A Nurse in the Fog

September 12, 2021 ~ jsettger ~ Leave a comment

(Not sure how to introduce this one. It’s not my usual stuff. Let’s just call it something weird I threw together over the last couple of days)

The room is strangely but thankfully quiet. The old man next to me, on the other side of a thin curtain, must have settled. In my mind, he is a thousand miles away. The regular bustle of the room and the hall outside has passed into a distant drone, like a dream fading from memory after waking. Passively, I feel like calmness has transcended the world.

I lay in a bed, fatigued but unable to sleep. My thoughts are sluggish and without focus; a break from the boredom I am unable to appreciate. It feels almost like time has slowed to keep pace with me.

I am not sure when she arrived or how long she has been there, but a young nurse stands at the end of my bed. I cannot make out her features, as if she were backlit. She is young with shoulder length hair, though I cannot make out the colour. She stands very still and silent.

I blink. She is gone. It is the mildest shock, more like confusion.

The moment passes. The bubble of tranquility breaks. The sounds, smells and motion of reality surge back in. There is not much space in the room, and a quick looks confirms the nurse is gone. A moment later, I feel strangely self-conscious about the encounter; as though fragments of that calm, peaceful moment linger about me.

This nurse visits me several times during my stay. Sometimes, she holds my hand or feels my forehead. Each time, she disappears moments after I become aware of her. She always takes the calm with her; though I am too overwhelmed in those moments to realise it. The echoes of recollection are surreal despite the simplicity of the encounters.

The nurse is not real. She is a concoction of my mind, distilled from a mix of insomnia, drugs and suffering; a nearly comforting hallucination. Still, she was quite real in those brief moments.

I return home. The nurse no longer visits. I am glad to leave her behind. Perhaps she will visit others there.

Sacrifice, Part 5

February 8, 2020 ~ jsettger ~ Leave a comment

(Horror. The full story of the Hardwick House is revealed in a disturbing conclusion)

The smell was what hit her first, followed by the nasty sound of something metallic clanking against something else. Her flashlight cut through the darkness, tracing through lines of chains and hooks and other things less clear to her. She could not make out a stairway, ladder or other door; her heart felt like it was going to jump out of her chest in raw panic.

“Colin,” she whispered hoarsely, “is someone else here?”

Before she could react, the flashlight was knocked out of her hands, smashing on the floor and sputtering out. Colin’s camping light was somehow distant or failing; she could barely see for the shadows. Her arm was pinned behind her, followed by the other. She raised her knee and kicked out, though it seemed not to affect her attacker. A moment later, something slipped over her wrists and held them in place behind her back. As if remembering she could, Macy screamed for Colin; the last thing she could remember before blacking out, wild with fear.

Colin felt ill. Reality, ugly and dark, was sinking in fast. The presence had materialised in front of him. The gloomy figure of Charles Hardwick, founder of the American Hardwick clan and resident, undead psychopath stood before Colin. His image was indistinct and blurred, though it was unmistakably the old man. Colin had known him for a long time.

“The appointed time hath come, young Colin,” Charles said in his usual mix of mumbles and groaning.

“I know, Grandfather,” Colin said, strangely self-conscious about speaking aloud to the apparition, “and I am here.”

“’tis well,” Charles said. “Time doth drain me, though it be a curse of my own making. Art thou prepared?”

“Almost,” Colin said, hanging his head. “I have to tell her before it is done.” He could feel a wave of angry disapproval emanate from Charles, as easy to notice as a sudden change in temperature.

“A waste,” Charles spat. “What is gained by it, young Colin?”

“My conscience will be appeased, if only a little,” Colin said flatly, not wishing to debate his decision.

“Ye throw the minutes to the wind as a wastrel, child,” Charles uttered with distaste. “My curse holds as ye dally with idle talk.”

Colin had prepared for this exchange as he had for the one to convince Macy to explore the secret passage. It was just a matter of executing the plan.

“I am no longer a young boy, Grandfather,” he said calmly. “Still, I plan to honour my oath to end the curse. Midnight has not come or passed, so the time between is mine to use as I please, and it pleases me to explain all this madness to her. You have lingered here for over two hundred years, a few more moments should be an easy matter.” Grandfather was angry and impatient, yet shrewd enough to try hastening things.

