16.7.2006
Madame Blanshard's Cellar
http://www.netsaga.is/media/files/Undir%20Br%C3%BAn%20Trommunar.mp3
Madame Blanshard's Cellar
People say that the past, good or bad, has a habit of catching up with you.
Now that my past has caught up with me, two things feature most strongly in my mind:
guilt and fear, but mostly fear.
Let me begin this story now, ten years on.
I've been in the police force for over fifteen years and a sergeant for ten.
While on duty a couple of days ago we got a call from our local cemetery to say it had been vandalised.
So the lads from CID went down to take a look.
They reported back to me and as the duty sergeant I logged the incident in the book as usual, thinking we'd never catch anybody for a crime that lacked witnesses -
live ones anyway.
But then one of the officers dealing with the case said that the caretaker swore blind that some of the graves had been dug up.
When I questioned him he said the impression he'd had was that three or four youths had been drinking and had run through the cemetery trampling on the graves and breaking some of the headstones.
As for graves being dug up, the caretaker had pointed them out but there was not enough evidence of disturbance to get a license to examine them.
"I told the caretaker to phone the station if anything else happened -
just to ease is mind".
I told the PC he'd done the right thing and left it at that.
I knew there was a connection with my past but fear stopped me from divulging anything to my colleagues.
To make you understand why, I'll have to go back ten years.
I knew there was a connection with my past but fear stopped me from divulging anything to my colleagues.
To make you understand why, I'll have to go back ten years.
- - - - -
Ten years ago I was promoted to sergeant and moved to a new station on the outskirts of London.
It made a pleasant change to be working in the countryside where things weren't done at breakneck speed -
or so I thought.
After three weeks I was asked to do another officer's shift on a weekend.
As the new man eager to fit in.
I agreed.
That turned out to be a big mistake.
Nothing much happened on the Friday night.
It was in the early hours of Sunday morning when it all started.
It was about one o'clock.
I had just plugged in the kettle to make yet another cup of tea when the doors to the police station burst open.
A woman covered in blood staggered through and pleaded with me to lock the doors.
"Don't let them get me!" she cried.
I was stunned to say the least.
One minute it's all quiet, the next all hell's broken loose.
I asked her what had happened.
"They've killed my husband.
They've killed him and now they want me", she gasped.
"Who killed your husband?" I asked.
"The demons", was her reply.
Under different circumstances I suppose I would have said she was a crazy but the blood and the fear in her eyes made me listen.
I got her to sit down and checked the cut on her head.
It was only superficial so I made some tea and managed to calm her down.
Then I told her to start from the beginning.
"My name's Elizabeth", she said. "Elizabeth Morgan.
We moved to this area about two years ago".
"You and your husband?" I interrupted.
"Yes, my husband, David", she said before breaking down again.
"Take your time", I told her.
"I'm OK", she replied, "but there's not much time."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Let me tell you the whole story," she pleaded, "then maybe you'll understand."
I nodded and she began her extraordinary tale.
Every so often she would start weeping again and find it hard to go on.
With gentle questions and prompts she managed to recount the events leading up to her arrival at the station door.
What follows is her statement.
- - - - -
We'd been living in this area for over two years and in all that time the house next door had stood empty -
until a couple of months ago.
It was taken over by two women who nailed a large plaque up on the side of their house.
It read Madame Blandshard and Amelia Vogter, mediums'.
That's all it said.
As soon as they'd moved in they started running sances.
We never had any trouble with them about noise and things like that:
they were very quiet.
We didn't talk much, just the occasional hello'.
Madame Blandshard was a large robust woman but Amelia was the very opposite:
small and timid looking.
They were in their sixties.
After about four months things started to change.
I lost my job as a graphic designer and had to go freelance.
David and I converted the cellar into a studio for me and because I spent so much time at home I became familiar with the movements of the women next door.
But on one particular night, I heard them leaving the house.
I knew they took long walks but this was unusual.
I checked my watch after hearing their front door close.
It was midnight.
Then suddenly I heard whispering coming from their cellar.
It sounded like hundreds of mouths pressed up against the wall and went on for about a minute before it stopped.
I couldn't understand it as no one else lived in their house except them.
As I was about to leave my cellar the sound started up again so I rushed upstairs to call David.
But when we came back down there wasn't a sound.
