The Ender Eyes
By Hazel B. West
It was in the late fall, at the end of the year 1899 when I
first moved to my great uncle’s estate in the north of England from my lifelong
home in London. It had not been my first choice, but my great uncle had
recently passed away and bequeathed its upkeep to me, so I felt a good deal of
obligation to go up there and at least see that everything was well and good
and handle the affairs that had been left.
Having
lived in the city, among many people of my own social class all my life, the
move to the North was somewhat of a shock to my system. I had never even
visited my uncle at his estate in my childhood and had never ventured farther
than Brighton until that point. The town I came into on the train left little
to be desired and even less so when I finally found a coachman willing to take
me out to my newly acquired estate.
“Please, I
need to get to the Dorian Estate on Ender Moor,” I pleaded with the man who was
hesitant. I finally resulted in pulling out my purse to show that I had money
to pay.
He eyed me
with not a little trepidation. “No one goes out there, boy.”
I couldn’t
understand what he meant then, but oh, was I to know soon enough. At that
moment, however, I was simply confused and rather indignant. “Sir, I have just
been left this estate by my uncle who is dead these last three months! I must
see to the estate’s upkeep, and I have no other way to get out there. I don’t
even know where it is, precisely.”
The man
cast his gaze out to the moorlands to the north and finally consented. “Very
well. But we leave in the morning. I ain’t going out there this late in the
day.”
He would take
no more arguments, so I was forced to stay in a less than adequate inn for the
night and find the man again as dawn rose in a gloomy cloud over the dim
moorland and misty hills and valleys.
As I rode
in the cart toward my new acquisition, I couldn’t help a slight shiver than ran
through my veins. London may have had the fog of coal and city life, but there
was something about the dimness of the moors that chilled me to my very bones.
A chill that had nothing to do with the fast approaching winter. Something just
did not seem right out here, as if there were an evil on the wind itself.
I was not
the only one to notice, for my driver sat stiffly and alert and the horses too,
were constantly skittish. This whole feeling made me even more anxious to be back
home in London, but I couldn’t in good conscious leave quite yet. I was a man
of integrity, after all, and I would do the duty my uncle wished of me.
I felt no
better when I saw the house. In fact, it almost made me beg an immediate return
ride from the man. The place wasn’t very big when it came to estates, but it
seemed to lower over the moors in a very dark and foreboding manner. It was
made of dark stone, overgrown with ivy and some fixtures were rather crooked
with age, giving the entire place a very rakish, evil look. I wondered how on
earth my uncle could have lived here his whole life without going mad. But
then, maybe he had. I had never known him, after all. Surely, anyone who stayed
in a place like this couldn’t have been sane.
I paid the
man and he said something about sending weekly supplies before he dumped my
baggage onto the stoop beside me and I was left completely alone, with nothing
but the chill, howling wind of the moor for company.
I carried
my things inside, looking around with a depressed air. Cloths were tossed
haphazardly over some of the furniture but most of it was left alone to gather
dust. I heaved a sigh of frustration and perhaps a bit of self-pity. There were
no servants to see to the clean up, or to make me a warm supper, and out here
on the Ender Moor alone, I wondered how I would make it through just the time I
needed to see to my uncle’s affairs. For surely, as soon as I was done with
that, I was on my way back to London, never to return to this desolate,
godforsaken place.
I did perk
up a little as soon as I realized there was tea and a pot to stew it in in the
kitchen, and the warm drink did a bit to help with the chill of the house,
which was almost unearthly frigid.
But there
was not only the physical chill in the house either; there was a chill like the
one I had felt on the way here, that went further into my bones, crept down my
spine. It was something that was bourn of the howling wind outside that the
silent house did little to hide. The hair on the back of my neck stood up and I
quickly busied myself, trying my best to ignore it. At least I had a lot to do
to keep my mind off of it.
The
solicitor was coming in a couple days to help me sort out my uncle’s affairs,
and I had to find the proper paperwork before then so that I could see about
the selling of the estate—though honestly now I didn’t know why anyone would
want it. I spent the rest of the day looking through my uncle’s study, finding
everything to be in a terrible mess, almost as if it had been tossed about. It
took me longer to sort through things than it should have, and by the time I
had put it into some semblance, I was ready to make myself a small supper and retire
to bed, weary from my journey.
My first
night at the estate gave me some realization as to what it was really like
there out on Ender Moor. The wind that howled across the barren hills
constantly, only seemed to pick up its tune with more gusto as a harmony of
wails came along to accompany it. I lay in my bed, shuddering uncontrollably.
No matter how high I built the fire in the grate, I could not seem to get warm.
The heat only seemed to be torn away by the wind and the desolate wail of it
pierced something in my brain that made me instantly uneasy.
