I Warned You

I warned You.

1895 – Liverpool Docks

The smog was particularly heavy that day in 1895. The narrow streets of Liverpool seemed to suspend the choking smoke in place. Being close to the docks, the thick soup coming from the ships would blend with the white smoke emitting from every chimney pot.

On this day, Charlie was getting ready to go to work. He was employed to unload the many ships coming in. They would work in teams of four or five men to quickly churn through the armada of vessels that would dock, unload, and quickly move on to their next destination.

Charlie worked alone. He would like to work in a team, the work was back breaking, arduous, and dangerous. The men down at the docks called him ch ch Charlie in account of his debilitating stutter that made verbal communication difficult at best. He had suffered with the stutter since he was a young child and he had always been bullied for it. Even as an adult, the other men down at the docks would verbally abuse him routinely.

He tried to laugh with them, but it hurt him. He wasn’t a bad person, in fact, he would do anything for anyone if only he was given the chance.

Charlie made it to the docks with ten minutes to spare. ‘g g g good m morning Mister S S Sampson.’ Said Charlie. His supervisor just nodded and pointed to the vessel that had arrived. ‘That’s full of grain. I need it unloading before you go for your dinner.’ Said Mister Sampson.

‘N N N No problem, M M M’....

‘Just get on with it’ snapped his supervisor. ‘you’ll be here all day if you don’t shut up.’

Charlie made his way over to the small clipper ship. The sails were in a state of disrepair and the whole deck looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in weeks.

He jumped aboard and looked at the thirty or so large sacks that needed to be pulled off the boat. He knew from experience that these were heavy, and also, he knew he wouldn’t get any help. It would be a long and exhausting day.

The crew of six men made their way from the lower deck. They looked dishevelled and malnourished. They said nothing to Charlie as they brushed past him. He kept his head down as they left the ship.

Charlie began to unload the sacks. They must have weighed upwards of 120 lbs each. He felt his legs straining under the weight at each step while he carried the large sacks over his shoulder. Although it was mid-winter, he sweated.

After three hours, the cargo was all shifted and moved onto the awaiting cart. Charlie always did a thorough job, and he was sure that any other man in the docks wouldn’t be able to do it on their own, but it was necessity as nobody wanted to work with him.

He checked one last time to see if all the sacks had been moved. As he walked over a large trapdoor that led to the lower deck, he smelt a smell that made his stomach churn. It smelt like human waste mixed with rotting flesh.

Charlie being Charlie, he wanted to make sure that everything was okay. He looked around to see if the crew were around, but they were nowhere to be seen.

He found the steps to the lower deck and shouted down. ‘h h h hello?’

There was no answer. ‘h h h h hello?’ he shouted again. His calls were met with silence.

As he turned to head off the deck, he heard a noise coming from the deck below. He needed to make sure there wasn’t someone who needed his help. Charlie carefully and slowly made his way down the steps. Each one creaking under his weight.

The smell became worse on each step he took.

The lower deck was in a complete mess. There were upturned tables, broken chairs and smashed glass strewn all over the floor.

The air was thick with the disgusting smell and what little light there was, was full of dust. He noticed what looked to be an extremely rusty cage, around ten feet squared. He could tell that the smell was coming from inside.

He took a couple of steps closer to the cage. He could see from the state of it, it could collapse at any moment.

A snarl came from inside the bars, then a growl. He thought there must be some wild animal hiding in the shadows behind the rusty strained bars.

As he inched closer, the light behind him beamed a dull glow into the cage. He jumped back in horror as a dozen or so people were crammed into the small space. They stared at him and continued to growl in an inhuman like way. He could see their clothes were torn enough not to be of any use, they had bruises and large cuts all over their faces and arms, and their eyes were black. A couple of the caged beasts lunged forward at Charlie, rattling the cage nearly to pieces. They snarled and growled like dogs.

Charlie didn’t waste any time in getting out of there. He scrambled up the steps and onto the top deck, back into the light of the day. He ran and jumped from the deck to the platform of the dock.

He stood there. Shaking, feeling his blood still running cold from what he had just witnessed.

Charlie scanned the sea of people and focused on his supervisor. He ran over and grabbed his jacket. The supervisor took great offence to being touched and grabbed by Charlie and stiffly pushed him away. Charlie tried to speak. ‘Th Th Th Th…’

‘What is it Ch Ch Charlie?’ snapped the supervisor. ‘Spit it out, man.’

Charlie tried to regain his composure, but for all he tried, he couldn’t get any words out. ‘The The There’s S S S S Something…’

Mr Sampson had had enough of Charlie. ‘Is the boat unloaded?’ he aggressively asked.

Charlie nodded and tried to speak again, but Mr Sampson just turned away and walked into the crowd.

He had no idea what to do. He tried to reach out to his colleagues, but he has the same response.

Throughout the rest of his shift, Charlie checks on the boat, it remained docked for another hour until the crew reappeared and boarded the vessel. He tries to get closer to the ship but is stopped by a few of the other dock workers. They tell him that Mr Sampson has told them to let him know that his work for the day is done, and because of bad weather, the docks would be closing early.

Charlie takes the opportunity to run home and lock himself in the house.

All that night he cannot settle. The images of the strange animal-like people, and the devilish noises they made circled his mind. There was no chance of getting a good night sleep.

He tossed and turned, trying to clear his mind of any bad thoughts, but it was no use.

He laid there. In silence. Waiting for the light to penetrate his thin, raggedy curtains, but it was not the sun that disturbed him. He heard a noise outside. Somewhere in the distance. Sounding like the next street. He heard what sounded like the snarling noise, the cave-mannish snarls and grunts. He listened intently. Waiting for the next sound to come. But it didn’t. At least, not the sound of the snarls. He heard a high-pitched scream which seemed to come from a man. It sounded as though someone was being butchered. It sounded like someone was being eaten alive.

