DEAR GOODTHINKER,324Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAhGmo5uvR3
324Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbhczN22Zzz
I am myself again, although weak, after thirty-six hours of unconsciousness. Myself again----what a grim and bitter joke! I shall never be myself again, never. I have come face to face with an insanity and a horror beyond the limits of human understanding. And the end is not yet.
If it were not for Ed, I believe I should end my life this minute. He is one island of sanity in all this madness.
You shall know it all.
We had equipped ourselves with candles for our cellar exploration, and they threw a strong glow that was quite adequate---hellishly adequate! Edgar tried to dissuade me, citing my recent illness, saying that the most we should probably find would be some healthy rats to mark for poisoning.324Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡujC5sPNAqS
I remained determined, however. Edgar fetched a sigh and answered: “Have it as you must then, Mr. Beal.”
The entrance to the cellar is by means of a trap in the kitchen floor [which Ed assures me he has since shortly boarded over], and we raised it only with a great deal of straining and lifting.324Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHdHxkcDEmb
A fetid, overpowering smell came up out of the darkness, not unlike that which pervaded the deserted town across the Sawley River. The candle I held shed its glow upon a steeply-slanting flight of stairs leading down into darkness. They were in a terrible state of repair----in one place an entire riser missing, leaving only a black hole----and it was easy enough to see how the unfortunate Georgette might have met her fate here.324Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡh498IiOXP8
“Be careful, Mr. Beal!” Ed said; I told him I had no intention of being anything but, and we made the descent.
The floor was earthen, the walls that of stout granite, and hardly even wet. The place did not look like a rat haven at all, for there were none of the things rats like to make their nests in, such as old boxes, discarded furniture, piles of paper, and the like. We lifted our candles, gaining a small circle of light, but still able to see little. The floor had a gradual slope which seemed to run beneath the main living-room and the dining room---i.e., to the west. ‘Twas in this direction we walked. All was in utter silence. The stench in the air grew steadily stronger, and the dark about us seemed to press like wood, as if jealous of the light which had temporarily displaced it after so many years of unchallenged dominion.
At the far end, the granite walls gave way to a polished wood which seemed totally black and devoid of any reflective properties. Here the cellar ended, leaving what seemed to be an alcove off the main chamber. It was positioned at an angle which made inspection impossible without stepping around the corner.324Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuTfDFtiI5P
Edgar and I did so.324Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWRFW9eC59M
It was as if a rotten specter of this dwellings sinister past had risen before us. A single chair stood in this alcove, and above it, fastened from a hook in one of the stout overhead beams, was a decayed noose of hemp rope.
“It was here that he hung himself?” Edgar muttered. “Oh, God!”
“Yes----with the corpse of his daughter lying at the foot of the stairs behind him.”324Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOUZcFb4PjA
Ed began to speak; then I saw his eyes jerked to a spot behind me; then his words became a scream.324Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOueCmkR8DF
How, Goodthinker, can I describe the sight which fell upon our eyes? How can I tell you of the gruesome occupants of our very walls?324Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIUYvlZOCFj
The far wall swung back, and from that darkness a face leered---a face with eyes as red as the fires of hell itself. Its mouth yawned in a toothless, agonized grin; one yellow, rotted hand stretched itself out to us. It made a hideous mewling sound and took a shambling step forward. The light from my candle fell upon it----324Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpcdMXL8j8n
And I saw the livid rope-burn about its neck!
From beyond it something else moved, something I shall dream of until the day when all dreams cease: a girl with a pallid, mouldering face and a corpse grin; a girl whose head lolled at a lunatic angle.
They wanted us; I know they did. And I know that they would have drawn us into that darkness and made us theirs, had I not thrown my candle directly at the thing in the partition, and followed it with the chair beneath that noose. 324Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDD1zjBTSVe
After that, all is confused darkness. My mind has drawn the curtain. I awoke, as I have said, in my own room with Ed at my side.324Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzcaFEUBwzP
If I could leave, I should fly from this house of unspeakable horrors with my nightdress flapping at my heels. But I cannot, for I have become a pawn in a deeper, darker drama. Do not ask how I know; I only do. Mrs. Pratt was right when she spoke of blood calling to blood; and how hideously right when she spoke of those who watch and those who guard. I fear that I have awakened a Force which has slept in the tenebrous village of Christian’s Lot for a half-century, a Force which has snuffed out the lives of my ancestors and taken them in unholy bondage as zombiis---- those mindless, reanimated corpses who hunger for human flesh. And I have greater fears than these, Goodthinker, but I still see only in part. If I knew----if I only knew all!
CHARLES.324Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXwAlQ6yoNO
324Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡj7pglCsTI1
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Postscription----And of course I write this only for myself; we are isolated from Ministers’ Corners. I daren’t carry my taint there to post this, and Edgar will not leave me. Perhaps, if God is good, this will reach you in some manner. 324Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSRRgEOPQ8c
