The Hermit

The Hermit

I had only started to let out the spare rooms of my three-storey family home as lecturing at Balor University was starting to prove more and more profitless, and as a recurring theme around Britain, money was low. As anyone might, I would have preferred to keep the house to my wife and myself, but life was becoming increasingly demanding by the month and the homeless population was becoming a problem. It would have been selfish not to rent out my spacious family home.

Of course I had not been so naïve to open my doors to every drunkard and tramp out there, instead I sought for respectable tenants who would be ready to pay their rent and to keep noise to a minimum without complaint. The first to approach me was a young woman named Elizabeth Shire, who came alone with a very young infant, whose name I never heard mentioned. She was desperate, one could tell through her expression and manner, and I instantly let her a room on the ground floor at the lowest possible price that I could offer her.

Elizabeth was our only tenant for a short while and swiftly acquainted herself with my wife, Victoria, helping her about the house with the cleaning, cooking and so on, attending their womanly gossip as was common. She always kept her child close and cared for it with all she could. No word of the boy’s father was spoken, at least, not to me. Despite this the child’s innocent ignorance made him contempt as he played quietly in the corner with his few wooden toys. I never heard that

child cry once.

We were soon joined by a young gentleman named James Francis, an intelligent fellow who I was teaching at Balor. He saw a brilliant opportunity in renting one of my rooms, one being the cheap accommodation close to the university, but also that he could acquire extra tuition from me outside university hours. I was happy with such a proposition and declined James’ offer of extra rent for the additional tuition, finding that the young man understood the subjects quickly I could teach him quite easily.

I did not constantly teach James, for my waning age often left me weary, so that I only managed to give him his extra tuition on the days where I hadn’t worked at the university. Young Francis new this, and was sympathetic as I slumped into my office chair after a hard day as professor to quietly snore for a short while. He was a fast learner, and managed to get further ahead on his prospectus than his fellow students back at the university.

This is how our household was for a while, with kind Elizabeth lending a hand around the house and dear James being an intellectual and entertaining companion. It lasted in this stead until early October, the 8^th I think, when I first met with Benedict Nabon. He came early in the morning inquiring for very much the same purposes as Shire and Francis, but he was very specific in what he asked for. He rang the bell with two successive tones for me to rise from my desk to answer, and stood in the doorway as I greeted the stranger. He was tall, approaching middle age with greying bands at his temples, an intelligent expression upon his feature and set in his brooding eyes. The pointed nose above a cleanly shave chin held aloft loose, wire-framed spectacles that glinted in the easterly sun. Accompanying his educated expression he wore a straight and orderly well-fitted suit.

His voice was quiet and restrained, making one almost have to stain their ears to properly understand what he said.

‘Pardon me sir,” he said, “but I have heard that you have rooms to spare in your home which you may allowed to be rented out.’

With this strangely spoken explanation of his presence I let the gentleman in, through the hall and into my office, where a proper interview would commence. He told me, in his peculiar way, that his name was Benedict Nabon, and that he wanted to rent out the very large room in my attic. He said that he required such a large space for his “equipment” whose nature and significance in his profession he did not describe to me. I had no quarrel with his plea, as the room was so far only used for storage, and what was being kept there could be stored in the other section of the attic with a bit of rearranging.

Benedict moved in as soon as possible, it posed odd as he did so, for no sight of the mentioned large apparatus could be seen as his belongings were hefted up the two flights of stairs and through the narrow attic door. Plenty of boxes of books were seen despite the absence of the especial equipment, and one could clearly tell that the gentleman was some sort of scholar, doctor or professional type, possibly even a historian studying ancient folklore, judging by the few dusty tomes denoting to mythological lore.

Once the last box had been carefully placed in the large attic room, Victoria and Elizabeth had prepared dinner for us all and to welcome our new tenant. Benedict seemed quite nervous throughout the dinner, and was almost mute as we ate, always seeming withdrawn from the rest of us, shy almost like a child, but with a more feverish and fearful demeanour. Benedict did talk, at points, and showed interest in my career at the university, and explained his love of occult topics and cultural lore, as was shown by the vast library I had spied him moving in. Of where he came from, Benedict only deluded, as with his true profession.

There after, none ever really saw that peculiar man as he always seemed to lock himself in his attic room, doing unknown deeds suspected as being complex scientific experiments and research. When he did go out—which was a very rare matter—he always seemed haggard and looked as if in a hurry to get somewhere. When I did catch him skulking down the hall to the front door I did try stopping him to talk, but he continued to shrink away and avoid my friendly banter.

