11 Feb The Parliament of Shades

In the ruins of a long-abandoned mill, Emma Reardon grasped the fleeting strands of sanity that remained, trying not to succumb to the horror surrounding her.

Remembering how all this had begun, Emma recalled opting out of higher education in England. She decided to journey across the pond to the United States to study anthropology at the much-touted Miskatonic University in Essex County, Massachusetts. The air of old New England aristocracy was very much like her hometown of West Wycombe. This climate made her comfortable in her new campus life.

Upon her first mid-term in higher education, Emma and her small band of friends decided to celebrate with a pub crawl. Unfortunately, the closest city, Arkham, was not a typical college party venue, but it did have a half-dozen pubs.

Emma was a bit apprehensive about the night of drinking. In her twenty years, she had never done a drug more powerful than aspirin. Alcohol had certainly never touched her lips. She really didn’t want to make an ass out of herself.

“Em, don’t worry about it. I’ll even volunteer for hair-holding duty.” Claire, her dorm roommate, promised.

“Ex Ignorantia ad Sapientiam; Ex Luce ad Tenebras!” Emma and her four classmates roared. It was the third time they had proclaimed the university motto (in as many bars) when Emma began to feel the compounding effects of the alcohol on her brain.

“Are you okay, Emma?” asked Charles, a mate who was clearly enamored with Emma.

“You’re looking a little pale,” added Claire.

Emma flashed her soft green eyes at them: “I just need a spot of air.”

Outside the tavern, she slowly drew in the crisp fall air, but the alcohol was still playing on her balance and focus. Her stomach started to churn and she feared a liquor-inspired purge. She held herself up against the cold stones of the building as she made her way to the small alley beside the tavern.

“Atone…” a low, masculine voice rumbled into her ears like a distant peal of thunder.

A terrible velvet hand clutched her heart. A figure composed of the darkest shadows stood in the alley. The six-foot form rippled, like an image caught between the tuning in of a television, yet never lost substance. She could make out the contour of a knee-length coat and a proper English Bowler hat.

“Stay away,” Emma barely slurred, but the shadow man advanced.

“Em, everything all—?” Charles had come from the tavern to check on his crush.

“Help me,” she sputtered and pointed down the alley.

Charles puffed his chest and pointed an accusing finger: “Back off, creep!”

“Atone…” the shadow said, ignoring the young man’s command.

“No!” Emma shrieked.

The events that played out before her were not alcohol-induced hallucinations. Unbridled terror ensured Emma witnessed every detail with stark clarity, as if she were helplessly detached and floating above the confrontation. Charles was in the middle of asserting his dominance when his words choked off. She could hear his labored, panicked breathing as his feet began to leave the ground. An indescribable rigor mortis gripped his thin frame as his body continued to elevate off the brick alley pavement. The shadow man halted his progress. It was then that Charles’ head began to shake, imperceptibly at first, then more violently. It was as if his head had been placed in a paint can shaker and the speed was being methodically increased.

“Stop it! Leave him alone!” Emma pleaded.

A sharp, brittle crack sounded from Charles’ neck. He fell to the bricks like a wet, discarded towel.

Emma, tears cascading down her face, issued a scream of pure torment. This brought a steady, concerned stream of patrons from the tavern, but Emma’s eyes didn’t leave the ominous shadow man. As the patrons attended to her and the lifeless body of her schoolmate, the figure slowly receded into the blackness of the alley.

“There!” Emma pointed down the alley.

Some of the crowd, members of the Miskatonic University Lacrosse team, thundered down the alley with murderous intent, only to return with puzzled expressions and explanations of the dead end the alley had become. This overwhelmed Emma into unconsciousness.

Emma had no idea how long she had been unconscious, but the beeping of a heart monitor made it immediately clear she was in a hospital. The somber glow of the machines competed with the dull overhead fluorescent light above her bed as her eyes fought to focus on the green numbers of the digital clock on the wall. It was 2:47, almost four hours past the time she had last remembered.

“Welcome back, sweetie.” She noticed the physician assistant sitting in a chair who had taken her eyes from a paperback book. “You’re in Arkham Hospital, and you’re okay.”

