The stinking demon
There’s an idea in Ars Magica, stolen from period texts, that sometimes demons attach to a person and cause all joy to be sucked out of their life. This is called “oppression”. The following story is set far after the game period, but it shows how simple oppression can wear a person down by stealing their opportunities to recover Fatigue through rest. It’s by Edward Heron-Allen who hid under the pen name of Christopher Blayre when not writing scholarly papers about Persian poetry. The reader is Ben “omnipresence: Tucker. THanks to him and his Librivox production team.
Statistics eventually.
***
It was about three weeks or a month after this that Mark Shelton rang me up on the telephone.
The telephone was not then the universal blessing (or curse) that it is now, and installations were few and far between, a sort of scientific toy for the chosen few, and I could have counted on my fingers the friends who had them in their houses.. Shelton’s voice sounded grave and subdued, in answer to my cheery greeting.
‘‘T want you to dine with me tonight,’’ he said.
“Can’t possibly—I am dining out.’’
‘‘Oh! but you must,’’ he answered; ‘“T want you particularly. It’s most important.”’
‘* But I tell you I can’t. Who else is coming? ”’
‘“ No one—I want you, and you must come. Put your other party off. Tell them it’s a matter of life and death.”’
“But, I say— ”’
‘ Don’t say anything,’ he interrupted. ‘‘ I’m telling you the truth. I’ve got something to tell you, which must be told here; and it is a matter of life and death. If you don’t come, I shall not be alive in the morning.”’ By this time his voice was quivering, and I realized that something very serious was the matter. So I answered curtly :
‘Oh! all right. I’ll come, but don’t talk bosh; and buck up. What have you been doing with yourself? ”’
‘ Nothing. I haven’t left my rooms for three weeks.”’
‘* All right,’’ I replied; “ I’ll come and dig you out.”’
I got to the Albany at half-past seven, and was let in by his man, the imperturbable Bates. “How is Mr. Shelton? ’”’ I asked him casually, as I put down my hat and coat.
“I don’t know, sir,’’ replied Bates; ‘‘T can’t make him out. Seems to be brooding all the time. Never goes out, and doesn’t eat anything to speak of.’’
I went into Shelton’s sitting-room, which was stiflingly hot. Though it was a fine May day he had a large fire, and all the curtains were closely drawn. Mark was sitting before the fire in his day
clothes, doing nothing. ‘“ Good heavens! ’’ I said. ‘“‘ What an atmosphere! No wonder you are
nervy. Got any windows open? ”’
‘““ No—and don’t open them. I’ve a reason. Is the air very beastly? ”’
““Not beastly,’ I said; ‘‘ but intolerably hot.”’
““ Not foul and stuffy? ”’
“* No.”’
“* Don’t you notice a queer smell? ”’
“* No—what sort of smell? ”’
** ‘Well ’’—he hesitated a moment, and then said—‘“‘ like the Small Cat House at the Zoo.”’
“* Not in the least,’’ I replied. ‘‘ What ever is the matter with you? ”’
““T don’t know. I want you to tell me.”
I looked at him critically. Was he—the sane and athletic Shelton—going mad? The phrase ‘ olfactory delusions ’ came into my mind. ‘* Tell me all you can about it,’’ I said.
‘““Presently,’’ he replied, “‘ after dinner.’’ So with that, for the moment, I had to be content. We went in to dinner. As usual it was exquisite. Shelton could, and did, afford a perfect cook, and on this occasion she had surpassed herself. Shelton tasted everything and sent his plate away practically untouched. At every dish he said : ‘‘ Pah! beastly. Don’t you notice a filthy taste in this? ”’
‘* No—it’s excellent. What kind of taste? ”’
‘‘ Well ’—and again the hesitation—‘‘like the Small Cat House at the Zoo.”’