Night birds
of the moor sang unearthly songs, and there were howls of unnamed beasts that I
was certain must be from another realm entirely. I had heard many stories of
the northern moors, the otherworldly creatures that were said to roam them, why
you should never go out on the moors at night—truly child’s stories, of course,
but being here now, I was almost willing to believe. Or at the least understand
how they came about.
Needless to
say I got little sleep, if any, and went back to my uncle’s study as soon as I
had a pot of tea. Putting my mind to work again seemed the best thing, and I
reminded myself that the sooner I got everything seen to, the sooner I could
make it back to London and my comfortable flat and society as a whole.
By the end
of the day I had finally found everything I needed for the solicitor when he came
tomorrow, and I was just tidying up the desk when I saw a book had fallen to
the ground underneath of it. I bent to pick it up, seeing it was a plain, black
journal that looked well worn. I flipped through the first couple pages and saw
neat crimped handwriting that I had come to realize was my uncle’s. I tucked
the book under my arm as I left the study, curious to see what my uncle may
have written about out here in seclusion.
I ate my
dinner and went to bed, that second night, gladly taking my uncle’s journal
with me to distract myself with what would likely be another very long night.
The wind had picked up again and I knew sleep would likely be futile.
I lit a
lamp beside the bed and took up the journal, flipping to the first page. It was
mostly just an account of day-to-day things, and I was somewhat surprised to
find that my uncle was a bit of an amateur naturalist. The book contained his
observations and some sketches of his findings. I suppose that if nothing else,
the moor seemed an adequate place for someone with my uncle’s hobbies to live
for he seemed to always find and record something different every time he made
a trek out in the hills.
I read
happily for a while, feeling that perhaps the moor was not as sinister as I had
perceived it to be, until his descriptions started to become a little strange.
There were
still the observations of birds and plants and other wildlife, but he kept
mentioning something watching him. He never said someone it was always something. For
some reason that choice of phrase sent a chill up my spine and made me feel
uneasy. I wanted to stop reading, but found that I couldn’t.
I turned
the page and the first entry simply said: The
Eyes are watching.
I quickly
read on with a few more descriptions of plants, but my uncle’s writings seemed
short and abrupt as if he weren’t interested anymore. His handwriting started
to get more and more erratic, hard to read, scrawling all over the page instead
of staying in neat, precise lines. Some of it, I could hardly read, but most of
it was the same sort of thing repeated over and over again:
They follow me
wherever I go, it does not matter how far, I cannot escape them. Even in the
house I am not safe. They are always watching. The Ender Eyes are always
watching.
His
handwriting devolved even more to the point that it wasn’t even writing
anymore, it was just scratches. Then as I turned several more pages, I saw the
erratic scratches start to take a shape. A shape of two eyes.
They were
crudely drawn, but there was an intensity in them all the same. Something that
told of wicked intent. I flipped several more pages and they were all filled
with sketches of the same pair of eyes, big, small, all over the spread pages
until they filled every corner, and then they just stopped.
I hadn’t
realized I was clutching the book so hard until I managed to pry my hands from
the cover, my breath catching in my throat as I carefully closed it. I was left
in no doubt now that my uncle had been very ill when he died. The solitary
lifestyle had surely driven him mad, and I was even more determined not to allow
the same thing happen to me.
A bang made
me nearly jump from my skin. I whipped my head around to see that the shutter
on the window had been blown open with the howling wind that had only seemed to
gain in intensity in the last few minutes. I leapt out of bed, shivering in the
rush of cold air and ran to latch it tightly once again.
As I leaned
out the window to grab the errant shutter, I gasped at the biting chill of the
moor wind that cut through my nightclothes. I finally snagged the shutter and
was about to duck back inside when I caught something out of the corner of my
eye.
I whipped
around, just in time to see what looked like two glowing orbs hovering over the
moor, but as soon as I focused on them, they disappeared. I stood frozen,
breath catching in my throat, before my senses came back to me and I ducked
back inside, slamming the shutter closed behind me and latching it tight.
What could
that have been? My mind was filled with the horrifying sketches my uncle had
made, but surely I was just seeing things. Probably due to the lack of sleep.
Of course,
now, I had even less desire to sleep than I had before. I stayed in bed, shuddering
as I listened to the wails of the wind and the moor creatures until the dawn
brought some thin light to the world.
***
The solicitor came at around ten a.m. and I felt that I had
never been so glad to have another human being around. His presence instantly
made the house seem less despairing and I fear I may have come off a bit too
enthusiastic as I ushered him inside to the study and poured some tea for the
both of us, but we were soon seeing to the business, and I had almost forgotten
the terrible night that I’d had.
