afternoon, and now my indigestion is acting up.”
Midnight told Carson to continue with his narrative.
“Rather than return to Hong Kong empty-handed, I decided to stay a spell in Tibet. It was my misfortune to discover there an eccentric Englishman by the name of Spears. Reginald Spears, late of the Indian Army. Spears proved to be a bon vivant and arch-hedonist. I saw him cavort with men and women without real discernment, and I saw him more drunk than sober. Besides these pedestrian vices, Spears also had a monolithic obsession with a type of martial art known as the White Crane. The man practiced the fighting style three times a day. Sometimes he sparred with hapless locals, but most of the time he practiced in solitude. Over time, Spears initiated and instructed me in the art.
“The White Crane style is as much a religion as it is a combative. It is a fighting system that requires constant sacrifice, up to and including occultic rituals of abstinence and indulgence. A high-level White Crane master is a man capable of not only killing his enemies, but also culling and herding invisible entities.”
“Demons,” Midnight added.
“Yes, daemons,” Carson said. “Tradition holds that the White Crane style is of daemonic origin. Spears certainly believed this. Furthermore, he taught me the forbidden summoning ritual.” Carson tried to sit up in his chair but gave up and sunk back down after a few agonizing seconds. His eyes still had energy, though, and the man’s eyes grew large, wide, and bright as he finished his peculiar tale.
“Possessed by curiosity, I performed the ritual. I did not dare to do it in Asia, for that land is rife with malignant entities. No, I waited until I returned to America and this house to perform the rite. I figured that a young land would be free from most spirits. My presumption was incorrect, and now I suffer for it. I did the ritual, yes. I did it in this very room. I spent days twisting my body into knots; I corrupted my voice via endless chants. I did everything, and in the end, I summoned a daemon. But rather than be blessed by knowledge, the creature has drained my vitality and my health every night.”
“Tell me about this creature,” Midnight said.
“It comes to me at night,” Carson said in a low, dreary tone. “It does not matter if I sleep upstairs in my bed or down here in this chair. The daemon always visits me. It watches me for hours. Sometimes I can feel it straddling my chest and squeezing the oxygen from my lungs. Until recently, I only felt its presence, but now I know what it looks like. It is a ghastly creature that appears to be a rotting corpse. It is humanoid in form, with a man’s arms and legs, yet these limbs are supernaturally long and thin, like a spider’s appendages. The daemon’s face is a death’s mask of mottled flesh. The mouth is a maw with jagged teeth. And worst of all are the eyes, which look exactly like an owl’s. Yellow, luminescent, and completely unforgiving eyes.” Carson punctuated his story by coughing violently into his fist. Throughout his fit, he did his best to explain to Midnight that he sought the special agent’s aid in the form of a nocturnal watch.
“You want me to document this creature?” Midnight inquired.
“I need proof in order to get an exorcism. The church does not do these things willy-nilly anymore. I need a second to document my affliction so that I can take the evidence to the diocese. I pray to the sweet Lord that you will be my salvation.”
Midnight took a minute to contemplate the request. His old friend was clearly suffering. The man was turning into a bloodless corpse before his eyes, and the strain in Carson’s voice convinced Midnight that the poor man was facing his last days. Reverend Blackstone provided the final commentary: “We are called to defeat evil wherever we find it, lad.”
With that, Midnight placed a reassuring hand on Carson’s shoulder and promised him that yes, he would perform his duty as a former soldier and friend.
***
Midnight checked his battered wristwatch. 2:55 AM. He next checked Carson and found him still asleep in the armchair. Midnight felt jealousy worm its way into his bones. He wanted to be asleep too. His weary bones and heavy eyes screamed for slumber, but true to his word, the special agent continued his long and lonely vigil.
“Nothing all night,” he sighed.
“Five minutes until the true witching hour, lad.” For the first time in days, Reverend Blackstone knelt beside his charge in semi-corporeal form. Dressed in mournful black and still wearing a battered capotain, Blackstone looked alert and prepared for danger. Midnight knew the look and steeled himself. Slowly, inch by inch, the special agent reached into his jacket and wrapped his fingers around the .25 automatic.
A minute passed in silence. A minute became four, then five.
3:00 AM.
Blackstone mumbled a prayer to himself, while Midnight trained his eyes on the room’s entrance. Things remained quiet and still until a new sensation arrived and attacked Midnight and Blackstone with full force. The sensation was a pungent stench that somehow arrived via a crack or crevice in the home’s foundation. The smell was without shape or form at first, but Midnight was the first to take note of a semi-translucent miasma. The smell was so horrible that Midnight loosened the grip on his pistol and reached for his stomach instead. He doubled over and began to dry heave until water clouded his eyes.
