This article ran in the London Gazette on February 18th, 1907, under the headline ‘The Houseguest of Harold Beckinsall’, a supposed true story by journalist Jeffery Darting
It was on a day of no particular importance that I received that ill-fated letter, but then the pivotal moments in a life are rarely met with such drama as more fanciful writers would have you believe. I was, at the time, simply working away on a piece destined for the London Gazette, when it arrived with a polite knocking from the postman, the letter changing hands along with the regular niceties.
I must confess, I left it upon my desk for some time, unaware of the importance it would hold. It wasn’t until much later in the day, when, tired and hungry from the constant plunging of typewriter keys, I called it a day on my journalistic work, that I recalled its existence. As I sat down to a meagre supper, I read it through, at first with mild curiosity, but then with a joy – the letter had been sent by an old friend of mine, one Mister Harold Beckinsall, whom I had met in school. We had parted many years ago, as I abandoned the calls of university in favour of eking something approaching a living, whilst he continued onward, having a family wealth to fall back upon.
His letter said, as best as I can summarise (I must confess, I burned the letter after the events of this tale, never wanting to see it again) that he had recently purchased a house in the heart of the city, and seen my name in the pages of a paper left by the former occupants. In the midst of nostalgic joy, he asked my editors to forward this particular letter to me, inviting me to be the first of his old companions (ore, judging from the writing, the first of any companions), to spend some time with him at his new abode.
Had I the gift of foresight, I would have declined, but, much like dear Harold, I found myself dreaming back to those glory days in school, longing to rekindle them. With my hands temporarily forgetting the wear of the day, I typed out my response (hoping the type set letter would give the illusion of prosperity that most certainly had not come), and accepted his request. I told him that I’d arrive before the month was out, and I hurried my way to deliver the letter.
It was, in fact, barely a week later that I set out from my small house into the big city. The journey there, long and cumbersome as it was by train and coach, had the edge worn off by a simple longing for simpler times, where the drink seemed to pour more freely, the women more welcoming, and none of the pangs of age or the wear of work. Speaking of, I had not shirked my responsibilities fully, disguising my trip as one to interview one of the police precincts on the growing crime in the city. All was well in order for my arrival, and I counted every second until I made it to Harold’s door.
And it was here where things began to unravel, apparent the moment Harold had opened the door. Back some fifteen years prior, he had been an imposing and forceful figure, standing a fair bit taller than I, and much broader. He had the body and mind of an expert sportsman, taking easily to the pitch in Rugby, or football, and he cut a mean swathe as a rower. But that was not this Harold. The face was still there, but barely, no longer broad and strong – instead, his sunken features and lined brow aged him another 15 years. Gone was the muscle, the height hampered with a hunch. Gone too was the air of life and excitement, that mischievousness of boyish youth now faded into reluctant acceptance, briefly rekindled in a joyous (if oddly strained) smile.
“Jeffery!” he cried exuberantly “It has been too long! Come in, my friend, come in!”
But I couldn’t enter, too shocked by what I saw.
“Good lord, Harold” I exclaimed, “what has happened to you?”
A weak laugh answered me. “Illness and poor luck, my friend! A single, simple accident, and a future gone! One broken leg was all it took, and my despair got the best of me.” I could see it was true, for he limped slightly on his right leg as he walked me past the threshold, but I found it hard to believe that was all that had transpired.
The house Harold walked me into was splendid indeed – one of those old, large and ornate homes that board on manors that one tends to see in the city. I wonder to myself just how much of this was Harold’s wealth, or if the family had footed the bill. It had this odd feeling to it, though, which tugged at the soul. The inside seemed dimly lit, even with the lamps lit, and the walls too close together, the ceiling too low. I could see the traces of spider webs, lined in thick dust, and I remember thinking to myself that Harold was likely still too proud to clean, too stubborn to hire cleaners.
