The Confession of Basil Lockehart

It had been in the dreary and dark coldness of February when an old friend, whom I had not seen for some time, had contacted me by letter and begged for my presence within the hanging gloom that was his lonesome family estate. This friend, Dermonte Bainbridge, I had known since my days back at the college.

We had met one day after a seminar on the impacts of greek philosophers on the literary field of the modern year. That year being 1849. From my memory I could always recall Dermonte as a bright and optimistic soul. He never spoke much of his family and when they were brought up there had been no hinting towards anything amiss.

From the outside Dermonte was like me, just another wandering noble of upper society. It wasn’t so much that we shared  a dependance of nobility, binding us due to the circumstances of status and class. Dermonte and I were friends beyond the measure of material comparisons. It was wit and characteristic that held us like glue through our juvenile years, all the way up unto our mid-thirties, which was when Dermonte’s voice fell silent and his presence at the university was transported away like the cold wind of that eerie February.

It was that previous summer that my dear friend had revealed to me a great burden placed upon him from the hands of his parents, Lord and Lady Bainbridge. Dermonte’s uncle had fallen ill and all the remaining relatives of the House of Bainbridge were being called away from their stations, from all the far corners of the country, to be with their dying kin in his time of passing.

It was after that vacation that Dermonte stopped coming around. As I strolled the campus now and again I began to hear stirrings. I wrote letters. Some long and some short, and eventually ceased once months had passed with no reply. Some of our colleagues believed Dermonte to be dead. A victim of tuberculosis.

I believed no such banter and kept the optimism Dermonte once shared with me at the back of my mind. As a year slipped away, like the trickling drop of rainfall upon a dying autumn leaf, so too did my hope of Dermonte’s return as my spirits fell to the ground. Some time later, once I had attempted to forget the old boy, a letter did come.

It was Dermonte in good faith once again. He wrote with vigor, zest and that bright sense of universal hopefulness that made up our conversations in the old courtyards. My friend had returned, not in figure, but in pen. However, as these months of writing passed I would, time and again, try to convince Dermonte to return to the university.

Most of the time he wouldn’t have it. He did explain the ultimate fixation that had developed after his extended stay within his old family home. This fixation, cemented within him after the passing of his uncle, kept Dermonte from the outside world and secluded him within the Bainbridge manor, unhealthily.

It was only a brief shortage of his letters that one had come, after two months of nothing, and arrived on my doorstep with the postman hand-delivering it to me with such haste. At once I opened it to see my fiend’s hand again, beckoning me to his side as a most unfortunate event had befallen his life once again.

This being the death of his beloved sister, Maria Tania Bainbridge. I had remembered her well-enough. For she was beautiful and the youthful radiance of her beauty shined through during her past visits to the college when she would stop in on Dermonte and myself. Maria was blonde and white.

She loved the color pink and mixed it with white any chance she could boast about it in the visual glamor of her endless wardrobe of dresses. Maria was one of those pure souls. One of those rare woman who enchant and brighten the lives of all those she encounters. That was how things were, but as god above had made it so, even the hand of death could not resist such a flower of utmost serenity.

This was to be the instrument of my friend’s reconnection with the outside world that this occurrence had struck, as he included in his letter the details of which painted him as the last Bainbridge of his line, on his father’s side. It was through this that Dermonte was the beneficiary of the family estate and all responsibility over the household fell to him.

So it was to be in this, in his weakening hour, that my companionship was needed most of ever. It was with a horse and a paid ride that I hurtled with quick-fast pace to the desolate and distant home of my friend, to seek the latter outside the door of his blackened estate and push myself past the cold to find that doorway.

When the carriage arrived the wind was blowing something fierce, with each brush of aero cutting my nose and cheeks with a foul slice of numbing bitterness. I raised my arm to shield my eyes as I turned, lantern in hand, to signal the driver that my destination had been reached. He looked out on me, past the heavy wind which broke sound, and flickered his lantern twice to tell me that he was headed back.

I stood there a moment, under the grandiose porch of the Bainbridge estate, having the cloak upon my back soak in the tears of the night. I batted my shaking fist against the hard wooden door  and upon the third pound the hinges turned and the entrance opened. In a moment I leaned my head in to see the familiar face of Dermonte who stood, extending one arm over me to guide my person in from the storm.

