y Twmpath Parte 2 of 2

y Twmpath (welsh)

The Mound in modern English,

 

Friday, October 24, 1931

2:00pm

Office of the local newspaper

 

A reporter, Michael, has been summoned to the office of his Editor

 

Micheal, a cocky gangly youth of 25 standing around 5’3, is feeling apprehensive as enters the office. He has been begging recently to be allowed to go out and report on a really “juicy” story.

 

His editor, a bulldog of a man who stands 6’3 who is not afraid to through his rather massive weight around, is talking on the phone as he looks up at the reporter.

 

He nods Michael to sit in a chair as he finishes up with. “Good, we’re all set then. He is here now. See you Saturday.”

 

He hangs up. Taking a lit cigar, the editor gives it several billowy puffs as he looks Michael over with a nasty grin before speaking.

 

“ Michael I’ve decided to give you that story you’ve been whining over.”

 

Michaels editor pulls the cigar from his mouth and points it at The reporter’s chest.

 

“Halloween is next weekend and the paper needs a solid, gripping story to lead into it. Something our competitors would not have. A first-person experience is what the story needs. And your just the man to do it.”

 

Michael cringes, not liking where this is going judging by the snide look on his editor's unshaven mug. He sighs and asks the question, already dreading the answer.

 

“Where will I find this story at?”

 

His editor grins wickedly with his answer

 

“The old Macmillan place On y Twmpath.”

 

Replacing his cigar the editor leans back and lets the words set in. Pleased with himself at the shock and horror that his reporter now has plastered on his face.

 

Michael is dumbfounded over the idea, and he attempts to come up with an alternative.

 

“What if I stayed overnight in a graveyard, or at the old insane asylum. Wouldn’t those make a better story?”

 

Michael watches as his editor slouches forward in his chair, the end of his smelly cigar just under the hapless reporter’s nose.

 

“Look lad, with this depression going on, jobless people need a really strong story to take their minds away from worries.”

 

The editor pulls out his cigar and looks it over as he continues…

 

“And there are plenty of others out there looking for work. So you want a job and I want a story, this story! So now, will you (jabbing the cigar at Michael) be the one to get it for me, or will you be the one reading someone else version on the unemployment line?”

 

Michael, feeling like a mouse cornered by a tomcat, nods his head reluctantly.

 

 

“Good then. It’s all set. The caretaker and his child stay days on the grounds. He will meet you there tomorrow at 5:00…”

 

So at dusk on that Saturday our newspaper reporter, Michael, finds himself at the large, high wrought iron gates that lead onto the property.

 

A little solemn-faced girl is standing at the open gate, staring at him. Pale-faced, wearing a faded white frock, she does not answer when he questions where her dad would be!

 

Just turns her head to look back at a truck parked in front of the stone cottage built from bricks scavenged from the old church.

 

Then he turns his attention back to the strange young girl. With a jump, he realized she was no longer there, or anywhere as far as he could see.

 

Shaking his head, the reporter passed the gates and drove up to park alongside the truck.

 

With a heavy sigh, Michael gathers his things and makes his way to the cottage.

 

The Caretaker waiting at the door for him, speaks it with an impatient voice.

 

“Cutting it a bit close ain’t ya laddie?

Couldn’t pay me to stay here past dusk. Was getting ready to leave now, wasn’t I!”

 

Michael apologize, then asked if the electricity had been put on for him?

 

“No electricity son. Need to use candles Dontcha? Now, My son and I usually don’t stay this late so I’ll collect him and be leaving. The house door is unlocked. You can have the run of the place. Just try snd not break anything.”

 

With that, the old caretaker turns snd goes back inside. Shutting the door in Michael’s face.

 

Michael took the hint and went to the wooded pathway that led from the stone cottage up to the Macmillan mansion.

 

Suddenly it occurs to him, as he made his way up to the looming old mansion, that the old caretaker said his son.

 

Could have sworn a girl definitely had been at the gate waiting? Waiting for … him?”

 

He reached the mansion, eerily outlined in the fast-approaching nightfall.

 

A storm was beginning to form, dark ominous clouds gathered quickly overhead.

