Unspeakable

a short story by Logan McConnell

Lydia peered down at a chess board. The pieces were placed about the squares, abandoned mid-game long ago. She settled into the plush of the drawing room armchair to contemplate what moves either color could have taken. Martin stood beside her staring out the window, his face painted red from the sunset shining through the glass. He fidgeted with his whisky, stabbing an ice cube’s corner with his stirrer.

“It’ll start soon,” said Martin.

Lydia moved a knight closer to the opposing king, executing a checkmate with this sneak attack. “You said that already.”

Martin walked away from the window, past the behemoth globe in its cradle and over to the crystal decanters of liquor by a wall of leather-bound books. He poured a generous portion for himself.

“The almanac says it may storm after sunset,” said Martin, forgoing more ice for his refill. “Of all nights…tonight. As if Resurrection Night weren’t bad enough.”

Beside the chessboard were dice from a backgammon set now lost. Lydia picked them up and shook, the pair rattling in her palm. “Sounds appropriate, in a way.” She looked up and lifted an outstretched hand. “It was a dark and stormy night…” she said in mock awe, as if telling a scary story. “I kind of like it.” She rolled the dice. Snake eyes.

Lit candles were sparsely placed among the drawing room and foyer. The flames illuminated the first floor, casting soft, wayward light onto a curved, stone staircase base and its ornate banister leading upstairs. The twisted steps typically bustled with maids and valets, but the servants had dispersed from the grounds for Resurrection Night, leaving the cavernous mansion nearly empty.

Martin left Lydia’s side to wander over to the stairwell, bumping his thigh into a sofa along the way. He stopped and stood on the first step. Within the stairwell’s center, between the first and second floors, was a space where no light touched. Martin stared into the black void.

“Come back,” she whispered. “You're going to wake him up.” Martin didn’t budge.

She walked over and saw his dull, watery eyes flicker side to side, as if watching moving images only he could see in the blackness of the dark crook. She tugged at his sleeve like the leash of a wandering pup. “Come on.” She yanked him back to the drawing room, where the crimson sunset had retreated, replaced by starry night.

Martin turned to the window and gasped. “It’s starting!” He recoiled, bumping into Lydia.

“Martin! Be careful! You got your whisky on me,” she hissed, attending to spilled liquor spots on her breast and shoulder.

Martin helped her, first dabbing the worst spot with his handkerchief, then wiping in tender swirls. “Better?” he whispered.

Lydia smirked. “Yes. Much better.”

They gazed at one another, until movement outside caught their attention. The first one appeared. A solitary silhouette out on a far away hill, marching down the knoll.

“Funny,” she said. “They usually move in groups.”

Martin shifted his stance. “It’ll have company soon, sure enough.” He lifted his drink, only to be blocked by Lydia’s hand pressing down on the rim right before the glass edge kissed his lips.

“You’ve had enough,” she said.

“I need my liquid courage.”

She rolled her eyes. “Keep your wits about you, please? For one night. Then it's smooth sailing from here on out.” Lydia leaned over and comforted him, feeling Martin’s pulse.

The two continued watching through the window as one figure became two, then several, followed by a roving horde swarming the outer walls of their domicile. Soon their faces were close enough for Lydia and Martin to study.

No eyeballs, of course. Ears, tongue, and other tissue disintegrated long ago, faded to powder, leaving little more than bones and hair. Some of the more recently departed displayed strips of flesh around their heads like tattered cloth masks, even more grotesque than the bare skulls of their older counterparts.

Most were impeccably dressed. Dark suits for men and tasteful gowns for women, stained with earth, molted by time, and bound to slip off or tear away that night. Tomorrow morning the property would be littered with stockings and neck ties.

Martin paced. “I don’t know how he can sleep on Resurrection Night.”

Lydia shrugged, not taking her eyes off the parade of death. “He’s lived through 75 of these. It’s old hat to him now.”

“Even when we were kids, he wasn’t scared. Just…” Martin huffed. “Another night, like any other.”