But as we
were wrapping up our discussion, and the solicitor was getting ready to leave,
he said, “I am terribly sorry to hear about your uncle, by the way. It was a
terrible accident.”
I must have
shown my confusion because he looked slightly taken aback. “Don’t you know?”
I shook my
head. “I’m afraid I was never given details,” I admitted. “I was never truly
close to my uncle. I never even met him.”
“Oh, well,
they found him on the moor, drowned in one of the bogs,” the man said grimly.
“It is a wild and dangerous place. You would likely do well not to wander too
far from the estate.”
Something
cold crept up my spine at that news as I thought of all the nature observations
my uncle had made, which must have caused him to wander the moor at length
without a problem before he had simply become obsessed with the entity he
called ‘The Ender Eyes’. But surely, he had just been turned to madness by
solitude and old age and nothing more, forgot where he was going, and met his
unlucky end in a bog he didn’t remember being there.
“Thank you.
I truly have no intention of wandering, or staying here for longer than needs
must.”
I saw the
solicitor out, pulling my coat around myself in the biting wind. There was a
nagging on the back of my neck, the kind that you feel when you know someone is
watching you even if you can’t see them. That thought sent a shudder through
me, and I found myself trembling, looking over my shoulder.
“Are you quite
alright, Mr. Dorian?” the solicitor asked me, a concerned look on his face.
“I’m fine.
It’s just very cold here,” I assured him.
“It is
that,” he replied. “But don’t worry. Two weeks at the most and we will have
this all sorted out, then you can be back on your way to London.”
I didn’t
want to stay there two more days let alone two more weeks, but there was little
I could do. Still, I felt a certain despair as I watched him drive away,
leaving me alone once again.
***
That night, exhausted, I fell into a stupor in the library,
unable to stand the thought of going to my bed again. But my sleep was not
comfortable at all, interrupted by the howls of the wind that sounded more
human than not, and the constant feeling of unease that had followed me all day
without relent or explanation. I simply could not shake the feeling that there
was someone, or indeed, something,
observing me even though I could not see it, and rationality told me the idea
was ridiculous.
I was
brought awake from an unknown interruption to my comfort. My hands shook, and I
noticed the fire had gone down, but there was no more wood beside it. Terror
overtook me as I realized I would have to step outside if I wanted more wood. I
almost refused, but then thought how silly that would be, to freeze to death
just because I was unnerved about my strange surroundings. So I grabbed the
bucket and went outside to the woodpile just out back of the kitchen.
The wind
nearly froze me but I managed to heave several logs into the bucket and bring
them inside before going back for more. I stacked a good amount in the kitchen
that should last the night and went to retrieve one more bucket for good
measure.
I glanced
out over the dark moor as I straightened up to head back inside and a cry
caught in my throat.
Two glowing
orbs, like the ones I thought I had seen the night before, stared at me through
the darkness. The eldritch light felt as if it pierced into my very soul,
freezing my heart in my chest. I stumbled backward, gripping the door with
white fingers before I finally forced myself inside and slammed the door behind
me, barring it against the night and whatever unholy thing resided in it.
It was a
while before I realized I was crouched on the floor, panting with terror, my
body freezing and in shock. As soon as my senses started to return, I pulled
myself shakily to my feet and hurried back into the library where I piled as
much wood as I could onto the fire until it was roaring with warmth. Even that
didn’t stop my shivering though, because I realized it wasn’t all simply a
result of the cold.
Oh, how I wished
I had never come out here. Surely this very house itself was making me as mad
as my uncle had been. I could not truly believe that I had seen the same thing
he had, or that it was anything at all. Surely it was not some otherworldly
entity with malicious intent, but simply a product of the atmosphere or
luminescent insects. There were such natural phenomena that could be explained
by science, after all.
But yet, I
could not truly believe my own reassurances, because there was no accounting
for the way I felt as if something was watching me, just as my uncle described,
nor the pure animal terror that had come over me both times I had seen the
orbs.
I sank into
the library chair and watched the fire until it burned out and then piled more
wood on. One thing I knew was that I did not want to be left in the dark and
the cold.
***
The next day, I went through the house and shuttered all the
windows. I didn’t care if it made the house even more dour than it already was,
I didn’t want to see outside. I couldn’t stand the thought of glancing out onto
the moor and seeing those lights again.
I busied
myself cleaning the house, cataloging my uncle’s belongings, and that night I
returned to the bedroom to sleep, and managed to fall asleep through pure
exhaustion.
The Eyes were in my head.
I shot up
from the bed with a cry, looking around for the source of my horror, but saw
nothing, only the firelit glow of the room, as the flames cast dancing shadows
on the walls. Still, I had seen the Eyes.