We soon new that we had indeed given refuge to a very queer and devious hermit, yet we were not yet concerned as to what he was doing, only worried at Nabon’s lack of friends and family, and more importantly his health. Victoria had often become concerned over the deranged, lonely person in our attic and would leave a platter of food with a pot of tea at the foot of his door, sounding a knock to attract his attention to it. These gracious gifts more often than not were well received, as told by a near empty teapot, a few crumbs of what once was food, and a folded note on the tray with crabbed archaic writing saying something on the lines of ‘Thank you, ‘tis most helpful’.

Benedict Nabon was a good tenant; always paying his rent in full and at the right time, always with checks written in the same crabbed handwriting used on the “thank you” notes he left to my wife for the platters she gave, and he never apparently made any noise that I could hear, even from my bedroom which can hear every movement in the house. In fact, my sensitive ears couldn’t hear a sound at all emanating from the attic, as if there was no one living up there at all. Others in the household differed in such case, however, and complained of hearing strange sounds in the night coming from the attic. Even Elizabeth on the ground floor noted of hearing singular squawking and screeches coming down, often accompanied by rhythmic chants and drumbeats. I had questioned Benedict about it when I found the chance, but every time he would profess his ignorance to the matter.

It was on Halloween that I finally heard the chanting and damnable sounds that the other tenants have told me about. At the time I could only wander why it was only then that I finally heard those horrid sounds, but now I realise their significance, now I know that they were really part of those ancient Witch-Sabbaths held long before modern traditions for the 31^st of October.

The sound was tremendously loud and the whole house was awake. I had stormed up the stairs to the attic where the chanting was most prominent, and banged on the door to summon the occupant, but no answer came, only more drumming, clicking, squawking and chanting in a language unknown to me and unpronounceable, even inconceivable, to man. It was as if the abnormal screeches were pronouncing the chants themselves, supported by symphonies of blasphemous choir. As I continued to listen to this cacophony from hell, a foetid stench crept through the doorframe and singed my nostrils. Realising my efforts to call the tenant were heedless, I went back downstairs into my office and sat there to try and council out the sound. I was soon asleep from exhaustion.

When I awoke the mild light of dawn was creeping though my office curtains which moved with a dank autumn breeze. The house was silent and I felt a deep sense of repression never felt before in my own home. I could not tell if anyone else was awake, if they had ever slept at all, so was as quiet as I could in my actions. I made myself coffee and drank it quietly as I worked in my mind what I would do about the hermit that had so disturbed our home with his nocturnal dwellings. I wanted to see what he was doing up there, what was causing such disturbing sounds, but I soon contradicted my self with the point that Benedict would by no means let me intrude his private work, even if it was under my roof. I considered kicking Nabon out; yet saw it unjust without a proper explanation of what the man was doing, if he was doing anything at all, instead of it being one big hallucination or dream.

I would wait then. Wait for Benedict Nabon to rise and leave his attic abode and confront him over the matter. I would have waited for aeons, yet I was surprised to hear the front door opening and the sound of light feet padding in the hall. I quickly dashed out of my office before he could reach the stairs and saw him already at the first landing. I called up to Benedict to get his attention and he waited for me while I ascended to greet him. He looked weary and plainly wasn’t up for a proper confrontation.

‘What is it Mr Jones?” he had asked in his cool, steely voice. His brooding eyes gazed at me with a hidden menace that ran a chill down my spine.

‘I have had some complaints, Nabon, that some strange sounds were emanating from your attic room during inappropriate times in the night. I too heard these sounds and was deeply unsettled by their volume. I, sir, would like a full explanation of what has been going on up there.’ I proclaimed. He looked confused for a moment, even a slight bit angry, an emotion soon replaced to be a look of relaxation and understanding. ‘You are mistaken, sir! Did you not see me leave yesterday noon? I have not returned until now for my researches stretched through the night in a more professional place. You can see by my luggage here. You were in your office at my departure and were likely to have fallen asleep whilst still in there.’

Could that be true? He did have with him a large leather valice with him which I did not noticed before, evidently stuffed with many objects. That could have been good enough proof as to where he was the night before. Had I fallen asleep in my office the hole time? I couldn’t believe it. The sounds were too real, the same with that revolting smell. What of the other complaints from the other tenants? Had I not questioned Benedict over these things in the past? When I asked Benedict these things he dismissed them claiming that such things never happened, that it might have all been part of a dream caused by my overworked mind. He tried soothing me, suggesting a break from my work at the university and taking a holiday.

