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The Black Mass 64-07-03 (x) Rats in the Walls
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The Black Mass 64-07-03 (x) Rats in the Walls
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- [01:00]
Walter de la Poa
The restoration of Exham Priory had been a stupendous task, for little had remained of the deserted pile but a shell like ruin. But because it had been the seat of my ancestors, I let no expense deter me. The place had not been inhabited since the reign of James the First, when a tragedy of intensely hideous, though largely unexplained nature occurred. It appeared that my ancestor was accused, with much reason, of having killed all the other members of his household in their sleep. This deliberate slaughter, which included his father as well as three brothers and two sisters, was strangely condoned by the villagers and slackly treated by the law. With this sole heir nevertheless legally denounced as a murderer, the estate had reverted to the Crown. The accused man making no attempt to exculpate himself or regain his property. Shaken by some horror greater than that of conscience or the law, and expressing only a frantic wish to exclude the ancient edifice from his sight and memory, Walter de la Poa fled to the United States, where by the end of several generations, the family had achieved the proud and honorable, if somewhat reserved and on social Virginia line. After the Civil War, the family moved north. I emerged and grew to manhood, to middle age and to ultimate wealth within the grayness of a Massachusetts business life. My wife, Emily, died shortly after the birth of our only son, Alfred, and Alfred in the aviation Corps in 1917. They both had died, leaving me old, bereaved and aimless. A retired manufacturer, I travelled eventually to England, eventually to Anchester, eventually to the ancient family seat, Exham Priory itself. The jumble of tottering medieval ruins covered with lichen, perched perilously upon a precipice denuded of floors and other interior features save the stone walls and the separate towers. The Priory had been allotted to the estate of the Norris family by the Crown. And now, three centuries later, I purchased the ruin for a surprisingly reasonable figure and resolved to divert my remaining years by restoring. Restoring my ancestral home. I had secured the interest, assistance and the friendship of Captain Nari, whose knowledge of the place had been increased through the years by his having accompanied the many architects and antiquarians who loved to examine the strange rabbit.
- [04:54]
Captain Norris
The. Mind your foot on that big stone stone over there. The. The architecture you see is peculiarly composite. Gothic towers resting over there on Saxon or Romanesque substructure. The foundation is of a still earlier order. Bend of orders, I suppose. Roman or even Druidic or native Cymric, if legends speak truly. And merged on the one side, you see down here with the solid limestone.
- [05:19]
Walter de la Poa
Of the Precipice Amiable Captain Norris. The place and its ancestry had an almost consuming fascination for him. He knew every detail of its history and its former structure and became of inestimable help in the reconstruction.
- [05:34]
Captain Norris
The Priory itself actually stands on the site of a prehistoric temple. Yes, A druidical or anti Druidical thing which must have been contemporary of Stonehenge.
- [05:45]
Walter de la Poa
And dates like that. Well, it's unfortunate that our neighbors aren't all antiquarians such as you, Captain Norris. I had not been in Amchester a day before I knew I came from an accursed house.
- [05:55]
Captain Norris
Oh yes, the country folk around here have their own sense of tradition, I'm afraid. They hated the parry hundreds of years ago when your ancestors lived here. And they hate it now with the moss and mold of abandonment on it. We'll have to go outside of the immediate vicinity for our workers. You see, it isn't so much hatred as the almost unbelievable fear they have of the place. And the scope appears to include both the priory and. I'm afraid it's ancient family.
- [06:24]
Walter de la Poa
Yes. I don't seem to be able to convince the villagers how little I know of my heritage.
- [06:29]
Captain Norris
Oh, but to them a lineage is beyond a message of knowing. It's in the bone and blood itself. I'm not sure I disagree. But what do we see? After three centuries a power has returned to his ancient site to reconstructively house. And for the villagers, you've come to restore a symbol apparent to them, rational or not. You know they view Exham Priory as nothing less than a haunt of fiends.
- [06:52]
Walter de la Poa
And werewolves, Captain Norris. Superstitions. Superstitions. Ghosts and Ghosts? Oh no, not quite that. Ah, you share their worries nevertheless.
- [07:02]
Captain Norris
Well, so would you, Pyre. It's not a matter of the present. And it's not all superstition. This is an ancient place, Pyre, that indescribable rites had been celebrated here. No one doubts rites of the Cybele worship the Romans had introduced. Inscriptions still visible in the sub cellar of the priory bear the unmistakable letters and signs of Magna Martyr whose dark worship was once vainly forbidden to Roman citizens about a thousand ad. The place is mentioned as being a substantial stone priory housing a strange range from powerful monastic order and surrounded by extensive gardens. You will see them right over there. You see? Oh yes, yes. Now, mind that stone there. You know, the people didn't need any walls to keep them out. They were too frightened of the place altogether. It was never destroyed by the Danes. Oddly enough, after the Norman conquest it must have declined tremendously. There was no impediment when Henry III granted the site to your ancestor, Gilbert de La Poa, he was called then. First Baron Exon in, I think, twice 12 years. 1261. Yes.
