Victorian Dreams Pt. 01

Chapter 16

Clarice hugged her and gave her a kiss on the cheek as she did when she was younger before the troubles of the house started. Then she sat at the small table in the large kitchen. Her mother set a big plate of breakfast faire in front of the girl and refreshed her coffee and sat to watch her daughter eat.

"You were exceedingly strong last night Clarice. I am proud of you, but the pressure from the Master will increase as time goes by, you must either leave this place, never to return, or steel your resolve to never violate the orders I gave you in regard to the chamber below."

"Mother I couldn't leave you, and I have never violated an order you have given me."

"Then stay Clarice, but never underestimate the guile of the Master and his minions." Chirsty stroked her daughter's hand as she spoke this warning to the girl, the love evident in her touch.

"The Master will try harder and harder each night to get you to come to the chamber on your own. He can't take you unless you give yourself voluntarily, or..." Her mother's voice trailed off and Clarice queried about the 'or' condition.

"Or what Mother?" her mother just resumed her dialogue from where it had ended, without answering Clarice' question.

"Don't worry about the other thing, that won't happen. I promise it won't happen, so don't worry about it. The Master lures women to him. If they aren't pure, their virginity intact, their lot is different than a pure woman receives."

"If they aren't pure because of loose morals, they are doomed to an ugly eternity, one of only serving in the pleasures of the Master's minions. The minions are hideous creatures. The ones you saw the other night are attractive in comparison."

"If a woman comes to the Master to serve and she is un-pure because of marriage and she was pure on her wedding night her life is still doomed to service, but her's is a far better existence. She will serve, but none of the minions can have her. She is solely for the pleasure of the Master."

"Now that I am yoked to the Master, that is my lot. I was weak and fell victim to the seduction of power and eternal life the room promises. For all eternity, I will be used as an object for his pleasure, no standing or purpose other than to relieve the lust of his loins. Yet, I likely cannot conceive a child with him, and if I did it would only become a minion once it was born. I am told I would probably die in childbirth. Yet, if like you, a woman comes to him and is pure, she will become the sole property of the Master. She will conceive his child and bear him another evil offspring to corrupt the world. Some of these only exert their evil pressure on the world in the background, like those in the chamber below, but some are actively evil. The young pure woman who bears the Master a child, is deposited seemingly in the lap of luxury for all eternity, but the catch is it is a lonely existence and can only be realized after death."

Her mother paused a moment as if to examine and collect her thoughts, then continued.

"They don't tell you that once she has conceived his child she is no longer pure and no longer of use to him except as a concubine. So don't let the Master tempt you Clarice. The power and immortality gained in the surrender are not what they seem. Besides of what purpose are power and immortality if you are confined to the hours of darkness and only a spirit? The purity of light cannot be tolerated once you surrender and die a human death. Then the immortality comes and is a bleak existence of searching the night for others to deliver to the service of the Master. A life as an undead spirit with but two purposes only, to search for others to carry out the Master's evil intent, or service his lust or that of his minions. The light cleanses and when something is pure evil as all those in the service of the Master are, the lights cleansing effect is destructive to the point of annihilation."

Her mother's words sent shivers up Clarice' spine, but she held her tongue and listened.

"You aren't told of these limitations when you are seduced to his service. You are only told of the good points, in terms that make you desire the pleasures he offers, for all time."

Clarice thought the whole scenario sounded horrid, and was perhaps another of her mother's incoherent ramblings, yet it had somehow made sense, unlike the prior ramblings.

Before, even when it was in plain English it made little sense, but that was even more rare than the ramblings that mostly sounded like a foreign language.

Her mother continued,

"The minions and the Master only have dominion over the dark times. They have unleashed their evil as the great plagues of the dark ages, and they also were the disruptors of the inquisitions and other great scourges of the common peoples we learned about in school. They can only be active in the night hours except during these times. So they are always trying to set up these inhuman acts man perpetrates on man. It is during these times, they are allowed free rein on the earth, and the Master cannot leave the chamber unless you succumb to him. His minions and concubines can leave, but they have limited power outside the chamber."