Am I? she wondered. She looked at the wires running into her gown and the IV in her arm.

“You’ll be out of here in the morning.” The PA gave a practiced smile. “Can you recall what happened?”

“No,” Emma lied, remembering every grisly detail of the nightmare that had unfolded in the alley. Within minutes, she drifted back to dreamless sleep.

Claire greeted her in the morning with a smile and Emma’s drink of choice, a double mocha latte. Her roommate made a point to avoid any conversation concerning the previous night’s events, and that was fine by Emma.

“Your mom called,” Claire finally managed to say during the drive back to the campus.

“What did she say?” A different wave of nausea hit her.

“The university called her,” she shrugged.

Emma rested her head on the dash. “What did you say?”

“I said it was a slight case of food poisoning. Hospital was keeping you overnight. No biggie. I told her you’d call her.”

“Bollocks,” Emma sighed.

“After we stop off and pick up your prescription, you’re going to call your mama. No excuses.”

Emma waited in the car while Claire dashed into the pharmacy. The effects of the alcohol were burning out of her system, and she tried to stem the tide with her heavily caffeinated beverage.

“Okay,” Claire said, startling Emma upon her return several minutes later. She shook the small white bag and plopped into the driver’s seat.

“What is it?” Emma took the bag, clearly distracted.

“Trazodone,” Claire said as she keyed the ignition. “My dad used to take it for his insomnia. It helped with his anxiety too. He said it worked great with a couple of beers.”

“I don’t see myself drinking anytime soon.”

“Listen, Em.” Claire looked at her with concerned eyes. “Last night was messed up. I can’t imagine what happened, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you feel a little sleepless and anxious. If you need a pill, take one.” She popped a smile and a wink. “You’re a lightweight anyway. You can always share.”

As Claire promised, Emma called home when they returned to the dorm. Emma stuck to Claire’s carefully crafted cover story. Mother used her very concerned voice as she made Emma promise no drugs or alcohol. Emma swore she would study and make her mother proud.

It took no time for Emma to hang up the phone, open the little brown pharmacy bottle and swallow a Trazodone. In the warm orange light of the afternoon sun, Emma drifted off into a sleep without nightmares.

However, she did dream.

She awakened to the night and the smell of spicy Ramen noodles. Claire noticed Emma sitting up and offered her a steaming bowl. She accepted and the two sat in their dormitory room eating in silence for a time.

“Did I ever talk about my hometown?” Emma asked.

“Not really.” Claire finished a particularly long strand of noodles. “I know it’s in England,” she giggled.

Emma smiled. “I was born and raised in West Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, just north of London. One of the reasons I decided on Anthropology as my field of study was our major tourist attraction. Have you ever heard of the Hellfire Caves?”

“No.”

“I’m not surprised. The only people who recognize the name are people who follow the paranormal. The caves were built in the mid-1700s by Baron le Despencer and Francis Dashwood. He was the founder of several exclusive male clubs. The Hellfire Club was one of his more notorious creations.”

“He built caves? Why?”

“No one knows, really. That is part of his controversial legacy. He constructed a series of tunnels and chambers that ran 500 meters underground – about a quarter mile – for unknown rituals and parties. It was always rumored the men of the club took the motto Do what thou wilt to perverse extremes.

“When I was growing up in West Wycombe, it was simply part of the town’s spotty legend. The caves were shut down until the 1950s when the 11th Baronet decided to refurbish them and open them up to the public for much-needed funds.”

“Make money where you can.” Claire had abandoned her noodles and listened intently.

“True. The Hellfire Caves have been the main economy for West Wycombe. A cottage industry, if you will. Growing up there, every mate old enough to ride a pushbike explored the caves. I was no exception.”

“Is that what you dreaming about?”

Emma nodded. “I was 10 years old when I first explored the Hellfire Caves. My mum decided to take my older sister, Debbie, and me through the caves. Back then, there was a tourist and a local tour. The local tour had no tour guide because locals should know the history of their own landmarks and wouldn’t need the boring narration of a guide. Plus, it was a Pound cheaper.