No, they
were just lights, I tried to tell myself. They were not the Ender Eyes my uncle had written of.
And yet,
whenever I tried to close my eyes there they were, glowing intently behind my
eyelids, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
Another
sleepless night, more work the next day. I sat down to figure up some of the
finances and paperwork and tried to focus my mind on that.
I was able
to work for a while, but I was so tired, that my mind drifted off and I
startled myself by almost falling asleep at the desk. I shook myself and rose
to get a fresh pot of tea when I happened to look down at the papers I had been
working on.
Two eyes
stared back.
I gripped
the back of the chair in horror. My figures had turned from numbers into
scratches that resembled the eyes that had covered the latter pages of my
uncle’s journal. Quickly I snatched the paper from the desk and threw it into
the fire, breathing heavily. I tried to calm myself, pressing my hands against
my eyes, assuming this was all just the result of sleeping so poorly.
But the
Eyes were staring right back at me in the darkness of my own mind.
I blinked
my eyes open again with a cry. Would this torment never leave me? I must find a
way to rest, for I knew the lack of sleep would only make it worse.
That night
I took some laudanum in the hopes that it would make me drowsy enough to sleep
and it did, but it also made it impossible for me to wake from my nightmare.
The eyes haunted me continuously, I could not escape them. I tossed in my bed,
unable to move.
I woke on
the floor by the window, which was open and horror struck me at the thought of
what I might have done had I not woken. Would my madness cause me to throw
myself out onto the moor? Was that how my uncle had perished in the bog?
I vowed
never to take the laudanum again. It hadn’t helped anyway. I knew the only
thing that would help was getting out of that house, away from that haunting
moor. I made my decision then to write to the solicitor and tell him I could
not stay another day. I would have to handle the affairs long distance from
back in London.
I went to
my uncle’s desk and took up pen and paper, writing as quickly as I could. I
blinked tiredly, my body, my mind, so exhausted…
I came to,
scratching my pen against the desktop. I looked down in horror as I saw that I
had sketched more of those terrible eyes onto the paper before covering the
entire thing and moving on to the desk itself. I had dug the pen into the wood,
making crude outlines of the two eyes staring back at me.
I leapt up,
throwing the pen away from me and fled the study entirely. I ran to my room to
pack my things. I didn’t know how to summon the coachman at short notice but I
didn’t much care. I would walk from the house to the village if I had to, but I
was not staying here another minute.
As I came
into the room, a cold wind shocked me and I looked to see the window shutter
had flown open again. I hurried to close it but as soon as I looked out toward
the open moor I saw Them.
I let out a
scream of terror and fell back against the wall, cowering into a corner. I
could not stop seeing the Eyes. They were always watching me. It didn’t matter
what I did, I couldn’t stop seeing them!
“No!” I
screamed, tearing at my hair in pure terror.
I was too petrified
to move, I could do nothing but sit there and tremble, not knowing how much
time had passed, when I next became aware of my surroundings, it was only to
find thousands of eyes staring back at me from the wall, from the floor, from
the bed.
I screamed,
looking down at my hand and seeing a knife that I must have used to carve them
there myself, all around me. Just the sight froze me in horror and I could not
move. All I could do was scream.
I was
barely aware of other voices coming towards me until I spun around to see three
men, the coachman, the solicitor and another, standing there in the doorway of
the room.
“The Eyes!”
I screamed, trying to warn them away, as I held the knife in my trembling hand.
“They are always watching! I can’t get away from Them!”
“Saints
preserve us,” said the coachman as he crossed himself and then made some other
gesture.
They drew
me from my corner, telling me they were taking me out of there but I could
hardly hear them. I was not consoled. I knew it wouldn’t do any good now. The
Eyes already had me in Their thrall.
“Just like
his uncle,” the third man said grimly, shaking his head.
They
dragged me outside as I continued to scream. I didn’t want to go out on the
moor, I couldn’t go there, the Eyes would see me. I tried to tell them that but
they wouldn’t listen.
“Get him
into the cart. The doctor will sort him out once we get back into town,” the
coachman said as they manhandled me out the door.
I looked
around, short of breath, terror clutching my heart as I waited for the
inevitable. And then…
“There!” I
cried, pointing a shaking finger toward a spot on the moor. “There They are!
The Ender Eyes!” My voice trailed off. I could scream no more,
I could only stare into the unnatural glow that was all I could see now. The
infinite depth of the soulless orbs pierced into my being, locking me into an
inevitable knowing terror, and I knew nothing else.
Just the
Eyes.
Copyright 2018 by Hazel B. West
Beautifully traditional horror! I think this could be expanded into a Gothic novel.
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