LITMIR.BIZ

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going on here?” shouted Briggs. He turned towards the door and tried the handle. It was locked!

      “Now there’s a question,” demurred Thorko, “and one which I think should be answered. After all, you’re going to play a significant part in tonight’s activities. But first—”

      “Not likely.” Briggs flung his weight at the door. It pained his shoulder but did not budge. He turned. “Now, I’m telling you—”

      “You’re telling me?” Thorko’s eyes flared a deep crimson.

      The strength seemed to sap from Briggs’ limbs, and he had to steady himself against a wall to prevent himself from collapsing as his left knee buckled under him. Dark thoughts pervaded his mind, and he felt as though he was falling through a swirling red mist, filled with unseen, yet horrible creatures. There were the faint sounds of people screaming, of people being sadistically tortured and killed. Gritting his teeth, he somehow managed to hold on to some vestige of sanity, and he was vaguely aware that the other was guiding him, effortlessly, slowly upstairs towards that dimly-lit room from which the candlelight emanated.

      The other was talking, the words barely heard: “Had you taken the time to study my notebook, and had you been able to read Old Hungarian, you might have saved yourself a lot of trouble, Mr. Briggs. You see, I wrote that a long time ago. In the late summer of 1614, to be exact.”

      They were near the landing now, and Briggs felt as though he had been drugged or something. He was struggling to keep his eyes open.

      “I remember well my dungeon study in Csejthe Castle, where I would instruct my countess and her dark sisters in Black Magic. Elizabeth had been such an apt and willing student, eager to embrace all that I could teach.”

      They were now at the door to the candlelit room.

      Briggs felt bile rise to his throat. Somehow, he had to fight against this draining, compelling authority, which the other seemed to have over him. His will was fading fast. Through eyes that could hardly comprehend what they were seeing, he stared forward as Thorko steered him into the room. It was almost as though he was seeing with his mind’s eye, as opposed to his natural vision. The scene before him distorted and wavered.

      A ghastly, hellish glow had suffused the entire room from some source near the ceiling. A crazy pattern had been painted on the smooth wooden floorboards, and a great carved altar had been installed at the far end of the room. Over it hung a grotesque, snake-like monstrosity crushing an inverted cross in its awesome coils.

      Through weakened vision, Briggs could see the small shape of the doll lying in the center of the peculiar markings on the floor.

      “For too long she has been lost, buried away in secret places by those who sought to contain her. But now her time will come again, Mr. Briggs, and I will see her returned to her ancestral lands.” Thorko stretched an almost skeletal hand out to where the doll lay. “My lady, Countess Bathory. In the final days as she was confined to her quarters and her sisters in witchcraft, Dorottya and Darvulia Szenter and Erzi Majorva were burnt at the stake, I managed to fashion the doll from one of her favorite playthings, in which I could contain her soul. Through the blood of countless virgins, she had managed to prolong her youthful appearance, but it was only I who could ensure that she survived her imprisonment. Starved of the means to prolong her life, she pleaded with me so that I could ensure her revenge. Once your blood is offered to her, she will awaken and bathe in the blood of many once more.”

      Reason and clarity tried in vain to come to the fore within Briggs’ mind. This was impossible. It defied all that he had ever believed in. How could this be real? It was a nightmare. One from which he had to wake, and soon.

      He was being dragged, slowly and yet with a strength of devilish purposefulness, towards the altar. Atop which he could see a large sacrificial knife and a goblet of pure silver. He tried to scream out loud, but his cry was reduced to nothing more than a whimpering sigh as he saw Thorko now standing over him, the glinting weapon held aloft.…

      * * * *

      Ron Sturgess and John Wilson entered the small room at the top of the narrow flight of stairs. It was cramped and dingy, and there was a peculiar odor, a repugnant stench, emanating from somewhere. What visible furniture they could see was either torn or broken, and a few rats scampered away in all directions.

      “What a tip,” commented Sturgess, kicking aside an overturned chair. “Why is it we always find the worst rooms are at the top? It’s as though this place has been used as a communal junkyard.”

      “What I find more surprising,” added Wilson, “is the fact that some property developer reckons he can make a go of these old buildings. I guess he’ll probably knock most of them down and then rebuild. That would make some sense, I guess.”

      Sturgess sniffed at the foul air. “Phew. It certainly stinks. You’d think that something died up here.”

      “Could be that something did,” commented Wilson with a wry grin. “If my memory serves me right, it was in one of these houses, maybe the very one we’re in, that some fella was supposed to have vanished some three years ago. He too was in the removal business, I seem to recall. Or maybe it was something to do with reclaiming old property? Anyhow, I seem to think it was old Malcolm Reid, the auctioneer, who informed the police that this is where the missing man had last gone.”

      Sturgess raised an eyebrow. “You’re joking, right?” he asked out of morbid curiosity.

      “No. I remember reading about it in the papers. The police came out, but couldn’t find anything. Not a trace.” Wilson advanced further into the small attic room, assessing just how much work would be involved with clearing all of the visible junk. “The house had been rented by some Bulgarian, but by the time the police had come to question him he had fled the country. They put out a photograph of him along with his daughter taken at the airport, but somehow they managed to get out of the country. One rumor had it that there was some suspicion of espionage what with the Eastern bloc connection. Something to do with a doll which may’ve had top secret documents hidden in it.”

      “Sounds dodgy to me.” Sturgess wasn’t that interested. He struggled his way through the obstacle of heaped furniture towards the back of the room. “Anyhow, I reckon we’ve certainly got our work cut out getting this lot downstairs and outside. I reckon it’s going to be at least a day’s work.” Ungainly, he clambered over the remains of an old bed in order to get at the wardrobe that stood leaning against the far wall. He turned to his workmate. “The stink’s worse from over here. Hell! Just imagine if his dead body’s inside.”

      Wilson gave a grim smile. “Well, are you going to open it?”

      Sturgess pondered the question for a moment or two, uncertainty rising within him. Then, marshaling his courage, he stepped to one side and opened the wardrobe door. It was with some relief that no corpse fell out from it. “Hah!” he laughed harshly. “There’s nothing but old coats.” It was only as he took a step back that his right foot contacted with a loose floorboard causing it to swing up. In shocked surprise, he glanced down at the space beneath it, and saw with mind-numbing horror the desiccated and rat-gnawed face of the late Peter Briggs staring up at him. From what remained of his mouth protruded a length of fine silver chain.

      THE DOLL’S GHOST, by F. Marion Crawford

      It was a terrible accident, and for one moment the splendid machinery of Cranston House got out of gear and stood still. The butler emerged from the retirement in which he spent his elegant leisure, two grooms of the chambers appeared simultaneously from opposite directions, there were actually housemaids on the grand staircase, and those who remember the facts most exactly assert that Mrs. Pringle herself positively stood upon the landing. Mrs. Pringle was the housekeeper. As for the head nurse, the under nurse, and the nursery maid, their feelings cannot be described. The head nurse laid one hand upon the polished marble balustrade and stared stupidly before her, the under nurse stood rigid and pale, leaning against the polished marble wall, and the nursery-maid collapsed and sat down upon the polished marble step, just beyond the limits of the velvet carpet, and frankly burst into tears.

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