Lydia’s breath condensed on the window, and she wiped it away. “He was smart then. Clever. He could keep them out no problem. But recently…”

Martin weaved his fingers into a knot, pacing faster around Lydia’s statue stillness, a meandering satellite around a cold planet. “What if he wakes up before?”

“He slept through the last four. And if he doesn't, then he’ll have to endure some fear, a brief moment of pain… a few measly seconds, mind you. Then it's over.” A wistful sigh escaped through her smile. “All over.”

Outside, one walked back and forth beside the window, dirt cascading down from the ambulating limbs that clacked with each slow step. Martin gripped Lydia’s hand. She felt his clammy palms, and guided his cold fingertips to the inside of a warm, hidden place.

“It’ll just be the two of us soon,” she said. “Everything will be different. He won’t be around, poking his nose in our business. We’ll be free.” Lydia’s own words caused her heart to burst like a firework, and she moved closer to Martin.

“Do you think we’ll see him? Next year?” he asked.

“It’s not the same when they come back,” she snapped, leaning away. “There’s no way. They’re shells of their past selves. They don’t remember anything.”

Martin looked down at his hands. “I heard they can remember,” he said. “That they can see too, even without eyes. They can see in their own way.”

Lydia turned her back to him. “You're being childish, Martin. They can’t see. They’re nothing but roving bags of bones that—”

A bellowing creak upstairs interrupted Lydia’s scolding, a noise that struck them both like a dagger in the chest. The sound was quite familiar, a commonplace feature of the house, a sound that only lived inside the hinges of one door to one room in the entire estate: the master bedroom.

“You… you said you locked it,” Lydia stammered, glaring at Martin. “You said you locked it from the outside.”

Martin tugged at the hem of his shirt. “I did. I…I know I did.” His arms flailed around his thighs, feeling the key tucked inside his trouser pocket. He brandished the brass piece inches from her face. “See! Got it right here.'' Lydia snatched it from him and ran upstairs on tiptoe, through the blackness of the stairwell.

Once on the second floor, Lydia’s heart drummed so loud she feared it would wake him. His bedroom door was cracked open, where she heard sounds of shuffling slippers.

“Lydia?” came a whisper.

“Yes dad, it's me.”

He paused. “Has it started? Are they here?”

She shook her head. “Resurrection Night is tomorrow, dad. Remember?”

Incoherent mutters emanated from the dark. Eventually he asked, “Are you sure, sweet pea?”

For a moment, his question went unanswered. Only the noise of dead leaves scratching the roof above them could be heard. Lydia listened as the wind picked up, the sound traveling down the hallway where she stood, a hallway that was beautiful, cold, and hollow.

“Yes pop, that’s tomorrow.” The sound of the leaves vanished, swept away by the impending storm. “Did you leave your window open like we asked?”

“Uh, I can’t remember.”

Lydia angled her head over and saw, above his wild gray hair, a shut window. “Dad…you’ll get hot again.” She gently pushed herself past him, took his arm, and walked him over to his bed. She lifted the latch of the window and pressed the pane outwards, catching sight of the trespassers below. They would climb up the walls soon. That was their nature, drawn to any opening.

Through the glass, Lydia saw one in a black dress stumble to the wall. The wide brim of an elegant sunhat hid her face and velvet gloves ran up her forearms. From a distance, she appeared alive until her head turned upwards, tiny dots of sockets staring back at Lydia. For a moment, the open windowpane captured Lydia’s reflection, her opaque face superimposed on the skull and bones below.

She thought of Martin’s foolish notion they could see without eyes and snorted. Absurd. The longer the two faced one another, though, Lydia’s intuition touched upon a sense that some awareness did lurk within the cranium, however dim. The skeleton jumped up and chomped at the air, attempting to reach the living on the second floor. Lydia jolted away.

“Alright father, get some sleep. I left the window open. It’ll be nice and cool for you.” She nudged him over to the bed and left the covers lying at his feet. Only a one-story climb and a thin layer of pajamas would stand between their ravenous teeth and his tired flesh.

