Incubus

A story HPL never would have written this way, but it's in his mind when strange things intrude the familiar environment

March 12., 19..

The chimney fire heavily tried to fight the dark shadows conglomerating in the room's corners and the rheumy cold coming up from the cellar. Since I did live in these old mansion I know the reason people forged garments like dressing gowns.

I inherited this old house, modestly called Arlington House although I nearly didn't know him and only once did see him while his lifetime. Seemingly he died without any successor and so I did get this house and the surrounding park. As a matter of course Sir Zachariah's butler assigned himself to take care on me as he did for my granduncle. Although he was nearly three times as old as I am he couldn't decide to retire.

What a pity I didn't find time to bring here my own things. I was missing my books. There are books enough here, the room I sat in was an amalgam of a salon, a smoking room and a library. The wonderfully carved but worm-eaten shelves were full with old books covered in dark leather nearly reached the ceiling, means they were about twelve feet high. The only trouble was the dimensions and weight made impossible using them as bedtime reading. Luckily my granduncle's taste was better in Whiskeys than in books. The sixteen years old Island Malt was much more warming my mind than the tracts about fairy tales, ancient travel tales and stories about ghosts and demons standing there on the shelves densely.

Without looking I took out a book not as voluminous as the others. The title seemed a little strange to me. “De conversatio daemonorum” was not the kind of literature I used to read normally. Luckily the whole thing was not in Latin as it seemed from the title, because even at school my Latin was poor, but in an old-fashioned English. As author a Georgius Pugnus was named, whose name was not familiar to me.

So I sat there in the dreary light of the vellum-stringed lamp reading how to call a demon, communicating with him and telling him one's wishes while outside the rain falling against the window panes. The atmosphere was more sinister than homy. There was no stereo at the whole house, my granduncle seemingly was no friend of music. The only equipment was an archaic radio at the bedroom, a small transistor radio at the kitchen and a ancient-looking phonograph on a sideboard near my chair.

Perhaps this weird atmosphere was responsible for my reading further in this strange book where I could read that medieval magicians had called female demons for their own excitement, either as a bed playmate or to bring them material riches they could wish. I started thinking about no one knew how old Sir Zachariah made his formidable asset. In general people were talking that he had found some soil resources overseas, at Australia or America.

With a sudden shiver I abandoned the book. I saw the old phonograph. I looked round the room if there were some gramophone records belonging to it. At a pinch I'd hear the classic music the former owner might have heard. Really I discovered a whole line of records covered in paper sleeves on a shelf. I stood up, went over and took out one randomly. I mentioned neither there was a title on the sleeve nor on the record. This seemed weird to me, but uncle might have had a system of order that made unnecessary such labels.

So I laid the record onto the turntable, turned the crank and set the needle on the record. Naturally I expected some opera or concerto, but I sure was surprised by the sounds coming out the tin cone. It might have been music I did hear, but in comparison an opera would have been modern. Drums and strange squeaky flutes were accompanied by monotone voices singing a language I could not classify vaguely or say I knew it. After a short time this noise made me nervous and in a kind of panic I took the needle off.

I decided to go to bed. I think there is no need to say my dreams this night were not that fine.

April 15. 19..

There had something been changing at the house, but I couldn't detect what it was. Awaking this morning for example on the davenport opposite to my bed stood a vase with fresh wild flowers. It was strange, normally a butler's job isn't to put flowers to his master's room. I decided to ask Jenkins for it, but I forgot doing my daily business.

After doing incoming paperwork I started to explore the house with Jenkins at my side. We climbed up to the attic, being a dusted entanglement of old furniture and facilities. Worm-eaten bins, broken chairs and chests with rusty binders nearly disappeared under a coat of dust and cobwebs. I dealt with combing through this chaos if I'd found time. Perhaps I could find some hints on my granduncle's fore-time.

But for the first we resumed our examination. The former servant's rooms we went through fast. Jenkins lived in the ground floor because of his age, the cook and the cleaning woman live at the village. As there was no further personnel, the rooms were empty and emanated a kind of sadness. At the first floor one could see there are people living at the house. There were some bedrooms where furniture was covered with white fabric to shelter them from dust. At the end of a corridor there was a door the butler had no key to open it.

Its wood was carved like those of the other doors, but in some way strange reminding me at the drawings I saw in my uncle's book. I jiggled the handle but there was no movement, and listening would not help anything because the door was made from massive oak wood. Only a strange thing, the wood was cold by touching it.

Taking a look at my watch I realized it was about noon, so I decided to examine the other rooms in the next days. After dinner I had to care about my business which was going on besides of the relocation.

Later....

Some sounds produced by an old house are really weird. I already became used to the woodwork making this crackling sounds and the strange howling of the wind in the chimneys and the roof's balustrades. But tonight something new was to hear, a kind of sighing or slight moaning I hardly could explain.

Night....

I woke up from one moment to the other. Upset I looked round the room but there was nothing looking changed to the moment I fell asleep besides the moonlight fell into the room in a broad beam. I sat up when I thought to hear a stealthy noise from the corridor in front of my room as if someone was pressing his ear against the door to lurk at me.

The rustling of my blanket seemed unnaturally loud to me when I pushed it aside to leave bed. I turned on the bedside lamp and again listened into the door's direction but the sound didn't come again. As silently as possible I tapped towards and opened it with a tug. But there was nothing more than a sighing breath of wind.

April 16. 19..

Again a new bunch of flowers, on the dining table this time where breakfast was waiting for me. I asked Jenkins for it, but he wasn't able to tell me something about and he abandoned with a shrug of hi shoulders to proceed his work. The next surprise waited for me when I returned to my study. The papers I had left chaotically lay there on the desk sorted carefully.

Something strange was going on there. As an old fashioned butler Jenkins didn't care for my business' things and there was no one other who could be interested in my desk. I took a look at the papers.

On top there was a letter from my assistant in Europe telling me that because of an unexpected political twist our sales volume has doubled within a few days. Stunned I settled and thought for what I had read. Slowly the story I read in my uncle's book didn't seem as unlikely as before.

Night...

Again I am startling, again the feeling someone is here, closer than the day before now. I think to hear soft breathing in the room this time, near the bed. Moonlight is painting strange shadows, I think to see the figure of a woman from the corner of my eye. Looking there nothing is to see. Too in the room there is an odor, surely female, but there is no one, could be no one. I lay down again but sleep doesn't come.

Lord, I'm getting mad, am I? Or there are ghosts, figures from the other side, coming to tease the living souls. I don't know, my thoughts turn around and round getting more weird each time. Beneath me there is a movement as if there was someone lying near me. I feel a a cold, soft hand caressing my back. I don't dare to turn round, I only let it happen.

I think to feel cool breath at my neck, lips touching my skin soft as the wings of a nocturnal butterfly. Fear is shaking my body but the same time I feel my excitement growing. The cool hand goes on. I can't do other, I turn my arm and lead my hand backwards. I touch cool skin, let my hand slide on, caressing firm breasts, a flat stomach....

Now I know my uncle's secret and I think I'll do like he did. My business works out better than ever and I have the best bed playmate I could get and I have everything I ever did wish. The price for it seems low, only my soul and it is kept well. When my time has come I'll meet my granduncle in hell and we can talk about our incubus.....