Another story
Those of my readers who sport the name "Nada" will recognise this story. If anybody else does bother to read it, well, good on 'em.
I just put this up because I'm not sure where else it is actually available. The same goes for at least five other of my stories, but this one works best because it's short, literate, and grotesque. Please do enjoy.
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The Charnel House
by Addison Hart
It is doubtless true that St. Michan’s in Dublin is home to all manner of curiosities. Oh, I will admit that the building itself is nothing impressive - you could call it drab, uninspired, unimpressive, and you would be more than justified in possessing such an opinion. It is also very foreign in appearance, smacking terribly of Italian tastes on the part of its builders. Such whims as might then have affected them certainly cannot be said to have been anything more than passing in the view of the general population. It is strictly in its collection of strange artifacts that your interest would lie, I think. There is, for example, the great organ upon which Mr. Handel practiced his “Messiah”, or the death-mask of Wolfe Tone, or perhaps the baptismal font which was once the bearer of a naked, squealing Edmund Burke.
I think, however, that everyone is most inclined to see the vaults beneath the church itself, down beyond those doors and into the darkness below the earth. There is a network of cells there, now home to who knows how many hundreds of corpses that have been piled up over the centuries. Piled, I say, and that is no exaggeration - there are rows upon rows of coffins, here placed over and above the other, sometimes in groupings so thick and great in number that some have collapsed under the weight of those many above them, sending the limbs of their unfortunate occupants dangling in mid-air.
What makes the bodies last, you ask? They certainly are perfectly preserved, as though somebody has stuffed them all for display or mummified them in the method of time-shrouded antiquity and the like. But feel them and you’ll note the leathery quality of the skin - these bodies have been preserved by the quality of the air. You will note that it is very warm and dry, as any decent charnel house should be - any hint of moistness would destroy large numbers of these bodies. The air is so pure down here that the process of decay can be halted for many centuries. They say that this freshness is a remnant of the primeval world, when this spot lay amidst a vast and ancient forest of oak. Whatever the case, the bodies down here do not decay; they merely age, like a fine cheese - and very like the same, they are not to the tastes of many. There are those who absolutely refuse to come down here - the sight of these exposed bodies is enough to send them into a frantic bout of hysteria. I do not understand this myself; they all seem so very peaceful, as though they were merely sleeping.
Perhaps, I suppose, this fear might have something to do with the case of Joseph Potts, who was a verger here when the church was freshly rebuilt. Now, he was not what you would call an upstanding figurehead of morality, displaying all that was great and good about the prominent laymen of this county. The best that could be said of him, I suppose, was that he had fine dress-sense and excellent diction to boot. He could out-pronounce the best of men, so great was his rhetorical skill. Yes, I’m sure you can imagine how many free pints he received at the pub on account of this most appealing trait. My God, he was the most exciting man in the whole damned city for it, I’ll wager.
Whatever the case, in all other respects to his character, he was what you might term a very bad man. The truth of the matter is that he used his position at the church to line his pockets in order to help him amass his wardrobe or take further voice instructions or whatever he might have wanted to do. Misappropriation of building funds seemed a commonality when he was about, and I will certainly say that this could have had something to do with the tatty redesign. Moreover, vestments and thuribles and the like had a habit of vanishing, and I’ll account this to the agility of his unseen hand. What was more disturbing was that some of the bodies down in the vault, those buried with great aplomb, bearing all sorts of trinkets, keepsakes, fineries, and otherwise expensive baubles, were rather unfortunately robbed of these valuables shortly after interment. It is no small likelihood that he had a habit of - shame to say - going down into the subterranean cells and looting the bodies of the silent dead.
He and a dogsbody of his, a Mr. Doyle, were rumored to have quite frequently opened these iron doors in the hours of gloaming and rooted about below, lanterns flickering among the voiceless shadows until their desires for the accoutrements of wealth were satiated. Never mind, he would have said, the open caskets, the sightless eyes, the mouths hanging open, the heads at a tilt, the stiffened hands - the dead would have no use for these pretty things. Never mind, he would whisper to Doyle, the voices that would occasionally be heard from nowhere in particular, like glass in the act of shattering, the breathless threats of revenge, or the feel of icy fingers on the backs of their necks as they knelt to pry lose what they found of value.
“A man’s imagination, Mr. Doyle,” said Potts, “can be affected by any little thing. Just sniffing the air can conjure up the damnedest things, the most horrendous images. God knows how difficult it must be to work down here with these ghastly things staring at us in the most appalling fashion. But settle your nerves, Mr. Doyle - they are all dead, they do not see you, they do not feel you, and they do not care for a pin. If you let them influence you, you will fail to operate in a politic fashion - mark me, sir.”
“I need fortification, Mr. Potts,” said Doyle.
