Carnacki: The Watcher at the Gate Read online

  CARNACKI:

  THE WATCHER

  AT THE GATE

  AND OTHER STORIES

  William Meikle

  Dark Regions Press

  ~ 2016 ~

  First Ebook Edition

  TEXT © 2015 BY WILLIAM MEIKLE

  COVER ART AND INTERIOR ILLUSTRATIONS

  © 2015 BY M. WAYNE MILLER

  EDITED BY JOE MOREY

  COPY EDITOR, F.J. BERGMANN

  ISBN: 978-1-62641-197-5

  DARK REGIONS PRESS, LLC

  P.O. BOX 31022

  PORTLAND, OR 97203

  WWW.DARKREGIONS.COM

  Acknowledgments

  “Treason and Plot” first appeared in Horror for the Holidays from Miskatonic River Press, 2011

  “Captain Gault’s Nemesis” first appeared in Carnacki: The New Adventures from Ulthar Press, 2013

  “A Cold Christmas in Chelsea” first appeared in The 13 Ghosts of Christmas from Spectral Press, 2012

  “The Blue Egg” first appeared in Sargasso #1 from The Journal of W.H. Hodgson Studies, 2013

  “Bedlam in Yellow” first appeared in In the Court of the Yellow King from Caelano Press, 2014

  “The China Dolls,” “The Black Swan,” “The Banshee,” “Mr. Churchill’s Dilemma,” “The Watcher at the Gate,” “The Gray Boats” and “The Chislehurst Conundrum” are all new to this collection

  Dedication

  For William Hope Hodgson

  Table of Contents

  The Banshee

  Treason and Plot

  Captain Gault’s Nemesis

  The China Dolls

  A Cold Christmas in Chelsea

  The Black Swan

  The Blue Egg

  Mr. Churchill’s Dilemma

  Bedlam in Yellow

  The Watcher at the Gate

  The Gray Boats

  The Chislehurst Conundrum

  About the Author

  About the Artist

  List of Illustrations

  … remarkably like a bloated earthworm, but one cast entirely of flame.

  … blackness seeped in … until even their very bones were liquefied …

  “The big black bird will surely take me away. It lives in the closet …”

  … beasts from the worst nightmares of mankind …

  The robed figure still stood on the battlements of the high castle.

  … it fed, eating like acid through clothes and skin and bone …

  A dozen hooded figures walked slowly counter-clockwise …

  Carnacki Toasts His Friends

  The Banshee

  I had been anticipating an invitation to dine with Carnacki on the forthcoming Friday when I answered the postman’s knock. Instead, I took delivery of not one, but three letters, each envelope inscribed in Carnacki’s neat, tidy and instantly recognizable handwriting. This was not an unusual occurrence—my old friend liked to correspond while he was on his travels, often using me as a sounding board for his thinking, and I was already wondering what fresh adventures he had in store for me this time.

  The three letters were all postmarked from the far north of the Scottish Highlands, the most recent of which had taken three days to reach me. I will admit that my curiosity was piqued. I retired to my library with a pot of tea, got a smoke lit, and, after checking that I had the postmarked dates in the right order, began reading. The first letter was dated some ten days earlier—on the Wednesday after our last Friday night engagement had been put off at short notice. As I read, it was as if I could hear his familiar voice.

  c

  “I am dashed annoyed to have canceled dinner on Friday and I hope that you will apologize to the chaps on my behalf, but it really could not be helped. I had a letter of my own in the morning from an old school chum, terse and to the point:

  “‘Need your expertise urgently. If you cannot come within the week, do not bother, for I shall most certainly be dead.’

  “Now, you know me—I could not in all conscience refuse such a plea for help, especially not one from an old friend. It did, however, mean that I had to leave at short notice on Friday afternoon to catch the sleeper to points north, for I had a long and tedious journey ahead of me.

