A Peculiar Encounter
by Cecil O’Doran
I experienced something most unsettling earlier this year. It was April and the country was in lockdown. Up until that point, I had stayed inside my house except to buy essentials at the shop and it was doing my head in. I had to get out so, although I knew it was against the rules, I planned to meet up with a friend of mine. She doesn’t live far from me so we decided I would just visit her at her house. Very few people were around but to ensure no one saw me, I waited until dark. It went dark earlier than usual (and than I had expected) that evening but I didn’t think much of it at the time…
The visit went well. We hugged each other, something I had missed doing terribly, and sat together chatting about things for a good two or three hours before I was ready to go home. By that time, I could sense an oncoming storm and was terrified. I left immediately hoping to be home before the worst of it. As I scurried home, rain smacked against the pavement violently and hailstones struck my skin. The wind whirled about me and taunted me with its whistle. I heard thunder rumbling in the distance as I approached my front door so I flung my gate open, ran down the path and was so anxious to enter my house quickly that my trembling overcame me and I could barely get the key in lock.
Storms had always scared me so even once I was inside my house I could not stop the trembling of my fingers. I struggled with the key again. I was huffing and puffing and shaking my head when, suddenly, I heard the pattering of footsteps on the stairs. I silenced myself and turned to look but there was nothing to be seen. I shrugged my shoulders and turned back and…
I gasped, through the patterned glass of my door I saw, standing on my doorstep, a dark figure. I was startled at first. There hadn’t been anyone around when I entered my house, at least, I hadn’t seen anyone… I collected myself and assured myself that I must simply not have seen them. I told them to step back and they did. I opened the door... It was hard to see the figure clearly from two metres away in the blackness of the night but what I could see seemed, well, odd. The figure seemed to be a fully-grown woman though her child-like stature suggested otherwise. She was very, very thin, so much so, in fact, that she looked ill and her face was gaunt. What was most peculiar to me, though, was her choice of dress. She wore a pale, loose-fitting dress that reached all the way to the floor and had a frilly, lace-up collar. Over it she had draped a large stretch of teal fabric which was tied at her side. It was most unusual…
“Hello,” I said anxiously. I wasn’t answered but was instead greeted with a chilling glare. “Can I help you?” I asked. She said nothing. I was about to close the door, out of fear more than anything, when she said sternly, “Wait! I must speak with you!”
“Very well but you mustn’t stand out there. Come in.” I don’t know what I was thinking letting a stranger into my house, especially one so intimidating and during lockdown but I didn’t want her standing outside in the storm.
As she stepped into the golden light of my hallway, her features became clearer and what I saw alarmed me. Her face and arms were marked similarly with sizable, carmine sores with leaden scabs and poking out from underneath her collar was a raised, discoloured swelling on her neck…
I led her to my lounge where she sat on the one seat I never use as though it was her own. I never use that chair as it is the least comfy of all of them but when I offered her another seat she rejected it quite forcefully. Thinking that it was help that she needed from me, I offered to get my first aid kit from the kitchen for her. She declined my offer. She had not come to me for help. “Please don’t visit your friend again,” she warned me, “not until it is safe.”
“How do you know that?” I asked, startled. She gave no reply. Defending myself I said, “I know I wasn’t supposed to but I was really lonely. I only went one time!”
“One too many times,” she corrected me.
“My friend and I aren’t at risk so I think you’ll find it was fine.”
“That doesn’t mean that you can’t spread it. Please, please stay in your house.”
“Fine,” I said begrudgingly.
“Please,” she pleaded. Tears filled her eyes. I apologised for my attitude and offered her a tissue. She stretched out her hand and, to my dismay, I saw that her fingers were as black as ink. I recoiled in horror. She immediately pulled her hand away and attempted to hide it as she had done before but it was too late.
“Who are you?” I cried.
“You live in my cottage, the cottage where I died, where I watched my husband die, my children die. I died during the Eyam Plague in 1665,” she cried.
I was horrified. I tried to ignore her, to look away, to cover my ears but she just got louder.
“We all made sacrifices then and you are being called upon to do the same now. Please do the right thing, like we did!”
“I only went once!” I whimpered.
“You’re not listening to me! Please listen to me!” And with that she ululated ferociously and disappeared from my sight to the bellow of thunder.
I haven’t seen her since, and to ensure that that stays the case, I now do all I can to keep everybody safe…