THE HAUNTER OF THE MAUSOLEUM

Paignton Black sat at her father’s writing bureau, her feet planted firmly on the creaky old wide wooden floorboards. The sound of mice scurrying under the planks along with the numerous holes, woodworm and dry rot did not fill her with confidence in the safety of the old building. She squirmed in the rickety chair as she positioned herself so that she would not cause herself or the floor any injury or damage.

The last thing she wanted was for her foot to break through rotten timber at that ungodly hour.

The bureau was situated at the Northside of the attic facing a window that looked out over Providence Rhode Island. It was way past midnight and Providence was in darkness apart from a few dimly lit windows.

The silence was deafening, broken only by the occasional rodent activity and the sound of rain as it pitter-pattered on the glass pane.

A cold draught emanated from gaps in the ill-fitting sash windows and the sound of thunder accompanied by the momentary flash of lightning could be seen in the distance.

The room was illuminated by the dancing flame of a solitary candle housed in a lantern, its mesmerising flicker cast weird shapes and shadows over the walls and ceiling.

Paignton’s beautiful long dark shiny hair reflected the golden flame like the last of the dying sunlight off of highly polished volcanic obsidian.

She was indeed a handsome woman, not only in looks, she was an extremely intelligent and practical woman.

Educated in England then finishing her studies at the famed Miskatonic University of Arkham in the county of Essex Massachusetts.

She gleaned her vast knowledge from her parents, it was in her very essence, they had been highly academic and it passed onto their daughter.

Paignton had followed in her father’s footsteps and had learnt much of her knowledge and skills from him.

That and access to some of the world’s oldest and rarest historical and occultist books, including the Latin Rictus Mortuorum, Phantasm Diabolique, the Germanic Der Stoff Der Dunkelheit which was translated from the original le Tissue Des Tènèbres. Not forgetting to mention the dark alchemist scrolls Alquimia De Los Muertos and the accursed Necronomicon itself.

All abhorrent volumes but important in their own individual rights.

Miss Black held in her porcelain-like hand a photograph of her late father Edwin Theodore Black.

Paignton’s mother had passed seven years prior, she was an only child and now she was alone. The sole benefactor of the families estate. The house, very little money and her late parent’s belongings.

Paignton’s mother and father were educators, both had studied and met at the very same University that she had attended. They both progressed after their chosen tuition to take up the mantle of teaching and eventually acquired positions at Miskatonic where Edwin Black was a historian and professor of archaeology.

Her mother Madeline Black was a teacher in the fields of antiquities and fine art, they complimented each other’s chosen fields perfectly.

They were however referred to by some as new age parents, their views, methods and teachings were far beyond their time, somewhat akin to that of the nature Boys of California.

Both parents were equally as eccentric as each other.

At Paignton’s birth she came into this world kicking and screaming, sporting a mop of jet black inky hair.

Name choices for the child were either Raven or after the aforementioned naturally occurring volcanic glass formed from rapidly cooled felsic lava.

But even her parents thought that Obsidian Black was way too outlandish for a girl’s name.

They both soon opted for the less dramatic Paignton.

Mopping away a single tear at the loss of her father, hero, guide and mentor her attention was drawn to a rectangular object wrapped in a coarse jute hessian and nestled in between paperwork and unopened letters.

She reached inside the compartment of the bureau and retrieved the rough package and unwrapped it.

Inside was a worn brown leather-bound journal some nine inches by six inches. It was fastened by an old bootlace, the book was embossed with darker brown initials of R.B.

Perplexed by the unknown initials her mind was wracked, was this the journal of her grandfather of whom she never knew due to his untimely death before her birth? Or an estranged Uncle, cousin, colleague, or friend of her father?

Maybe the book belonged to a female relative, who was the curious book’s author?

Pulling at the bootlace that kept the journal securely fastened and hiding its secret Paignton soon discovered that the knot was not going to allow her access into the mysterious volume.

She opened one of the desk’s drawers and fumbled around for something to cut the cord. Her father’s old pocket knife would suffice. She hoped that the blade had not dulled over the years it had been held captive within its wooden tomb. Slipping the blade under the lace taking care not to damage the already worn leather, she whipped the knife across the books bonds with one quick stroke access to its hidden interior was gained.

The once white pages were now brown and tatty from the ravages and the passage of time.

