Criminal Chronicles

Diary in the name of Mr. Wallice,

the second owner of the Park Lodge

I begin writing this diary on 6^th of June. I hope that everything will end soon. At least this diary will be a proof to my behaviour. I just have to tell somebody about these events… Maybe I’ll find out the essence of that strange feeling that torments me more and more with every hour.

Day after day I feel that something must be done about my strange dreams. They seem to penetrate into reality… and my life is turning to a nightmare. I haven’t told Jane anything because even now she is giving me those medicines. They dig deep into my head and torture it with a splitting ache.

I know that it’s the house to blame. Something dreadful has happened there, I feel it. Why haven’t I asked anybody about the previous owners, the Kassingers?.. I need to find the proofs. I’ve never been supersticial and I’ve never believed in such nonsense as the dark art, magic, the Hell and the Heaven.

But now…

I woke up last night with a feeling that something was crawling down the wall… Little claws were scratching it… something was moving inside the wall. My wife woke up as I sprang up to turn the light on. She heard that sound and asked me to check the basement in the morning and search for rats. Poor thing, she thought those were rats…

I haven’t slept a wink since that night. In the morning I started from the garret – nothing that would have indicated rats. Then – the pantry. Nothing. It was already five o’clock when I came down to the basement.

The feeling of inexplicable fear makes me sweat. As I open the door I sense a slight breath of nasty wind. It is strange because when together with Jane we examined the basement before the house was bought, we didn’t notice any vent. The lamp pours its gloomy light on the grey damp walls. The darkness in the corners fights with the weak light and is winning the battle. I am surrounded with alive, teeming, devouring darkness that drives me mad and urges me to go on and on.

There are again no signs of rats, no holes in the walls. Just our washing machine, the heating, some boxes with my instruments and… yes! That’s it! The wall cupboard with some bottles. I move it aside. Nothing. Again… I sink on the stairs with no hope in heart and dreadful whispers in my head.

Suddenly, the familiar scratchy sound makes my back spine crawl… I raise my eyes slowly and look at the wall behind the cupboard. It seems to become transparent!.. My flashlight points out some strange token on the wall and when I touch it the wall silently moves aside.

Water is dripping somewhere in the dark passage ahead. I step onto the muddy rotten path.

Those dark tunnels offer me no hope. I shiver with the cold the damp air brings. It seems that it’s been several days since I came here, down what I thought was an old dried-up water well. I can’t find the way out, the wall must have closed behind my back. But the most horrible thing is that I don’t want to get out of here… I feel that I need to continue seeking. I am roaming this dark little world with delirious thoughts in my head.

At the bottom of the well there was no mud, no dirt, but instead a strange chamber.

This chamber could only have been used to practice the dark arts, as nothing else can explain the strange markings on the walls and on the huge door made of stone in the centre of the room.

Where the hell does this door open to? I can’t even imagine. Besides, I have a dreadful feeling that I am intently watched. I can’t escape from that feeling and I know that I’m not at all alone in these tunnels.

During my investigation I found some notes in a purple skin-covered book. They are made by Otto Kassinger, the former owner of this cursed house.

“Reddish leaves swirl in the wind like lost souls in search of rest. Like an open sketchbook focused on my dreams, this land is forever pictured as a comforting autumn dusk. Replete with a golden sky, with cracking river waters and bubbling marshes, it feels like a Romantic artist’s canvas. In this endless autumn dusk spiny trees root deep into the foul earth, licking the ground of all that is good.

And corners of this malevolent area are teeming with the inhabitants that parade on its back, whilst the grass stretches over this land like veins of pulsating sinew as if the ground were alive…

Further down the path it is as if the shadows are swallowing the surroundings whole, without a penchant of logic or drop of meaning. It is as if the only reason for this actually lies in darkness itself. Like royalty that rules the black emptiness entombed in the night infinite.

It is She, the Eternal Mistress of Shadows.”

I came across with something so ancient and mysterious that I couldn’t believe it to be real. From time to time I turn around with my flashlight because sometimes the darkness gets too close licking my neck with a cold sticky tongue and breathing into my ears with a husky rotten breath. The second note:

“Some connections are made to be discovered, while others should remain unseen. Some lands are best never spoken, as their hell lies in between.

These words ring in the mind like a dream with irony not lost. For Oneiros is simply that, the dream city of forgotten souls. Governed by none but watched by many. With a sky that bleeds crimson, it is the only unexplored realm I have witnessed. Once I attempted to graph this land, it seemed to belittle me by changing its shape. I will keep watch over this door until the entrance can be sealed.”

It’s obvious that the strange creatures that roam this place can only be the product of some sort of ancient summoning ritual… What a horrible death have I doomed myself to?..

I hear them getting closer. I won’t find a way out of here. The only thing left is to try to open the seal on the stone door. Maybe Oneiros will accept me…

* * *

Some extracts from this diary were published and soon the mass media have forgotten this poor family, just like the previous one, the Kassingers, who were murdered in the Park Lodge under strange circumstances.

Mrs. Wallice has been found dead in the basement. Her body was horribly disfigured by huge markings of some raptor, she was identified by the structure of the skeleton. The children, Thomas and Lisa, are both in the mental hospital without a hope of recovery. Mr. Wallice is missing without a trace.