“Your conscience will cause ye no ill, lad,” Charles said, still angry. “Mind ye, I might. Think on it.”

“You never had a conscience, Grandfather,” Colin said, remaining calm despite his rising temper, “so your advice has no weight to it. And harm me if you want. I know you will not. I am the last Hardwick, the final heir to the family, and if I fail tonight your own curse will deny you rest for eternity.”

“As ye will, child,” Charles growled, simmering rage beneath his words. He stood silent and still, hovering over the room with the appearance of patience. Colin felt energized after standing up to his grandfather.

Colin tied Macy’s ankles tightly before lifting her onto the ancient table, securing her further with chains. It would be enough to hold her until it was over. He gently shook her. “Macy,” he said, “you need to wake up for a while. Just for a while, darling.”

Macy was slow to come around. The moments of fear she last remembered were distant and dreamlike. It took a minute for her to recall her situation; her fear was less frantic, abated, perhaps, by her helpless condition. Colin looked menacing in the strange light, yet his presence was a bizarre comfort.

“There are things you need to know,” Colin began explaining, not wishing to drag the ordeal out.

“Why?” was all she asked. “What is happening?”

“The family has been troubled by accidents and tragedy for many generations,” Colin said, keeping it plain. “This is not chance. Rather, it is a curse from beyond.”

“What are you talking about?” Macy asked, understanding his words but not really following his meaning.

“The family has been under a curse, imposed by one of its own patriarchs many generations ago,” Colin said, simply moving along without concern if she did not follow in detail. “You see, Charles, the grey haired man in the portrait in the master suite, came into conflict with his son over…business matters. The old man wanted to continue illegal practices as part of the regular business. His son wanted to phase that out. Things became tense between them, threatening to divide the family.”

“Colin,” Macy said, eyes growing wide with fear, “what is going on? Did you drug me?”

He glanced to his side. Charles hovered there, half mist and half shadow; every bit the ghoulish beast he had always been. Macy must be feeling his intense malice and anger at being denied an immediate resolution, he thought; something he had grown used to.

“Sorry,” Colin said, only wanting to finish his explanation without distraction. “The old man turned on his son, threatening to disown him, or worse, if he failed to obey. The son was not pleased with the threats and mustered his own supporters, turning on the old man. They stormed the house.”

Macy was growing hysterical. “Not real, not real, not real…” she began to whisper, like a protective mantra. Colin was tempted to slap her, shock her out her state.

“The old man was unprepared,” Colin went on. “They took him and were not certain what to do with him. They worried he would return with hired help, or something, if they simply cast him out. The biggest thing, really, was the money. Charles had hidden the greater share of the family fortune somewhere, and was not telling. The money was critical to the Hardwick future, no matter what direction the business took.”

Macy had stopped her whispered chant but hardly seemed to be absorbing Colin’s explanation; which was mattering less and less to him.

“They brought him here,” Colin said, “to this very room. I am sure they did not plan for things to be overly brutal, but it was a dark age and things turned ugly. A few days beatings turned to whippings, and escalated from there. The torture became something grotesque, medieval. It was long and terrible, ending in the death of old Charles, keeping his secret to the end. The family found the money some years later, making the horrendous act meaningless.”

Macy finally seemed to regard Colin in a lucid state. “They killed him?” she asked, almost numbly.

“Yes, Macy,” Colin said, tenderly, “and in his later moments he cursed them, us, to lives of tragedy and suffering for several generations. He committed his own spirit to enforcing the curse in this world. His rage and resentment is not diminished.”

“Why this, Colin?” Macy asked gently.

“Old Charles became a regular companion of mine, as a boy,” Colin explained, “until my father caught wind of our communications and moved us away. The curse can be lifted with a sacrifice. The Hardwick heir must kill his betrothed, here in this room, by the end of today. It is the only way.”

“I love you, Colin,” she said, almost as if she welcomed her fate.

“I love you, too,” he replied, not meaning it but wishing her a touch of comfort in her last moments. The blade was an old one, suggested by Charles so many years earlier.

Colin turned to the apparition beside him, feeling the eagerness flow off him, and narrowed his eyes with resentment.

