CARNACKI: The New Adventures (23 page)

Carnacki.
Not feeling like taking it off?

Florence
.
Indicates no.

Carnacki.
Good. Connects up the electric pentacle to the battery and activates it.

The electric pentacle lights up with a weak blue glow.

Florence.
Ah. What is that? It’s bright.

Carnacki.
Is it? How queer. To me it seems quite dim. I’ve spent a good few long nights alone in haunted rooms wishing it were brighter, I can tell you. Nothing like a monster you can only half see to give you a bad case of the creep.

Florence
.
That isn’t very reassuring.

Carnacki.
I’m still alive, am I not? And in the morning so will you be.

Florence
.
But what is it?

Carnacki.
This, my dear, is my electric pentacle.

Florence
.
And what is it supposed to do?

Carnacki.
Well, usually I use it as a defensive barrier against certain manifestations—what you might term hauntings or ghostly apparitions. Tonight, however, we’re making use of its spirit-insulating properties. Did you know that when a medium or psychic is surrounded with a current, of a certain number of vibrations, in a vacuum, he loses his power to interact with spirits? It seems the current cuts off the medium’s connection to the Immaterial. Insulates him, as it were, from any potential spiritual threat. Do you understand just what I mean?

Florence
.
You’re saying it’s keeping me hidden.

Carnacki.
Not only hidden. I first came across the spirit-insulating effect in a paper by one Professor Garder, entitled ‘Experiments with a Medium.’ It seems Garder used a circular conductor, but after a few experiments of my own I chose this defensive star or pentacle shape instead, because I have, personally, no doubt at all that there is some extraordinary virtue in this old, supposedly magic figure. Curious thing for a twentieth-century man to believe, don’t you agree? But I’ve proved the power of the thing time and again. The current insulates, and the pentacle protects. So as long as you stay within the barrier, you’ve nothing to fear from the creatures of the chasm. Even the one you saw hovering up above. It is still there, I take it?

Florence
.
I daren’t look.

Carnacki.
It can neither see nor harm you.

Florence
.
You’re sure?

Carnacki.
This morning you weren’t even convinced it was real.

Florence
.
A thing doesn’t have to be real to be frightening.

Carnacki.
Do you see it?

Florence
.
It’s so much bigger than before.

Carnacki.
Bigger? Or closer?

Florence
.
Closer. But still so big.

Carnacki.
As I hoped. You’re rising toward the mouth of the abyss. Your body is calling your spirit home. Without the pentacle, you see, that creature might have impeded or intercepted it.

Florence
.
Is that what you think happened to the others?

Carnacki.
I’m afraid it’s likely.

Florence
.
So it’s that thing that makes the cry.

Carnacki.
Not necessarily, though I agree it’s the most likely conclusion. A creature whose cry can jolt the spirit free of the body, and which then lies in wait to snare the spirit as it journeys home. It’s quite monstrous.

Florence
.
That’s just awful.

Carnacki.
Yes. But that won’t happen to you. You’ll slip right past it. Trust me.

Night falls.

The sound of wingbeats close overhead.

Florence
.
What’s happening?

Carnacki.
I . . .

Florence
.
Carnacki?

Carnacki.
I don’t know.

The candles around the circle begin to go out, one by one.

Carnacki.
Something’s attacking the barrier.

Florence
.
This is real, isn’t it?

Carnacki.
Yes, that is, something’s, I mean, the phenomenon is starting to affect the physical realm, which shouldn’t be—

Florence
.
It’s that thing. The bird. It’s after me.

Carnacki.
But it shouldn’t be able to sense you.

Florence
.
Then it’s angry that it’s lost me all of a sudden.

The electric pentacle begins to flicker in time with the wingbeats.

Carnacki.
Miss Allenby. Listen to me. Florence. Listen. If the barrier breaks, you must concentrate all your willpower—

Florence
.
If it breaks? You said it was safe. You said it always saved your neck.

Carnacki.
I never said always. There’s no certainty in any defence and it looks like we’re about to discover the limits of this one. If that happens you must not remove the charm, do you understand?

Florence
.
Yes.

