It was January of 1993. Everything was bleak, cold, wet and miserable. Fog consumed the streets, lamps cast little light and I could hear the odd car trudge through the slurries and ice in a slow hum. It was a little before 10pm and I was still expecting a delivery from the local museum. I didn’t expect it to arrive that evening, not with the weather conditions being so treacherous, but a knock at the door, breaking the otherwise silent night, startled me.
I lived alone then, in a townhouse on a long street opposite a small park usually filled with dog walkers, runners and families picnicking during the summer. The park wasn’t huge but it was the only one within walking distance in the middle of the city. Although pleasant during the daylight, looking through my window trying to see who stood at the top of the steps to my front door, the park looked unsettlingly empty.
The knock came again. I answered and a man thrust a large box towards me. He smiled, rubbed his hands together and bounced from foot to foot in the freezing cold while I signed the paper he’d laid on top of the box. Juggling the box in one hand, I thanked the man and kicked the door shut with my foot, back into the warmth.
I was glad it had arrived. That meant I could process the artefacts tomorrow and get them sent to the post office before closing or even the day after if need be. I was too tired to start now and after polishing off a bottle of red wine, I thought it time to go to bed and start afresh in the morning.
I woke up around 2am to a crack coming from my stairway, nothing unusual for an old house connected to neighbours on either side. I often heard what my father used to describe as the house settling, you know the noises: pipes, stairs, a creak, a crack. Anything makes noise when the world around you is engulfed in silence.
I didn’t usually wake up during the night, especially after a drink, but I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned for a few minutes until I heard something else. This time it sounded heavy. A thud. And then another. I sat up, still half asleep. I noticed my door was open a few inches. I always shut my door. This should have panicked me more than it did. When you do something so unconsciously every night, you can’t think clearly about the last time you did it. The door drifted to the back of my mind as my eyelids grew heavy and my body calmed. Another thud. The house was in darkness. I stared towards the door, trying to focus, trying to stay awake. Towards the bottom of the door, a few inches from the floor, there was a dark mass, darker than its surroundings. I wasn’t sure if it was my eyes or my tired confusion but it was moving up so slowly that I didn’t want to blink and my thoughts instantly shifted to the package waiting in my living room. Without averting my gaze, I reached for the lamp just left of my bed, slowly groped for the switch and turned it on.
The shape was gone; there was nothing there. The black shadow didn’t exist and I could see clearly onto the landing, the pictures that hung in the corridor and the bannister to the stairwell. I felt a sense of unease and left the light on low as I tried to coax myself back to sleep.
As soon as I woke, I remembered my dream. The shadow so dark and the anxious pit in my stomach churning. I set to work shortly after.
Taking a hammer, I began working at the nails holding the box together. They were tacked in deep, far better secured than my usual deliveries but, somehow, I knew how important this delivery was. Inside a few layers of packaging and dust sheets lay the find: two heads facing each other. They were so corroded that it was difficult to initially pick out any features or expressions. I picked one up and laid it under the light. All I knew about them was that they were found buried under part of The Antonine Wall and were thought to be from around 142 AD. After hours of testing, researching and writing reports, I boxed up the pieces as carefully as I could and continued with my day. Looking back, there was nothing unique about the pieces, nothing I hadn’t seen before but there was something off with them, a feeling or an energy, I can’t explain it but I wish I’d have trusted my gut on this one.
I ended the night similarly to the one before, except for the drink. The weather was still horrendous and I didn’t bother going to get another bottle, so I went to bed, ready to post the artefacts back first thing in the morning. It took me a while of watching rubbish TV to get to sleep, still on edge from the night before.
2am. Like the previous night, I heard something. As I stared at the crack in the doorway, it began to grow wider. Something was there, much more visible than before. A huge, dark shape blocked my only exit. A human figure stood menacingly just metres away. Although I could see no expression in the darkness, I knew it was staring at me. I could see its chest rise and fall in rapid succession. Its fingers wriggled and writhed at its sides. Sweat pooled on my brow, tears falling from my face stained my pillow. I couldn’t move, I was trapped. It felt like so much time had passed, I was conscious of every breath feeling like the air around me was growing thin as my heart thumped in my ears.I wanted it to pounce, to have me, to end the fear and all consuming anxiety. The shape began to crouch, its arms pulling over its head and its legs pulling up to its face as it scuttled across the floor. I squeezed my eyes closed, desperate for the dream to end.
I don’t know where it came from but the adrenaline finally kicked in and I lunged for the door. I bounced off the frame and swung around the bannister. I heard the greatest thumps and thuds, like a huge dog, behind me. Just before I set off down the stairs, something banged into me and I lost my footing.
I awoke sometime later, pain electrified my body, my head blistered and my legs were numb. I tried to lift just enough to look around. A small light was coming from a doorway above me. I was at the bottom of the stairs. I looked down at my legs, they were twisted and tangled in positions that made my stomach churn added with the strong metallic smell that filled my nostrils. I leant my head to the side, retching as the world around me spun. As the wave passed, I looked towards the stairs. I tried to shout, to scream or to cry but nothing happened. The light suddenly became blocked. The mass stood still, casting a long stretched shadow onto the stairs.
I began to believe, whether it was through being in and out of consciousness and definitely concussed, that I had scared myself into falling down. I heard a click and simultaneously, I was in darkness. Everything became dark, darker than I ever experienced. The air felt thick and heavy to breathe and the walls felt like they were closing in and the air escaping. I couldn’t tell what sounds were in my head and which were down here with me. I lay, waiting, to be found or to die, to be rescued or to wake up. As I sat, listening to my blood drip into a puddle, I felt tugging, nibbling as whiskers and fur brushed my face. I felt nothing other than that, no pain. I stopped thinking about the mass, about the heads. I stopped thinking altogether and listened to the nibbling and rummaging until I felt myself fall through the cold stone beneath me.
The sunlight shone through my front door window. It took me a second to get my bearings, to realise I was, in fact, at the bottom of my stairs. My legs were most definitely broken and the vomit had begun to crust on the side of my face. In front of me, as I lay hopelessly with my one foot still on the bottom two steps, I saw a sight that still haunts me. The heads sat at my eye line, on the bottom step, their expressionless faces piercing into me, I have never since felt so helpless and sickeningly horrified.
The next 20 mins are a blur to me. I’m grateful that this was a time of landlines and the phone sat on the table not a few feet from my grasp although it wasn’t easy to get to. After that, I remember the relief I felt when the police broke the door down and I wasn’t alone. I told my story which was sort of accepted due to the absolute state my apartment was in and the missing artefacts along with all my research. I however know what happened, I wasn’t robbed, I opened something that night that shouldn’t have been messed with. It was buried for a reason and I welcomed it into my home. I now conduct all research from my office at my workplace and I absolutely do not take my work home.