As I stepped in, dripping, Dermonte motioned off my coat with the unveiling of a dry one which he replaced over my back. The new cloak was warm, having been placed by a fire. My old friend welcomed me with arms extended. It all happened so fast. Thoughts came rushing and I embraced the old fellow, afterwards pulling away to take note of the absolute difference which had befallen Dermonte’s face.

This changes, which I took note of at once, chilled me for a moment as I attempted not to stare too long at him, and with a look of worry. This was my old fiend and yet, there was a ghoulish air about him. It was an aura of malice. The once bright face of solace and promise had been sunken into eyes cornered by darkened rings and a frame which fell like the strained portrait of a man, scorned by the world.

This man was not Dermonte, but it was. I shrugged his newly employed appearance as merely an effect of the recent tragedy which had entered his life, unannounced. Taking pity on him, I grabbed the old boy by the arm and invited him into his kitchen where I forced upon our union a cup of earl grey, following a seated discussion of the evening’s proceedings.

All was calm while the water boiled and the candle light flickered in the dry and small eating area, outside the deserted chef’s quarters. As we sat, warming our throats with the black promise of soothing oil, Dermonte peered upon me with a glare of hopelessness as I pressed for remembrance of our better days.

Dermonte smiled when he could, remarking once or twice upon the joys of our youth. But then again, like an almost immediate itch, his face returned to that of the eternal frown which rested the muscles within his face and weighed them down with a force greater than he. There came a second when I did not speak, and the resting stillness of the spoons in our teacups came to analyze the distance between us.

I coughed a brief laugh and raised myself from my seat to put on the pot for another fresh brew, and that was when he grabbed me. Dermonte, as I rose, extended his arm in a haste and grabbed my wrist with much the same agility as a python. Dermonte looked at me with widened eyes and set all manner of our past behind.

He looked at me and uttered his fear, that death was upon his house and drawing inward. I did not pull my hand away, but rather set aside my empty cup on the table and grabbed his hand with my free one. I assured him this spell of misfortune was to pass, and that all that was would be made undone in time.

He was unmoved and loosened his grip. Dermonte’s tea sat untouched, as did the motion of his body which sat in a complete freeze in the silence of his home. I got Dermonte up and requested we move to his study where we might discuss the remainder of my stay there. He agreed and forced himself out from his wooden chair.

Dermonte carried the weight of a body in the midst of rusting and forced his soar joints, which cracked and snapped with their unrelenting bending, to the tune of his regrettable stroll. Dermonte had me follow him up stairs and down two halls to the abode of his work, his writings and the tank of his thoughts.

When we had come in there was a fire rolling as everything there was how it should have been. Papers were scattered out on his desk. There was a smell of cigars in the air while freshly poured cups of wine fermented in their thick aroma in the corner of the room. The bar glistened with the display of crystal containers holding brandy, scotch and rum in all varieties.

The carpet was red and flat. Enough so that the naked foot would feel a fleeting warmth upon it, just to raise said foot and be warmed again with another step. I helped Dermonte into his chair, fashioned us both a small cup of whiskey each, as I then took up residency in the armchair beside his after retrieving two blankets from the wall cupboard.

Fixing myself into the seat, my eyes were raised to look upon my fading old friend as I finally asked for the staggering reason as to why he begged for my visitation on this particular night. I leaned back, took a sip of whiskey and awaited his steadily building response. He was slow at first, but Dermonte went into telling how, though he knew his state was unsavory, there truly was a lingering evil which haunted him.

Dermonte explained that since his return to his family estate from the university he was let in on secrets of his household. Ones he wished he would never have learned. Dermonte, since returning home was to be the arranger of the funerals of all of his family, which proved to be a torturous task. This was because, as Dermonte steadily explained, when a member of his family would die within the old black mansion they would rise from the dead on the night of the following full moon and seek out their blood relatives.

After finding said relatives, the revived corpse would then relentlessly attack them, unceasing until they were dead. This would continue until the heart was pierced, along with the brain and then a full separation of the head and body took place. That was the only way to kill them, he said. Now, perhaps it was the caffeine or the bit of alcohol playing upon his empty stomach, but I wasn’t having a word of it.

I showed my doubts on the face, yet Dermonte pleaded and told me it was to be true. As his sister had not had a proper Christian funeral, she would rise again to take his life the following night. The night of the full moon. I arose from my chair and told Dermonte that his fantasies were unhealthy and urged him to seek help.