“Avast, lad! Avast.” Blackstone bellowed while poking Midnight in the ribs with his rapier. “The fiend approaches.”
Midnight cleared his eyes with his sleeve. Now dry, his eyes focused on the horror that emerged, piece by piece, from the room’s many shadows. A pair of long, slightly blue and slightly purple fingers gripped the back of Carson’s chair. The fingers were long and thin, and they ended at sharp points thanks to multiple sets of thick and dirty nails. Behind the fingers were a pair of arms draped in black cloth that looked as old as Churchill Manor itself. At last, the chiaroscuro caused by the flickering flames of the hearth fire revealed a horrid face. Pieces of discolored flesh hung loosely on a yellow skull. The missing lower jaw highlighted the size of the entity’s canines, which reminded Midnight of the time he visited the prehistoric section of the Smithsonian. The eyes were as awful as Carson’s description. They were large and totally oval. The mixture of yellow and black was as striking as it was unnerving.
Midnight reoriented himself and aimed the small pistol.
“Hold, lad,” Blackstone said. “We must observe what it does.”
Midnight did as the ghost commanded. The pair watched as the entity leaned close to the sleeping Carson. The emaciated fingers hovered, but never touched the sleeping man. Midnight expected the creature to bite and drink blood from Carson’s neck like a storybook vampire, but instead the entity put its face close to Carson’s and remained frozen there for some time.
“What is it doing?” Midnight asked.
“The thing is a night gaunt,” Blackstone said. “A revenant of the old type. ‘Tis draining the sleeper’s energies.”
“Why?”
“All part of the curse, lad. The filthy demon shall do this until the poor lad is dead, and such curses can last a long, long time.”
“We can’t let that happen,” Midnight intoned.
“Indeed, lad, but we can do no more than watch and follow right now.” Midnight turned in fury towards Blackstone. The old soldier in him wanted to curse the Puritan for cowardice, but one look at Blackstone reassured Midnight that the ghost knew full well what had to be done. Midnight returned to silent observation.
The two men experienced continuous horror as they watched the entity perform its vile rite. The creature did not move much; only subtle jumps emanated from his talon-like fingers. Otherwise, everything in the room that night remained still. Even Carson did not stir, and yet Midnight began to see changes on the sleeping man’s face. Carson grew even more wan and sunken, almost as if all the moisture in his skin was being sucked dry. Midnight also saw his formerly robust friend grow smaller as the night wore on into the morning.
Just before dawn, while the bucolic county around Churchill Manor began to stir with farmers making their morning ablutions, the creature finally ceased its rite and started to slink away back into the darkness.
“The time is now,” Blackstone said. He told his charge to follow the creature at a distance, even despite the fact that the entity had so far shown no concern at all about their presence.
“It is a dumb thing,” Blackstone confirmed. “But it is animated by something with infernal cunning. We must proceed with caution.”
Midnight and Blackstone trailed the creature. It proved difficult, for the horrible smell returned, which forced the special agent to close his nostrils with his thumb and forefinger. The entity glided through the house and disappeared through the front door, only to emerge on the other side. Midnight and Blackstone continued to follow it for at least a mile until it disappeared once again.
“This is the fiend’s lair,” Blackstone said with finality.
Directly behind Churchill Manor, and abutting a small stream, sat the burial ground for the Carson family. The graveyard was rotting just like the house and the Carson line. The wrought iron gate had collapsed in certain sections, while several of the oldest headstones, including some dating back to the seventeenth century, had been knocked over by high winds and left to fester in the Virginia clay. In the center of the graveyard stood a weathered mausoleum. Several feet in height and width, the jumble of gray stones was adorned with a seated lamb on top. Carved beneath the lamb were a several hieroglyphs of a decidedly pre-Christian character. Altogether, the mausoleum’s architecture appeared vaguely Egyptian.
“We have found the source,” Blackstone said. Midnight unholstered the .25 again, and this time Blackstone did not stop him. Together they entered the damp resting place for the dearly departed. In its center sat a single stone tomb. It too was decorated with Egyptian hieroglyphs and motifs, most of which concerned the ritual judgement of the dead. Midnight kneeled down and read the name on the side.
“Alexander Humboldt Carson. Cromwell’s father.”
“Did the afflicted lad ever speak of his father?”
“Rarely,” Midnight said. “Only mentioned that he was a sort of recluse more comfortable around books than people. That accursed library back there was built by him.”
