CARNACKI: The Lost Cases by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780692743690
Google: PmONDAEACAAJ
Amazon: 0692743693
Publisher: Ulthar Press
Published: 2016-06-23T22:00:00+00:00

A Hideous Communion

James Gracey

I arrived at Cheyne Walk just as Jessop, Arkright, and Taylor arrived, the four of us having eagerly accepted an invitation to dinner from our dear friend Carnacki. Some time had passed since we four were last here, and we were most keen to hear of his recent whereabouts—a keenness that resulted in our early arrival. Carnacki, after good-naturedly shaking his head at our barely concealed enthusiasm, ushered us in; and before long we were engaged in the pleasant occupation of dining. When dinner was finished, we topped up our wine and settled into our usual positions.

“It would seem the gloomy weather that afflicts us has followed me back from Ireland,” said Carnacki as he settled into his favourite chair and lit his pipe. “I received a letter from an old acquaintance by the name of Harford. He practises medicine in a small town on the southern shore of Lough Neagh and had asked for my help in a most peculiar matter. A colleague of his, a surgeon by the name of John McCall, had suffered a grave misfortune: while grieving for the death of their young child, his wife, seemingly unable to lift herself from a dark spell of mourning, suddenly passed away. Shutting himself up in his lonely house, Dr. McCall, whose mind and soul were firmly enveloped by the stifling shadows of sorrow, became a worry for Harford, who, despite his best efforts, was unable to penetrate the widower’s self-imposed solitude.

“Harford gradually became aware of hushed stories of strange occurrences at the cemetery after the funeral. At the local inn, the gravedigger was heard telling how, working late into the night, he caught a glimpse of a moon-skinned, cowl-enshrouded wraith at Mrs. McCall’s graveside. It slowly circled the grave, disappearing from sight and reappearing as though sinking down into and rising up out of the cold earth, before vanishing into the dark. He fled into town and returned with the men from the inn. A thorough search uncovered nothing, though the gravedigger swore the earth on poor Mrs. McCall’s grave had been recently turned. He was assured this must have been by the hand of the dead woman’s husband, carefully tending to his wife’s resting place. Talk of the wraith spread throughout the town. A most rural and isolated community, many of the townsfolk cling to old superstitions and hedge-tales. Some said Mrs. McCall had returned from the dead to fetch souls for the devil. Children would scatter at the mention of her name; wide-eyed and wary, they’d heard their parents whispering that if you glimpsed ‘Lady Lazarus,’ she would appear in your dreams, staring at you, forbidding you to awake.

“Upon my arrival at the town, I couldn’t help but recall the old Roman name for Ireland, ‘Hibernia’—Latin for ‘winter.’ Ireland is a wild, mysterious place. Almost always overcast and damp, it is believed that throughout its desolate environs are places where the veil between the land of living and the dead is so thin that the dead sometimes return to wander unseen amongst the living.

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