- [08:10]
Walter de la Poa
Well, then it's the location, the house, not the family that inherits the bad name.
- [08:14]
Captain Norris
Well, they became aligned, you see. Not so far as we know. Unwillingly. True, before their occupation, the family bore no evil report. But something strange must soon have occurred. In one chronicle, there's a reference to Adela Poa as cursed of God. It's a strange phrase. Village legendary, had nothing but evil and frantic fear to tell of the castle. The fireside tales were of the most grisly description. All the mind your head durns, all the ghastlier. Because of their frightened reticence and cloudy evasiveness, I'm afraid they represented your ancestors as a race of hereditary demons.
- [08:53]
Walter de la Poa
But what precisely happened, Norris? What went on?
- [08:57]
Captain Norris
Well, there are the vaguer tales, hackneyed spectral lore. Bats, wails and the usual howlings heard around the place. Graveyard stench after the spring rains. The servant girl who'd gone mad at what she saw in the full light of day in the Priory. The accounts of vanished peasants are less to be dismissed. Though not especially significant in view of medieval custom. Prying curiosity meant death. And more than one severed head had been publicly shown on the bastions around Exham Priory. Well, it's difficult. A few of the tales were exceedingly picturesque. For instance, the believe that a legend of bat winged devils kept witches Sabbath each night at the priory. A legend whose sustenance must explain the disproportionate abundance of coarse vegetables harvested in the gardens.
- [09:45]
Walter de la Poa
But most vivid of all, there was.
- [09:47]
Captain Norris
The dramatic epic of the rats.
- [09:49]
Walter de la Poa
The rats?
- [09:50]
Captain Norris
Yes. The scampering army of obscene vermin which had burst forth from the castle a couple of months after the tragedy that doomed the place to desertion three centuries ago. Now you know a lean, filthy, ravenous army which had swept all before it and devoured fowl, cats, dogs, hogs, sheep and, you know, even two villagers before its fury was spent around that unforgettable rodent army. A cycle of myths revolves it, scattered among the village homes and brought curses and horrors in its train.
- [10:25]
Walter de la Poa
And that was just three months after Walter de la Power had murdered his family and fled to Virginia. Yeah.
- [10:31]
Captain Norris
Yes, I should say about that.
- [10:33]
Walter de la Poa
You know, one thing puzzles me about that murder. Walter de la Power must have known for years the sinister tales about his family, so that this material could have given him no fresh impulse. I can Scarcely conjecture. What discovery could have prompted an act so terrible? What had he witnessed or stumbled upon?
- [10:52]
Captain Norris
Oh, take this par Sir Dunhill. The well. The general whispered sentiment seems to have been that he purge the land of immemorial curse.
- [11:15]
Walter de la Poa
Such was the law that assailed me as I began with an elderly obstinacy the work of restoring my ancestral home. While living with Captain Norrie's family during the restoration of the priory, I collected many such tales of superstition or fact. But it must not be imagined that they formed my principal psychological environment. I was constantly praised and encouraged by Captain Nurray and the antiquarians who surrounded and aided me when the task was done. Over two years after its commencement, I viewed the great rooms with pride. Wainscotted walls, vaulted ceiling, mullioned window, broad staircase. All there. All as it had been. Every attribute of the Middle Ages was cunningly reproduced. The new parts blended perfectly with the original stone walls and foundations. The seat of my fathers was complete and I looked forward to redeeming at last the local fame of the life which ended with the interior of the old house was in truth wholly new and free from old burns and old ghosts. The first incident occurred six days after I moved into the priory. That night, dispensing as usual with a valet, I retired to the west tower chamber which I had chosen as my own. The room was circular, very high and without wainscoting, the stones being hung with tapestry. I did not draw the curtains, but gazed out at the narrow north window which I faced from the canopied four poster. At some time I must have fallen quietly asleep, but I recall a distinct sense of leaving strange dreams. As I awoke, I found myself looking intensely at a point on the wall. A point to which my eye had nothing to mark it, but toward which all my attention was directed. Whether the tapestry actually moved, I cannot say. I think it did very slightly. But what I can swear to is that behind it I heard a low, distinct scurrying as of mice or rats. Then it was gone. Some sort of effective echo, perhaps coming from some other area of the house. There was no need of my looking behind the arrow, for the walls were of solid stone, several feet thick. It was a while before I could drift back to sleep and I seemed directly to re enter my earlier dream. Except that this time the vision was clearly horribly before me. I seemed to be looking down, down from an immense height upon a twilit grotto, knee deep with filth. A white bearded demon, a swineherd, drove about with fungus Beasts whose appearance filled me with unutterable loathing. Then, as the swineherd paused and nodded over his task, a mighty swarm of rats rained down on the stinking abyss and fell to devouring beast and man alike. But suddenly I was awake. Wide awake. On every side of the chamber, the walls were alive with nauseous sound, the verminous slithering of ravenous gigantic rats. I could see a hideous shaking all over the tapestry, but the motion disappeared almost at once, and the sound with it. I sprang out of bed and tore aside the arras to see what lay beneath it. Nothing. Nothing but the patched stone wall. I stepped out of the room and stood for a moment at the head of the great ancient stairway, listening. Listening to the house. I could hear them. I could hear them faintly at first, but coming from all the walls. And as I descended, the stampeding continued with such force and distinctness that I could finally assign to their motions a definite direction. These creatures, in numbers apparently inexhaustible, were engaged in one stupendous migration from inconceivable height to some depth, inconceivably below. Rats. When I questioned the servants, they said they heard nothing. I didn't want to alarm them by insisting no, I wasn't dreaming, Norris. It was no dream.