It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
After that David and I had a big argument about me working too hard and not being able to concentrate properly.
But I knew that I hadn't imagined the whispering so for the next couple of nights I kept a vigil in my cellar.
Each night the same thing happened.
I was too scared to go to their house on my own but I did decide to follow the women the next time they went for a walk.
My first opportunity came one Saturday night when I heard their front door opening.
I went upstairs and told David not to wait up for me because I'd be working late.
He wasn't too pleased but I was determined to find out what was going on.
I opened my front door and ran down the steps.
I could see the women walking towards the corner.
As they turned I rushed after them but when I got to the corner they were gone.
I couldn't figure out how they could have disappeared down this particular road which was about a hundred yards long with no turnings.
I was going to turn back and go home but then I thought no, they must be in the cemetery that lies alongside the road.
So I ran down the road and climbed over a low bit of wall.
After looking around for a couple of minutes I wondered what the hell I was doing there.
I was alone and it was dark.
If anything happened to me nobody would know where I'd gone.
But my curiosity got the better of me and I decided to walk or rather stumble deeper into the cemetery.
In my efforts to avoid stepping on any of the graves I tripped over something and hit the ground so hard I was sure somebody would have heard me.
Not daring to move, I waited, watching and listening for any signs of life.
Then I turned around to see what had tripped me up.
It was a bag which I thought I'd seen Amelia carrying.
I can't describe the feeling I had at that moment.
My heart started beating so hard my chest felt like a punch bag.
I had to put my hand across my mouth to stop myself from screaming.
Then I crawled -
it was more like a sprint crawl -
and hid behind a large headstone.
Before I could get my breath back I heard footsteps.
It was Madame Blandshard and Amelia.
They were covered in mud and were carrying shovels and two plastic bags.
As they picked up the bag I had tripped over and walked away, they deliberately scuffed at the earth covering some of the graves, shuffling it to one side.
Then they pushed a couple of headstones over.
After waiting five minutes or so I rushed home and told David what I'd seen.
He said to call the police but I said we had no proof.
I hadn't actually see them dig anything up.
It was then that I suggested to David we break into Madame Blandshard's cellar.
He was a bit hesitant at first but agreed on the one condition that I wasn't to go off on my own without telling him.
For the next couple of weeks David and I spent our time watching Madame Blandshard and Amelia.
We timed their night-time excursions down to the last second.
Then tonight, David rushed into the bedroom and said "Now's our chance -
they've just gone out.
Let's go!"
I was the one who felt apprehensive this time.
It was after midnight and we knew we had about twenty minutes to look around their cellar before they returned.
We took a torch and a machete with us -
we must have looked a right pair of villains.
As we opened their cellar window there was an overpowering smell of decaying flesh.
The stench was so bad I nearly vomited.
I grabbed a chair and sat down while David found the light switch.
The walls of the cellar were covered in a heavy curtain material.
I tried pulling them apart but they were nailed to the wall.
I told David the smell was coming from behind the curtains.
David tried to cut the curtain with his machete but the blade wasn't sharp enough.
So he thrust the machete straight through the curtain.
There was an almighty scream from behind the curtain.
David was so stunned he couldn't let go of the machete.
He started shaking uncontrollably.
That sound of sheer pain just went straight through you.
I yelled at David to let go and grabbed his arm to pull him away.
The curtains tore right off the wall.
You couldn't have imagined a more macabre sight.
The cellar wall was covered in a sea of decomposed heads but they were still alive.
Their eyes had been gouged from their sockets and hung up like hideous relics.
They screamed at us to leave them alone.
"No more!" they cried. "Leave us in peace!"
David and I were dumbfounded.
What kind of evil was this, we wondered.
But before we had a chance to react David tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to the stairs.
Looking down at us from the top step were Madame Blandshard and Amelia.
A deadly silence followed as if nobody knew what to do or say.
Then a cry came from the wall,
"Run! Run before they start changing!"
We didn't have a clue what that meant but we were about to find out.
As Madame Blandshard and Amelia got to the bottom of the stairs they started humming.
It was a strange sound that shook every bone in your body.
David and I could feel ourselves getting weaker as the vibrations drained every ounce of energy we had left.
We were helpless and the women were getting closer and closer.
Again came cries from the wall.
"Here they come,
tormentors, demons, rynahmendi, belka hadd, rynahmendi, belka hadd".