 

He had brought a torch and now turned it on, locating the front door.

 

He walked up the rickety stairs to the porch and made his way inside.

 

Closing the door behind him he stood in the large foyer A pair of stairs sweeping upstairs along either side. There was an uncanny quiet about the place. A dead silence that made him feel, with prickly goosebumps, that the house was holding its breath, waiting to see what this intruder wanted here.

 

Like one sees in ghostly movies, all the furniture was covered in old white sheets. Resembling spooks sitting or standing in place.

 

A wind, the foretelling of the approaching rainstorm, began whistling around the mansion. Through unseen cracks a breeze came in, making the sheets slightly move.

 

Michel shook his head clear of thought, no one here but himself. He must keep that in his head.

 

He walked through the foyer and turned into the first room on his right.

 

It was an old study. Ceiling high shelves were still loaded with mouldy old tomes.

 

Long windows were covered by heavy red velvet drapes, making the room totally black except where the narrow beam of his torch lay. There was a pair of sheet-covered high-backed padded chairs placed in front of a fireplace. A lamp in between, looking like a person standing under the sheet. Michael thought it resembled an old butler waiting to serve whoever was sitting there.

 

Michael saw that there was wood in the fireplace, paper, and matches laying out on the stone hearth.

 

He went over and was able to start a small flickering fire.

 

He went to the chairs and pulled off the sheet from one. It was red plush velvet, matching the curtains. He sat down. Then got quickly back up. He had looked over at the other chair had envisioned in his head a person was sitting there under the sheet.

 

He pulled off the sheet from that chair, and then the lamp.

 

Satisfied he sat back down and pulled out the journal he had brought to write notes for his story.

 

Michael had decided that there was no need to be wandering alone in the old mansion. Who knows what floorboards were rotten where a foot, or body, could fall through?

 

Besides, the house was sleeping, and he didn’t want to wake it.

 

He froze the hair prickling up along his spine. What in God’s name had put that haunting thought in his head?

 

Whatever could be woken up here? The original inhabitants were long gone. Weren’t they?

 

Michael admonished himself…

 

“That will be enough of that rot. “

 

The rains started then, with rumblings of thunder off in the distance.

 

“To work now lad.”

 

So, with the fire crackling, Michael place the torch between his neck and shoulder to illuminate the journal and began to write.

 

Taking a writer’s liberties and embellishing on what he had so far seen and encountered….

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

There were feet making noise upon the floor overhead. Voices could be heard murmuring from the top of the stairs above the foyer. Micheal tried to rise from the chair to investigate but found he could not move.

 

But he saw them.

 

Two malnourished young girls in wrinkled servants' uniforms. Girls whose skeletons could be clearly discerned protruding from dry stretched skin. Their eyes were sunken in like from lack of sleep. Their hair is a very premature shade of grey. They were looking down over the banister, speaking in hushed scared tones that he could somehow overhear.

 

“That was her I tell you, coming inside.”

 

“Where do you think she went, the master's study?”

 

“Someone is in there, sure enough, but not the master, he disappeared outside

And never came back, after looking for our mistress.”

 

“It was she that did it, or that thing possessing her. She was never right after becoming lost in the woods. Mistress found her, curled up in the middle of the circle on top of the mountain. Wasn’t in her mind when they woke her, talking with that hoarse voice, sounding like that of a man.”

 

“That was no man's voice. It was a demons I tells ya. Because then the bad things began happening. It wasn’t her, but what poss….”

 

CRASH!

 

Michael jumped as the sound of lightning ripped through the house.

 

2:30 am He must have fallen asleep and had had nightmares.

 

The thunder must have been the parting shot of the storm. It had stopped raining.

 

The house had again grown silent.

 

But not totally. For from somewhere in the house. Coming up echoed through the floor register, he heard the unmistakable humming of a child.

 

Michael reached to the floor for his fallen torch.

 

“Bloody Damn” he swore as he clicked the switch. The batteries had died. And he had left the spares in the auto.

 

But the sound was real and not showing signs of stopping.

 

Michael rose and went to the foyer. A full moon had come out, giving just enough light to see his way.