This was so perplexing to me and I waited for my wife Victoria to wake so that I may gain her support. Even she said that there were no sounds coming from the attic. How was it though, when all was so lucid and I never recall falling to sleep until after the sounds? That Benedict Nabon was up to something—had everyone under a spell of some sort—and was playing on my mind. Might I be going mad?

I stayed in this perplexed state for a few days but soon more sincere affairs came into light. The drawing winter was proving to be harsh and Elizabeth’s poor boy was starting to show signs of a ravaging fever. The distraught mother tried her best to care for the child, but he only seemed to get worse. I tried my best with my medical knowledge to treat the boy, yet was at a loss on how to cure him. He constantly cried and had upon his brow a thick perspiration which never seemed to go. Herbal remedies only soothed the boy in the slightest degree and all of us were beginning to be increasingly anxious.

Every day the boy’s condition got worse and by the day and it was only halfway through the second week of his ailment that we were all woken by Elizabeth Shire’s anguished cries. I had rushed down the stairs with my wife as soon as the cries came, and was at Elizabeth’s ground floor room in a moment. Elizabeth was sat in her rocking chair, which was more suited for an old grandam, cradling in her arms a small bundle with a slight visible bit of face showing through the blanket. She was weeping with such pitiful sorrow as to sadden the coldest of hearts. She sobbed on and on, for pneumonia had finally taken the boy.

James was in the room by this point and I ushered him out into the hall quietly so that Victoria could tend to the mourning mother. We waited and listened to the muffled conversation through the door, hoping that some matter of miss-understanding had taken place, but I could tell from what I saw that the bundle was not moving or making a sound.

A creaking of the stairs behind me alerted my attention and I turned to find Benedict looking down at me knowingly. He went down the last few steps so that he was on the same level as me, and then glanced over my shoulder at James, who held distrust for the hermit. Nabon then looked back at me, clearing his throat to speak. ‘I can help. Let me in, on my own so I may think. I can help.’

I had not chance to respond before the hermit pushed pass and into the room. A brief, muffled explanation came from within, followed by Victoria and Elizabeth exiting the room to leave Nabon with the child. My wife tried her best to comfort the grief-stricken Elizabeth Shire, as she stood hunched in the corner of the hall, sobbing and wiping her eyes with a handkerchief.

Countless seconds ticked by and a small thunderstorm had started outside. We waited in a deep silence, thinking to ourselves what manner of medical attention was being done, if Nabon had any medical knowledge or PHD to warrant the intelligence he shows. No sound came from behind that bedroom door for a while, the only sound being the tremendous thunder and the patter of rain on the windows. Soon, however, I thought I started to hear the blasphemous chanting again, the chanting I had heard on the 31^st of October coming from the attic. But this time it was not from the attic; it was coming from the room we were waiting outside of! I did not know if any of the others heard it as I did, for they showed no sign of hearing it, nor did I know if I was truly hearing it myself. Time was wearing thin and I was going to knock on the door when finally Benedict came out, cooing at a bundle he held in his arms, a bundle that was undoubtedly a living child.

To say that Elizabeth was ecstatic is an understatement. Any caring mother who thought they had lost their child would be if a miracle like this had happened. On sight of the boy she flung her arms out to embrace him with her maternal care, thanking Nabon with baffled and sputtering words. It was strange, in every aspect, not only had Benedict revived the supposedly dead child, he had brought him back to a health better than there was before the fever set in.

Shire was ever grateful to the hermit, and for days after the miracle she would go up to the attic with the boy to talk to him, assuring that the child’s health was still excellent because of Benedict’s mysterious handiwork. The boy was as friendly as ever, playing in the corner as he had done before, never again showing signs of pneumonia and fever. He was becoming talkative too—well, as talkative as a language-less child can be. We all had a better respect for the estranged hermit despite our previous ideas against him. James and I even considered him to be a scientific genius that the world should know for the better knowledge of illness

and disease.

Oh, damn my shaken nerves! My hand shakes as I approach this point of events. I must be crucial with my words, for they are beyond reasoning. The memory torments me, but I must go on to make sense of it all. I need to go on so if people find this they will know why I have acted as I have.

As I have said, we were all happier with Benedict Nabon by this point for his services to Shire and her sick child. This leisure which we were now going by was only short lived, and gladness turned into horror. I can never forget that retched day in November. It was the afternoon of the 21^st,my wife Victoria was out and I was holding a conversation with James Francis in my office, what we were discussing, I can no longer remember, when we hear a screaming coming from Elizabeth Shire’s room. We leaped from our seats with hasted and stumbled down the hall to the source of the cry.