Gingerly opening the front cover, she scanned the first page reading it quickly. Those first few lines instantly notified her of the name of the person that had penned the journal.

The book was the diary of Robert Blake a writer and painter whose work portrayed Myth, terror and superstition. Blake’s chirography bordered on the weird and unknown. Dabbling in the supernatural and the occult. Started sometime in 1934 the book outlined his stay in a house here in Providence Rhode Island, and his morbid fascination with the old church on Federal Hill, which he later visited and wrote about in these very annals.

He speaks about at great length and with immaculate description and definition of a peculiarly asymmetric heptagonal metallic box with a hinged lid.

The box contained a black highly polished stone with red striations, somewhat the shape of an egg. The stone maybe was a semi-precious gem, but Blake referred to it as a shining trapezohedron. Measuring approximately four inches through, these are precisely Blake’s own words read verbatim. The trapezohedron was suspended in some sort of elaborate harness which held the stone aloft off the bottom of its container. He delineated exquisitely that the mechanism was a band of metal that held the oval stone securely in place, seven thin rod-like supports emanated from the band, connecting to the perimeter of the box completing the cradle-like device.

Blake’s elucidation of the crystal-like stone bore no comparisons to any known precious or semi-precious gemstone that Paignton had ever seen. Neither to that fact read about in any historical manuscript, scroll, grimoire, hieroglyph’s or books pertaining to the occult. Including the mad Arab Abdul Alazred’s Necronomicon.

The stone had an alluring attraction to Blake’s gaze, he found himself drawn to it, transfixed by it. It was as though it was projecting all manner of images and thoughts directly into his brain. Although this is what Miss Black had gleaned from Blake’s inane scribblings.

In his notes, Blake spoke of a corpse, a body long dead.

He had found it in the very room that housed the stone.

The skeleton was that of a local reporter from the providence Telegram, a local newspaper. The identification on the body showed it to be that of Edwin M Lillibridge, who had gone missing sometime in 1893. On Lillibridge’s person was a small notebook that of which a reporter would carry. Entries in the notebook spoke of The Starry Wisdom Sect, the trapezohedron, blood sacrifices, devil worship and a creature that cannot exist in the light. The creature could only be summoned into the darkness, light was its weakness it seemed. The Starry Wisdom Sect referred to this abomination as The Haunter of the Dark.

The crystal was the means of communicating and summoning the demon, just by gazing into the stone and willing its presence. The sect allegedly used in conjunction with the aforementioned an incantation in a secret and forgotten language.

April 1877 saw the church on Federal Hill close, then stories of ghosts, strange noises and occurrences started to circulate around 1880. A folded piece of paper that Paignton thought was a crude bookmark was secreted in Blake’s journal, on inspection, she found it was a letter penned by Doctor Ambrose Dexter, and addressed to Edwin Theodore Black. The letter pointed out that the strange metal box containing the trapezohedron had been sent to the deepest depths of the Narragansett Bay on the Northside of Rhode Island. Doctor Dexter had seen to it that the stone would cause no more harm to anyone or anything.

Paignton had been reading the journal for hours, analysing every word, hanging on every paragraph trying to make sense of Blake’s entries. Was he insane?

Had he been stricken with a mental breakdown or some other form of psychotic malady? Was all this an elaborate plot for one of his now famed stories?

Of which had gained notoriety after his untimely demise. Or was the passages within the leather-bound memoir an actual account of Blake’s visitation to the peculiar church on Federal Hill?

The latter was almost too much for Paignton Black’s curious and inquisitive mind to ignore. Sitting in a state of fixated contemplation her eyes heavy with tiredness, caused not only by the lateness of the hour but by reading in such a dimly lit environment.

Folding her arms and placing them on the bureau’s old wooden desktop, then nestling her head in her arms.

It was not long before she drifted off into the realm of velvet slumber. Her mind filled with images and stories pertaining ghostly shadows, satanic cults, gemstones that could invoke demons and creatures, not of this world and the malevolent haunter of the dark.

Her eyes darted quickly from left to right, she had entered the deep sleep stage of dream state, her sleeping visions became vastly more surreal and disturbing. Just as her ephialtes reached its terrifying claustrophobic crescendo in which she was falling, falling into the deepest darkest pit of nightmarish blackness. The screams and wails of creatures and beings unheard and unperceivable by humans in waking hours began. Torturing her senses to the point of breaking. Then from the darkness a kaleidoscope of flashing colours, colours so vivid of spectrum they could only again be discerned under the blanket of dream state.

