By Andrew J. Schmidt

I have always found the night a welcome companion. A sanctuary. Beneath the pale light of the moon, the world seems muted, calm, as though holding on to its breath, and the mind is freed from the tyranny of the sun. I once preferred those hours above all others. I long for those peaceful moonlit meditations.

Before the night betrayed me — before I learned why I must now sleep with a lamp at my bedside and my shutters drawn.

*****

Several nights ago, I undertook the task of assisting an associate by the name of Arthur to deliver goods from Dutton’s Emporium, his father’s mercantile shop, to the unfortunate poor that lived in the countryside near town. As queer as this may sound, Arthur’s family store had been making deliveries to such folk for several generations, as one of Arthur’s great-great-grandmothers had succumbed to a sort of madness and had been blacklisted and ousted from the town, alone. Months later, she was found emaciated and deceased in the river upstream from town. No one knew what had happened exactly, but none in town had offered her assistance, and no one in the countryside had offered the poor soul shelter. Since that day, the Dutton family had felt it necessary to take care of such people…though, I confess that I have no desire to do so. My patience for such folk is next to nothing, unfortunately, and I hold no sympathies for those that will not help themselves. Nevertheless, I took to this task as a personal favor to Arthur and more so his father, as I had recently started renting a small apartment above the family store at a discounted price.

On this particular evening, Arthur requested that we leave after the store closed for the day as he was the only one manning the business. I met him at the back of the store and helped load supplies into the back of his father’s battered motor-wagon. It seemed that it would be a warm autumn evening, and I had been looking forward to a drive through the old country roads that wound along the river.

As we loaded the assorted goods into the back of the wagon, I noticed multiple crates bore the name Wakely House — a place whose history had long intrigued me.

 It had been founded in the early 1800s and had served as one of the first points of civilization along the area of the river known as the Shallows. At one point, there was an inn and trading post on the premises, as well as a small farm. The Wakely family had also operated a ferry to cross the Shallows for well over one hundred years. After a large fire in 1874 razed everything to the ground and burned twenty-one people alive (Wakely and visitor alike), all that stood was a rebuilt simulacrum of the original inn that still housed one sole surviving member of the Wakely family.

 During the fire which caused the destruction of the Wakely House, patrons of the Inn fled to the Ferry raft and set out onto the water only to have it buckle under the stress of too many bodies and all those aboard drowned in the angry current of the river. After these events, the minister of the local church blessed the beach in front of the inn and had a large cross erected along the riverbank as a sign to those travelling along the river that lives had been lost at that site.

Though interesting, none of this history truly captivated me, however. I was more interested in the “dark” history that had always been alluded to in my college history classes. It had long been rumored that the first Wakley had made nefarious dealings with a kind of “water devil” to appease the “savages” that had previously been quite aggressive towards any white settlers in the area. As part of the dealings with this water spirit, Wakely’s personal enterprises would prosper and grow, but at the expense of dark blood rituals and human sacrifice (alleged to be carried out by drowning innocent inn patrons in the Shallows in the middle of the night). According to these same tales, the property burned down not due to an errant lightning strike, as was documented in the local history books, but rather due to a terrible ritual gone awry.

I did not credit these tales for even a moment, but found it amusing and entertaining, and the fact that I would be on the site of all the scandalous rumors in short order excited me to some extent.

Arthur and I finished loading the wares as I mused over this notion, and we soon left for our first deliveries. Of course, my conversations with him eventually turned to the Wakely house and all the evil that befell the property in years past. Arthur did not seem amused and wanted nothing much to do with the discussion.

*****

Rolling hills covered in auburn, orange, and yellow leaves, and the rapid river greeted us as we crossed the south bridge out of town. Crossing the bridge, I again recalled the ferry catastrophe in which people drowned. I noticed that Arthur clutched the silver cross about his neck and heard him murmur a quiet prayer.

 Though barely past 6 o’clock the sun was starting to dip towards the horizon. I genuinely enjoy this time of the year in these parts. Arthur shifted gears as he seemed to tune out our conversation.

Our first few stops went rather quickly, and the families were thankful for the food and supplies provided by the Dutton family. However, one stop caused a delay, the Dodges. The Dodge family proved to be the most troublesome of the route to that point. Only the mother, Ophelia, possessed the power of speech; the others milled about the yard in a strange agitation, uttering low, throaty sounds that put me in mind of animals rather than men.

As we brought the wagon to a halt, three of them rushed forward and pressed against the doors, peering in with wide, unblinking eyes. It was evident in the waning daylight that the flesh of these people was quite pale with an impossible to ignore odor -fetid swamp and earth- seemingly attached to their very essence. Indeed, the children seemed as if they had just crawled from the very river itself, I mused.