Carnacki.
I’m sorry. I didn’t want to leave you solely responsible for saving yourself. There might be something else I can . . . I’ll try to do something, but you must act as if it’s all up to you, do you understand?

Florence
.
It’s diving. It’s diving! Hide me! Hide me!

Carnacki.
I don’t know how.

Florence
.
Do something!

Silence. The electric pentacle keeps flickering.

Carnacki.
Just let me think. The body inside the barrier. The spirit outside. The connection between them. A passageway into the defence.
Draws his revolver.

Florence
.
I can’t see. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. God save me. I can’t breathe!

Carnacki.
Tell me what’s happening.

Florence
.
It’s got me.

Carnacki.
But you’re still cogent. That’s good. That’s good.

Florence
.
I’m wrapped in its wings. It’s too dark. Too huge. The feathers. I can’t breathe.

Carnacki.
It’s all right. You’ll be all right. The defence is holding. You can still escape.

Florence
.
It’s searching. The beak. The claws. Carnacki, where are you? What does it want? What do I do? Carnacki!

Carnacki.
I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.

Florence
.
Then what good are you?
Flees the pentacle.

Carnacki.
Stop! Don’t!
Pursues
Florence,
but stops short at the edge of the circle.

Total darkness. The sound of frantic wingbeats.

Florence.
It sees me! It sees me!

Carnacki.
The charm! Hold fast! Just don’t take off the charm! That’s— That’s—

The wingbeats withdraw. Silence.

Carnacki.
Miss Allenby? Florence?

The electric pentacle flickers back to life.

Florence.
Is revealed lying crumpled just outside the circle. The charm lies a little way from her.

The cry of a monstrous carrion bird.

Carnacki.
Reacts to the sound.

End of Act One.

Morning. The candles are relit and the electric pentacle is glowing.

Carnacki.
She was within my reach, yes. Physically. But I couldn’t know what might still be abroad in that room. She’d been taken so swiftly. I crouched there at the edge of the circle, with a perfectly horrible tringling sensation racing up and down my arms and across my scalp, trying desperately to screw up some courage to move forward, to brave the danger and go to her aid. But I was stiff, simply rigid with terror. I couldn’t coax myself to venture even one small finger outside the defence. I wonder, have you ever felt anything like it? Could you even imagine the feeling? A dread that manacles your very bones, your very thoughts. And the longer it holds you, the stronger its hold becomes. I saw that she was breathing, and the need for action seemed immediately less urgent, and as it were, the shackles cinched tighter still. I couldn’t reach the bell and I reasoned that to shout for help would be to expose others to the same horror, perhaps to seal another’s fate as I seem to have sealed hers. And so I simply watched over her till daylight, fooling myself that I was doing a worthy duty.

Pause.

Mrs. Allenby.
She turned every head when she made her début, you know. Her independence. And now Tilbury is sitting by her bedside sponging drool off her chin. My daughter, Carnacki. My Florence. When I left the room she was giggling to herself. Giggling, Carnacki. Like a madwoman in some novel.

Carnacki.
It was my fault.

Mrs
. Allenby. I know.

Carnacki.
It all went so wrong so fast. I could hardly think. It never even occurred to me that she might leave the circle.

Mrs
. Allenby.
Robert’s father bound him to a chair to stop him removing the charm. He broke four of his fingers freeing himself. Robert’s aunt Elspeth, the first born of her generation, eluded her parents, her grandfather the colonel, and her nanny the night she succumbed. They didn’t find her till morning, slumped in a cellar they hadn’t even known they had. I told you Florence would be tempted and I told you she couldn’t resist it herself. You told me your rituals and silly contraptions were the solution we’d been missing. I put my faith in you.

Carnacki.
I said I couldn’t guarantee success.

Mrs
. Allenby.
You didn’t say you would hasten failure. You did a good job sounding like you knew what you were doing, Mr. Carnacki, but I see now that was nothing but hot air.

Carnacki.
Actually . . .

Mrs
. Allenby. What is it?

Carnacki.
I don’t think history’s quite repeating itself line for line this time. My involvement does seem to have changed one thing.

Mrs
. Allenby.
My daughter has lost her mind, Mr. Carnacki. Whatever you think you’ve achieved is immaterial.