Paignton was abruptly awoken. Awoken by a vibration, a low rumbling vibration within the very vicinity where she had been slumbering. The old writing bureau was shaking, she initially thought it was her trembling from her night terror like dream. The realisation soon dawned upon her, it was the desk itself that was the epicentre of the disturbance.

She sat bolt upright, shocked by the unfolding situation, eyes wide and searching for the cause of the interruption. The vibration seemed to be emanating from the bottom drawer on the left-hand side of the bureau. Paignton pulled on the handle but the drawer was locked tight. She fumbled around in all the compartments of the desk that was accessible.

Rifling through her father’s archived documents, letters and notes looking for the key to the locked drawer that restricted access to the sealed wooden vault.

Black searched every conceivable nook and cranny of the antique writing station to no avail, the key was not present. She rose to her feet and hunted the attic for an object or tool that would allow her ingress into the desks wavering sealed receptacle. After much searching in the dusty dark spider-infested corners of the attic she stumbled across a small cache of her late father’s tools, she peered into the old wooden chest, retrieving a Lenox flat head screwdriver manufactured sometime in the early 1930s. The now fully awake young woman rushed back to the locked drawer, her adrenaline at this point was at peak levels and her curiosity was uncontainable. Apprehension and fear were placed on a lower tier in her inquisitive conscious mind.

All that consumed her every thought was what was causing the unexplainable tremors within the secure timber integument. Placing the candle close to the area in which she was about to work she examined the drawer to assess the best method of entry.

Forcing the tip of the screwdriver between the gap between the drawer and the frame of the bureau, she mustered all of the strength she could summon, using the tool to break the lock from its wooden housing.

The old mahogany wood splintered with a loud satisfying crack and the ligneous sarcophagus was breached. At that precise moment, the vibrating ceased.

Warily her hand crept closer to the drawers handle, fearful reservations flooded through her mind reflecting back to her terrifying lucid nightmare.

She brushed that to one side as nonsense, thinking logically that the vibrations and noise were probably due to just a mouse or rat nesting inside.

The bureau’s runners bound tightly against the drawers slides making it hard to open, this was largely due to age and the natural expansion of timber in a cold damp environment. The progress was slow as Paignton inched the wooden container open in slow violent jerking motions. Until at last, it was open wide enough to reach inside, she rummaged around blindly inside, her hand was met with what felt like another box, a smooth seemingly circular box. Similar to that which hats were kept in. Black could not extract the container, as it was larger than the opening she had created in the swollen wooden drawer. Placing one foot on either side of the drawer pushing against the hefty solid frame of the furniture, holding on tight to the top of the problematic tomb which encased the treasure. The slider squealed against the runner as if in protest to its forced opening, eventually giving up to the herculean effort that the young woman had placed upon it. The drawer pulled free from its timber captive, Paignton was thrown backwards, the drawer ended up on her lap, the rewards for her quest were minor cuts, abrasions and splinters of wood in the pale skin of her hands. She thought nothing of them, she had accompanied her father on many an archaeological dig. Superficial injury, dust and dirt did not faze her.

Placing the bureau draw to one side she hurried herself to her feet, brushing off the cobwebs and dust from her somewhat tomboyish house garments.

Gazing down at the contents of the now broken and redundant part of the once antique writing dresser.

Miss Black stooped down and picked up, then set the drawer down where her once dreaming head had rested.

Removing the circular container from where it had been held prisoner for who knows how long, on inspection it was remarkably similar to a shallow hatbox.

After all her struggles she hoped that it did not contain a hat, that would be indeed a terrible disappointment.

The circinate item was approximately fourteen inches in circumference and of about eight inches deep. It appeared to have no lid or method of opening.

It seemed to be constructed of Northern Red Oak with inlays of Hemlock, however, that was only conjecture, at best an educated guess. Her late father had been somewhat of a connoisseur of trees and timbers from around the globe, he had passed some of this knowledge down to his daughter. Her opinion was formulated on the species were indigenous to the local surrounding areas. The top and bottom of the millinery receptacle were identical. Both were recessed, with a protruding lip of about half an inch, it bore no evidence of joinery or gluing. Was this box designed as a puzzle?

