The Things Betwixt...

966 Fenchurch Street

"The Writer's Cramp"  Winner! 11-24-2015

It came upon a gray and windless morning that I found myself strolling the busy streets of London. A frigid drizzle doused the air with thickness that was as palpable as abysmal muck, thereupon a dense haze lingered about at knee height, whisking and swirling from passers-by.

It was east of the Woodrange Cemetery, and on the corner of Shrewsbury and Sherrard that I met the dreary man. He spent his morning selling Penny Dreadfuls to those with a fixation on the morbid fascinations of the macabre. I tipped my hat, as always, and purchased one for myself, for I had such fixations.

I continued thereafter, betwixt the clamor of horse drawn carriage and liveliness of the Abbey Wood aristocracy, reading those splendid pages. Thus how I spent most mornings in London, but upon turning through the pages, I came across a most magnificent story. It made claim of a certain – haunting wherein a man had lost his life. When I say lost his life, the story recounted an investigation of the most heinous of deaths. The man had been twisted, it said, in a most unnatural fashion as to suggest that no human could have done such a thing. No stretch of stern coercion could lay rest my morbid curiosities and fascination with the supernatural. As such, I settled upon the conclusion that I would investigate further.

966 Fenchurch Street

The derelict house sat lonesome atop a slight gradient of a dead yard like an abscess amongst the cathedrals of the civilized. I recalled this place having been claimed to survive the great fire of 1666. It had of course survived, but the outside was sacrificed to flames. The sides were dull and an entirely unrecognizable stone. Soot splotched its crumbling walls like the fire was naught but yesterday. A rusted iron fence stood around it, and betwixt its posts, long dead tendrils of ivy clung about like the desperate grip of the terminally ill still clinging to the last remnants of life. Flecks of white ash dotted the brown grass like flakes of wayward snow. Upon taking in the scene, I felt a watching of sorts. Not at all from passers-by, for Fenchurch was a less than desirable street, but from something else. I goaded my anxiety to an unstable conclusion that those dark, vacant, eye-like windows were the source of my apprehension. It wasn’t at all satisfactory, for I then noted the door, then the house entirely. The front, with its windows and an arched door betwixt, held a remarkable semblance of a face. This face of course, wasn’t in the slightest an inviting one, for it held a scowl – a contempt for me that feasted upon my dread.

Still, I forced myself to pursue this investigation, and I pushed open the gate. As the iron screamed that hollow and agonizing disapproval of having been opened, I noted the tarnished brass numbers of the address against the bronze plaque. The nine was upside down, dangling by a single rivet, and the address now read:

666 Fenchurch Street

As uninviting and cliché as it was, I was compelled to enter. Therein I beheld an empty room with a haze-like atmosphere. Not haze as a fog, but rather the cloudiness the eyes perceive when one goes snow-blind. There was a heat within, not a burning heat, but a warmth as though the stone was still hot from the flames. All about, the house creaked and moaned as though something pressed against its exterior. The place resembled what I can only describe as sickness and lament. It was decrepit and old, but very much alive, and very much aware of my intrusion.

With each step I took into the hateful place, the house's howling became fremescent as something resisted my entrance. It wasn’t a physical push, but a heavy-hearted reluctance of my passing, wherein it was as though I walked through liquid stone. I felt a forgetfulness – a daze of sorts that stole away any imagery of the splendors and comforts of the mundane day-to-days, and in its place was a pervasive malevolence that maculated any tangible feelings of the serene.

It was upon my spotting of a half-burnt and leather bound tome that the vast aggravation of my presence came to an end. It sat on the dry-rotted and charred wood floor, in a corner wherein the shadows around it seemed a trifling vexation to the darkness that the book alluded. My hand was heavy and trembling as I reached for the tome, but before I could grasp it, it opened to its first page, wherein a writing of artful penmanship remarked its title:

The Journal of Dorian

The pages turned once more as though wind blew them, flapping hard against one another to an abrupt stop at Dorian’s final entries. His assertive writing was replaced with panicked scrawling of a man who’d surmised impending doom.

2 – September - 1666

The voices tell me that Thomas is evil. They won’t stop telling me to burn him. I set out tonight for his bakery, and I start there. Surely he’ll run out once the fire spreads, and I’ll be waiting. I can take him back to the house, and those voices will tell me what to do with him.

3 – September – 1666

My fire is everywhere!

5 – September – 1666

Thomas is dead. He killed him. I’ve never seen anything like it; the way he broke and shattered him was so beautiful. He told me it’s time to burn him… the flames… hurt so bad. I go now to my master!

The pages turned one last time but there was naught but blank paper until I saw ink worm across the page as words gouged into the journal.

Please… forgive me.

Thus ended the chronicles of Dorian. I ran from that house, journal in hand with the knowledge that he ignited the London Fire. Thomas was the dead man in the Penny Dreadful; found in September of 1666 at 966 Fenchurch Street.

Word Count - 1000

The Great Fire of London was a real event that occurred on September 2 1666 and was not extinguished until September 5 1666. It destroyed the homes of some 70,000 residents, and it all began in a bakery owned by Thomas Farynor on Pudding Lane - 1 Block from Fenchurch Street.