Charlie sank deeper into his bed, covering his head with his sheets and pillows.

It was a long night, but by the morning, the sounds had gone. There was no noise apart from the birds chirping away, happy and cheerful. Charlie wasn’t cheerful. He hadn’t had any sleep that night and he had to be up for work. He knew, though, that he had to do something.

On the way to work, Charlie had decided he was going to go to the police station. He knew what he had heard, and he heard someone being murdered. By what means, though, he didn’t know.

As he walked through the main doors, he spotted a sleepy looking officer at the desk. Charlie rushed to him and tried to tell his tale.

‘ Th Th Th Th Th….’

The officer looked at Charlie as though he was some kind of freak.

‘Th Th Th Th Th…’ he tried to continue. His words, stifled by stress and tiredness were impossible to get out.

‘What is it son?’

‘Th Th Th Th Th….’ Charlie stuttered.

The officer’s face changed from curious to annoyed very quickly. ‘Are you trying to take the mickey out of me, son?’

‘N N N N..’

‘I’m going to give you five seconds to get out of the station before you feel the rough end of my truncheon, you stupid little man.’ The officer barked.

Charlie began to feel more frustrated. With himself, but especially at all the mean people that didn’t take the time to listen to him. As he left the station he felt let down and annoyed.

He got to the docks with just enough time to spare before he was due to start. Mr Sampson seemed to be hanging around, checking his pocket watch. ‘Where have you been, Charlie?’ he snapped. ‘The only day you decide not to come in early is the only day I need you the most. You really know how to wind me up.’

The frustration grew in Charlie’s blood. ‘I I I I I..’

Mr Sampson had no time. ‘Shut up Charlie and get to work. I’ve got seven men who have decided not to show up today, so I need you to keep your mouth shut and stop wasting my time trying to speak.’

Charlie’s frustration subsided a little. He knew the screams he heard, and the missing men were connected. He tried in vain once again to tell the supervisor what he saw yesterday, and what he heard through the night, but Mr Sampson just brushed him off as an annoyance.

Enough was enough, he was feeling something that he rarely felt. Anger. He stomped off to try and find someone who would listen to him. He was stopped in his tracks, however, by the sight of five women walking along the docks. They looked anxious and worried. They were going round talking to the men, asking them something, with all the men responding the same with a shrug of the shoulders.

As they approached, Charlie figured that these must be the wives of the missing men. He approached them to try and ask them who they were looking for, but one of the dock workers pulled him aside. He told the women that Charlie was a little pervert, and they shouldn’t be near him.

‘You’re all going to die’ he thought to himself. ‘You’re all going to die, and I don’t care. I tried to tell you, but you were too stubborn to listen. You’ll all get what you deserve.’

Charlie ran home, abandoning his duties, abandoning his fellow dock workers. Leaving them to the fate that they would so richly deserve.

Once he was in his house, he boarded up his windows, bolted his front door and pulled all the furniture he could in front of every entrance. He was going to stay there and not come out until the streets of Liverpool were safe.

After a couple of hours there was a banging at his door. A furious banging. ‘Charlie? Charlie are you in there? Why the hell did you leave work without my permission. I need you back there right now!’ screamed Mr Sampson.

To not reply was the best option for Charlie. He would much rather stay safe in his fortified house than to risk himself talking to that shit, Mr Sampson.

After ten minutes, his supervisor gave up and left Charlie in silence. Silence was usually his friend, a calming influence on his mind. But not now. He knew that silence, mixed with the darkness would bring nothing but horror.

As the daytime drew to an end, the night built outside. The night began to form in Charlie’s mind. The anxiety grew as he laid in his bed. Waiting. Waiting for the horrific sounds to begin again.

It didn’t take long before the sounds conjured themselves from the darkness. The audio blank canvas was filled with the snarls and growls of the previous night. This time, though, they were much closer. Charlie had faith that his stronghold would save him from whatever might try to get inside, but this didn’t stop him from being terrified.

The noises became louder and louder, until the snarls were right outside his window. They were so close that he could hear the ruttled breathing of the torrid beasts. Charlie sank beneath the covers once again and pulled the pillow over his head. He began to scream uncontrollably as whatever was outside was trying to get in.

****

2012 – Hill View Mental Health Hospital – Liverpool

The two doctors walked up the white, sterile corridor of the hospital. They were on the wing that held the secure unit. The place people went when they were no fit for life in society.

They stopped outside room 42.

‘I don’t know what else we can do for him. He’s not responding to any stimuli, and he seems to be receding further and further into himself.’ Said Doctor Moss.

The other doctor, looked into the room through the thick glass. ‘I understand that he has been here for so long now, transferred to us when he was just fifteen, but we must keep trying. I’ve emailed Doctor Hamilton at the State Lodge in America. He is, as far as I’ve been told, one of the leading psychologists in the States. ’

They both looked in at this now forty-five-year-old man, brought to a state of bare emotional turmoil, lying in a foetal position on the floor of the cell. Screaming into the pillow that he held over his face most of the time.

Charlie stopped screaming for a moment. He heard a noise coming from outside of his house. This sound was different. It was muffled. A muted scream coming from beyond his protective walls. He gathered all the courage in his fibre and looked out of the window.

As he saw the savagery and brutality of the two men being attacked by the creatures, he had a sense of peace. A sense that they could not get into his fortified abode.

As the creatures finished dismembering their victims and scuttled away, Charlie smiled. ‘I w w w warned you.’