Large Fierce Mammal

Children like to dabble in seances and Quija boards. They shouldn’t, but they do. I myself was once present at a seance in a grave yard that ended suddenly, and more than a little strangely, but that’s a story for another day. Nevertheless, there’s a little of that experience woven into what follows.

The Attic Room was inspired by a phenomenon that caught my attention in the course of doing routine property checks on a big old vacant house in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia. Under an agreement with the owners, we monitor and maintain the electronic property protection systems and go to check the house regularly. Houses that were once Homes are moody things that, not unlike dogs, begin to pine when left alone too long. This one is holding its own for now, and the family that owns it are slowly restoring the place in anticipation of it once again being lived in. Maybe that’s why it’s been able to keep its chin up after so many years.

In the course of our inspection routine, I generally check the basement and attic while Mrs. LFM inspects the spaces in between, looking for signs of vermin, water leak damage, and anything else that might cause grief if left unresolved. The basement door is always locked for security reasons, as one would expect, but I came to notice that the one leading up to the attic was also secured, even though there is absolutely no other way to get there, and small children are not a part of the equation. The skeleton key was always in the lock, and if I left the door unlocked and the owners came by in between our visits, I always found it locked again. Joking with Mrs. LFM one day, I suggested that the lock was there to keep something from coming down, and so, notwithstanding that the house itself has absolutely no whiff of evil about it at all, I was inspired to write this.

The Attic Room

By LFM

In the old town stands an ancient house,
Where once three children played.
Two daughters of a Vicar,
And the boy child of his Maid.

The house it is a towering pile,
With many a lofty room,
In one of which the Maid’s boy slept
The night he met his doom.

That day the attic playroom was
The scene for something queer.
Three children chanting, holding hands,
To catch a spirit’s ear.

And catch an ear is what they did,
But not the one they sought.
Instead of dear old Auntie May,
A demon’s ear they caught.

Summoned to the attic by
Unwitting childish joy,
It came into the room unseen –
And singled out the boy.

Nobody knows the demon’s mind,
Nor why it chose to spare
Two tender girls to focus on
The only boy child there.

But on its whim,  that very night,
Downstairs without a sound,
It came unheeded, waking not
The Vicar’s sleeping hound.

And as it crawled along the wall
It seemed to change its mind.
It loomed a while above the girls,
Then left them both behind.

It fell upon the sleeping boy
And ripped his soul away.
Dead beside his mother’s where
She found him in the day.

In dawn’s grey light, not pride and joy
Found she upon the bed.
A thing from blackest nightmare
Lay beside her in his stead.

There are no words to soothe the soul
Of one so sore bereft.
Left shrieking out a mother’s heart
O’er what the demon left.

Because of that, the Vicar stood
Dumb struck without a sound,
Glad he’d bade his daughters stay
Away from what he found.

The visage of the ravaged boy
Bespoke a tortured tale,
Of torments so depraved to make
The Inquisition pale.

For though the kill seemed quick and clean,
That’s not the way it was.
We tell time by sun and clock –
No demon ever does.

The screams began at midnight next,
And lasted all night through.
The Vicar moved his fam’ly out.
He knew nought else to do.

The house has stood unlived in since
For none can stay the night.
What echoes from the attic room
Puts every one to flight.

A massive iron lock and bar
Now guard the way upstairs.
No key exists that opens them,
Because nobody dares.

The lock’s engraved with magick runes,
Now crusted rusty brown.
It’s not to stop things going up;
It stops them coming down.