It seemed to be a mania. I told him he should consult X. the great nose and ear specialist. He only shook his head wearily. After dinner he consented to have a window open, and to let the fire die down. He told me he had ‘ got up a frowst ’ so that I should get it in all its force—but he accepted, doubtfully, my assurance that the air was perfectly clean. He brought me a volume of Japanese engravings he wanted me to see, and as he leaned over me, he said : ‘* Don’t you mind my leaning over you? ’’ and he looked searchingly into my eyes.
‘“ Not in the least. Why on earth should I? ”
‘““ Good God, man! don’t you notice that I stink ? ”’
“‘ Not at all. What do you imagine you stink of? The Small Cat House again? ”’
** Yes—that’s it. It’s ghastly. I can never get away from it.’’
‘“* Tell me,’’ I said quietly. “‘ When and how did this begin? ”’ And he told me a most amazing and horrible story.
***
‘‘You remember Austin Black—the Spiritualist Zoologist ? Yes, we took you, Carver and I, to one of his séances. You may have seen that he is dead. Carver and I were there when he died; there was no inquest, for his domestic G.P. certified the ever-ready heart disease of long standing. ‘
There was a séance, only four of us and Black and his Medium. Black was awfully strung up that night—he told us the conditions could not be more favourable. It wasn’t a ‘ show night,’ and there was no music and no tricks —but queer, uncomfortable things happened. A spreading light over the table—and a leg of my chair suddenly snapped off. We turned up the lights—it
seemed to have been bitten through. I wanted to stop, but Black, though he looked ghastly, wouldn’t hear of it.
He said : “‘ I want to see this thing through —I want to ‘down’ it’’—and we started the séance again. Almost immediately I heard that snarling I told you about, and Black, who was on my right, got up in the dark and left the table. We heard a sort of scuffling, and then a choking noise in the corner of the room. We switched on the light and saw Black lying on his back by the wall, his tongue out, and blue in the face, struggling violently with nothing. We rushed at him and tried to pick him up.
There was Something that we could not see, between us and him, pinning him down. We could feel it though—it was soft and pulpy, with a surface not furry, but like a mouse or a mole—and huge! And it stank like the Small Cat House at the Zoo. We could not free him of it, and we saw him die; choked before our eyes, whilst we clawed at that soft pulpy Nothing. We could not move it. When he was quite still, the Thing got up of its own accord. Carver and I were crouched close together, and the Thing forced its way between us, and so away. How it stank! It seemed to leave a greasy smear of smell all over us. We called his wife —a queer woman—she did not seem badly shocked, or to care much. Carver said afterwards that she seemed to him to be intensely relieved at something. All she said was: ‘‘I expected this—it has happened before ’’—she evidently did not realize that he was dead—‘‘ please go away at once. I will send for his doctor —he is close by.” We went. The other two—strangers—and the Medium had bolted directly we turned up the lights.
As Carver and I walked down the hill he said: ‘‘ It’s awful—it’s awful. How it stank! and I can’t get rid of the stink.’’ No more could I. Carver and I parted at Vauxhall. Inever saw him again. I enquired a day or two later and heard he was ill; a week later I heard he had had a stroke, and was in a private mad -house. I had baths—Turkish baths—I changed my clothes half a dozen times a day—I always smelt of that Thing—I do still—l can’t bear it. I shall go mad like Carver. Everything I touch smells of it, everything I try to eat tastes of it. 1’ve tried to get over it and I can’t. That’s why at last I sent for you, and closed up everything and lit a fire, to give you the fullest chance.
‘‘ Now I know that I can’t do anything. It’s in me and part of me—I shall never be free of it. That Thing is here with me! It’s prowling round all the time, but only I can smell it. God help me! ”
To say that I was horrified is to use a miserably inadequate term; but before I left Mark Shelton that night I had arranged with him to go in three days to Norway, fishing. We settled everything—when to start, where to go, and what to take. I left him, still rather dazed, but much easier in my mind.
That night at about 1 a.m. Mark Shelton blew out his brains.