“What I do now,” he said, as much to Charles as he did to whatever God might be out there listening, “is not of my own free will. I am coerced by a demon beside me, may his soul reside below for all time.” Charles stayed silent, seeming concerned only with what was to come.

Macy was strikingly silent, only gasping slightly as the blade punched through her chest; her heart broken twice by the blow. She struggled to breathe for a few moments before expiring. It felt like she had passed in less than a minute.

“Is it done?” Colin asked.

“Her passage is beginning now,” Charles said. “The soul is holding to the flesh as a babe to the womb before birth. It will be done soon.”

“Then what? Do you move on? Am I truly free?”

“I shall pass to the beyond and be judged,” Charles said, with the first tinge of sadness Colin had ever heard from him. “With that, I or my curse shall trouble thee nevermore.”

After some moments of standing over Macy’s still body, Charles finally reacted to something invisible to Colin. “Her departure begins,” he said, as if in awe.

Colin felt relieved, somehow. This thing had stayed with him, troubling him like a monster under his bed for his lifetime. He could truly live, now.

An irksome, troubling feeling from Charles struck Colin as harshly as a bucket of ice water might have. The look and feel from the elder ghost grew into a state of malice and rage such that Colin had never known from him. Something was extremely wrong, and Colin could not think of what it might be.

“What is it?” he asked, fearfully.

“Thou wouldst cheat me,” Charles said in blood soaked words. “Such is the manner of mine own kin, sadly.”

“I did everything my oath required,” Colin said, never so afraid as this before. “How did I cheat you?”

“Ye bring a betrothed to me, already known to a man before,” Charles spat, raw rage a torrent from him now. “Ye, the last Hardwick, shall suffer worldly torments worse than mine own before we ride to the seven hells together.”

Colin was too shocked to respond or take any action, at all, as Charles descended upon him, a force of pure wrath. Colin’s screams found him as Charles began his vengeance.

Sacrifice, Part 1

January 11, 2020 ~ jsettger ~ Leave a comment

(I return from holidays a little refreshed and ready to kick off 2020. I hope everyone had a happy and restful time. Thought I would switch gears from the long, sci-fi and jump back to some shorter, spooky stuff. This is a horror/ghost story with just a hint of mystery thrown in. Hope you enjoy.)

“You have been putting this off for forever, Colin,” Macy nagged playfully. “Like so many other things.”

Colin was getting used to the nagging; it was growing more frequent as the wedding day approached. He put up with it, on account of the bigger picture. “The old house isn’t going anywhere, so a few more minutes will be okay.”

“I guess so,” she agreed, keeping things playful.

The car was already packed and ready for the short drive to the Hardwick House. Even though he had only brought up the family house recently, the trip to see it was high on both their priority lists. Macy already knew she liked Colin; he fit her check list so well that it sometimes scared her. His family had dwindled from several accidents and tremendous ill luck, true, but that also meant fewer in-laws to interfere or quarrel with. Colin was a junior partner in a mediocre law firm, clean cut and God-fearing. He was a little older than she had hoped for; that being the worst thing about him. He had not immediately told her about the family estate in the heart of New England he had recently inherited, perhaps concerned that she was a gold digger, yet this seemed a reasonable precaution to her. She had not accepted his proposal for his money, but the additional security it provided was welcome.

For Colin, the house had some value beyond childhood memories. He had been raised there until he was nine, when his father whisked Colin and his mother away to New York City. Life had been good at the Hardwick House, a remote, Victorian mansion in a magnificent state of upkeep; especially compared to a busy, loud and crowded New York City. Twenty five years later, Colin was in a tight spot. Despite relative success as a business lawyer, his lifestyle and some questionable investments had set his finances back. Debts were crippling, nearly to the point of breaking. The family estate came to him as an early surprise; the recent passing of an estranged uncle being the last in a string of unusual deaths. The place was worth a fair chunk of change; at least, enough to pay his mounting debts and give him a fresh start. Still, there was always a price, even for an unexpected gift.

The plan was to spend Saturday night at the house in order to check it out. Colin’s Uncle Cyril had been keeping the place as a summer residence. Uncle Cyril had been carrying out some upkeep toward selling the place, so the property would keep them dry enough for a weekend. They brought camping gear, just in case.