  “My friend, Alan Tait, came from money—a country estate in the far north of Scotland that supplemented its hunting and fishing income with a fine local single malt. I was looking forward to reacquainting myself with its peat-filled pleasures, despite the rigors of the journey there. Engineering problems in the York area and a long delay uncoupling carriages in Edinburgh meant that it was already mid-morning by the time we reached Inverness, and I still had a good way to go.

  “I managed to have a rather greasy breakfast in Inverness station before taking a connection heading for Thurso. After several hours the conductor informed me that my stop was coming up, and I was let off the train at a crossing point. The engine whistled off into the distance, leaving me quite alone in the middle of a vast expanse of seemingly unbroken moorland.

  “The note that had inspired my haste seemed to take on a deeper, more profound sense of foreboding here in this vast emptiness, and I am ashamed to admit that I managed to give myself a dose of the willies. When I lit a smoke my hands trembled rather alarmingly, but I was glad of the taste of the tobacco, which did much to ground me back into a more recognizable reality.

  “Thankfully for my nerves, I was not left standing at the crossing for long. A horse and trap approached over the rutted track and was soon at my side. A taciturn chap with an almost impenetrable accent asked if I was Carnacki and, on my reply in the affirmative, had me step up to sit alongside him. He relaxed somewhat when I offered him a smoke, but conversation was not at a premium over the twenty minutes it took to get us to the Tait estate.

  “I got my first glimpse of the house from afar—a squat gray pile with few redeeming architectural features, and an air of general gloom and despondency that made me wish I was back on the train and heading south. But Tait more than made up for any foreboding by welcoming me with a firm handshake and a stiff glass of the local uisge. The taciturn driver seemed to be Tait’s manservant, for he came into the house with me and disappeared off upstairs with my luggage while Tait led me through to a splendid old library that ran up the full height of the house in the southeast corner.

  “I was not, however, given time to examine any of the old volumes, for as soon as we were seated in the chairs by the fire, Tait made it quite clear that he had a tale to get off his chest. I let him fill my glass and we shared smokes, lighting up before he got started. As he spoke his voice grew hushed, with a quaver in it I certainly did not expect to hear. The man had stood against the Boers not many years past, but he was now as terrified as any man I had ever seen.

  “‘It’s the curse from the auld country,’ he began, as if that was meant to make any kind of sense to me. ‘It has followed the family these three hundred years since we came over from Ireland. It spares some, skips a generation, maybe even two, but we all know it is never really gone, and the best we can hope for is that it passes us by as it works through the lineage. But I have not dodged this bullet: it has come for me—she has come for me—and if I have to hear that dashed screaming one more night I might even throw myself off the roof and spare her the trouble of killing me.’

  “It all came out of him in a rush, and just letting go seemed to raise his spirits somewhat. He allowed himself a thin smile, although not much of it reached his eyes.

  “‘You must think me a terrible mouse, Carnacki, but this thing has me in a funk. And it is not just I; it is the staff too. They have all left me, apart from old John who you met coming in, and he only stays because he has
got nowhere else to go. I am at my wits’ end—and I know you have experience in these matters. Please say you’ll help me?’

  “‘Of course,’ I replied. ‘I will do all that is in my power. But I shall need a clearer idea of what it is you think you are dealing with here.’

  “He sobbed as if in relief.

  ‘Getting an idea of it will be the easy part. It will not be long until nightfall, and then you shall see—or rather, you shall hear. After that, no further explanations will be needed.’”

  c

  “We ate a most pleasant supper. Tait’s man—old John—might indeed be a taciturn fellow, but he was not short of skill in the kitchen and rustled us up some local trout with potatoes and mashed turnip, washed down with some strong brown ale. I was feeling rather at home as we returned to the library for more Scotch and a smoke, but I could not help noticing that Tait’s attention was now elsewhere. He seemed tense and on edge—an old soldier waiting for some new battle to begin. I was about to remark on it when his head tilted to one side, as if straining to hear something.