Did it hide some sort of secret solution to its method of ingress and the extraction of its cabalistic contents?

It was of exquisite construction, expertly made by a carpenter of extreme skill, a master craftsman.

She could no longer contain herself, walking over again to the sparse collection of tools that were stashed in the small chest in the corner of the attic. Feeling rather than looking as the light did not reach to illuminate her search, she pulled out a rusted peen ball hammer.

Taking the flat head screwdriver and placing its tip where the top and the lip met, then using the screwdriver as a rudimentary chisel. In one mighty swing the hammer connected with the handle of the Lenox and the lip split from the box, it was now possible to rip by hand the remaining portion of connected timber. Alas the box remained sealed, the top was still in place. A small fissure was visible, wide enough to penetrate with the flat blade of the screwdriver. Jamming the tool in the tiny crevice, using it in a fashion like a basic fulcrum lever.

The wood split away from its reluctant surrounding cracking down the middle, hurriedly she pulled away what was the inaccessible lid and threw it to one side.

The contents were now laid bare before her.

Could it be?

But how was it possible?

The letter from Doctor Ambrose Dexter clearly specified that he had disposed of the peculiarly asymmetric metal box. It had been lost, sent to a watery resting place on the bed of the bay that forms the largest estuary in New England.

If that was the case then how did the mysterious box come to be in the receipt of Edwin Theodore Black?

Inside the wooden box was seven strange five-pointed stones, somewhat resembling starfish. In the centre of each rocky angulated object were intricate carvings of a hieroglyphic or runic nature. They appeared to be talismanic, she recalled from her father’s teachings that the symbols etched into each star like charm were markings of The Elder Gods. One, in particular, was the seal of R’Lyeh. Were the stones placed in the box intended to act as a modus operandi of sealing in something that was considered bad luck or evil?

This was the twentieth century, Paignton shrugged it off as religious or mythical mumbo jumbo, pure stuff and nonsense.

Her attention diverted back to the elaborate ornate box, she removed it from its inferior wooden resting place leaving the seven five-pronged stones inside. Making room then setting it down on the bureau’s desktop.

She retrieved Blake’s journal and skipped forward to the page where the description was written, scanning hastily down the page until reaching the desired paragraph. Blake delineated the box was made of a yellowish metal, asymmetric in form, with a hinged lid.

The sides of the box carried odd bas - reliefs in which the figures bore no resemblance to any creature of Earth. Neither man nor beast, but wholly alien and monstrous.

The gold-like metallic lid was tightly tied shut with what appeared to be a dark leather strap, some one inch in width. Branded into the hide was the same seal of R’lyeh. The band was securely fixed in place with a clasp fashioned in the same shape as the stones.

But this one was made of brass or some other gold coloured metal. Whoever had manufactured the wooden box had gone to extreme lengths to encase and entomb its contents. The box must have been exhumed from the depths of the Narragansett waters, maybe by dredging, then encased in the circular capsule. But by who?

The wooden box did not show any typical signs of damage by immersion.

Paignton had one more layer to shed before she could examine the boxes true treasure.

She clumsily fingered the clasp which held the leather band tightly in situ. Pulling and tugging at the shiny star-like lock, she gave up fumbling for the solution to its unlocking method and reached for her father’s handy pocket knife. The whole situation had Paignton vexed, she wanted an end to the frustration and closure to her quest. It was in this vexed frustration and lack of concentration at the longevity of the task that the knife slipped and sheered off the strap. The dull blade had no trouble biting deep into the index finger of her left hand. Blood spilt from the laceration, trickling down the yellowish metal, running into the gaps in between the beautifully crafted odd designs etched on the lid.

She winced at the sharp pain, raised her digit to her lips sucking the wound as a means of cleansing and pain relief. Taking a handkerchief from her pocket she wrapped the finger, then carried on trying to sever the hide strap. Her finger throbbed as she worked, but this did not deter her. At long last, the bindings were curtailed and the five-pointed clasp fell to one side.

At this point, her anticipation was more than she could bear. Discarding the handkerchief that acted as a temporary bandage she impulsively but delicately lifted the lid of the asymmetric box. The air in the attic was sucked from the room creating a vacuum, extinguishing the flame of the lantern. Throwing the room into a pitch of unnatural darkness. Something had escaped from the box, it held no form and resembled nothing of this world. It was pure swirling undulating all-encompassing blackness. The mass enveloped Paignton like a cold damp clammy inky blanket, an obsidian nigritude of which she had never felt or witnessed before.