Elizabeth was standing in the middle of the room, her arms outstretched in front of her as she held her child facing her. Her face portrayed a look of absolute panic and fear that was bridging to hysteria. It was clear to see why she was so mortified, and why she held the child as far away from her as she could. We could only stand in watch with the same emotions of fear.

The boy, a child with such beauty and innocence that comes with youth, was now an expression of the world’s agony and terror. His once bright blue eyes, had now rolled back into his head, and a thick, crimson liquid seeped between his twitching lips. His whole body shuddered with wicked convulsions. As the child twitched and withered a horrible transformation took place. With an ear piercing screech of pain the child’s fingers elongated into long, bony protrusions like that of a spider’s legs. With these newfound legs the arms shrunk back into its body with a repulsive sound of cracking bone and flesh. What were once the child’s legs now hung limply, no longer having a use, instead the new spindly limbs thrashed franticly and dug into Elizabeth’s arms with sharp talons.

Throughout, the creature shrieked with malevolent fury and twisted its head from side to side. In a final climax the lulling head exploded in a profuse display of charnel horror. It split and levered out into four gruesome sections, spraying blood and gristle in the air. Coming out of the exposed throat and between the quad-jawed maw lashed crimson flagella as razor like teeth chewed at flesh. Lining the inside of the four jaws glared bloodshot eyes that looked on with evil intent.

Freed from the paralysing spell of fear, I rushed to my office and retrieved my revolver from the desk draw. When I came back James was still stood in the same place with the look of despair over him, whilst the un-earthly creature consumed what was once its mother, letting out squeals of demented joy. With no hesitation I fired three rounds into the monstrosity, killing it instantly and sending its mutated form across the room.

In that panicked moment, James finally came out his horrified trance and tried speaking, but couldn’t find his voice, so could only stutter random words.

‘He did it! It was him! The hermit did it! Kill him Fred! Kill Nabon!’

I knew what he meant, and was ready to follow what he said, when a new series of screeching was heard. It wasn’t the thing I shot—it was dead—these new sounds came from the attic, where Benedict was, and we knew then that what we had just witnessed was only the beginning of the nightmare.

We barged our way upstairs, closer to the horrid screeching, and reached the attic door that none of us have gone passed since Bennedict came. It was locked, but it was old and caved in with a single strong kick. I am glad I was not there to see the transformation of the thing that greeted us, as we had seen of that which was dead downstairs. It was a horror beyond comprehension. It had once been human; one could tell that by the howling, eyeless face that was in the centre of it, and four predominant limbs. The rest was a sight none should see. A seething, withering mass of flesh and bone, potholed by mouths and maws bearing pointed teeth, with numerous unblinking eyes, ablaze with putrid hellfire.

Tendrils flailed about in a vain attempt to grab at us. It pulled itself forward on its four immense legs in a frog-like movement and tried to swing a great paw at us, luckily missing by a couple of centimetres above our heads. It tried to swing again, though was stopped in its tracks as I fired the rest of the bullets in my revolver at it. The monstrosity cried out, slumped over on its side, and died.

Looking around the room proved enough that Bennedict had done this. The walls were line with shelves bearing forbidden books on demonology. Strange archaic symbols littered the place, some forming a large circle with singular scorch marks around it. A large stone altar stood in the middle of the room, adorned by disgustingly suggestive carvings and dark, browning stains.

We burned the bodies. I couldn’t have Victoria seeing them when she got home. I would tell her that Elizabeth had heard news of the child’s farther and his whereabouts, and had gone to find him. Luckily, because of his lifestyle, Victoria wouldn’t notice that Nabon wasn’t there at all.

Such things we saw that day should have never been seen—should never have existed. We have never been the same since. Victoria has left, claiming that my new frightful attitude isn’t like me, and that my refusal to go outside ruined my social life. James was found dead in the university library a month after, found with self-inflicted wounds on the neck and wrists. He had been reading a book that had been on the shelves in the attic.

All that is left to have witnessed the horrors of that day are the house and me, and I feel I may bring us to a peaceful end of fire, if our souls may find peace now. Still I am tormented by the chanting and screeching. Still I see those abhorred eyes and mouths. Still I see that horrid face too familiar to me.

Oh that face! That ghastly face! It was the face of the hermit, Benedict Nabon!