"Beware the darkness, Clarice. They are always seeking ways to be released from the darkness so they can rain death and destruction on all mankind. It takes a pure virgin girl to both procreate a child other than a minion for the Master, and in certain instances, they can release the Master and his evil legions from the curse of the darkness."

"They have been exceedingly successful in recent years in their efforts to recruit to their evil ranks. The Master has procreated several children, and they are growing in strength and are coming to power as we speak. They are limited though until the Master himself can be released from the bonds of darkness, which restrict his every move. Now that he has his evil offspring positioned throughout the world, ready to bring death and devastation to all mankind, he needs one more virgin to perform the ritual where consummate purity is used to create consummate evil, then his hoards of evil servants and his offspring will be released on the world, and an orgy of death and destruction will bring forth terror on all mankind, until a warrior is found to return him in chains to the bonds of darkness he is yoked with now."

Chapter 18

To Haley the time frame these words were generated in seemed to indicate the devil's hoards were perhaps responsible for the two world wars that were about to be unleashed on to humanity by a few evil-intending men. The man's inhumanity to man aspect of it all seemed to point toward the holocaust, Adolph Hitler would perpetrate a couple of decades in the future, from the times of this writing. And of the terrible trench warfare and the mustard gas and other hideous events of World War I.

The words, 'Now that he has his evil offspring positioned throughout the world, ready to bring death and devastation to all mankind' immediately brought to mind the fact Hitler served as a corporal in the German Army in WWI and the resulting oppression of the German people after WWI in keeping with the Versailles Treaty, positioned Hitler to not only represent an Arian warrior to the German people, but a savoir of their way of life when he began to build the Wehrmacht, in clear violation of the armistice and the treaties that marked the end of the WWI and of course the holocaust on the Jewish peoples of Europe. These facts of history to Haley were events of the future as Clarice wrote in her diary and even WWI had not yet occurred. So these must be the scenarios Clarice mother was relating to the young girl were about to occur.

Chapter 19

For the first time since she was a young child, Clarice dreaded the onset of evening and the promise of darkness it brought.

Her mother remained fairly coherent throughout the day, and Clarice enjoyed the spirit of her company again. Her mother insisted Clarice nap in the afternoon, to help her get through the coming night and not give in to the assertions of the concubines or minions, merely out of sleep depravation.

Clarice actually welcomed the peaceful sleep, as she hadn't slept well since her father's death with the heightened sense of vigilance, she had felt with his absence. She was able to nap without concern of her surroundings, for her mother, in a rare moment of coherence was on guard. Besides her mother had said the creatures of evil only had dominion over the night.

So she slept on the parlor settee. She slept as a child would, and as in days of old before all this misery beset her family, a sweet smile on her sleeping face, at least at first anyway.

Her sleep was plagued with dreams though, which bordered on nightmares as she saw hideous creatures dancing sprightly with young maidens, all heavily pregnant with child. Then she was startled awake from her dreams when one of the maidens suddenly delivered a hideous looking creature/child and died in the course of her labor, her young lithe body ripped asunder as the child issued forth from her loins.

As Clarice awakened, she noted the shafts of light from the sun had grown long and that evening and night was rapidly approaching. Her mother was in the kitchen again and took Haley to her room. She opened her jewel box and pointed to a jewel encrusted cross. She told Clarice it was a gift from her mother, and for Clarice to pick it up. She told her she wasn't allowed to touch it.

Clarice did as her mother instructed, and her mother told her to put it on and to never take it off. Clarice had difficulties latching the clasp on the ends of the chain, and asked her mother for assistance.

Chirsty Johansson got a fearful look on her face, but grasped her daughter by the shoulders and turned her so her back was to her and she could reach the clasp on the chain. As her mother latched the necklace in place around the girl's neck, Clarice thought she could distinctly smell the acrid stench of flesh burning.