“Sop up a bit of this, then.” A flask would invariably be presented and the ‘work’ would continue until it was decided that there was nothing further to be gleaned. Such events as these were not uncommon over the dozen or so years that Mr. Potts graced St. Michan’s with his presence, and on they went in this fashion, by and large undetected by any mortal visitor to the charnel house.
However, it came to pass that one autumn evening Mr. Potts was left to supervise the interment of a certain wealthy member of Dublin society, who was to be buried in the very expensive vesture befitting such an eminent figure. I need hardly point out that such garb was, of course, possessed of a high value on the common market, and so to peddle the thing seemed a rather profitable venture to the unscrupulous verger. Therefore, after the service had been conducted and the body had been relayed to its final place of rest, preparations were made for the subsequent re-opening of the coffin and removal of the deceased’s outer garments.
“We need only wait for the darkness,” Potts said. “The evening air has become bitter - nobody shall want to be out tonight.”
“That may as be, Mr. Potts, but I shall need fortification.”
“Sop this up, you repulsive sponge of a man.”
“Heaven bless you for a kindly soul, Mr. Potts.”
This is precisely what occurred, of course. Without any elaboration, let me simply say that when night fell, the lanterns were lit, the iron doors were opened, and two rather unwholesome little men ventured once more into the shadowy abyss of the necropolis. For a short while they worked at removing the nails from the coffin of the wealthy individual lying therein - they were making a proper job of it, you know - but they soon became unnerved by sounds of shuffling from above.
“Someone’s in the church, Mr. Doyle,” murmured Potts. “Here, go up and take a look. It could be one of the relatives. If so, go flush him out - there’s a good man.”
And so off to the surface fluttered Doyle, leaving Potts to stand alone down in the vaults, slowly fumbling as he was with the nails and the oaken lid of the casket. He continued in silence, not daring to wait for Doyle’s return but rather attempting to operate on his own - such a thing was always far more profitable anyway. The lid was soon removed, the body was revealed, and the verger was able to set to work unbuttoning the waistcoat, slipping his arms about the stiff gentleman’s frame and slowly drawing said garment off his back. It scarcely occurred to him that Doyle had now been gone for the better part of twenty minutes.
He scratched at his wig nervously as this realization dawned on him, and then muttered to himself rather darkly about how very little he liked the long shadows his lantern cast upon the high ceiling of the cell. It would be best, he supposed, to make the time pass as quickly as humanly possible, for although he was not a man given to wild flights of fancy he was certainly human enough to become unnerved when trapped alone, surrounded by the dead. All the more terrible, then, was the realization that the shuffling had returned.
“Mr. Doyle?” he asked, holding up his lantern. “Are you there?”
There came no response; he merely shrunk back as he noticed how very near he stood to one of the open caskets. He blanched slightly as the pale, dead face was illuminated by the glow of the flame. His heart raced momentarily, and he soon found himself tearing away at the corpse’s waistcoat, overcome as he was by a mounting sense of anxiety. The sound of shuffling was vaguely audible from time to time; he supposed it always had been so. He merely had failed to notice it before, when he was not so very alone. The macabre, grotesque sights around him were taking a very heavy toll on his nerves all of a sudden - they had never bothered him so much before. The air must have been too heavy in the room; his tunic felt as though it were strangling him. He mopped his brow with the handkerchief and began fumbling with the dead man’s arms, silently meditating on the probable value of the waistcoat. It appeared to be of silk, and that was always an expensive commodity, and a worthy prize.
The voice that was heard was unknown to Potts; he could not place it at all. It was not Doyle; it was refined, clear, almost pleasing to the senses. But it had come to his ears so unexpectedly that it made him fall back heavily against the coffin, sending him into a nervous shock. He quickly swung the lantern about, its light here and there delving into the exposed caskets. That voice possessed an unnatural quality that frightened him to no end; it was like polishing glass or the din of water crashing against a rock. If you have never heard anything like it, you cannot imagine the vaguely disturbing thrill of that terrible sound. Nor, I suppose, can you imagine the genuine horror that filled Potts upon hearing it, for he knew that he was beyond a doubt truly alone in a sea of stillness.
“It appears we are alone,” came the voice.
Very unfortunately for the pilfering Mr. Potts, it was at this moment that the lantern went out forever.
Now, I do not claim to know what it is that walks at night in the charnel house, but it certainly extracted a terrible revenge upon its desecrator all the same. The very next day, a group of clergymen from above ground were horrified to discover within the tombs a pyramidal pile of six separated components that had most certainly very recently all served as part of one unifying structure. At the top of the bundle, I need hardly state, was the detached head of the unfortunate verger. It seems almost terribly ironic that he was found beneath the section of the wall upon which is writ the words: “Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?” I rather suppose it was meant to be.
