Strange Dream
I’ve heard of this strange phenomenon many times, but never thought it would happen to me.
I’d been working very hard and I was tired. I took a small whisky to help me to sleep, as usually when overtired I find it difficult to rest, and it means I lie there with a thousand worries and torments going over in my mind. I washed my hands and face and crawled into bed and I think I just drifted off.
I am standing by my bed, looking down at myself sleeping. A strange sensation comes over me, as my spirit is outside of my body. I’m floating around, peering into nooks and crannies in my house. I look through a keyhole into a room across the corridor from where I sleep. I feel fear like I’ve never felt before. The scene I’m gazing into is horrific. I tried to scream, but no sound would come. Something in this room had the look and physique of a tortured demon, the face was unholy, and then it fixed its gaze upon me. My whole body felt as if a million knives were cutting me, right down into my soul.
I can’t move, my eye is stuck on the key hole.
That thing wanted me to stay and watch, I heard chanting and other demons joined the thing and surrounded it. They are like horrific shadows changing form and dancing amid great flames. This must be hell and I’m standing outside of it, looking in. The scene changed and focused upon the clock on the wall, it’s just after midnight. There’s a compass next to the clock and this is going crazy, as if it had no idea of North and South, just going in different directions.
No! Something is not right about any of this. I asked to be forgiven for my sins. Still I could not move, and I was being forced to watch terrible acts being performed. A whisper in my ear, by someone unknown, it told me to take my eye away from the keyhole. I answered, saying, No I can’t, it won’t let me, it needs me to watch. Again the voice whispered, “Remove your eye from the keyhole.”
I responded and took my eye from that hellish scene. I turned and became more confused, as I believed the door to my bedroom was just opposite this one. I glanced around and found I am in total darkness and I don’t know where I am. I’m desperate to get back to bed and wake myself up, and I also believe that if I don’t I will die. Then I notice a light, it’s like someone has a torch, and the whisperer said, “Follow the light.”
I found the light welcoming and did as I am asked to do. Here I am now in the library, where the light lit up a book. I took the book and almost dropped it, as it’s so heavy, I then placed it on a table, the leaves opened themselves. The leaf-turning stopped at a picture of the awful thing I had seen in that room. I read, or tried to read, the passage and became fearful again.
A horrendous clap of thunder sounded overhead and lightning lit up the room. Instinct told me to turn around, I wished I hadn’t, it is there, stood behind me. Lightning and thunder is sending down torrents of rain and is lashing the windows so hard. It felt as if the house would crumble and wash away. The whisper came again; it is loud enough for me to hear over the storm. “Read the passage in the Manual,” it said.
Light from the torch lit up the words, but I felt obliged to keep looking at the dreadful thing. I forced myself to read the passage in the huge leather- bound book.
“No, you must read this aloud, and forget that demon and concentrate on the words.”
The voice was stern but gave comfort. I began slowly reading the verse from the book.
“Keep on repeating this, until that abomination is gone.”
I gained more confidence as I continued to read. After what seemed like a long period of time I plucked up the courage to glance behind me. The nightmare is over, that thing is gone, and I hoped for good.
The huge storm had passed over and the faint light of morning came through the wet windows. I looked around the room in the early grey streaks of dawn. I am standing by my bed looking down at my form lying there.
The whisperer said, “You must hurry and re-join your body and spirit, to delay will be fatal for you.”
I pulled back the sheets and climbed back into bed. When I opened my eyes at six o’clock I lay for a while. The alarm went off and so I sat up and swung my feet out of bed. The room is cold and I can see my breath. I padded across to the huge bay window and looked out; the scene is not what I expected.
Instead of everything being soaked through, it’s blinding white. I squinted my eyes as I’ve become snow-blind. I pulled a gown around me and sat in the window seat, asking myself what the heck was all that about last night.
As the sun came up I saw the birds’ footprints outside on the sill. The little sparrows are pecking the window, begging for food. I obliged by putting the rest of last night’s sandwich out for them, also an apple core which they marmalised in a hurry. I am confused by what I dreamed last night; it’s silly: how can someone leave their body unless they die? I pinch my arms and legs, am I dead?
No, I still live. I made my mind up that it is nothing, just horrid imagination. I had convinced myself that is what it is. I felt the life and colour come back into my being, until I reached my bed to make it, and there was the large leather-bound book on my bedside table.
I am afraid to come to bed tonight.
Part two
It took courage to remove the book from my bedside table. I passed the library and deliberately went down into the cellar. Although there is a light down here, it seems very dark and dismal, and I felt my flesh crawl. The leather bound book is very heavy, but I threw it on a shelf. I shivered and ran up the steps, and leaving the room, locked the door behind me. I felt breathless and stood with my back to the door for several minutes.