We remained trapped thus for nearly an hour before finally being able to complete our delivery. The Dodge children continued to follow us about, making gulping motions and sounds and moving the mouth as if to speak, only for no intelligible words to issue forth. Like a fish out of water. At one point the elder boy, Nathan, seized my waistcoat and tugged at it with surprising strength, his mouth working soundlessly as though he meant to speak but could not, all the while staring directly at my bare throat. When I pulled away, he snapped at my arm with a strength and suddenness that froze my blood.

It was not until my acquaintance started the engine of the motor-wagon again that the poor Dodge creatures recoiled and scrambled to the disjointed, decrepit hut that constituted their familial home. It was then that Arthur indicated to me in a hushed tone that he had seen the Dodge sons staring at our wagon as we pulled away- and that they were gesticulating wildly towards the nearby river.

 As we pulled away and the Dodge homestead disappeared over the hill behind us, Arthur explained that the Dodges had not always been this way. The family Patriarch, now long-dead, had been a doctor before his descent into madness.

I confess I felt unaccountable relief as we left that place behind, though I could not have said precisely why.

*****

Following the Dodge delivery, we finished Arthur’s route, finally arriving at the Wakely House. As we drove down the narrow winding road to the property, we skirted along the river. I could not help but notice the white-capped waves raging along were much higher than normal for October, recalling the stories of the Wakely family and the dark tales in their history. I noted that the river seemed especially high currently and that Shallows mustn’t be terribly shallow anymore. I must have been talking about it aloud because Arthur became perturbed and assured me that there was nothing out of the ordinary there and that only an old man now lives on the property. He told me that he has never seen the old man, but assumes he is still there because packages get dropped off every month, and these are gone by the time of the next delivery.

It was near midnight and the moon was high in the sky when we pulled near the decrepit building that is Wakely House. If it were not for having to park a distance away from that place due to a large fallen tree blocking the trail, the off-loading of supplies would have only taken a third of the time. The original inn had burned in 1874, taking patrons and family alike…now a rebuilt inn sat in its place. Mostly devoid of any signs of life. Arthur and I approached the place with the first of the crates as the wind shifted and whipped up a bit.

The moon cast an eerie, pale light on the old inn. Its chipped paint and wrought-iron gate seemed unwelcoming and reminded me of something from a Robert Chambers story I had read recently. Moss covered the exterior as if the surrounding swamp were trying to reclaim the sad building. I noted that there was one lone candle burning in a cracked upstairs window and mentioned to Arthur that the old hermit was probably still awake. Arthur chuckled and remarked, “The Old Man must be afraid of the dark.”  As we approached, I noticed that all the other windows were boarded up.

When I suggested that we could knock on the door, Arthur shook his head nervously and mentioned we were not to disturb Wakely….and almost at once indicated that we needed to unload our wares and leave.

All the stories I had heard about that place seemed paltry and I had to admit uncertainty regarding its lore as I looked at the archaic looking inn. It is my impression that it looked decrepit and somewhat dingy, but not necessarily unholy or haunted in any manner. I was unimpressed to be frank. A squat, old, uninspiring, greyish-white cube. Arthur pulled the motor-wagon to a stop, and we began to unload what seemed like a large number of supplies for an old man. Food of varying types. Crates of candles. Firewood. A large chest of coarse salts.

Under the cover of shifting clouds Arthur and I walked the old man’s packages around to the front side of the building, just as Arthur had done the last few times. Because of that damned tree, our unloading took quite a bit more time than had been planned for.

 When we had finished unloading Old Man Wakely’s delivery and out of my curiosity and interest, I convinced Arthur to take a walk with me around Wakely House before leaving. I had wanted to get one last look at the fabled inn of demise, and it seemed Arthur was growing weary of my musings and willing to give in to me. The rest of the building was every bit as run down and moss covered as the part I had studied upon our approach, and the windows were just as cracked and distorted. I had come hoping to find signs of dark rituals and evil but had found only an ancient inn that was falling into the swamp around it. I was again unimpressed and as we neared the far end of the yard, meaning to leave Wakely, we found it blocked off by a hedgerow. Arthur grunted in displeasure and turned around to back track our way out.

Because of said hedgerow, we were forced to go all the way back around the entirety of Wakely House and as we passed the door I saw a pale, old man hunched in the doorway. Leaning ever so slightly. Staring silently. As if to burn holes through my skull.