I just put this up because I'm not sure where else it is actually available. The same goes for at least five other of my stories, but this one works best because it's short, literate, and grotesque. Please do enjoy.
++++++++
The Charnel House
by Addison Hart
It is doubtless true that St. Michan’s in Dublin is home to all manner of curiosities. Oh, I will admit that the building itself is nothing impressive - you could call it drab, uninspired, unimpressive, and you would be more than justified in possessing such an opinion. It is also very foreign in appearance, smacking terribly of Italian tastes on the part of its builders. Such whims as might then have affected them certainly cannot be said to have been anything more than passing in the view of the general population. It is strictly in its collection of strange artifacts that your interest would lie, I think. There is, for example, the great organ upon which Mr. Handel practiced his “Messiah”, or the death-mask of Wolfe Tone, or perhaps the baptismal font which was once the bearer of a naked, squealing Edmund Burke.
I think, however, that everyone is most inclined to see the vaults beneath the church itself, down beyond those doors and into the darkness below the earth. There is a network of cells there, now home to who knows how many hundreds of corpses that have been piled up over the centuries. Piled, I say, and that is no exaggeration - there are rows upon rows of coffins, here placed over and above the other, sometimes in groupings so thick and great in number that some have collapsed under the weight of those many above them, sending the limbs of their unfortunate occupants dangling in mid-air.
What makes the bodies last, you ask? They certainly are perfectly preserved, as though somebody has stuffed them all for display or mummified them in the method of time-shrouded antiquity and the like. But feel them and you’ll note the leathery quality of the skin - these bodies have been preserved by the quality of the air. You will note that it is very warm and dry, as any decent charnel house should be - any hint of moistness would destroy large numbers of these bodies. The air is so pure down here that the process of decay can be halted for many centuries. They say that this freshness is a remnant of the primeval world, when this spot lay amidst a vast and ancient forest of oak. Whatever the case, the bodies down here do not decay; they merely age, like a fine cheese - and very like the same, they are not to the tastes of many. There are those who absolutely refuse to come down here - the sight of these exposed bodies is enough to send them into a frantic bout of hysteria. I do not understand this myself; they all seem so very peaceful, as though they were merely sleeping.
Perhaps, I suppose, this fear might have something to do with the case of Joseph Potts, who was a verger here when the church was freshly rebuilt. Now, he was not what you would call an upstanding figurehead of morality, displaying all that was great and good about the prominent laymen of this county. The best that could be said of him, I suppose, was that he had fine dress-sense and excellent diction to boot. He could out-pronounce the best of men, so great was his rhetorical skill. Yes, I’m sure you can imagine how many free pints he received at the pub on account of this most appealing trait. My God, he was the most exciting man in the whole damned city for it, I’ll wager.
Whatever the case, in all other respects to his character, he was what you might term a very bad man. The truth of the matter is that he used his position at the church to line his pockets in order to help him amass his wardrobe or take further voice instructions or whatever he might have wanted to do. Misappropriation of building funds seemed a commonality when he was about, and I will certainly say that this could have had something to do with the tatty redesign. Moreover, vestments and thuribles and the like had a habit of vanishing, and I’ll account this to the agility of his unseen hand. What was more disturbing was that some of the bodies down in the vault, those buried with great aplomb, bearing all sorts of trinkets, keepsakes, fineries, and otherwise expensive baubles, were rather unfortunately robbed of these valuables shortly after interment. It is no small likelihood that he had a habit of - shame to say - going down into the subterranean cells and looting the bodies of the silent dead.
He and a dogsbody of his, a Mr. Doyle, were rumored to have quite frequently opened these iron doors in the hours of gloaming and rooted about below, lanterns flickering among the voiceless shadows until their desires for the accoutrements of wealth were satiated. Never mind, he would have said, the open caskets, the sightless eyes, the mouths hanging open, the heads at a tilt, the stiffened hands - the dead would have no use for these pretty things. Never mind, he would whisper to Doyle, the voices that would occasionally be heard from nowhere in particular, like glass in the act of shattering, the breathless threats of revenge, or the feel of icy fingers on the backs of their necks as they knelt to pry lose what they found of value.
“A man’s imagination, Mr. Doyle,” said Potts, “can be affected by any little thing. Just sniffing the air can conjure up the damnedest things, the most horrendous images. God knows how difficult it must be to work down here with these ghastly things staring at us in the most appalling fashion. But settle your nerves, Mr. Doyle - they are all dead, they do not see you, they do not feel you, and they do not care for a pin. If you let them influence you, you will fail to operate in a politic fashion - mark me, sir.”
“I need fortification, Mr. Potts,” said Doyle.