“The tunnels were constructed with a bizarre mix of influences, including Italian, Ottoman, Turkish, and a few other architectural designs. There was probably a plan when excavation started, but it ended up a mish-mash by the time they finished the tunnels. The only constant was the Pagan god statues that popped up in larger bends and some of the chambers.”

“Pagan? Like Druid?”

“More a mix of Greek and Roman pantheons. Especially Bacchus and Venus.”

“Gods of Liquor and Sex? Sounds like an old boys’ club to me,” Claire laughed.

“Undoubtedly. I dreamed my sister and I were playing hide and seek in the caves. Debbie did the hiding, but I couldn’t find her. I searched for what seemed like hours, but she had vanished. I sat down in one of the rooms and started crying.”

“Awww, poor Em!” Claire added with concerned sarcasm.

“A girl, maybe in her mid-teens, appeared in a long, white Victorian-era dress. Without a word, she offered me her hand. I took her hand, she smiled and led me from the chamber to an exit next to St. Lawrence church,” Emma said as if stopping a joke before the punchline.

“And?”

“First, there is no cave exit next to the church. The church sits above the caves in the center of the tunnel network. Baron Dashwood designed the church to sit directly above the main banquet chamber. He believed it a physical representation of Heaven and Hell.

“Second, the girl in the white was gone when I looked back toward the entrance. I believe that was Sukie.”

“Let me guess: a ghost, right?”

“Spot on! Legend says the ghost of an attractive chambermaid named Sukie roams the surrounding land and tunnels of the Hellfire Caves. She died as a result of some local boys she had spurned. Sukie longed for an aristocratic life. The boys sent her a message under the guise of her true love: a young, affluent aristocrat. The note asked her to dress in her finest white gown and meet him at the caves. When she arrived, she discovered it was all a cruel hoax. She cursed and yelled at them as they openly mocked her. Sukie became so enraged she started throwing rocks at her tormentors. One of the boys was struck, and he retaliated. Keep in mind, most of these boys were forged by working the chalk mines, so they were not weak chaps. In any event, his rock struck her and knocked her down. When they didn’t see her moving, they investigated and realized she had fallen hard on the cobblestone and was bleeding profusely from her head. By the time the boys got her back to town proper, it was too late. She died.”

“And now her ghost haunts the caves.” Claire offered it more as a conclusion than a question.

“Correct.” Emma finished her Ramen and set the bowl on her nightstand. “There’s an unsettling thing about that dream. You know how there is a misty quality to dreaming? This felt real, like a memory.”

“Are you saying you remembered being rescued by a ghost when you were a kid?”

“I…I don’t know what I’m saying,” Emma shrugged. “It has knocked me a bit off my pins.”

“I understand.” Claire put a hand on her shoulder. “How about I go get us a snack, and we can do something girly, like braid hair and talk about cute college boys?”

“There is a full class schedule I must attend to, Claire.”

“That’s right!” Claire slapped her forehead. “I forgot to tell you! All classes have been canceled for the next couple of days because of last night.” She regrouped. “The next class we have is the field trip on Saturday.”

Emma tried not to picture Charles and the horrific snapping of his neck. “Still, we must carry on. And I could use a bag of crisps.”

“Your wish is my command!” Claire swallowed herself in a pink terrycloth robe with a pattern of little black terriers dancing. “I’ll hit the vending machines and be right back!”

Once Claire was out the door, Emma quickly downed a couple of Trazodone with some water and waited for them to take effect. She was mildly loopy by the time Claire returned from the vending machines with two dark chocolate Milky Ways, a bag of cheddar and sour cream chips (Claire’s favorite), a bag of salt and vinegar chips (Emma’s favorite), and two cans of Monster Java.

“FYI, there are still grief counselors roaming the hall. You might want to stay in for the night,” Claire said between crunches.

“I told mum I would Skype her tonight.” Emma shook her head, half in protest to the confinement, half as a test of her sobriety. She felt the latter was fine. She picked up her laptop bag and started out the door. “I’ll be back soon.”

Perhaps the worst part of dorm life was the lack of readily accessible technology on campus. The hallowed halls of the university were thick stone walls built more for an eventual siege than an educational resource. This meant Wi-Fi in dorm rooms was, at best, spotty. Any student needing a strong connection would be forced to make the trip to one of the common areas conveniently located on each floor.