As I got up Dermonte leapt from his chair, tossing aside the small glass of whiskey which shattered on the floor, till he stood on his belly, groveling at my shoe. He pleaded and revealed that his house had fallen on terrible times. His family was broke and he had no way to compensate the local church for a proper burial, spelling his doom.

I begged him to return to his seat as I helped him up and calmness washed over him again. I could hear the pounding of his heart and that throbbing as if it could stop at any moment. I knew that what he was telling me he truly believed to be real. Dermonte begged me to come up and see her, to asses her corpse.

I merely retrieved his fallen glass, poured him another, smaller sum, and sat back down. Dermonte went on to say that this is how it had been for some time. That we sitting there, bantering about it would do nothing. He pleaded with me to help and lock his sister away within a coffin in the wine cellar.

Dermonte instructed me, firmly, that when the moon arrived on that following night, if her corpse did not rise I could leave this place and seek out doctors to help my old friend. I agreed. Though the act, in my opinion, was horrid, we took care to be as gentle as possible to Maria’s body as we transported it.

Wrapping her in a sheet, Dermonte fought the vile urge to pierce her heart and her brain, convinced that when she would away, all we need do was sever her head. I demanded that he drop such heinous acts from his mind and focus more on the carrying. He did so and we got her into the cellar by eight o’clock.

Dermonte shut the door behind us, making sure to retrieve a few bottles of pinot noir for a night of intense pondering before closing the door off for good. Excused from the act, Dermonte and myself fell with our backs to the cellar door, gasping and out of breath. Dermonte began to open two bottles of wine, a piece, and handed me one.

He took a long sip, allowing his head to fall back with a sigh, expressing that he was a bit at ease. It was then he got into talking about it all again. About when he left Princeton and came back home. Dermonte said it was to see his dying uncle. That was when he first found out. In his final says Dermonte said his uncle acted strangely, like a spell of obsession overtook him.

He did not want to leave the house. The feeling grew and grew the closer he approached his final hour. Dermonte said it was like a sickness of the mind, like the house wanted him to die there. To come back as something else. Dremonte recalled first hearing the cries of his twin cousins who sat and prayed over his uncle each moment after his passing.

It was after hearing their cries that Dermonte ran to his uncle’s room to see his cousins, Alphonse and Edward, torn to pieces and with bits of them in his uncle Daniel’s mouth. Dermonte’s discovery of the scene was met by his mother and father running past him, rushing his uncle, subduing him, piercing his heart, his brain, then severing his head from his body.

Dermonte confessed that he thought it was a dream, until his parents forced him to defile the slain bodies of his cousins. According to his father, Dermonte said, this curse had not take effect for some time, however his uncle was the first of their family line who could not receive a proper burial. This cemented what fate awaited all those of them who died in the house. 

Dermonte went onto explain that his mother was next. Dermonte’s father, after his mother’s passing, forced him to put tools to flesh to ensure she would not rise again. After this Dermonte and his sister were forced to mutilate their father’s body when his time had come, a mere three weeks later.

Now that the time had come to take the second breath of his younger sister, Dermonte confessed that he could not take the knife to her. I understood. Whether or not I believe any of it was irrelevant at the time. All I remember thinking was just how horribly this place had effected Dermonte. We rose from our asses and took a few breaths, agreeing to return outside this door the following night.

Dermonte instructed me, after securing a lock on the door, to go about my business. He promised me that tomorrow all would be clear. I prayed so. Just as my friend had predicted, around midnight, or perhaps a little after, there came a knocking from within the cellar. Dermonte had taken me there at the brink of twelve to hear it for myself.

An overwhelming curiosity washed over me as I felt that we must open the door to look upon our dearly departed Maria. Dermonte grew fearful and ordered me away. He said it would be the death of him. I did not have many objections left and told my friend that we may now sit down to discuss any means of getting rid of her.

The living corpse. That is what I called it since, from what I’ve come to believe, there was no shred of Maria left in that hulk of murderous flesh. Pure primal instinct and hatful violence were all that existed now. That was when Dermonte brought up the idea of setting fire to the estate again, only this time it was in jest.

I, on the other hand, came up with the very real prospect that I should be the one to kill her. It would only make sense as the revived Maria would only attack members of her family. That would allow me the opportunity to slay her with no retaliation. Dermonte agreed with no doubt that I could and should get the job done.