“I see. Shall we visit the old man, then?” Midnight knew what Blackstone meant. The special agent let out a deep sigh, then sunk down and curled his finger underneath the tomb’s lid. He grunted and strained the muscles in his arms, chest, and lower back, but Midnight succeeded in shifting the lid far enough to reveal the corpse underneath.
To the surprise of both Midnight and Blackstone, the body inside the tomb appeared normal. It was not the shambling ghoul seen earlier. Instead, it was a bloodless man who died sometime in his seventh decade. All things considered, Midnight thought that the body of the Carson patriarch looked more alive than deceased.
“A kind of trick, lad. It wants us to be bedeviled by a natural corpse.”
“So, what do we do?” Midnight leveled his pistol and aimed it towards the dead man’s forehead.
“Nah, lad. Fire.” With his rapier, Blackstone pointed to the matches that the inveterate cigarette smoker kept in his breast pocket. Midnight removed four matches and struck them all at once. He lowered the flame until it reached the hem of the corpse’s dusty burial suit. Alexander Carson, or rather what had once been Alexander Carson, became a raging inferno, with large, licking flames destroying his ashen skin.
“I feel like we have just committed the grave sin of corpse desecration,” Midnight said.
“Just watch, lad.”
“Been watching all night,” Midnight groused until he was silenced by Blackstone.
When the flames began to consume the corpse’s face, a sudden convulsion of movement began. Alexander Carson came back to life one more time, and his eyes opened wide. However, rather than look around, the reanimated pupils dissolved inward until nothing was left but two empty sockets. From this new hole emerged a full-grown screech owl with obsidian black plumage. The death bird emitted a hideous wail before taking flight into the emerging dawn.
“After it, lad!” Blackstone screamed. “Now ‘tis the time for action.”
Midnight ran as fast as he could. He leveled the .25 while in a full sprint and managed to let off several rounds, none of which even clipped the owl’s wings. Left with just two bullets, Midnight decided to stop, breathe slowly, and then aim. This time one of the small rounds proved true, causing the crippled owl to flutter helplessly to the earth. Midnight chased after his wounded prey, and when he found it, he pinned the owl to the ground with the toe of his boot.
“Back to the pit with ye.” Blackstone lifted up his rapier and brought it down with righteous force. The blade pierced the owl’s heart, causing it to wail one last time. Then, as if the night’s events had all been a dream, the owl vanished into nothingness. Not a single feather was left.
***
“I cannot thank you enough,” Carson said whilst clasping Midnight’s hand in his own. The two men shared a short platform just outside of the city of Richmond. Midnight’s train to New York City was just then pulling into the station.
“The sun still hurts my eyes,” Carson continued, “and lethargy is still an issue. But, all things considered, I feel like a new man. I do not know what you did, as you refuse to elaborate, but I will forever be in your debt.”
“Say no more about it. A man’s duty is always with his friends.”
“Now that an exorcism is not necessary, I guess I can stop bothering the diocese.”
“I’d recommend the opposite,” Midnight added. “You should darken their doors more often.”
“Yes, I guess you’re right. My soul has a lot to atone for.” Carson embraced his friend once more before offering a final farewell. Midnight responded in kind. He made a mental note to himself to write Carson a letter as soon as he returned to Exeter.
“Lad, you know we did not kill the creature.” Blackstone’s words interrupted Midnight’s thoughts. The special agent turned in his seat and faced the window. Outside, the world seemed placid. Small houses with well-kept gardens passed by as the engine moved closer and closer to the first stop in Washington.
“A demon cannot be killed in any meaningful sense,” Blackstone said. “We merely banished it back to the burning lake.”
“Does that mean Carson could still be in danger?”
“Aye, lad. The poor wretch had an awful idolator for a father, and he filled his own life with pagan ideas. He needs Christ and a godly life in order to protect and purify his soul.”
“That’s why I told him to attend church,” Midnight said with a sly smile. Blackstone was not amused. In fact, the Puritan scowled with ferocity at his young charge.
“Advice that thou does not heed. Hypocrisy may not be a deadly sin, lad, but it’s a sin, nonetheless. I demand that you make amends by reading the Good Book.”
“Unfortunately, I forgot to pack it this time around.”
“This time! This time!” Blackstone’s screaming put Midnight in an awkward predicament. The special agent had to wear a forced smile and offered at least one apology to the many people seated near him, all of whom were visibly puzzled by the strange noises coming from his vicinity. This situation lasted all the way until Washington. There, after briefly leaving the train, Midnight returned to his seat.
In his hands was a newly purchased book—the King James Bible.