  “‘She is here,’ he said, and all the color drained from his face, leaving him pale and ashen, his eyes wide with fear.

  “At first I thought that this was another manifestation of old battles he might still be fighting inside his own head, for I heard nothing untoward, just the distant noises of the manservant clattering the china and cutlery in the kitchen. Then it came to me—a high whine at first, like a distant wind, but getting louder quickly, more strident, until it seemed to ring and echo inside my head, driving out all other noise, all other thought. I saw that poor Tait was in some agony, his mouth wide open and obviously screaming, but all I could hear was that high insistent whine. The volume went up a notch, then louder still until it too screamed, filling my skull with its rage, sending sympathetic vibrations through my jaw, my chest, my belly until I felt I might shake to pieces.

  “Then, just as I thought I might not be able to take any more, the sound cut off, like a wax cylinder suddenly disengaged from the mechanism, and the library fell silent save for the piteous sound of Tait’s sobbing.

  “As for myself, I felt quite wrung out, sweating as if having undertaken strenuous exercise yet at the same time feeling chilled to the very bone. Every muscle felt heavy and tired, and my ears rang with the fading echo of that terrible scream.

  “Tait managed to pull himself together enough to fetch us both a large stiffener of Scotch.

  “‘I take it that was sufficient explanation for you, Carnacki?’ he said dryly.”

  c

  Carnacki’s first letter stopped at that precise point and was signed off with a simple ‘C’. It was just like him to finish on such a note. Were we in his parlor listening to the tale, we might have taken that opportunity to fill our glasses and light fresh smokes. I contented myself with another cup of tea and opened the second letter. It was dated two days later, although it took up the story in the morning after the events in the library.

  c

  “Despite all the excitement, I managed to get rather a good night’s sleep, for I was as tired as I have ever felt as I dragged myself upstairs to the well-appointed guest bedroom. I did not even spend much time considering the noises I had heard, for sleep took me down and away almost as soon as my head hit the pillow, and the next thing I knew Old John was ringing the gong in the hallway to summon us down for breakfast.

  “Thankfully I did feel somewhat rested, although my ears still rang as if I’d sat for too long, too close to the percussion section in the orchestra pit at the Opera House. Breakfast also did much to revive my spirits, although my host merely nibbled on a piece of toast and looked miserable. I was almost amused to see that Old John had thick wads of cotton stuffed into his ears—even more so when Tait had to shout at him to get him to fetch the marmalade.

  “After breakfast Tait and I went out to stand on the porch and smoke a cigarette while surveying the landscape. It was mostly flat and somewhat bleak. The morning mist diffused the early sunlight into shifting patterns of soft color that washed over purple heather and green and yellow gorse. The whole scene had the air of a watercolor painting in progress, and even a city chap like me had to admit it possessed a strange, almost compelling, beauty.

  “Tait seemed to guess at my thinking. ‘Most chaps see it as nothing more than a wasteland, but it calms me—it reminds me of the depth of history in these bogs that have been lying here for millennia with no thought for our doings above them. And yet now it is that selfsame depth of history that threatens to be my own undoing. Can you save me, Carnacki? Or must I pay for the sins of my fathers?’

  “I had been considering the same point over my smoke.

  “‘I shall need to send to London for my protections …’ I began, but was immediately interrupted.

  “‘There is no time for that, man! It will take three days to get here—and I only have two left. She always makes seven visits—and last night was her fifth. I only have two nights left to me—you have that time left to save me.’

  “I crimped out the remains of my cigarette and turned my back on the view.

  “‘In that case, I will need the whole story—and the use of your fine library.’”

  c

  “I have heard of the Banshee myth, of course—and I have books of my own covering the details, although they are all far from here, snug and secure on the shelves in Chelsea.

