The Haunting of Mr. Query, a gothic tale by Paul Carreo
It was an autumn of lamentations, the day I broke my fell stare from pale rain-blurred windows. My name is Franklin Arthur Query of the House of Query, the last of my line. I was spending my waning days scratching at the bones of the past, a withered lonesome crow in the hallowed derelict halls of my family’s once great manor. A blight swept the neighboring farmlands and consumption had claimed many lives, including that of my dear wife Abigail. The oily fog of death still lingered but for some reason had yet to take me. The only plague I now feared was the festering question of ‘when?’
Hovered over scantily laid papers, resolved to finish my memoirs, I reached at last to dip my pen. And then, a pinch. A sharp pinch at my hand. From what, I had no inkling. Until a small scurry dove over the ledge of my bureau. A spider? Oh I prayed not, for I loathed the creepy trespasses of a spider lurking in dark spaces. I drew my dim candelabra under the table to investigate. Where did it go, that pesky pest? How did it get in here, that spinsterish scourge?
Too often now, these little puzzles came crawling from the invisible to disturb me. They were the constant reminder of uncertainty abound. It was these tiny invisible monsters who gripped me with skittish possession. Following every string of yarn at my fingers, fishing for truth, nothing would return to me but echoes of my empty castings. The curse of the unanswered niggled and taunted me, and at that moment, with the suspicion of some shapeless arachnid. Or worse, was it a rat?
A crack of thunder startled me, as hot wax sizzled droplets onto my bitten hand. I stood abruptly, sharply bumping my head on the table’s edge. What was that? The howling gales churning into a thunder squall? Or some troubled thing stirring along the pine forest’s edge? I raced feverishly to the drawing room, dressing gown flying its tattered kitetails. My hand wiped misty film from the iron-framed windows, as another howl from afar cinched my stomach. What wickedness taunts me? A fox, perhaps? Fiery and flea-ridden, pillaging my henhouse. Or a wolf? One with rabies, demented and ravaging my goats. Would I be deprived the taste of mutton, of butter, of eggs, this cold bleak winter?
A fresh thunderclap rocked me backwards onto tilted heels, hands clutching crimson curtains like the reigns of a runaway carriage. Elm branches lashed against the dreary double panes and I petitioned them to cease their confounded wrapping. Could they shatter my false veneer of safety? Would their heavy limbs plunder fists upon my roof, leaving me penniless, freezing in hovelled corners?
I could no longer wearily ponder the sinister intentions of this squall. I fled to the kitchen, before the winds shaped themselves into some mad whirling deity. Despite my retreat from the leering windows, some frightful fiend seemed to follow me from the outside wall. The galley reeked heavy with vinegar from the unattended kettle of mulled wine. A bronze pot of six day old stew bubbled rancid. Had I eaten? How long had it been? The hanging herbs swarmed with black aphids and I longed to shoo them out a back garden door, which I dared not open. Had I remembered to lock it? Dare I test the latch?
Instead, I peered through the transom windows above the door. The overflowing river was pooling dark marsh into the garden beds, fording along the headstones of my sweet departed sons. What ghastly unrest would this roaring deluge unearth? Was I to bear witness to the walking dead, my ancestors dragging rotting legs from disturbed crypts to my doorstep? Would scratching nails drag me to hell at last? Why did I not kiss my wife and sons goodbye, to hold their hands in those feverish last moments? What terror had robbed me of my affections? How could I ever atone for such paralyzed absence? My eyes shut tight, defiant to the unfolding dark forest behind my back, pressed so coldly against the pantry door.
Frantically rubbing haunting illusions from my eyes, I was suddenly affronted by fresh devilries calling from the cellar stairs. Metal drums banged and clammored from the depths of my dank stone undercroft. Steampipe screeches of harpies fought below, as I crouched at the stairs delving into stone and fog. Had my furnace gone mad, churning and chewing on itself, mangling pipes and spitting fire upon the bones of my house? Had some cruel wraith made its den in the damp abyss, biding its time for wandering prey? These questions, questions, questions – once again laying writhing parasites in my once peaceful head.
I could take no more of these itching inquiries and their petulant demands. I slammed the cellar door and sprinted to the grand foyer, neck hair raising higher with the breath of what was surely following. My steps quickened up winding stairs, while imagined yellow teeth nipped at my heels. Flesh-decayed hands reached between railing spindles for my ankles, as I made haste to the top floor and into the safe chambers of my master suite. Sharp lightning cast ghastly shadows of dancing goblins across soot-stained walls. My soul shrieked and my eyes dropped, as I dove under soft bed covers, burying my head from this veiled demon deceiver, surely closing in for the kill.
Under a duvet of hot breath, all was dark and all went quiet. The thunder stopped and I could hear no rain. Suddenly, I became acutely haunted by the new mysteries of compounding possibilities. Under quilted blinders, this crossroads of uncertainty was worse than any horror my eyes could conjure, and I was filled with every dreadful ‘what, where and when’ that could ever be. Would the unbearable unknowns consume me here, if I did not confront them? Could one die from terror alone? With mustered bravado, I cast off my sheets and touched feet to rickety floorboards. There in the stillness of an empty room, a hypnotic light spilled from the closet door left ajar. I crept softly towards it, my hand reaching for the doorknob, emboldened to give form to the formless.
My body was washed in crimson light, as I stared into the abyss of my closet. Towering above me, sprawling the expanding corners of my wardrobe, was the foulest of Lovecraftian demons staring back, enchanting me while time stood frozen. Enveloped by the choking vapors of sulfur and rum, this spawn of hell met my eyeline with burning basilisk damnation. A thousand eyes scattered around its wolf-spider head and squid-like tentacles wrapped into a hooded mane. Transfixed on its widening jaws, I leaned into rings of lamprey teeth, winding endlessly down its wormhole throat. At the pit of its stomach, I glimpsed the vacuous center of a lashing blackhole, greedily gobbling up suns and planets into a gravity well. Charmed by visions of oblivion, I stood in horrific awe. Until this ancient leviathan grappled my arms with stabbing fingers and pulled me into its slow consuming python mouth.
Before my final descent into this ninth gate of hell, where I was certain to spend perpetuity in vicious torment, swallowed by the infinite horror of finality, one last thought washed over me. Taking a final gasp of the stale manor’s air, I whispered, ‘Oh thank heavens, at last,’ exhaling with surprising relief, ‘an end to this query.’
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Paul Carreo 