 

There was another floor registry just at his feet. And up through it still came that hauntingly eerie child’s humming.

 

He looked up half expecting to see the figures of those two gaunt servant girls looking down.

 

But nothing was there. It had been a dream. Michael said that to himself but had trouble convincing himself that it had been just that.

 

But from where was that blasted humming coming from.

 

Curiosity overtook common sense.

 

Instead of turning around and leaving right then and there, Michael approached the stairs and slowly began walking up.

 

As he reached the top snd peered down the long darkened corridors, he realized the humming coming out of the registers was now louder.

 

He moved on into the depths of the house stopping at each door for a listen. But not opening any.

 

The doors were all closed, save one that he could make out at the end of the corridor.

 

When he reached the end, in the murky light, he could see that stairs led up to the attic floor above.

 

At the top was where the humming could be headed quite clearly.

 

Now throwing caution to the wind, the reporter walked up the stairs.

 

At the top of the stairs were four doors.

 

Three were closed. One was opened and it was from here the humming appeared to be coming from. Strands of moonlit came out into the Corritore.

 

He could see a shadow outlined on the floor, moving the rhythm with the humming

 

He was not alone here.

 

Michael walked up to the room and peered around the corner to look inside.

 

The room is a child's Nursury with old rickety toys, freaky-looking dolls, and other bits and bobs that a child would collect.

 

I’m the centre is a child’s drawing desk. And seated hunched over, her back to him, is the creepy girl that had met him at the gate.

 

She is busy drawing something on the board, humming that weird little tune he had been following to its source.

 

He walks up and sees a quite good picture of the front of the old mansion that had been drawn. Dark clouds are above it, yellow streaks coming out, a childish attempt at drawing lightening

 

She is currently drawing the backside of a rather bent figure in a long brown coat looking in at one of the mansions' third-floor windows. Hovering in the air.

 

He asks the girl without thinking,

“whose that”

 

The humming abruptly stops as The girl looks up past him then slowly lifts a hand and points

 

He follows her finger to an outside window.

 

Michael feels his blood draining, turning as white as a ghost.

 

For, looking back in at them from that window is.

 

Something not quite human, and quite terrifying.

 

It possessed a white face, with large round black eyes with no pupils, no hair, or nose. A gaping mouth full of crooked, jagged teeth. And a red substance was dripping from its lips.

 

Michael stands there horror-struck as he looks at the terror on the outside of the window.

 

The girl rises and walks to that window…

 

And to the reporter's horror, begins to open it.

 

Long green bloated fingers with scraping claws grip the window seal from the outside.

 

Michael turns and flees the room, running down the stairs.

 

Reaching the corridor he looks back up over his shoulder. Nothing is there. But he knows it is coming after him.

 

For he had been seen!

 

That thought entered Michaels's head for no reason, nor did he understand why. But he believed it.

 

Flying along the corridor he reaches the stairs leading to the foyer, out of the corner of his eye there appear to be two shapes huddled in a dark bedroom doorway.

 

He did not stop to look, instead ran full tilt onto the upper landing.

 

Not able to catch jus breath, heart pounding like it had never had before Michael takes the stairs three at a time. The at the bottom vaults to the door.

 

Sure that something quite evil is in hot pursuit

 

Michael hurls open the door and runs out into the cold darkness of the night.

 

>>>>>>>>>>>!

 

The next morning the caretaker sees they Michaels auto is still there.

 

Having his son(a strapping lad of 16) wait guard by the reporter’s auto, he slowly walks up to the house.

 

>>>>>>>>>>

 

On the following Friday, the late addition of the newspaper carried the story written above.

 

Michael’s bloodstained notebook had been found several kilometers up the hill.

 

The scribbled words within used to write the story.

 

According to the last pages Michael had made it back to the auto and locked himself inside.

 

There, feeling somewhat safe, wrote his story down while it was still fresh.

 

It ended with a final unfinished scribble

 

“Damn, she is …..”

 

No sign of the reporter Michael’s body was ever found

 

The story appeared under the title

 

A nightmarish night on y Twmpath

 

It ended with the final line

 

Happy Halloween

1931

 

And cheers to yours.

 

Done