  “Like all the old myths the tale of the Banshee has many variants in many cultures, but the basics regarding the wailing woman have remained remarkably consistent—she appears and, in some cases, warns, but in others is a herald, bringing death itself along behind her. In the Tait family case, it appears that the legend arose out of a great wrong done to a local woman on their country estate in Ireland, back in dim antiquity.

  “I found a reference in a family Bible, and Tait himself filled in the details over lunch.

  “‘He was Callain, second earl of the line, back even before the Normans,’ Tait told me over a glass of ale and a mutton pie. ‘And he was a great hell-raiser in his day, cutting a swath of drinking and wenching across the whole west coast of Ireland. Until, one autumn, he met a girl washing the family clothes at a ford. He asked her for a kiss, and when she dismissed him, he took her anyway, defiling and abusing her in such a manner that no man would want her again.

  “‘Three days later the girl died in agony—and the singing began. On the seventh day after her death it reached its height. Callain spent his last night on this earth in abject terror—a terror the male members of the family have been subjected to ever since, down these long years.’

  “He told the story flatly, without emotion, as if it was something that had been dwelling on his mind so long that it had lost its power. But it had sparked something in my own memory.

  “I spent the rest of that day in Tait’s library, having to fight not to be distracted by old tomes I had long since thought lost to history while researching the matter of water, crossroads and violent death.

  “As you are aware from my previous musings, water is a far more potent indicator of the true nature of the world around us than it is given credit for. In the same way that it washes away everything before it, it is capable of absorbing the emanations from the microcosm—and also the macrocosm. A violent death serves as a brief opening across the veils. With water acting as both a solvent and a conduit, something might well have taken the opportunity to make its way to that ford in Ireland so long ago—something I had to do my utmost to get the better of, before it took my friend from me.

  “By the time Old John gave me notice that the evening meal was being prepared, I considered that I was as ready as I would ever be.

  “Over the meal Tait tried to press me on my plans. You know I prefer to play my cards close to my chest on these occasions, and I kept quiet in the hope that Tait’s natural reactions to events would better serve him than any unwarranted hope he might get that I would succeed. I myself was all too aw
are of the fixed deadline looming over him, and I knew that without my defenses I was ill-prepared for the coming battle. But Tait was my friend, and I would fight—to the death if required—to keep him safe.

  “The meal was another quiet one, and I had to forego the pleasures of his ale and liquor to keep a clear head for what was to come. Tait himself had no such qualms, and took to the single malt with some gusto, such that he was rather drowsy by the time the soft singing started up.

  “It came from high up in the rafters of the library at first, and initially was not too unpleasant, like a choir of devout monks at prayer, heard on a quiet night outside the abbey. But the noise soon rose to a shrill, piercing whistle, sending a lone bat skittering in the eaves high above and bringing an alarming flicker to the candles on the mantelpiece.

  “Glass shattered as Tait dropped his Scotch on the grate, but I could not afford to lose my concentration. I focused on trying to make sense of the singing, attempting to discern if there was any rhyme or reason to it even as the whistle became a wail of such pain and loss that sympathetic tears sprung unbidden to my eyes.

  “The source of the sound seemed to drift down from its high point, edging ever closer to where I stood almost directly below it. The air thickened, almost palpably, currents swirling as if a breeze came with the noises. A foul stench assaulted my nose and throat, one I had smelled far too often before—decay and corruption.

  “The vibration began in my skull and, as on the previous night, was not long in taking hold in my very bones; my guts roiled and seized as if in the throes of a gastric panic and it was all I could do to stand my ground.

  “But stand I did, even as the air thickened further. A murky gloom settled in the library, which darkened despite the candles, and a fog wafted like fine silk from up in the rafters, swirling and dancing in time to the rising scream. There was more than a single voice in that howl—there was a veritable chorus of them, wailing down on me through years of pain and sorrow. And more, now that I was close to it, I could discern that there was indeed a melody there, a semblance of something that might once even have been a song but was now little more than a howl, holding a mere memory of a tune.