“But sweet pea, I think it's about to storm. It’s almost here. You can still close the window. It’s not too late.”

Lydia fluffed a pillow and pressed him down on the bed. “Nonsense dad, you're just confused again.” She leaned down and pecked his forehead. “Go to sleep.”

Pft.

He shut his eyes.

Pft.

Outside, the woman in black began her climb up, finger bones clinging to the edges of outstretched brick. Below her others followed, digging into the mortar-filled grooves, ascending with a steady pft, pft, pft.

“I have to go. See you in the morning.”

He didn’t respond, his lids closed and his mouth agape.

Lydia scurried out of the bedroom and slowly shut the door, jabbed the key into the lock, and twisted. The turn ended with a muffled click of metal.

“Now it's locked,” she whispered. “No getting out.”

Down she descended, taking two steps at a time, appearing from the darkness to greet Martin exactly where she’d left him.

“What happened?” he whispered.

“He woke up and opened his door.” She placed both hands on her hips. “I wonder how.”

“I…I locked it. I know I did.” Martin rambled, sputtering his insistence until she raised a finger.

“Forget it. They’re coming up the walls as we speak,” she said. “Any second…”

The duo held their breath.

Martin stepped away, leaving Lydia to stand alone. He tapped his chin and furrowed his brow. “I was thinking—”

“Shh! It's about to happen.”

“The servants…”

Lydia ignored him, fixated on the impending death above.

“The servants have the spare keys,” he continued.

“The servants are gone,” she snapped, not looking away. “They leave every Resurrection Night.”

“Do they take the spare keys with them?”

She dismissed his question with a hand wave. “No, they gave them to you.”

Martin didn’t respond for several seconds, before whispering, “I thought you had them.”

Lydia’s flesh prickled. She slowly pivoted to him, her eyes wide.

A quick click of the lock upstairs preceded a deafening boom. The bedroom door had opened, swinging too fast to emit its infamous creak before slamming against the wall.

Martin yelled, “Father has the spare keys!” He cowered while Lydia rushed upstairs.

Hungry corpses spilled out of the master bedroom one by one. Their dark outlines blurred with the hues and shades of the hallway’s shadows, their alabaster bones blended with moonbeams on the white marble walls, until they appeared as moving extensions of the house itself. They marched about as if they had always belonged, had always been present, only now revealed.

Above them was the open attic hatch in the ceiling, its ladder already withdrawn out of reach. Her father’s face appeared, holding a candle, the flame’s reflection caught in his twinkling eyes. He flashed a wily smile at Lydia.

“I’m sorry, sweet pea,” he said. His voice resonated with an intelligence and sternness absent moments ago. “I gave you several chances to do the right thing.” The cadavers of Resurrection Night shot their arms up at him, fingers twitching, his delicious hide just out of their reach.

Lydia raced back down. “Martin!” she screamed, “They're in the house!” She and Martin ran back into the drawing room, greeted by dozens of lifeless stares through the window from the crowd on the lawn outside. Behind Lydia and Martin, a shuffling procession of the undead emerged from the blackness of the staircase.

Lydia pressed her hand against her chest. “Trapped,” she whispered.

The last words Lydia and Martin heard were their father’s farewell:

“Depart from this life, a life you squandered on evil appetites and unspeakable sins. I pray for God to forgive you both of all you’ve done. Sleep in peace underground. I will spoil you both one last time. I will bury you in shallow graves, so you may have an easier Resurrection Night. Your father will be here, waiting to see you both again next year.”

Logan McConnell is a health care worker and writer of quiet horror. His work is published or upcoming in Coffin Bell, Dark Recesses Press, The Crow’s Quill, Vanishing Point Magazine, and others. He is influenced by the works of Mary Shelley, Shirley Jackson and Thomas Ligotti. He lives with his boyfriend in Tennessee.  Follow him on twitter @LMwriter91