The old Victorian style mansion on the hill was exactly where the mysterious letter dictated. It began as a sunny Friday afternoon, but by the time I reached the remote village I was caught in a torrential downpour on muddy backroads in a car that barely sputtered along on the best of days. The home sat on the foundation like a decomposing wooden giant, the siding was chipped and faded, vines overran the walls up to the second story windows. Slate roof shingles were loose and broken around the grounds like shattered plates after a marital dispute.
The whole estate was in complete disrepair and had an ominous presence.
My grandfather spent his final years in at the old house, dubbed Morsley Hall by the original owners, doing his research for a new book on the occult. I didn't know much, but it had something to do with the legacy of the Old Gods, especially Nyarlathotep. Before his phone service was cut off, he called late at night and was always talking about how he knew the "Old Ones" were readying to wake and take what belonged to them. According to him, the world was ripe for their dominion with the amount of avarice and spite humanity showed their fellow man. The evil feelings were like a revitalizing tonic to the ones that slept.
The cryptic letter tucked into a plain envelope on my doorstep one rainy night promised answers to his disappearance, and more in exchange for his journal.
The name signed at the bottom of the soggy paper only read "The Hemlock Society."
Photo by Eleanor Brooke on Unsplash