Unfortunately, Emma’s walk had begun to disprove her pill tolerance. She slowed her gait to retain control as she placed her computer bag on a common table. With the exception of a professionally dressed woman packing papers into a leather satchel on the other side of the room, the common room was deserted.

Before she fired up her Skype account, Emma decided to try a hunch on Google Images. She typed the words shadow men bowler derby hat into the search box. She scrolled to the sixth row and caught her breath. Mixed among the plethora of single hat pics, she found a faded image, which she immediately clicked. It was a black-and-white photo taken in some dilapidated place. It was not the hangman’s noose that struck her cold, but the four men in the photo: featureless silhouettes all wearing bowlers. The abbreviated blurb under the website signature read “The Parliament of Shades.” She took another deep breath and clicked the Visit page.

The picture had been archived on a website called Historical Paranormal UK. The short article was titled England’s Men in Black. Emma, now feeling the effects of the pills, concentrated on the web page and read underneath the picture Taken in 1947, photographer uncredited. The article continued:

This is one of those stories HPUK uncovered a few months back. Don’t get us wrong, we’ve published our fair share of dubious “shadow creature” reports, but this one isn’t without some credible historical ties.

The story dates back to 1752 to a group known as The Monks of Medmenham. They were men of carnal Pagan beliefs. Debauchery was their primary focus, and human ritual sacrifice was commonplace. The Monks were supposedly disbanded by King George II, but spotty reports continued for the next 100 years. The specifics get foggy during that time, but HPUK discovered the monks continued operating in secrecy until World War ll.

Recently unclassified documents from the Ministry of Defense reveal a cult of worshipers, now called the Parliament of Shades, had taken up residence in the West Wycombe caves (See: Hellfire Caves). The MoD had considered renovating the caves as bomb shelters against the Nazi Blitzkrieg until they found an unspecified amount of mutilated bodies and “ritual artifacts” belonging to the cult littering the caves. Several cultists captured on scene were interrogated and quietly executed.

The remaining cultists promised retribution, performed a powerful retribution ritual, and promptly committed suicide by hanging, one at a time.

Here’s where it gets dicey: Hellfire Caves opened in 1951, and people have reported the presence of ghosts wandering the caves. Most people witnessed a female ghost (See: White Lady of Wycombe), but some visitors claimed black apparitions in dress coats with derby hats appeared and followed them home. Yes, you read that right: FOLLOWED THEM HOME. Eyewitnesses say the evil spirits stalked unlucky females. Victims eventually lost their bloody minds and turned homicidal. These Shades are responsible for over 67 deaths in the past fifty years. The horrible trend isn’t on the decline either. More unsuspecting people have been drawn to Hellfire Caves due to the publicity generated by recent “ghost chasing” TV shows filming on the property.

HPUK encourages everyone to avoid the Hellfire Caves. The Parliament of Shades is no laughing matter!

“Parliament of Shades.” The words fell from her lips.

“Excuse me,” the smartly dressed woman was suddenly beside Emma. “Are you feeling okay?”

“‘Fine,” Emma said flatly, realizing the pills were at full strength. She snapped her laptop closed and, with effort, shoved it back in the bag. Emma stared at the woman as she continued to speak, but her words sounded more like an adult in a Peanuts cartoon.

“Atone…” The shadow man materialized through the far wall.

“Oh, God!” She pushed back from the table, clutching the laptop bag to her chest. “Please, no!”

The smartly dressed woman looked at Emma with clinical concern and leaned close to say something. Then, her body became rigid as a statue. Her eyes grew wide as if something was trying to push its way out of her eye sockets. Emma watched as the white of the lady’s eyes began rupturing in pinpoint red spots. Within seconds, her eyes were completely bloody. Crimson tears ran down her face as she rose off the floor.

“Atone…” the deep, cold voice called. A second voice.

The other shadow appeared a few feet away from the first shadow. He moved slowly, effortlessly, through tables and furniture as he advanced. The rays of light from the overhead bulbs soaked into him like an animal helplessly submerging into a tar pit. Both moved forward as if they had all the time in the world.