Noticing this, Arthur jumped back, startled- and I spoke-stating that he had given us a bit of a start. Met with silence, I tried to converse with the pallid figure before me, but no response or recognition came. He only stared at us with bulgy, rheumy eyes that seemed to hold fire behind them.

As the moon peered out from behind a thick cloud, I noticed his gaze shift from me to the riverbank, his mouth agape, as if gasping for air. Arthur and I both turned to see what had drawn the old man’s attention and saw the river waters raging and rising as if to say something had angered it. In the pale light of the moon I saw exactly what the old man was staring at.

Faces! FACES! Pale ghost-fleshed faces rose under and over the raging waters that were swirling. And I assure you…. I will never forget the screaming that rose suddenly. As if to rise and fall with the now angry river. Screaming! Contorting, pale and angry in the moonlight.

 My breath felt like it had frozen in my body, heart pounding as if to leap from my breast. Arthur stood next to me, murmuring madly. He gesticulated out towards the water and began shaking terribly, though to what he was pointing I could not see.

 I finally managed to move my mouth to force out the word “RUN!” 

It was then that I heard a large splash, my heart now in my stomach. I turned over my shoulder to see the large wooden cross, age-worn and tattered fall into the water as the angry waves tore the earth out from beneath it. Waves and faces and foam swirling, the water now crept farther up the shore towards Wakely House, and with it what appeared to be a roiling mass of pallid, wet serpentine tendrils. Only later did I remember that some claimed Wakely’s victims had been drowned deliberately…

By this time Arthur and I were running. I could hear the moaning and the screaming of those terrible pale faces still. And could hear slow wet popping sounds along with it. I could feel it in my teeth and can now hear it in my head if I pause a moment-a terrible, wet sloshing sound. As if large, wet snakes were moving up the shore. I saw Arthur look over his shoulder as he ran in front of me. He was screaming as he ran…indiscernible and incoherent.

We made it to the motor-wagon, legs feeling as if lead had been joined to the bone. The sucking noises now were becoming ever louder. I pushed Arthur into the cab and started the wagon.

As I pulled away, I thought I saw in the mirror what looked like a large, pallid appendage wrap about the figure of Old Wakely. I swear that I saw a sort of pseudopod-like appendage emerge from this roiling mass as well, but its countenance was indescribable. I turned my head and sped off towards town, trying to block out everything my eyes had just seen.

*****

By the time I had driven the one half-hour into town, Arthur had quieted himself. Rocking back and forth as if on Grandmother’s rocking chair. I pulled into town and noted that bright moonlight lit up the town in a ghostly light…. almost as if to remind me of the indescribable terrors I had just seen.

I winced at the notion of trying to sleep as I pulled up to Arthur’s home. He stumbled out of the motor-wagon, half-asleep and whispering something about ancestors and that he would speak with me later. I swear I could almost hear those wet slithering sounds as he whispered, just as I can hear it now if I close my eyes.

I did not know that would be the last time that I saw my dear childhood friend.

I went to my apartment above Dutton’s store and tried to forget the evening’s events. The task was impossible and my thoughts kept drifting back to the wailing pale faces in the waves and the ungodly tendrils crawling up the beach. Sometime before dawn I must have drifted off to sleep, but it was not restful. My dreams were haunted by that water demon and the sounds of the entity’s movements gnawing at my ears. I kept seeing the pallid, slimy mass of a tendril grabbing Old Man Wakely. I saw Wakely scream as his torso was rent in two.

*****

Finally, I woke around noon (due to someone rapping….no…pounding on my door). It was the town patrolman, John Reiman.

The constable went on to inform me that something terrible had happened the previous evening. Arthur had been found in the river upstream from town, and it appeared that he had committed suicide. It seemed that he had thrown himself from Swallow Rock into the rushing current some three hundred feet below. Reiman asked me to disclose to him what occurred the past evening, as it was known that Arthur and I had gone out to make deliveries. I was beginning to fear he would find me quite mad if I disclosed those nightmarish events.

 I told him that I had made deliveries for Dutton’s with Arthur and returned extremely late. Well past midnight. Reiman seemed placated by my story but then pressed me for information about the Wakely House delivery found on Arthur’s manifest. He went on to say that William Wakely had been found on the opposite shore of the Shallows- torn to shreds, and that the inn had burned down in the night. I shook my head and words came out of my mouth but as to what I said, I cannot say. All I could focus on was the sight of the Old Man being torn apart as the hairs on my body stood on end like goose flesh. Reiman nodded solemnly at whatever spilled from my lips and left my apartment. As a parting gift, I was informed that someone from the Office of the Sheriff would be in contact with me regarding my time at Wakely the previous night (as it was outside the purview and authority of the town police).