Carnacki.
I’ve heard the cry.

Mrs
. Allenby.
You can’t have.

Carnacki.
So there’s no precedent for an outsider—

Mrs
. Allenby.
None. The herald’s cry is a family curse. You are not family.

Carnacki.
Nevertheless.

Mrs
. Allenby.
Nevertheless what? If you’re looking for sympathy, you’ve got some nerve.

Carnacki.
No, it’s not that, of course. No, I don’t know yet what it means. But it must mean something. If this has changed, then . . . Maybe not Miss Allenby’s, but I don’t know, perhaps the next victim’s fate might be changed as well.

Mrs
. Allenby.
If you really have heard the cry, the next victim will be you.

Carnacki.
That had occurred to me. I wonder if I might borrow the charm, just until tomorrow morning?

Mrs
. Allenby.
Do as you like with it. You’ve made sure my Florence no longer needs it. Though I can’t imagine it’ll do you much good. You’ve less faith even than she had.

Carnacki.
I believe in powers beyond the physical realm. I believe in ab-natural dangers and protections.

Mrs
. Allenby.
You believe nothing. With you everything must be proven or disproven. You do not allow for things to simply be so. I hope your philosophy brings you solace when your mind flees your body. I shall be with what’s left of my daughter. Good day to you, Mr. Carnacki.

Night. The sound of patient wingbeats in the background, innocuous as a heartbeat.

Carnacki.
To
Dodgson
.
And so here we are.

Dodgson.
What do you mean?

Carnacki.
That’s the whole tale up till now.

Dodgson.
But you left the Allenbys’ first thing this morning. You must have done something since.

Carnacki.
Nothing of consequence.
Indicates the charm.
I ran a few experiments on this, but only really so I wouldn’t have to sit still and think about what happened.

Dodgson.
What sort of experiments? Did you discover anything?

Carnacki.
Oh, everything I could think of that wouldn’t destroy it. I made a spiritual focus about it with my spectrum circles, I subjected it to various sonic and electromagnetic vibrations, I put it under the microscope, X-rayed it, heated it, cooled it.

Dodgson.
And?

Carnacki.
It’s a good deal more than just feathers and twine. Further than that, I couldn’t tell you. Remember, I heard the cry. It’s hard to take accurate readings when things keep drifting in front of the instruments.

Dodgson.
You seem to be coping remarkably well.

Carnacki.
Don’t lie to me, Dodgson. I know when I’m in a funk.

Dodgson.
All right. But there’s no need to talk yourself further into it.

Carnacki.
At any rate, by evening I still wasn’t getting anywhere with my only clue, so I realised I’d simply have to brazen it out in the electric pentacle, just like Miss Allenby.

Dodgson.
You ought to have rung me up earlier.

Carnacki.
Yes, most likely.

Dodgson.
You can see it now, I suppose? That place?

Carnacki.
Vividly.

Dodgson.
And the creature?

Carnacki.
Yes, the scavenger is circling. It scents weakness. Doesn’t seem as impatient as last night, but then it must be used to going years between meals.

Dodgson.
Perhaps if it’s not hungry it’ll let you drift on by.

Carnacki.
Unlikely. I can only think of one plausible reason for the thing to suddenly change its Allenby-only diet. I enraged it by trying to deny it Miss Allenby, and perhaps consciously, or perhaps on some vicious impulse, it’s decided that I shall suffer for it.

Dodgson.
Horrible.

Carnacki.
For me, if it succeeds, undoubtedly. But in the scheme of things it’s no more horrible than the dog who bites the man who taunts it by taking away its dinner, if I may put it like that.

Dodgson.
An angry dog would just nip you and have done with it. There’d be none of this awful waiting, thinking about what’s coming. It doesn’t seem like animal instinct to me, Carnacki. It feels like malevolence.

Carnacki.
Oh, the wait isn’t so bad. How many men ever get to observe such a remote realm as I’m now seeing? And thanks to you I can study it almost at my leisure. No need to worry about my physical body misbehaving in the meantime. I’ve enough observations to found a whole monograph on.

Dodgson.
If you make it through the night with your wits intact.