Her vision and hearing had been nullified by its embrace, no sound or light could penetrate the void in which she had been encapsulated. The sheer terror and panic the young woman was experiencing could not be described. It felt like deaths cold hands had wrapped around her consuming her soul, and the very essence of her life force. The only noise she could hear was the pounding of her own heart as it was starved of oxygen.

Within the stranglehold of its grasp time stood still, her life slipping away, heartbeat growing fainter.

Paignton ceased to exist, lost in a black gossamer living sheet. It felt like an eternity, but it was mere seconds in the grand scheme of the universe and all its mysteries and wonders. Her head snapped back violently, and in that moment the formless entity released its grip.

The force of the release threw her across the attic, skidding over the dusty floorboards, rendering her unconscious. Unresponsive, appearing not to be breathing, eyes closed, head pointing towards the ceiling. A thin river of blood running from her nose down her cheek and dripping onto the dust-laden floor.

The shapeless shadow-like creature pulsating, hovering over her prostrate body, like a living atramentous nimbostratus storm cloud. Waiting, watching.

Still closed were her eyes in the senseless comatose condition, unseeing eyes shifting back and forth as if trying to decipher the recent events. Very much alive, her chest rising and falling as she inhaled and exhaled.

Then slowly the fingers on her right hand began to twitch, increasing signs of life returning to her once motionless frame. Still lying on her back her spine arched thrusting her stomach upwards, a guttural scream echoed through the attic, loud gurgling, hideous almost inhuman. Gasping for breath as if she had been drowning in a sea of pitch dark lament. It felt like rebirth, from the warm dark womb to the cold light of reality. She felt unclean, tarnished, touched by a viscid unknown phenomenon, a phantasm, something basic human understanding could not fathom.

Her eyes focused, she saw its hideous mass palpitating above her, close to the ceiling stretched out rippling like a rock cast into a lake. In all its grotesque unsightly unpleasantness there was something mesmerising, some kind of beauty. Paignton screamed, the creature seemed to mimic her crying out with an unearthly shriek. Multiple tones were emitted from the amorphous thing, both low and gravelly and shrill and higher in pitch.

The entity seemed to be in a state of confusion, shifting across the room in jarring spasmodic movements.

Accelerating now towards the window crashing through it sending shards of glass and wooden frame down to the garden below. Disappearing, blending in with the darkest before dawn skies.

Paignton’s heart was racing, pounding so hard she felt it would burst from her chest, her lips pale and dry, the pallor of complexion, trembling of hands and vacant demeanour suggested shock or panic attack.

Having witnessed something outlandish, bizarre and incomprehensible, it gave her the overwhelming sensation that this would not be the end of her brush with the unknown metaphysical being. Getting to her feet, steadying herself against one of the attics crumbling brick walls she paused for a moment to compose herself, legs trembling and hands shaking.

Descending the stairs down to her father’s study, taking a seat then pouring a large alcoholic libation, quaffing it hastily and coughing at the intensity of its strength, her agitated nerves began to calm. Pouring another measure for medicinal purposes she headed for her bed-chamber, finishing the beverage, and then lying on the bed fully clothed. It did not take too long before the nightcap had taken its toll on the usually tea total young woman, drifting off in sleeps warm embrace.

Dreaming dreams of far off alien worlds, cities of unfamiliar architecture, creatures unrecognisable and non-indigenous of Earth. Cones, cubes, tendrils, tentacles and proboscis, weirdly insect yet plant-like.

Colours and lights in space raining down like a psychedelic kaleidoscope of unimaginable beauty.

Then darkness, the familiar all-enveloping blackening terror that was and will always be.

The eternal indescribable torment that was for an infinitesimally brief moment in time her captor.

The perpetual beast that was never born, but existed before time, before creation. In her dreams, it spoke to her, not with words, but with the foulest of projected thought. Communicating in an ancient dead language.

But somehow in that microcosm of time held captive within its gossamer caress it had passed on comprehension, imprinting something deep into her psyche.

It needed her. She would listen

She would be unwittingly coerced and bend to its every command.

She will obey.Start writing here…