The well-dressed woman hovered, her body quivering in unspeakable torment. The muscles were taut to the point of snapping. Her mouth tried to speak, perhaps to scream, but her voice was lost as the rapid motion of her head jerking back and forth began. The sickening sound of her neck snapping, like dry kindling breaking over a knee, filled Emma’s ears as she fled the common room.

“Atone…” a third shadow man appeared in the hallway. He reached for her as she simultaneously recoiled. His shadowy hand gently brushed against her, chilling her to the core.

Like a child fearfully hugging its mother, Emma held the computer bag to her chest as she staggered the opposite way down the hall. The only thing at the end of the hall led to the elevator. She mashed the button while keeping a panicked watch on the advancing shadow men.

“Bloody hell!” she shouted, and slammed the elevator button again and again.

The elevator pinged cheerily as the door swung open. Emma tumbled into the small elevator. She dove for the ground floor button as the chorus of blackness called her name. With shadow men mere feet from the elevator, the clunky door hissed closed. Fighting the effects of the pills mixed with an adrenaline plunge, Emma breathed a small sigh of relief in the hum of the elevator. She looked at her distorted reflection in the shiny chrome button panel—and gasped at the pale, gaunt face staring back at her. A halo of flowing white hair wrapped her emaciated profile, and her eyes were blackened pits.

Unconsciousness was a blessing.

Emma regained her wits in her dormitory bed with a worried Claire peering intently.

“What’s going on?” Emma asked weakly.

“I found you passed out in the elevator.”

“I feel a fool.” Emma sat up.

“Are you okay?”

“Right as rain, Claire.” Emma faked a smile. “I won’t be taking any more of those pills.” Her alarm clock confirmed another four hours had been lost.

It would take till morning before other residents discovered the body of the smartly-dressed woman. Police canvassed the entire dorm while Claire convinced Emma to feign ignorance. Reluctantly, Emma complied, and the police left, thinking a serial killer had been born in Arkham.

The next few days passed in a paranoid blur. The minimal amount of sleep took a toll on Emma. By the time Saturday came, she looked haggard and felt worse. Emma pulled her auburn hair into a ragged ponytail and dressed warmly for the anthropological field trip to the long-abandoned Werner textile mill outside of town.

Claire bounded into the room with a bubbly exuberance. “Ready to get out of this tomb?”

Emma nodded weakly and walked to the cramped closet for her coat. When she turned back, Claire stood before her, grinning, holding a small hat box. “What’s this then?” asked Emma.

“I got you a little something to make you feel better.” Claire handed the box to Emma.

Emma pulled the lid off and sifted through the pink tissue paper. After a few seconds of hunting, she retrieved a diminutive bell made of brass, or perhaps bronze. It was tubular, two inches in height and no more than an inch in diameter. Emma jangled it, and the tone was light and pleasant. However, her waxing nausea told a different story. “Thank you, Claire.”

“It gets better. That was made with actual fragments from the original bells of St. Lawrence church. Yes, the church of your hometown. How awesome is that?” Claire was quite pleased with herself.

“Where did you—?”

Claire cut her off: “I have my sources.”

“eBay?”

“Yup.” Claire hooked Emma’s arm. “Let’s get going!”

The ten anthropology students and their teacher piled into the enormous dark-blue passenger van with the university crest emblazoned on the doors. It took about 45 minutes to get to the Werner textile mill. Emma stared at the passing landscape of bony trees, desperately holding the last of their colorful, dead leaves. She found cold comfort in the fact that not a single shade lurked behind the barren tree trunks.

“Claire, did you bring anything to drink?” Emma asked, and then noticed Claire was catching a quick nap.

One of the other Miskatonic explorers piped up: “You Brits like tea, right?” said Trevor.

“Yes. Please.”

Trevor pulled out a large Thermos from his backpack, unscrewed the lid, filled it with a steaming, coppery liquid and passed it to Emma. “Enjoy!” he winked and smiled.

Emma accepted the vaporous Thermos cup and took a small sip. From Trevor’s reputation, she half-expected the tang of alcohol. She was relieved to discover the bitter bite of over-steeped leaves. “Thank you.”