When the necklace was latched and she turned to face her mother again, she noted the tips of her fingers were charred and burned as if she had stuck them directly into a fire pit. Her mother noting Clarice stare at her charred and burned fingers explained,

"Once you are committed to serve the Master anything holy is anathema and those of us touched by the Master receive the curse of the fires of hell that God has promised to those who follow the ways of the Master. The wages of sin are death and hell's fire for all eternity."

Chapter 20

Haley continued to read throughout the day with rapt attention to the accounts the young woman had laid down so completely in her diary. The completeness and detail of the events had Haley thinking it could easily be discounted as the ramblings of a crazy person.

As evening approached, she again cursed herself for having wasted another day in reading the tome of trial and suffering the former owner had written in such vivid detail.

That night Haley again slept in the ground floor room. She was awakened by the noises again, and this time though, she heard a loud crash, and rose to investigate. Her heart was racing as she moved toward the direction of the sound. It had appeared to originate from the staircase to the basement or 'chamber' as Clarice had taken to calling it in her diary.

With only the benefit of the little penlight she carried on her key ring, Haley began the descent on the stairs to the chamber room below. When she reached the door, she noted the board she had been unable to remove two days earlier had fallen from its attachment to the casement that surrounded the door.

Haley thought this rather strange, especially since she had tried for several minutes to remove the stubborn board with a crowbar and claw hammer. She shined the tiny beam of light on the door and saw it also hung open slightly, as if an invitation for her to proceed. Then she heard what appeared a plaintive moan from the other side of the door.

Her curiosity thoroughly aroused, Haley started to proceed into the room below, but a warning popped in her head based on what she had read that day.

Haley had given her virginity to her long-time boyfriend in the backseat of his car in high school. Based on the words Clarice had recorded in her diary, if she fell captive to the 'Master' which could possibly await beyond the door, her life would be one of suffering, serving the lustful needs of the Master's hideous minions.

Haley was no prude and enjoyed sex, but the prospect of being used by some hideous creature as a toy for his sexual satiation had no appeal to the woman, and she withdrew from the temptation the noises of the room played to her curiosity. She returned to her room and her bed, though she was unable to sleep for the balance of the night. The moans and other noises continued and though sorely tempted, she would not allow herself to again be beckoned to the door.

The next morning while her tea water was heating to boil, she again visited the doorway mid descent of the staircase. It remained ajar and the lumber still lay as it had the night before. The noises though were gone and the only discernable noise in the staircase was a lack of noise.

An almost tranquil silence pervaded the air. She thought to enter the room and investigate at that very moment, but the whistling of her teakettle brought her back to the reality of the danger that existed below. If what Clarice' diary had said, the room would be relatively safe in the daytime, but Haley wasn't sure.

It was a Monday, so she had to go to work.

Chapter 21

On her drive in, she formulated a plan of sorts. At least the rudiments of the plan formed in her mind. She stopped on the way home from work at a Christian bookstore she had seen and bought several small crosses and one large crucifix. When she arrived at home, she placed the crucifix over the entrance to her sleeping quarters on the ground floor. Then she put one of the crosses around her neck and another on the waist chain she had worn for a number of years. It was a bit uncomfortable at first, but since the women who 'went to the Master' were for sexual purposes, if she became the 'object of allure' for the 'entities' that resided in the basement chamber, she wanted to be sure they encountered the cross should they investigate what was under her clothing. She wasn't sure it would do any good, but surely it could do no harm.

She also attached several crosses to the doorframe of the doorway that hung ajar still leading to the basement chamber.

Haley went on the Internet and looked for a bible program she could download. She had no printed Bibles, and very little religious indoctrination as a child, but thought to try to see what if anything the bible said about demons, demon possession, and exorcism, which might help the situation she was beginning to feel she was a part of. She had seem the movie 'The Exorcist' and the prospect of being possessed scared her, but in mulling over the ramblings in Clarice diary, it didn't appear any of the other women were 'possessed'.