But there was something else there, a chill that ate at you as you entered, a slightly muffled sound that burrowed into your head. At first I wondered if Harold had these new electrics installed, but if he had, I saw no sign of them, and he offered no demonstration (unlike all others I’ve met that have been eager to show me their new ‘future’ homes). I tried to ignore it, and still I wonder to this day if my memory has simply been tinged with a desire to notice something was wrong, that I had some way of knowing what would befall me.
Harold seemed not to care if I showed any sign of distress, instead leading me upstairs to the chambers that would be my room for the duration of my stay. I looked upon it with unease, as the dimness of the lower floor was now accompanied by an all too empty room where it was clear that either age or damp had started wearing away the walls. All that was in the room was a large bed, the covers of which were faded and dusty, and a large dresser that seemed untouched for many a year. With reluctance, I left my belongings there for the evening, assuring myself that this would be the only night I stayed.
All the while, Harold kept talking of old times, never venturing to discuss anything past our parting. I attempted, on occasion, to breach the subject of his ill health, but was promptly ignored, or even talked over. It began to disturb me, and I grew worried about my friend. Thankfully, it was already late in the day by the time I arrived, and it soon came time for my host to hurry himself with the preparations for dinner.
I took this brief time alone to do a little exploring of my own, my honed journalistic instincts telling me that there was more here than I’d been told. With a quick excuse that I needed the bathroom, I hurried away upstairs. The house had three floors – my room was on the first, and I had seen much of the ground floor already. I snuck my way to the second, walking past several closed doors on my way. I ignored these, heading straight to the stairs heading upward.
As I climbed the stairs, careful my footsteps didn’t ring out too loud on loose flooring, I swore I saw something in the darkness before me, fliting away as I peered over the landing. I told myself it was just nerves, or perhaps a large rodent of some kind, but I never was sure. Whilst I had thought the floors below to be in disrepair, here was something else entirely – the wallpaper had begun to peel away, leaving clear wooden gaps in the walls, through which vermin and insects had burrowed through. Cobwebs trailed from ceiling to floor, and the few candles – all of them lit, despite the floors seeming lack of use – barely illuminated anything, instead casting strange shadows throughout.
Each door I passed by I tried, each one locked – save for one. It seemed to be the master bedroom of the house, located the furthest point from the stairs, and opened without a noise, almost before I touched the handle. I looked in, and saw it well lit, but not well kept. Bedding and clothes were strewn across the floor, a floor stained seemingly (hopefully) with spilt wine. Scattered around were books and newspapers, scraps of paper and writing equipment. It almost looked like a fight had occurred within it. I crinkled my nose as I stepped in, a foul stench of an outhouse bombarding me, and I swore not to spend long in these chambers, fearing I would become as ill as Harold had.
I directed myself quickly to the desk, to see what I could find. There was no journal there to reveal the secrets of Harold, no maps to hidden entryways, nothing to indicate that there was anything odd with the house itself. But there was the letter I had sent, as well as several reports I had written for the Gazette over the past year. Scattered around these were many letters and pages torn from books, and I recognised the names as being of three over old school mates of Harold and I. Each had sent a letter saying they would be delighted to visit the new house, each seemingly thrilled by the reunion with an old friend. I checked the dates on each letter, and found them dated from, a few months ago, to well over a year. I grew worried – Harold’s letter had said he had not long ago moved here, so why had he lied?
I’d had quite enough of the room by now, and left it in a hurry, making sure to close the door behind me. I quickly left the floor, hoping my absence had not been noted, wondering what I had gotten myself into, and most definitely now afraid of this place. But, even in my hurry to leave, I noted that there was now light pouring from under each of the locked doors, and moving shadows from behind them.
I quietly resigned myself to leaving that evening. I’d have to make an excuse – perhaps I could argue that my work for the paper required an evening call somewhere, and I could escape, abandoning my belongings but retaining my life? Or, more likely, an evening stroll wherein I went ‘missing’? Either way, I had to leave.
As I returned downstairs (making sure to briefly visit the toilet just to pull the chain, masking my trip), I found Harold placing down cutlery around the table. His face lit up when he saw me.