Going into the kitchen, I switched the kettle on and made a cup of tea. Still shaking, I put a drop of whisky in the tea cup, this made me feel better. While I was sat drinking the tea I made a plan to go to the great library down town. The plan is to check any information about my house and its history.
I have always wondered why I managed to purchase the house at such a small price. It is a three storey house and has many rooms. I’ve lived here now for almost a year and have done my best to sort the rooms out to how I want them. I never had any trouble with that thing until now, and was happy with my lot. My garden is still overgrown as I haven’t had time to deal with that, but there’s no hurry. Today will be the decider of whether I shall stay on at the house. I dread the thought of keeping on having dreams as bad as that one last night.
Going through the news about the district that I’m living in, I finally came to news about my house. I read that many people have purchased the house, but would not stay for any length of time, selling it on for a fraction of the true price.
OMG! I can’t believe it, as it seems that in the eighteenth century a billionaire owned it. I read about how much cash he managed to accumulate over the years, and this alone is staggering. It appears that folk that lived around him had begun to ask questions about this. They say he wasn’t particularly bright or amazingly good at any sort of skills. Some of the people living around the outskirts of the house began to check on the background of Clive Mortens (the Master of the house) for themselves. It seems that his neighbours found out about his parentage. There had been a lot of gossip surrounding Clive’s people and there had been many disturbances spoken of by staff and domestics. Some were recording strange chants, and suspicious lights coming from one room in particular. More gossip was saying they were holding black masses and there was even talk that people were disappearing, vanishing without trace. Some of these were domestics and waiters.
There’s a large piece that says the Police had begun to investigate and even some of these Police officers had disappeared in strange circumstances. The Police force lost interest, or were too afraid to go on investigating, or maybe budget-cuts stopped it dead in its tracks.
The more news that came to light the more my heart raced, my head is thumping. I have to decide what to do: whether to sell the house and lose a great deal of money or to stick it out and find out what the hell is going on. I am a widow and feel if I had a partner I could stick it out with a husband’s guidance and his company. I do miss Mark, and I wonder what he would do? Deep thoughts filled my being as I left the library.
I made my mind up to get a priest in, maybe an exorcism might help, or make it worse. I had to pass the church on the way home and so went in. I had a long conversation with the local priest who stated that he couldn’t promise, but to leave it with him. It seemed so endless, the wait for his answer. The horrors went on and the scenes were very dark and distressing, I became unwell with the stress.
I waited about a week for a response and the news came that an exorcism would take place, only due to the facts that have been accumulated over the years about this dwelling.
In the time that it took for the ceremony to be arranged, there were far more distressing and terrifying happenings. The abomination was becoming stronger and some nights it was standing by my bed.
I am outside of my body watching it and wondering what it will do. I know that I have to re-join my body and spirit before a certain time and that thing is there doing its best to stop me getting back. The whisperer is back and it asked me where the book is? I said that, I’d put it in the cellar.
“Go to the cellar and get it, and hurry.”
It is strange, but I am in my bedroom one minute and in the cellar in the other. I was back so quickly.
“Read the passage out loud, and be sharp, as time is getting short.”
I did what was asked of me and read until the thing had gone.
Tomorrow the exorcism will take place. Tonight is very windy and the tree branches are scratching my window. I can’t sleep, and the scratching and banging is getting worse. I began to drift off, but woke again to the loud scratchings of the branches hitting my window pane. I lay all night to that sound and I had not left my body. No occult happenings tonight, I guess because I didn’t sleep. Maybe I should sleep through the day, but dismissed this idea, as I’m very tired today.
The priest arrived and began by asking me many questions about the time of these occurrences, how long they take, and what actually happens. The priest is startled by the fact that I leave my body and wander around the house. He did query why nothing happened last night and I told him that I hadn’t slept.
This seemed to give him a clue as to what and why. He then asked me about my background and a little about my family tree.
Now the ceremony of exorcism begins.
Josie Smith
The Norsemen
“Shush shush. Don’t make any noise, Laysa. They won’t find us here.”
I put my hand over my sister’s mouth, gently. We were tucked down behind bales of straw in the corner of our barn, listening to the men outside. I knew they were men from the cold North who had first raided Lindisfarne and killed the monks living there.
My parents had gone to visit the Overlord of our area who was to be crowned, and my Father was one of his supporters, having vowed to fight the Vikings when they came. There had been no attacks for some time and my parents had felt sure we would be safe for a few days.
We heard them break down the door to our farmhouse and I knew they would find the bag of coins that my Father had hidden under firewood. I prayed they would not burn the house.