Carnacki.
Dodgson, you aren’t helping.

Dodgson.
Good heavens, I’m sorry. I didn’t— But I can’t help getting indignant on your behalf. It’s all so damned arbitrary. Why the Allenbys? Why you? Animal instinct? Some silly quirk of personal electric tensions? Such nonsense cannot have such real, such horrible effects on people. I quite refuse to credit it.

Beat.

Dodgson.
Mutters.
Perhaps all that’s left is to finish that whiskey. What did I do with it?

Carnacki.
Dodgson, what was that you just said?

Dodgson.
Oh, I was just going to fix us something more to drink, that’s all.

Carnacki.
No, before that. What was it you said? Say it again, will you?

Dodgson.
Say what again? When?

Carnacki.
“Such nonsense cannot really affect people,” or some such. And “I quite refuse to credit it.”

Dodgson.
I know, defeatist of me, sorry. Forget I said it.

Carnacki.
Forget indeed! Dodgson, you are a marvel. I do believe you have it in you to save my skin tonight.

Dodgson.
Surely not. I mean, if I can, of course—but how so?

Carnacki.
Arkright, Jessop, Taylor, and Dodgson. My friends. My echo chamber. My council of war. Why you, do you think, Dodgson? Why you tonight, and not any of the others?

Dodgson.
I’m sure I don’t know.

Carnacki.
I took a gamble on your unique insight, a gamble that appears to have paid off.

Dodgson.
Carnacki, what on earth are you getting at?

Carnacki.
Dodgson, my friend, you are unique among our little cabal in that you’ve never quite shaken the suspicion that I’m a complete fraud.

Dodgson.
What? Now hang on. That just isn’t true.

Carnacki.
No, listen. This is important.

Dodgson.
I don’t mean it when I call you that. It’s just a joke.

Carnacki.
Then you’re a fool.

Dodgson.
I beg your pardon?

Carnacki.
Arkright heard the Unknown Last Line of the Saaamaaa Ritual uttered by the Ab-human Priests in the Incantation of Raaaee. Jessop survived that ordeal aboard the
Mortzestus
. Even young Taylor has a measure of innate psychic sight. When we all sit ’round the fire and I spin you chaps some yarn about some unusual occurrence, they simply listen, because their own experience tells them such things are not impossible. But you, Dodgson. Your senses, your experiences . . . Your existence has been entirely mundane.

Dodgson.
As if Arkright didn’t remind me enough of that.

Carnacki.
I’m not trying to slight you, you dunderhead! I’m saying your judgement is unsullied. There’s a solution to this horrid business and I can’t see it because I’m too used to accepting impossible things as fact. But you can. You can see the way out. What have I missed, Dodgson? What doesn’t add up?

Dodgson.
I don’t know. I don’t know, all right? I don’t know.

Carnacki.
Think. You do know. Just think.

Dodgson.
Whatever happened to keeping a perfectly open mind?

Carnacki.
What’s that to do with anything?

Dodgson.
You told us all a thousand and one times never to dismiss a thing out of hand just for seeming impossible. Are you saying you expected me to ignore that?

Carnacki.
I’m saying it’s likely more things seem impossible to you than seem impossible to me, or Arkright, or the others. I’m saying that you must steel yourself consciously not to scoff at things that we simply accept. I’m saying you notice more.

Dodgson.
But I’ve always—

Carnacki.
Did you want them to be true?

Dodgson.
What?

Carnacki.
All those yarns I spun you all by the fire—hauntings and monsters and curses and possession and death. Did you want to believe they were true?

Dodgson.
I always believed you were honest. Didn’t I say so?

Carnacki.
That’s not what I asked.

Dodgson.
Did I want such ghastly things to be real, you mean? Did I, personally, wish for young Aster to be devoured by the Black Veil, or poor Bains to be dragged to hell by the Hog? What kind of man do you think I am?

Carnacki.
A loyal one. But a sceptic at heart.

Dodgson.
Perhaps you’re right.

Carnacki.
I’d stake my life on it.

The electric pentacle flickers.

Dodgson.
What was that?

Carnacki.
Never mind that. Concentrate. What doesn’t add up?