“Ah, Jeffery, just in time!” he said, placing down the last few items. “Dinner is ready!”
I paused, and looked to the table. There were three seats with cutlery. I looked to him and asked “Is there someone else joining us?”
Harold stopped for a moment, looked to the table, then back to me, a confused expression on his face as though I had asked the most obvious question in the universe.
“I must confess, a lady might have been joining us this evening, but she has not arrived.” He spoke slowly, as though he was himself unsure of the answer. “But I’ve left a place for her, should she turn up – please, leave the seat at the head of the table open for her. That’s her chair.”
I must confess, once more my curiosity got the better of me. I sat down at the table, and asked, hoping that, perhaps, some of the answers might explain something.
“You never mentioned a lady – someone you’re courting, perhaps?” I asked.
“No! Heaven’s no!” He cried, walking in to the room with two plates. “No, she is more… a teacher, of sorts. This was her house before it was mine.”
“An old family friend?”
“She must have been, yes, sometime ago. I confess, II didn’t know her before I came here.”
“And she visits often? She must live quite close by.” “Yes,” Harold answered, almost distraught, “very close by indeed.”
He grew oddly silent after this, and I thought best not to press the matter. I prodded at what could charitably be called food – the meat blanched, the vegetables tasteless - before attempting to make my leave for an evening stroll, hoping to make an escape.
Harold looked at me with concern at the very idea of me heading out.
“My friend, have you not seen the weather?”
I opened the door and peered out into the torrential rain, hearing the clap of thunder, seeing the small rivers of water pouring down the street.
I reluctantly accepted I’d stay the night.
***
By the flickering light of a single candle, my room grew ever more horrifying. The walls seemed both too close and too far at once, and there were noises coming from within them. At first it seemed like rats, scurrying, skittering around, their little claws scratching the wood and mortar, but then came something else – a sort of chewing, damp and wet filled with the grinding of teeth. I tried to put it from my mind, but it was constant and all encompassing, echoing from the ceiling, the walls, the floor, as though the very foundations of the house were making it, moving steadily as they dined nosily, messily on whatever it could. Coupled with the howl of the wind, the patter of the rain one the window, as the glass shook in its frame, and I knew no sleep would come.
I tried to work, but the single candle in the room made it hard to focus, especially as shadows moved uncomfortably, awkwardly around me. More than once I thought I’d seen something humanlike walk by, more than once I mistook my own for an intruder. But I couldn’t put out that light, for the darkness creeping in the corners was too dense, to encompassing to bare. As it crept across the room, it seemed to eat away at the detail, leaving nothing but a void, a void in which dark shapes would dart through, a void where the mind imagined formless things. No, I could not stomach that darkness.
And so I lay on the floor, still dressed, my over coat and bags used as a makeshift bed (for I dare not touch that dreadful thing that called itself a bed), and I tried to put the noise, the darkness, the strangeness of the house and my friend from my mind. But no sleep would come for me, and, at what I think was sometime early in the morning, I took my candle and left my room.
As I left, the atmosphere of the house seemed to change, seemed to become almost insufferable. The walls, creaking and groaning, appeared to close in on themselves, and I struggled to see past the faint glow of my candle. The noises of the house seemed to grow louder, almost deafening, as though it were breathing loudly in my ear, and the air was sharp, cold almost deadly. Any courage for exploration had died with the daylight, and I instead hurried to the bathroom, locking the door securely behind me.
I came to hate that decision almost instantly, as the room was claustrophobic to the extreme, little more than a large cupboard, half of which was taken up by a bathtub. I did my business hurriedly, and turned to wash my hands, and I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. By candlelight, my face seemed gaunt, my eyes hollow and dead, the shadows of the light almost making a skull of my face. I splashed some water quickly in my face, trying to keep myself awake, but, in my haste to leave, accidentally blew out the candle.
I stood there, in that silent darkness. The sounds of the house had gone; I could not even hear the rain outside. I could barely hear my own breath at that moment, but I saw it rise before me as the temperature dropped. I suddenly became aware of how cold this place was, even in all my clothes.