“How long since your uncle stayed there?” Macy asked as they got underway.

“Almost a year,” Colin said, sure he had told her before.

“I still can’t believe it took so long for the will to go through,” she said, mostly to make conversation. Colin had only told her about it a month ago. She had been dying to see Colin’s childhood home ever since.

“It was a pretty screwy will,” Colin said, playing along with the idle conversation. “I think he probably didn’t want the place going to me. He did everything except exclude me from the will. If he had, there would be an auction right now.” Cyril had willed his entire estate to a series of friends who turned out to have passed away or disappeared. The will was clearly old; the old man had not expected to kick off so soon. When it was clear that no one in the will was available to take it, Hardwick House passed to the next available family member.

“You were kind of vague about his break with the family,” Macy went on. “He didn’t get along with your dad, somehow?”

“The reason I was vague is because I never had it explained to me, either,” Colin explained. “No one talked about it, really. What I know came in bits and pieces. Mom and dad were already dead before I left law school, so there wasn’t a lot of adult discussion of family politics. Who knows, they might never have told me, anyway.”

“Your uncle was mad that your dad left the estate,” Macy probed. “Seems like a weird thing to fight over.”

Colin smiled. He had wondered about the full connection to his own understanding of the house and Uncle Cyril’s rift with his father. “It could be anything, I guess. For all I know, dad left because of the fight. The bits and pieces suggest Cyril felt dad owed it to my grandparents to stay. I just don’t have enough information to say, really.”

Macy smiled and put her hand Colin’s shoulder. “You’re funny,” she said, almost giggling, “with your legal need to have it all evidenced out. You don’t even want to try a few theories?”

“Not really,” Colin said, really not caring about the details of an event that no longer mattered.

“Okay,” she said, trying to find a new angle to keep the conversation going. “What did your uncle do for a living?”

“He was a building contractor,” Colin said. “As far as I know, that was all he ever did.”

Macy nodded. “And did he have much money of his own? He was keeping up a pretty expensive property for a few years.”

“He was planning on selling it in a few years, according to the paperwork. His contracting business didn’t make a ton of money, but he seemed to manage. For all I know, he was selling family heirlooms to make the difference. As it stands, I already sold his business to one of his senior employees to cover the legal costs related to the stupid will. He was worth that much, at least.”

“Hopefully he kept the plumbing up,” Macy said, looking to lighten things. “I don’t really want to do my business in a pot all weekend.”

“I think the place is livable, including plumbing,” Colin said, checking his blind spot as he pulled onto the interstate. “A local caretaker was keeping the place up until a couple of weeks ago. Another provision of the will.”

“Why did he stop?” Macy asked. A caretaker was news to her.

“A short term contract provided for in the will,” Colin said. “It’s part of why I wanted to see the place now. If the place is good enough to sell, as is, I may hire him on again until a deal closes.” He had already explained his intention to fix the house up, if needed, to maximize the price.

“Would you ever consider keeping it?” she asked. She had brought it up before, briefly, but never really discussed it beyond that.

Colin smirked. “Part of me wouldn’t mind. The truth is that my life is based in the city. The commute is almost manageable, except for the winters. I couldn’t justify the place as a summer residence, considering what year round taxes and insurance would cost. Besides, just keeping the place up would be a job. There must be a dozen bedrooms alone.”

Macy smiled again, suddenly feeling close to him. “Maybe, when we finally stop waiting to do the deed,” she said, half serious, “we could work on filling those rooms.” She had casually referenced their state of celibacy. Macy was not altogether the most religious girl, however she had a strong desire to remain celibate until her wedding night; which was, for Colin, the only thing that mattered.

Colin looked away to hide the look crossing his face, obvious sadness and regret. When he turned back, smiling, she seemed not to have noticed. “That’s a lot of rooms,” was all he said.

The expressway gave way to a short run on a secondary highway before leading to a genuine side road. The road was hilly and winding at stops, seeming to hug the landscape. Irregular intervals of houses and farms quickly gave way to trees and brush. For Macy, a true city girl, they were suddenly in a wilderness; and she was uncomfortable with it. They had been fairly quiet for a while, and she needed the comfort of conversation.

“You weren’t kidding about the place being in the middle of nowhere,” she said, hoping he would converse.