“Sop up a bit of this, then.” A flask would invariably be presented and the ‘work’ would continue until it was decided that there was nothing further to be gleaned. Such events as these were not uncommon over the dozen or so years that Mr. Potts graced St. Michan’s with his presence, and on they went in this fashion, by and large undetected by any mortal visitor to the charnel house.
However, it came to pass that one autumn evening Mr. Potts was left to supervise the interment of a certain wealthy member of Dublin society, who was to be buried in the very expensive vesture befitting such an eminent figure. I need hardly point out that such garb was, of course, possessed of a high value on the common market, and so to peddle the thing seemed a rather profitable venture to the unscrupulous verger. Therefore, after the service had been conducted and the body had been relayed to its final place of rest, preparations were made for the subsequent re-opening of the coffin and removal of the deceased’s outer garments.
“We need only wait for the darkness,” Potts said. “The evening air has become bitter - nobody shall want to be out tonight.”
“That may as be, Mr. Potts, but I shall need fortification.”
“Sop this up, you repulsive sponge of a man.”
“Heaven bless you for a kindly soul, Mr. Potts.”
This is precisely what occurred, of course. Without any elaboration, let me simply say that when night fell, the lanterns were lit, the iron doors were opened, and two rather unwholesome little men ventured once more into the shadowy abyss of the necropolis. For a short while they worked at removing the nails from the coffin of the wealthy individual lying therein - they were making a proper job of it, you know - but they soon became unnerved by sounds of shuffling from above.
“Someone’s in the church, Mr. Doyle,” murmured Potts. “Here, go up and take a look. It could be one of the relatives. If so, go flush him out - there’s a good man.”
And so off to the surface fluttered Doyle, leaving Potts to stand alone down in the vaults, slowly fumbling as he was with the nails and the oaken lid of the casket. He continued in silence, not daring to wait for Doyle’s return but rather attempting to operate on his own - such a thing was always far more profitable anyway. The lid was soon removed, the body was revealed, and the verger was able to set to work unbuttoning the waistcoat, slipping his arms about the stiff gentleman’s frame and slowly drawing said garment off his back. It scarcely occurred to him that Doyle had now been gone for the better part of twenty minutes.
He scratched at his wig nervously as this realization dawned on him, and then muttered to himself rather darkly about how very little he liked the long shadows his lantern cast upon the high ceiling of the cell. It would be best, he supposed, to make the time pass as quickly as humanly possible, for although he was not a man given to wild flights of fancy he was certainly human enough to become unnerved when trapped alone, surrounded by the dead. All the more terrible, then, was the realization that the shuffling had returned.
“Mr. Doyle?” he asked, holding up his lantern. “Are you there?”
There came no response; he merely shrunk back as he noticed how very near he stood to one of the open caskets. He blanched slightly as the pale, dead face was illuminated by the glow of the flame. His heart raced momentarily, and he soon found himself tearing away at the corpse’s waistcoat, overcome as he was by a mounting sense of anxiety. The sound of shuffling was vaguely audible from time to time; he supposed it always had been so. He merely had failed to notice it before, when he was not so very alone. The macabre, grotesque sights around him were taking a very heavy toll on his nerves all of a sudden - they had never bothered him so much before. The air must have been too heavy in the room; his tunic felt as though it were strangling him. He mopped his brow with the handkerchief and began fumbling with the dead man’s arms, silently meditating on the probable value of the waistcoat. It appeared to be of silk, and that was always an expensive commodity, and a worthy prize.
The voice that was heard was unknown to Potts; he could not place it at all. It was not Doyle; it was refined, clear, almost pleasing to the senses. But it had come to his ears so unexpectedly that it made him fall back heavily against the coffin, sending him into a nervous shock. He quickly swung the lantern about, its light here and there delving into the exposed caskets. That voice possessed an unnatural quality that frightened him to no end; it was like polishing glass or the din of water crashing against a rock. If you have never heard anything like it, you cannot imagine the vaguely disturbing thrill of that terrible sound. Nor, I suppose, can you imagine the genuine horror that filled Potts upon hearing it, for he knew that he was beyond a doubt truly alone in a sea of stillness.
“It appears we are alone,” came the voice.
Very unfortunately for the pilfering Mr. Potts, it was at this moment that the lantern went out forever.
Now, I do not claim to know what it is that walks at night in the charnel house, but it certainly extracted a terrible revenge upon its desecrator all the same. The very next day, a group of clergymen from above ground were horrified to discover within the tombs a pyramidal pile of six separated components that had most certainly very recently all served as part of one unifying structure. At the top of the bundle, I need hardly state, was the detached head of the unfortunate verger. It seems almost terribly ironic that he was found beneath the section of the wall upon which is writ the words: “Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?” I rather suppose it was meant to be.