Laysa was shivering with fear and with the cold as we had not had time to prepare well when I heard the Vikings coming.
“They may not stay long,” I tried to reassure her.
That was a vain hope. Soon there was a fire burning in the yard and a cooking pot on top, hanging from a quickly-fashioned triangle. The smell from whatever was cooking made my mouth run with saliva. We were both so hungry and thirsty that I felt quite faint.
There was one possibility of escape: the overhanging roof left a small gap between itself and the walls. If I could get the ladder up behind us I might be able to widen the gap to get through. Putting my finger to my lips, I motioned to Laysa that I was moving to get the ladder. She clung to me and let out a muffled scream. Within seconds there appeared a fearful countenance over the bales. A Norseman’s helmet with horns. My imagination had him breathing smoke, which was probably only his breath on the cold air.
Two of them dragged us out to the yard and, seeing my sister shaking and shivering, one fellow draped a hairy rug round her and sat us both near the fire. I made sure we were very close together. The rug had strange symbols woven into it, looking like bones and skulls, but it was obviously warm, as Laysa had stopped shivering although she was still terrified. They soon brought us wooden bowls of the tempting food from the pot, along with what I thought was barley bread. It was very stale but filling dunked in the liquid. I thought of refusing to eat but knew that, without sustenance, we would not survive and it seemed as though they did not intend to kill us; at least not yet.
After they had all eaten, they passed round a goblet belonging to my Father, taken from the house.
My instinct was to refuse to drink but I knew that the only person to suffer would be me. Following my lead, Laysa drank deeply and spluttered as the powerful liquid hit her throat but, almost immediately, she looked revived and warmed. The Vikings laughed at her discomfiture but, it seemed to me, not in a nasty way.
Gathering in a group, about five of the men seemed to be having a heated discussion, pointing at us and shouting. I felt sure our fate hung in the balance. Eventually they came and tied my hands together, then put Laysa on a pony and indicated for me to walk beside her. We seemed to walk for miles. At times I would doze off and jerk awake again until every muscle and sinew in my body ached. I was also trying to stop my sister from tumbling off the pony as she had gone to sleep, slumping forward.
As a cold sun rose palely in the distance we reached a clearing in the wood. The centre was taken up with a large tent-building covered in straw. The Norseman who had first found us, and seemed to have authority, lifted Laysa down and, urging me forward, took us into the tent where there were many more men.
The change of atmosphere had revived me a little and, looking around, I studied the faces of the people, wondering why they all wanted to come to Northumberland and steal from us. I had heard from Father’s friends that some Vikings had moved further across the Country and were settling down after battles in which they had taken over whole villages. I couldn’t stop thinking about the terrible shock my parents would have when they returned to the farm and saw that we had disappeared. They would, of course, realise that we had been taken captive. If only I could have let them know we were still alive was my main concern.
We were fed again with some strange, stringy meat and water to drink. Rugs were put down for us to sleep, which we did. I do not know how long I slept but I was wakened by a lot of noise and shuffling of feet. I reared up and rubbed my eyes, hardly believing what I saw. Over at one side of the tent was a group of rough looking Norsemen holding and pushing a man and a woman.
My heart sank when I looked again and saw that my Father and lovely Mother were stood looking bruised and battered with their hands tied. I tried to rush over but was pushed down by a Viking who was the one I had feared most from the beginning.
Circling round my mind was terrible anticipation. ‘What was going to happen to us?’
Part Two
I saw that there was great tension between the fierce red-haired man, Ergo the Red, and the other, kindlier Norseman who had helped us. Ergo kept pointing at my Father and his attitude was hugely aggressive. The other one, whose name I could not catch, and thought of as Norgo, went over and handed my Father a sword. The Vikings made a huge circle into which Ergo and my Father were pushed. Obviously my Father was to fight for his life against the champion, Ergo. My Mother shouted and struggled but was knocked to the ground, sobbing. I had no chance to intervene, pinned down by two strong men.
It was obvious that my Father was at a huge disadvantage with exhaustion and some beating but he made a valiant effort against the Viking. They circled and swung their swords, getting closer with each move. I was surprised and elated when my Father caught Ergo a glancing blow on the arm, drawing some blood. However, the tough Viking just shook himself and continued as if nothing had happened. They continued dancing round each other swinging their weapons. The swords were so big and heavy that actual thrusts were more difficult to do. The macabre dance seemed to last a long time but it was really only minutes and then, with a huge lunge, Ergo smashed his weapon down onto Father’s shoulder, close to his neck, and there was a gush of blood, spreading everywhere.
My Mother’s scream will stay with me forever.