They kept repeating these names over and over again.
The names seemed to unsettle Madame Blandshard and Amelia because they suddenly stopped, turned away from us and hailed a torrent of abuse at the beings in the wall.
As weak as we were, David and I seized our opportunity.
We jumped on top of a table and headed for the window.
But I slipped and knocked into David who fell on top of Madame Blandshard before I fell on them both.
Amelia came from nowhere and grabbed me by the hair, pulling me up like a rag doll.
She started slapping me across the face, every slap feeling like a hammer blow.
I tried grabbing her arms but I was beginning to lose consciousness.
My hands kept slipping.
I covered my face to try to protect it and thought I must have a piece of Amelia's dress in my hands, torn off in the struggle.
But it wasn't cloth.
I was holding folds of skin.
Amelia's skin was peeling off.
Then she threw me on top of the table and started throttling me.
I thought I was going to die but somehow David had got away from Madame Blandshard and struck the machete straight into the back of Amelia's head.
She sprang up, clenched her teeth and started meandering drunkenly around the cellar trying to pull it out.
David picked me up and carried me across to the window. I was half way through it when the two women appeared behind him.
They were hideously covered from head to foot in some kind of black slime.
They jumped on David's back, pulled him down and beat him mercilessly.
I climbed back in but David kept screaming at me to run for help.
I only got out by the skin of my teeth and I felt terrible about leaving him there but there was nothing else I could do.
They weren't human.
- - - - -
Elizabeth became delirious at this point.
I didn't know what to make of her story:
it was just incredible that something like that could be happening in our very own neighbourhood.
But I was convinced she had not made it up and clearly I had to get some kind of help.
I picked up the telephone on the front desk but the line was dead.
We had another phone upstairs.
I reassured Elizabeth that she was safe here and locked the doors to the police station.
I ran upstairs and was just about to pick up the phone when I heard three loud knocks and then what sounded like an explosion from downstairs.
Elizabeth was screaming.
As I ran back to the stairs I was confronted by what I can only describe as a gale force wind.
It blew me down the corridor and pinned me against the wall.
There was a pungent smell of rotten eggs in the air and no matter how much I struggled I remained stuck hard to the wall.
Then, as suddenly as it had started, the wind died down.
I fell to the floor and realised to my horror that I could no longer hear any sound from Elizabeth.
I got up and walked slowly along the corridor and then down the stairs.
I could see Elizabeth now.
Her head was slumped back onto the chair.
My worst fears had been realised:
she was dead.
There were no marks on her apart from her earlier cut yet it looked as if all the blood had been drained from her face.
The doors to the police station were buckled and wide open.
On the floor was some black slime which was where the bad smell was coming from.
I sat down on the station steps wondering what the hell had happened.
That was the dilemma I faced that night ten years ago.
I had one dead woman, her husband supposedly killed by demons and no one to corroborate her story.
Before I had a chance to dream up a reasonable explanation the phone started ringing.
It was a fellow officer who'd been trying to contact me for over an hour.
I had to think on my feet.
I told him I had a dead woman in the station and asked him to go over to Madame Blandshard's house and search the cellar.
If he found nothing there he was to check Elizabeth's house.
The officer phoned back forty minutes later.
There was nothing out of the ordinary in Madame Blandshard's cellar but in Elizabeth's house he had found the body of a headless man.
"What the hell's going on?" he demanded.
I told him that, according to Elizabeth, the couple were attacked by two women from a satanic cult.
Elizabeth had got away but David, her husband, was trapped and killed. Elizabeth, I said, probably died from a brain haemorrhage brought on by the shock of what had happened.
There was a major inquiry in which I was asked a lot of questions about Elizabeth's story and my own.
Out of fear of being ridiculed I told my superiors as little as possible.
My version of what had happened was finally accepted.
The case, though not closed, was put aside.
- - - - -
That is why the recent events in the cemetery have unsettled me so much. I'm going to have to deal with it once and for all.
- - - - -
With two weeks leave coming to me, I decided that now was the time.
My first port of call would be the cemetery.
I contacted the caretaker who showed me the four graves he thought had been tampered with.
I understood why my colleagues chose to ignore the evidence:
digging up dead bodies is not a pleasant task, there are the relatives to consider and the publicity.