The Werner textile mill had been closed since 1912 after a horrific fire swept through the two-acre facility. The blaze claimed 82 child laborers, leading to the closure of the mill and forcing its owner, Ludwig Werner, into permanent seclusion. In the 1940s, the town council reduced the teen hang-out aspect by bricking up the windows and doors, effectively turning it into a monolithic mausoleum. Professor Maitlin had gotten a special dispensation from the township for an anthropological expedition into the hundred-year-old facility. It was a unique opportunity to rediscover a place that had captured turn-of-the-century culture covered in forgotten, smoky soot.

“Okay,” Professor Maitlin started, “Group A: manufacturing plant; Group B: employee bivouac. No souvenirs!” The students broke into groups of five and marched off to their area of exploration.

In the middle of the long walk to the bivouac, Emma felt her vision become… strange. The rays of the afternoon sun were more colorful, and the ground itself seemed to ebb and flow lazily. Even the ancient bricks of the mill slightly distorted and warped.

“Are you okay, Em?” Claire asked.

“Feeling odd,” Emma managed.

“Have you eaten today?”

“A cereal bar. Trevor’s tea.” She waved a hand in front of her face. Motion trails followed the movement.

“Wait. Trevor’s tea?” Emma offered a confused look at Claire’s irritation. “He puts magic mushrooms in his tea. That asshole!”

“Atone…”

“No! No! No! No!” Emma held her ears, but the rumbling voice ignored her pleas.

“What the hell is—?” Claire abruptly stopped.

In the mixture of drugs and disbelief, Emma fell slack-jawed as four shadow men surrounded the students. The Parliament of Shades, black and sinister, had come in full force. Tears streamed down her face as she helplessly watched her friends rise off the ground. She could not bear to hear the eventual chorus of splintering bones to come.

“Damn you, cowards!” Emma screamed. “Leave them be! Take me already!” Now, she advanced on the closest shade.

“Atone…” rumbled the shadow man.

He stretched an ebony hand toward Emma’s chest as she stared defiantly. The inky digits penetrated her, like a diver breaking the water, as his hand dipped into her torso to the wrist. She could feel the creature’s hand clench and start to withdraw from her bosom. There was no blood, pain, or sensation whatsoever. As the shadow pulled back, smoky white tendrils twisted and wrapped around his fist. Emma’s chest lurched forward like someone tugging an attached line. The shadow was relentless, like pulling mussels from their shell. Suddenly, a ghostly white figure partially materialized from Emma’s body, shrieking and howling. She instantly recognized the hazy white figure: it had the same face she had seen in the elevator. It hissed and spat at the shadow man, but struggled to no use. The shadow man wrapped a thick, black hand around the neck of the dirty white apparition and continued to extract the phantom from Emma.

Emma remembered the bell and removed it from her pocket. “To Hell with the lot of you!” She desperately began ringing the diminutive object.

Like a stone dropped in a still pond, shock waves billowed from the bell. Both dark and light wailed as ripples of destructive sound knocked them apart and tore at their existence. In a matter of seconds, all apparitions had vanished. Emma watched her friends fall to the ground. Alive.

Emma staggered around the ruins of the mill, exhausted. Everything became clear as the White Lady was ripped away from Emma’s soul.

It was the vengeful ghost of Sukie that had escaped the Hellfire Caves inside Emma; it was no childhood fantasy. The White Lady unleashed her wrath when Emma became inebriated through drugs or alcohol. The Parliament of Shades were protectors, eternally committed to keeping the long-dead chambermaid in check.

Would the White Lady return? Emma had no idea. In the ruins of a long-abandoned mill, Emma Reardon grasped the fleeting strands of sanity that remained, trying not to succumb to the horror surrounding her.

* * * * * *

She should have seen the signs. She should have protected her. Claire should have prevented Emma from opening her wrists and letting her life drain away.

Claire wiped away her tears and took another gulp from the bottle of vodka. She wished she could remember anything that happened at the mill. But she didn’t. Although the police questioned her after she awakened from the shock-induced unconsciousness. All she wanted was the smooth taste of Stoli. Claire prayed her new 90-proof friend would soothe her aching soul.

“Atone…” a low, masculine voice rumbled into her ears like a distant peal of thunder.