The man holding her let go and she flung herself down by my dying Father, soaking in his blood. I also was freed to go to him and I tried to catch the words he muttered with his last breath but they were too burbling for me to understand. My little sister appeared too stunned to be aware of what was happening, sitting with a glazed expression but with tears running down her cheeks, wetting the neckline of her gown.
The events that followed passed in something of a blur, and between trying to console my Mother and tending to my little sister who, I believe, had her seventh birthday during this time, my grief, although terrible, was pushed into the background.
The Vikings treated my Father’s death in the same way as they did their own. A pyre was arranged high off the ground. It was shaped like a boat, as was their custom. My Father’s body, lifted on top was surrounded by tools and weapons, apparently to help him into the next world. Reluctantly I was impressed by the care and formality shown by the Norsemen. The fire was ignited from underneath, with a huge torch, quickly burning fiercely. I had the impression of my Father rising up in the smoke and flames and disappearing heavenwards. All in my imagination and part of the eerie spectacle. My Mother was surprisingly docile, kneeling down, saying prayers until the end of the ceremony with glowing embers puttering down, when she sobbed my Father’s name to the skies.
“Cuthbert, we need you. Come back to us. Come back.”
Afterwards, no time was wasted and most of the tribe were made ready to move on. I gestured to Norgo to ask where we were going. He obviously understood my query and scratched a rough map in the earth. It seemed we were going to an area near a river called Trent. I had heard some word of this place, mentioned by my Father’s friends, and knew there was already a settlement down there.
Norgo managed to convey to me that it would be about seven days’ march. Supposing that we might walk about twenty miles each day I put our destination at about one hundred and forty miles away.
Truly a daunting trip for all of us, particularly my Mother who seemed distracted, only remembering to cuddle Laysa when she came to her notice. I prayed that Mother was not going mad!
We set off on the journey with my Mother and Laysa on ponies, for which I felt reluctant gratitude.
Norgo was really kind to my Mother, making sure she had eaten each time we stopped.
After two days we reached a place where there was a wide stream and were allowed to wash in the water. I tried to shelter my Mother from the Norsemen but they made sure that there was no chance of escape by having two guards on the opposite side of the brook. She seemed happier after cleaning herself and Laysa, rubbing sand into their hair, then dipping it into the water.
Ergo would watch my Mother and then talk to his particular cronies with lascivious looks and laughter. I knew our main security lay with Norgo, who, I believed, was growing fond of my Mother.
Secretly, I was making a plan to kill Ergo if the opportunity arose. I knew I would be no match in a fair fight so I planned to try and set a trap for Ergo, by making him follow me as I pretended to escape.
That night I crawled very slowly towards the door opening, went out and just inside the nearby wood I dug a hole, using a flat stick and my hands. I made it quite deep and then found many small sticks with pointed ends and forced them into the bottom of the hole with the most pointed parts upwards. I then covered over the hole with brushwood and leaves. It was so crude that I knew it would be seen for what it was in daylight and decided to put my plan into practice while it was still dark.
I crept back unobserved. I believed that they would expect me to stay with my Mother and sister while they were so distressed, so the Vikings were not as vigilant as previously. I immediately put my plan into action, picking up a chunk of wood and hitting Ergo, who was dozing near the fire. I did not hit him too hard and immediately ran off to the wood with him following. I felt sure I could remember the location of my hole and sure enough I ran towards it. I managed to circuit the place and Ergo, half asleep, dropped right down into it with a thud and a yell.
As several Norsemen arrived in response to Ergo’s shout, I ran back to the hut without being seen and pretended to be asleep. Ergo was carried back and his few small puncture wounds tended. He was on his feet the next day and I was really surprised that there were no investigations or reprisals. This worried me more than any punishment, leaving me wary of being quietly murdered in the night from then onwards. Ergo’s embarrassment at being hoodwinked must have been the reason for his silence.
Much of our journey was fairly uneventful and after six sunrises we came to the banks of the river. Some of the men went in and were able to spear fish which made a welcome variation to the stews and barbecued birds we had eaten. There seemed to be a real affection developing between my Mother and Norgo and while one part of my mind was angry and jealous, I knew that if she was to survive, the protection of a powerful Viking was her best chance.
When we reached the area called Trent there was feasting and celebration and our tribe were settling in. A few days later Norgo took my Mother as his mate and both seemed happy at the event.
She and I had talked, the previous night, and I told her I understood. I also let her know that as soon as the opportunity arose I would leave and find some of our own people as it was a certainty that Ergo would kill me when he could.
Two weeks later I kissed my little sister, in her sleep, going westward as quickly as possible, not knowing if I would ever see my Family again.
Linda Dalzell
No comments:
Post a Comment