I dreaded to think what the press would make of Elizabeth's story.
The next thing I had to do was find somebody who knew about demonic forces and the occult.
I went to the library and got the names of eight authors who specialised in this demonology.
I spent the next week phoning publishers and literary agents and finally had the names and addresses of two of the authors to interview.
The first never answered but the second, a Mr Anderson, agreed to meet me.
At first we talked about demonology in general.
Then I put Elizabeth's story to him as a hypothetical situation.
He listened carefully until the moment I mentioned the names of the demons rynahmendi and belka hadd.
Anderson jumped up, his face red with anger.
"Do you have any idea what you've just done?
Do you realise who you've just summoned?
You've placed us in a great deal of danger".
I was flabbergasted and quickly explained the real reason for my visit.
I told him it was the first time I'd told anybody the truth about the events of ten years ago.
As he paced up and down he asked me what happened to Elizabeth so I told him the whole story.
He gave me a very anxious look.
"This is serious.
We've got to be prepared", he said.
"Prepared for what?" I asked.
"To defend ourselves.
Wait here a moment".
With that he walked out of the room.
I began to feel very anxious myself.
Anderson came back carrying a large book which he put on the table.
He flicked through the pages until he found what he was looking for.
"Come over and look", he said.
"This is what we're going to have to defend ourselves against".
It was a picture of two strange looking figures covered in slime.
Their faces were invisible.
Anderson explained that the slime represented the evil and corruption that pours out of a demonic form just before it kills or desecrates a grave.
"These two were responsible for the deaths of Elizabeth and David.
You know their names already," he said, "but don't ever repeat them aloud again.
When Elizabeth told you her story, she said the demons were coming for her.
Well they weren't until she called them by name.
Unfortunately she wasn't to know that their names are only known to their creator and to their victims."
"But what are these demons and how come their names are in a book for all to see?"
I demanded, utterly perplexed.
"The demons were created to torment the dead", said Anderson.
"Books of this nature are illegal but I can't explain why because we don't have the time. You're just going to have to trust me.
Now that we have the names of the demons", he went on, "there's a chance we can destroy them."
"How?" was my next question to which Anderson replied,
"With the scorpion daggers".
"These are no ordinary daggers", he continued.
"They've been especially designed with hollow tubes in the blades through which mercury and liquid sulphur can be thrust into the demon to destroy it."
It sounded crazy to me but Anderson was absolutely serious.
He asked me if I knew where Madame Blandshard and Amelia were living now.
I said I didn't but I could find out.
"Don't approach them until I'm ready", he warned.
"It should only be a couple of days."
I gave him my phone number and left.
When I got home there was a message on the answer phone from the cemetery caretaker:
two more graves had been disturbed.
I got out a map of the cemetery and surrounding area.
I was sure that Madame Blandshard was still living close-by and I reckoned that if I worked my way inwards through the surrounding streets I should be able to locate her house.
Walking the streets tracking down suspects was more my kind of work.
It didn't take me long to locate the mediums' new residence.
Now all I had to do was wait for Anderson's call.
Three days passed with no word from Anderson.
I tried ringing him a few times but the phone was always engaged.
In the end I decided to call on him myself.
As I collected my coat there was a loud knock at my front door.
I froze to the spot.
All kinds of things were going through my mind but there was one thing I was sure about:
I would not answer the door.
After a couple of minutes, chopper in hand, I entered the hall.
There was a card on the mat from the postman who'd been tying to deliver a parcel.
I felt like a right idiot and decided I'd pick it up from the depot after seeing Anderson.
As I drove into his street I saw two police cars and an ambulance.
I recognised one of my colleagues, pulled over and asked him what was going on.
When he told me a man's headless corpse had been found I didn't need to hear anymore.
I knew it was Mr Anderson.
He was my last chance to sort this thing out and now he was dead.
I was sure I'd be the next victim.
I had to go somewhere safe where I could think, somewhere public and crowded.
I drove to the depot, got the parcel and headed for the nearest pub.
After a couple of pints I went to the toilet, taking the parcel with me so it wouldn't be nicked.
I suddenly became curious and started unwrapping it in the cubicle.
Two daggers fell out.
They were gold and their hilts were in the shape of a twisted serpent with a large embossed scorpion at the end.
There was also a letter from a Mr Vincent who had made the daggers for Anderson.