I was almost astonished by his willingness to send me into the lion’s den. Though, I think he thoroughly believed no harm would come to me. So it was done. At one in the morning I took a large sewing needle, as big as a quill, from Dermonte’s mother’s study and headed to face the undead woman. Dermonte stood back as to escape the vision of his revived sister when he opened the clear door.

Darkness peeked out into light as I came to fight the blackened tint of the shadowy room. I looked through what my eyes could not, at first, see. There I saw our Maria, standing in the bleakness, with her head faced up and bleeding from the mouth. Her knuckles were bloodied as if she had been furiously smashing them upon the cellar door, and as Dermonte pulled back the huge metal block this suspicion was revealed to be true.

I stepped slowly, the needle in my right hand. I stepped until coming up upon her, freezing for a moment. Maria’s head came down and her eyes met mine. Even in death she was beautiful. I knew her eyes could not see mine. Her eyes were gone, replaced by blinded bulbs of white. I could have almost cried looking upon her state.

I held back for a moment to observe this reanimated dead, and it was in that hesitation that Dermonte called out to me, asking if the deed had been done. In that instant Maria caught an ear of his voice and realized Dermonte resided behind the door. I raised my hand the plunge the needle into her heart, but before I could she raced past me and darted for the door.

I turned to stop her, but her light body moved to quick as it knocked open the cellar entrance which Dermonte clung to so tightly. When I escaped the darkness of the room Maria had leapt onto of Dermonte. He sat, with wide eyes and screaming howls, pushing away his sister who clawed and bit at him.

As I ran to them Maria took a chunk of flesh out of the side of Dermonte’s throat and squeezed it between her teeth. I took the needle and shoved it through the back of her head. This did nothing as Dermonte, gargling on blood, demanded I would have to pierce her heart. By this time Maria had taken a knife on the floor, that being the one Dermonte held to defend himself before the door’s opening, and plunged it into my friend’s stomach three consecutive times.

By the third stab I had located Maria’s heart from her back and planted the large sewing needle at the center of it. Maria came up for a gasp of air before falling down, sighing a final breath before dying again for the second and final time. In this moment I shook with absolute astonishment, for now I knew the dead could return to life.

This prospect frightened me and I attempted to calm my thoughts as I saw Dermonte, grasping his wound and breathing heavy. He stumbled on his side and forced himself to sit up against the wall. I came nearer to him, asking what aid he needed. That was when a cold look of hate and disgust washed over his face.

It was as if something had entered his eyes. Something evil. I attempted to persuade him to seek help again and Dermonte lashed out at me, grabbing the needle out of Maria’s back and holding me at its point. I could tell my friend was no longer present in that head. Whatever Dermonte was before, whatever he felt, had died in this moment when he knew these injuries would kill him.

It was as Dermonte said, just as the curse dictated, each individual of the Bainbridge line shall feel an unhealthy attachment to the house and will fight to their last breath not to leave it upon their final hour. I knew there was no arguing the point, and overtime I persuaded my old friend to come away he threatened me with violent death.

And so it was upon that morning that I helped my old colleague up to his bedroom, there at the far end of the hall, on the highest floor of the Bainbridge Estate. I tucked Dermonte into bed, closed the shutters and left him alone, as he wished. Even through this, there was a glare of hate in his eyes, like I might go back and attempt to get him to leave again.

I wouldn’t now. It was all over. Even if he didn’t force me to leave him there, I still would not of let such a fate befall my greatest ally. And so, it was its candles from the foyer that I set blaze to the house from the inside. I did this after boarding up Dermonte’s bedroom door, fleeing the scene before the smoke could be spotted from the fields over north.

I could not stop my friend from dying, but perhaps I could halt his reanimation into a vile revenant. For all I knew, once he would rise again there would be a distant relative who too would suffer the same fate, passing on the Bainbridge curse. It has been forty years since that time and the only newspaper I had ever read about the manor’s destruction ended in the discovery of only one body at the scene.

That being the ashy corpse of Maria, who officials believed to have been violently murdered. This left me shaken. If Dermonte had indeed survived the fire, this meant he was again out in the world, an undead menace seeking out his bloodline. As the years passed this concern faded from my mind.

In the end my only true fear was that he would return for me.