“You mean Fenshaw actually lived here?” I was amazed by this revelation.
“He spent some time here writing, yes.”
“I suppose that’s one of the reasons why you bought the place.”
Lynch looked vacant for a moment. “Oh, I didn’t buy the house. It was ... left to me.”
“I see.” In all honesty I didn’t, but I was sure I’d find out more when I questioned him.
Except the interview would have to wait a while it seemed. Lynch had just finished showing me around the vast library when he stopped to comment on the lateness of the hour. I hadn’t noticed, but it was now even darker outside thanks to the onset of night. The house had no electricity, he explained, so I watched as the author lit several lamps here and there along the hall. The thin patches of light created shadowy patterns on the walls, which danced as if to a tuneless beat.
When that was done, he told me he was going to start work now—writing in longhand, which was actually common knowledge—and we could conduct the interview at dawn. I was eager to begin there and then, but had little choice in the matter. If I argued, then he might refuse to speak to me at all. Anyway, if he was writing then that could only mean more material for me to devour the next time I was in my local bookshop.
“Goodnight, Stephen,” he said, warmly. “It was nice to have met you.” Then Lynch made his way to a room adjacent to the library. His private writing chamber.
Left alone, I decided to take my holdalls up to the bedroom Lynch had provided for me. It was still dark upstairs and, despite reason telling me otherwise, I felt afraid of the blackness. It seemed oppressive, as if I might lose myself in it, never to be seen again. Being in the presence of a master horror-smith has set your imagination racing, I told myself. There’s nothing there in the dark that isn’t there in the daylight. Somehow that thought only served to chill me more.
The steps creaked loudly as I made my way higher, another cliché of the highest order. But fears I had shrugged off whilst reading Lynch’s books were not so easily dismissed now. The sounds of this house made me edgy and by the time I reached the landing my heartbeat was up once more.
There was an indistinct noise to my right, just along from the banisters. A clawing sound. Rats, perhaps? But this was followed by definite movement. I could feel a closeness here, a figure. No, several figures.
“Who’s there?” My speech was croaky, hoarse with the burden of coaxing the question out. I knew there was no one else in the house, just Lynch and I. Unless someone had been hiding when he showed me around—
Then I heard the voices. Quiet, almost muffled, voices; one on top of the other until they became incomprehensible. I couldn’t determine their direction, they were all around me, whispering, chattering with a mind-numbing resolve. It became hard to tell whether they were on the inside or outside of my head. At times it felt like both.
I dropped my baggage on the landing and gripped the rail, a sudden queasiness taking hold of me. The figures were moving again, shifting about on the walls, the floors. Blocking the way to my room and sliding towards me at the same time. It was like they were almost there, but not quite. I had trouble focusing on them—for one thing the incessant whispering was driving me mad, but there was also the absence of light to contend with.
It wasn’t until they came within feet of me that I ran, descending the stairs so briskly I was lucky not to have tripped and broken my neck. The funny thing was, the closer I came to the lamps in the hall, the more ridiculous the whole episode seemed to me. Like a dream that felt real at the time, but merely foolish once the dreamer has awoken. The voices were gone and when I looked up there was no sign of any living shadows up above. I bowed my head and sighed, grateful at least that Lynch hadn’t been here to witness my stupidity.
I was just about to climb the stairs again when the crying started. It was coming from Lynch’s study. Quickly, I dashed along the corridor to the door he’d closed not five minutes ago. I put my ear against the oak and the wailing grew louder. Yes, it was Lynch I could hear on the other side of that barricade. And in between the sobs he was talking; talking to someone inside there with him! I might have been mistaken, but the longer I listened the more his cries sounded like urgent pleas.
A sharp bang interrupted the grief. The callous crack of gunfire.
Then silence.
Without hesitation, I tried the door. It was locked. I rapped on the wood and shouted: “Mr Lynch? Mr Lynch, are you all right in there? Please open the door!”
There was no answer, but my request was granted all the same. The door suddenly flew inwards, seemingly pulled back by invisible wires. For now, by the light of another small lamp, I could see Lynch lying face down next to his desk. My first thought was that he’d been murdered ... possibly by the person he was arguing with. Yet as I stepped inside I saw a pistol in his own frail hand, which itself was bent horribly round by the angle of the fall. If I had been thinking straight, I might have wondered where he’d found the strength to pull its trigger.
In shock I put my hands to my mouth, stifling a scream, my breath coming in short spasms. I tore my eyes away from Lynch to look around the room, only to discover it empty. No one had been in here at all. Lynch must have been talking to himself, convincing himself to proceed, or attempting to stop the inevitable from happening. All these years spent alone, writing about the unimaginable, had finally taken their toll. A sudden thought occurred to me. Perhaps this was the reason he’d sent for me, so his last hours would not be spent alone. And so he’d have someone to pick up the pieces after his death, arrange the funeral and so on.
Slowly, I approached the body and felt his neck for a pulse. There was none. My attention then travelled to his desk where I saw a journal open and an ink pen laid on top as if he’d been writing something. His suicide note?
But no. When I looked at the last thing he’d written—in his unmistakable style—I found it to be my own name coupled with today’s date, placed beneath a list of other names and dates. The one before mine was from five years ago, a man called David Kramer. All visitors to the house, I supposed. But when I turned a page, the dates and monikers stretched back as far as 1830—to Sir Horace Fenshaw. What did all this mean?
I did not have time to ponder this mystery because the voices I had heard upstairs chose that moment to return. To begin with they were just as jumbled as before, but strangely they were louder in volume. And as I listened, sat behind the desk in Lynch’s still-warm leather chair, they separated—becoming individual—each one giving me instructions.
I tried to resist their demands, gritting my teeth until I thought I would pass out. But my efforts were in vain. I had to obey them, do as they commanded. Taking the ink pen in my hand, I reached for a fresh sheet of paper and began to write. To my surprise the words flowed easily: sentences, paragraphs, soon pages of prose, all in Lynch’s old-fashioned handwriting.
And the more I wrote, the more I became aware of the things from upstairs flocking to my desk, converging there and gathering around my body. The voices were telling me exactly what to put down, I knew that, yet I felt some part of me was actually contributing to the story. All my life I’d wanted to write horror like Lynch, and now I was—exactly like him. The elation was at once substituted for pure terror, though, as I read the content of the tale I’d committed to paper.
Since that first night I’ve uncovered more of the secrets of this place, and the thought of