"Anderson knew he didn't have long to live," it read.
"That's why I'm sending the daggers to you.
Understand that the demons come within twelve hours of being called.
Anderson could never have prepared himself in the time and that's why he wants you to carry out his last wish:
to kill the demons.
You don't have much time.
Good luck!"
Luck, I thought.
I need a bloody miracle.
As I walked back to my table my thoughts alternated between the unselfishness of Anderson's act and my overwhelming desire to run as far away from here as possible.
But I knew I couldn't escape.
I stopped counting the pints of beer.
When my brain was sufficiently numbed I staggered out of the pub and got into my car.
If I was going to die I didn't want to be sober when it happened.
Driving up to Madame Blandshard's house, I kept thinking that the best way to proceed would be to go straight through the front door.
But as I stepped out of the car my legs felt like slabs of concrete and I started breaking wind.
By the time I knocked on the door the alcohol was wearing off.
It swung open.
Failing to find the light switch, I pulled out the daggers and walked to the back of the house.
It wasn't difficult to locate the stairs down to the cellar:
all I had to do was follow the foul smell.
Bravado came over me as I reached the door at the top of the cellar stairs.
Instead of cautiously walking through it, I kicked the door wide open, missed my footing and fell down the stairs.
The light came on.
Even though it was a different house the cellar was just how Elizabeth had described it to me:
heavy curtains around the walls and a large table in the centre.
Sitting at the table smiling at me were Madame Blandshard and Amelia.
They stood up.
"We've been expecting you".
Still half dazed from the fall I began waving the daggers at them but they just laughed at me.
Then I realised I had nothing in my hands:
I must have dropped the daggers in the fall.
As I turned to look for them I started to lose my balance.
Perhaps it was the alcohol but my body was starting to shake and I heard the strange humming Elizabeth had mentioned.
I had to get to the daggers before it started affecting me.
I spotted one of the daggers lodged in the banister.
I ran up the steps and pulled it out but as I did so Madame Blandshard grabbed my legs and starting pulling them with incredible strength.
I could feel my bones leaving their sockets.
Something cracked:
the banister gave way and we both fell.
Although Madame Blandshard was underneath I couldn't free my legs from her grip of steel.
Just as I thought things couldn't get any worse, Amelia started rushing towards me howling with rage.
Luckily I still had the dagger.
I threw it at her, aiming successfully for her throat, but she kept coming.
She jumped on top of me and I was almost suffocated by the slime that poured out of her body.
I had to wipe some of it from my mouth before grabbing hold of the dagger dangling from her throat.
I pushed it in deeper and heard a click which I knew meant that the dagger's contents had been released.
All it needed was the right amount of pressure on the scorpion.
I pushed Amelia away as she continued to howl, this time in agony rather than fury.
Then I turned my attention back to Madame Blandshard.
She was still trapped beneath me and the banister but I could feel her getting stronger.
I had to find the other dagger and fast.
I managed to release my ankle but a violent struggle ensued in which I was picked up and thrown across the cellar.
Madame Blandshard got up and started walking towards me.
The picture she presented was horrific.
A demon is bad enough but one intent on killing you is something else.
There was a hideous expression on what was left of her face which kept changing at the blink of an eye.
I had the feeling I was being hypnotised into wanting to be devoured by this evil creature.
I stood helpless as it squeezed the life out of me and then I lost consciousness.
When I came to I was on the floor with the demon Madame Blandshard still standing over me.
I crawled away before looking back over my shoulder.
An old man was stabbing her in the back with the second dagger.
Whoever he was, he had saved my life.
Madame Blandshard fell to the floor.
Instantly the atmosphere changed.
The bodies of the demons and the heads embedded in the walls disappeared.
The cellar felt like a calm and peaceful place.
The old man came over to me and asked if I was OK.
"Yes," I said, "thanks to you".
He introduced himself as Anderson's friend, Vincent.
"I followed you to the house to make sure the demons were destroyed", he said.
I was feeling immensely relieved and grateful until he gave me an anxious look and said,
"It's not over yet".
"You've got to be joking!" I said in horror.
"Didn't we destroy them all?"
"Yes", replied Vincent.
"But the demons' creator is going to want its revenge.
We must be prepared when the time comes".
Oh no, I thought, I can't go through all this again.