And then, as a flash of lightening lit up the room, I saw it reflected in the mirror, the visage that haunts me to this day. It was human, once, but the skin had been drawn back so tight it was hard to recognise. There were no eyes, just deep pits of despair withdrawn into the skull, faint strands of wispy hair hanging loosely down that face. It seemed to be smiling, its mouth a rictus grin as dead, dry skin had been pulled taut, revealing a set of decaying, yellowed teeth, as broken and rotted as the thing in the mirror itself.
I screamed at the image, and flailed wildly, knocking over the candlestick, hitting the mirror and causing it to splinter, a spider’s web of cracks rippling through it, but I did not care. I felt something try to grab at me, try to pull at my skin, as I scrambled to the door, my body running into it as I failed to open the lock in time.
Sound seemed to rush back, as I heard a groaning in my ear, a dry, rattling sound echoing from the throat of something long dead, and my heartbeat, racing faster than it had ever done before, struggled to drown it out. The handle rattled in my hands, the lock refusing to budge, the door shaking in its frame as I tried desperately to get out. I felt my neck begin to contract, felt the pressure being applied, and my body started to burn as my breath ran out. I was panicking, beyond rationale thought, acting only on the instinct of wanting to break free.
And then, a miracle- the lock popped upon, the door swung free, and I fell out. I was running before I hit the ground, eager to put as much distance from myself and the room as possible. I burst back into my chambers, slamming the door behind me, and pushed the dresser before it. Only then did I let myself breathe once more, only then did I allow myself a moment of respite. I stood at the far end of the room and watched that door throughout the long night, until at last daylight poured from my window.
I grabbed my belongings without a second thought, and pushed the counter back, eager to be gone with this place. I flung the door wide, and almost walked into Harold, who was stood waiting outside.
“You’re leaving” he said. It was not a question.
“I am!” I cried, walking past him and heading downstairs. “I’ve had quite enough of this house, of the things within it!”
He blocked me as I got to the feet of the stairs. I paused for a moment – he had not passed me by. I looked up to the top of the stairs, and saw something move out of sight.
“You cannot leave!” Harold said, Moving into my path. “We have so much left to talk about!”
“And if you want to talk, you can send me a letter!” I replied, pushing him away. “But I am leaving!”
He grabbed me by the back of my coat, and started pulling me towards him, still surprisingly strong for someone who looked so frail.
“You must understand, you can’t leave!” he cried, “You can’t leave me alone with her, you can’t! The others aren’t enough, and I cannot leave this place! You must stay!”
Without thought, without feeling, I turned and kicked at his right leg, the one on which he limped, and he buckled in pain. In a moment of pure heartlessness, driven only by the selfish need to survive, I left him there, running through that doorway, into the damp streets of London.
I looked back at the house, half expecting to see Harold still chasing after me, or the horrific visage from the night prior, but all I saw was the door, already closed behind me. In fact, had I not known I had been in there, I’d say that the building had been undisturbed for years before my arrival. I backed away, at first cautiously, before turning and running as far from the street as I could.
***
I told my story to the police prescient I had promised to visit. One of the Constables there laughed at me as though I were mad, threatened to have me put away for being a nuisance, or even insane, but the Sergeant came to my rescue – we had spoken many a time before, and he has helped me in many journalistic efforts for this paper. Whilst he did not believe me, as such, he promised to look into that house.
I waited there at the station as he did so, bearing the brunt of the Constable’s remarks and threats. I barely heard him, and in fact fell asleep at some point, only to be rudely awakened by the same Constable, only now he was ashen faced.
The Sergeant and his men had returned from the house. They had indeed found Howard Beckinsall there, sitting at the table we had sat the night previously. He had been dead for some time, as had the three other men seated at the table, many of whom were so disfigured by rot or violence it was hard to identify them, and at the head of the table sat the gruesome visage from that night, sitting tall and proud like a matriarch, though very much dead.
But one place had been left empty at the table, and I knew that it was almost me that would have sat there.