As best she could determine, the women whom Clarice described as vapor-like apparitions, were concubine women who had come to the Master, impure, their virginity lost outside of marriage. The Raven-haired woman and Clarice' mother, also impure, but their virginities lost within the constraints of the marriage bond, a holy institution. The only difference was Clarice mother was still living while the raven-haired woman was dead.

And of course Clarice, a virgin, so therefore pure and coveted by the Master as a brood wife or a sacrifice in a ritual to relieve the evil from the bonds or darkness.

Clarice mother wasn't possessed, or at least that is what Haley thought from Clarice descriptions of her in the diary. Her incoherency and babbling, the product of sleep-depravation as best Haley could surmise.

Sleep-depravation had been a topic of discussion in a psych class Haley had taken as an undergraduate and that appeared to be what Mrs. Johansson's symptoms and haggard appearance seemed to point to.

Chapter 22

That night as she sat on the verandah after eating a bite of supper, reading the engrossing accounts in Clarice' diary, she felt a sudden chill descend on her. She shivered and assumed the dew must have fallen. Though she was sitting on the Verandah, when the temperature and dew point reach the same mark, the air is suddenly saturated and the moisture-laden air releases some of its humidity. The result whether you are out in the open or not is a quick chilling of the air as the moisture is released, and evaporation can again occur.

The house had no porch light, so Haley was forced to read with a hurricane lantern on the porch. As she sat hunkered over the diary in the limited light, she didn't see the white vaporous being that had appeared over her head.

That 'disembodied spirit' and not dew fall had been what produced the sudden chill in the evening air.

Though cautiously aware of the potentials the diary she was reading presented, and the other factors that were starting to occur, the noises and the board and door events, she still didn't totally discount she was reading the ramblings of a mentally deranged person. After all, had the newspaper reports she read while performing due diligence on the house not stated Clarice had allegedly tried to start an arson fire to burn the house down?

Goose flesh soon appeared on Haley's arms and she decided to call it a night. After she went to bed and was just starting to drift off to sleep, she started hearing noises. These had a somewhat haunting laugh to them rather than the usual plaintive moans she was used to hearing. They didn't seem quite as sinister as they had before. It made it easier to slip off to sleep for Haley.

A few hours into her sleep, though it only seemed moments, she was awakened by a presence in her room. Once the tendrils of sleep left her mind and the fogginess that precedes awakening began to clear, she noted a vapor of white light hovering in the corner of the room.

The presence made no sound and didn't move, just seemingly hovering in the corner.

Haley lay perfectly still as she tried to observe the entity. Finally emboldened when the spirit didn't make a move toward her, she spoke.

"What do you want?"

Though her words were spoken in a soft normal tone and volume, it seemed to reverberate from loudspeakers in the quiet room. At least in Haley's mind anyway.

The vapor immediately vanished. Haley watched for several minutes and it didn't reappear, so Haley discounted it as imagination.

After a time, fatigue started to once again overtake her and she began to drift off to sleep again. The entity hadn't appeared threatening and was likely the product of her reading, which might be the ramblings of a mentally disturbed person, so Haley had no reason to be vigilante or concerned. Besides it could be a sleep induced delusion or a dream.

Though if she were dreaming right now it was the most vivid dream experience she had ever had. Her senses still managed to relax though, and sleep began to overtake her again.

Chapter 23

Just as she was about to drift off to sleep again, she felt a cool chill on her cheek as if a draft had suddenly started on one side of the room. She opened her eyes and looked in the direction of the draft, and the vapor now hovered next to her face. She might have been alarmed, except the vaporous entity appeared to be an innocent girl, with cascading long blond hair and an almost childlike face, more an angel in appearance than an evil spirit. She looked into the deep blue pools of the angelic eyes and saw only compassion and concern in their vapid depths. The spirit softly spoke.

"Beware the Master comes." The voice seemed that of a little girl and her facial expression changed as she spoke into a pained-like expression one would expect after biting into a lemon or other bitter fruit. As quick as it spoke, the vapor again vanished.