The patrolman took his leave with a slight grin. He had taken up much of my afternoon and shadows were already gathering along the cobblestones…along the walk outside my library window. The whole interview with the lawman left me tussled in the head. Not only had Arthur unexplainably killed himself, but now I was potentially a suspect for the odd occurrences at Wakely House. As I sat pondering the situation I have now found myself in, I swear I could hear the noises again, this time much louder than before. Closer. Damp thuds.

 I remained in my residence for the rest of the day, partaking of a well-aged brandy, prepared with bitters and sugars and reading that Robert W. Chambers tale once again. I found that if I had my shutters closed and curtains drawn after dark, and some manner of interior light, the sounds of that unholy evening seem to diminish -though seeping dampness seems to have leeched deep into my bones. (No matter the number of sweaters and blankets I ensconce myself with-the coldness remains.)

After several generous measures of brandy and a chapter or two of tales, I once again slipped into sleep and had the same terrible dreams as previously.

*****

Yesterday I awoke to find that I had left several lanterns burn while I slept. As I stirred from my davenport, I saw some kind of foul-smelling ooze or mucus move across my threshold.

I also saw what appeared to be large ring-shaped impressions all along the jamb and door itself.

Between the noises and this new development, I begin to fear for my sanity. I do not know how much more I can take of this madness.

I spent much of yesterday just poring over the events of the previous days in my head and reciting the Rosary and the Lord’s Prayer. In English, German and in Latin. I am not much of a religious man; however, I felt that it could not hurt to try it.

I swear that I cannot shake the feeling that I am being watched at this point. I finished my day reading scripture and lighting every lamp in my apartment. Much like a frightened child in the night, I would not take a chance that something could get to me whilst I slept.

*****

When I awoke this morn, I found much the same about my door as the day before, if not worse- and similar disgusting things about my library window.

I went today to speak with the local Sheriff. I again acquiesced from telling my whole tale on the account that I did not wish to end up at the County Asylum. Regardless, I am not confident that the Sheriff feels that I am not culpable in the events at the Wakely House. He did release me on the condition that I stay in contact with him over the next week and that I check in with Mr. Dutton daily. I of course obliged and thanked him for his time.

But this did nothing to assuage my fears of madness, nor did it assuage my feelings that I would not end up incarcerated for the death of either Arthur Dutton or William Wakely.

After my encounter with the Sheriff, and since Arthur was no longer available to assist his father in the store, I took a break from my studies for the day and worked as a stock man in the store until it closed for the day. Mr. Dutton of all people seemed to understand my plight and was friendly -if not saddened considering the recent events. All the while I found my mind wandering to the nightmarish sights and especially the sounds of my madness and prayed that it would pass.

 Regardless, I was able to struggle through the day occasionally wincing at the memory of those unholy pale faces. Ever peering over my shoulder. Ever hearing soft squashing noises on occasion. I finished closing and shuttering the shop and returned home, where I am currently sitting in my library writing to you.

I have not been eating much and have been feeling a bit feverish, so I may eat something and turn in for the evening if I can forget my worries for a time. My concern is that I now see my once beloved silvery pale moon creeping into my library and I am nearly out of lantern oil. What a fool I was to not bring more home after closing Dutton’s.

The smell of dank river water seems trapped in my apartment, growing stronger the longer the night wears on.

 I will be closing the windows, shutters, and curtains as well as lighting candles in the hopes it will stave off whatever it is that has been haunting me and my dreams. I must try to relax. Perhaps some more brandy. Straight this time.

Perhaps I will partake of the remaining bits of laudanum I have reserved for emergent situations. Sleep.

*****

Dear God in Heaven, the sucking, waterlogged shifting has started again, and it is louder than ever. I can now hear it outside my doorway. I can hear it on my stairwell, and I can make out something slithering and “scritching” at my threshold.

I can now see what appears to be an oozing mass of feelers directly outside and under my apartment door. Wet. Dead white.

This evil is upon me; Lord have mercy on my soul…. What devil have you sent to my doorstep!

I must flee. My library window is my only means of escape! Goodbye and farewell, friend.

Night is comforting. Moonlight is maddening.

###

Andrew J. Schmidt is a purveyor of horror and weird fiction from Kentucky. His work explores atmosphere, folklore, and the unsettling spaces where the ordinary gives way to the uncanny. When not writing, he enjoys spending time with his family, history, mythology, and the quiet places that inspire his stories.