- [16:56]
Captain Norris
But there have been no rats at the priory for 300 years. Even the field mice couldn't be found in these high walls.
- [17:03]
Walter de la Poa
Wherever would they be found? In walls of solid stone.
- [17:08]
Captain Norris
You say? They were headed downward.
- [17:13]
Walter de la Poa
Captain Norris helped me explore the sub cellar, but absolutely nothing untoward was found. We could not, however, repress a thrill at the knowledge that this fort was built by Romans.
- [17:25]
Captain Norris
You see, up here, it's not the debased Romanesque of the bungling Saxons, but the severe and harmonious classicism of the age of the Caesars. Look here at these inscriptions. TM Temp Dona Lucius Prachius Pontificatus.
- [17:41]
Walter de la Poa
Or is it Attis?
- [17:43]
Captain Norris
Yes, Attis.
- [17:47]
Walter de la Poa
The reference made me shiver, for I had read Catullus and knew something of the hideous rites of the Eastern God, whose worship was so mixed with that of Cybele. Look.
- [17:58]
Captain Norris
Hold your lantern up here. No, not. Not that one. By the stone block here.
- [18:03]
Walter de la Poa
Oh, yes, I see.
- [18:04]
Captain Norris
Yes. You see the design cut into it. A sort of rayed sun. That's not Roman. No, that's not Roman at all. It's of an earlier origin. These altars had merely been adopted by the Roman priests from some older, perhaps aboriginal temple on the same site. Come down here.
- [18:21]
Walter de la Poa
Let's have a look down Here, Norris and I determined to pass the night in the crypt and couches were brought down by the serpent. We retired with the lantern still burning to await whatever might occur. The vault was very deep in the foundations of the priory. And that it had been the goal of the scuffling and unexplainable wrath I could not doubt. But why? Why? As we lay there expectantly, I found my vigil occasionally mixed with half formed dreams. I saw the twilit grotto and the swineherd. The fungus beasts wallowing in filth. They seemed nearer, nearer and more distinct. I. I could almost observe their features Beef. But not exactly be. They became more distinct as I watched.
- [19:28]
Captain Norris
Looking up at me.
- [19:29]
Walter de la Poa
Terrifying. Terrifying. Norris. Norries. Wake up. Norris, Wake up. Wake up. What wrong do you hear? Did you hear them? Did you hear them, Norris?
- [19:43]
Captain Norris
What? What? The rats. Rats. I heard nothing. Nothing at all.
- [19:46]
Walter de la Poa
Still downward. They were going still farther down. There were cellars below us, not in Norris. Was it hallucination? Was it madness? Why have they stopped? Why have they stopped? Why? Why is it silent now?
- [20:00]
Captain Norris
Perhaps you've been shown what certain forces wish to show you.
- [20:04]
Walter de la Poa
They were headed downward in this altar. See, Norris, the lantern. The lantern flickers at the crevice here. Between the altar and the floor.
- [20:11]
Captain Norris
There must be some kind of.
- [20:13]
Walter de la Poa
There must be some way of descending, some door, some kind of entrance.
- [20:20]
Captain Norris
Balanced by some sort of counterweight, I expect. You see? Look here. Look. The entire stone pivots aside.
- [20:29]
Walter de la Poa
By. Joe.
- [20:32]
Captain Norris
There's your sinner power.
- [20:40]
Walter de la Poa
Stone steps descended into an abysmal dark. But sprawled across them as far as we could see. Skeletons. Skeletons. Attitudes of panicked fear. All over them, the marks of rodent noise. A ghastly array of human or semi human bones. CR and semi aptum. The descendants of the hellishly littered deaths.
- [21:09]
Captain Norris
Horrifying but extraordinary. Look here. Out through solid rock. Notice the strokes here. Look. According to the direction of all this passage must have been chiseled from beneath upwards. Oh, look at that. You notice the air? There's a cool movement of air. Probably some fissure in the cliffs above. Yes. Look, Papa. The stairway ends here. There's light filtering down from somewhere up here. I can't quite see it, but. Harry, it must be morning outside, you know. Almost enough light to see just off a grotto.
- [21:46]
Walter de la Poa
Enormous.
- [21:48]
Captain Norris
You can just barely.
- [21:52]
Walter de la Poa
The descent from reality had almost prepared me for what was to come. Nor is. When I reached him, St stared out with a look resembling that of the skulls at his feet. Then I followed his eyes over the subterranean world. Before us. Dear God.
- [22:13]
Captain Norris
We must not underestimate the archaeological importance of such a discovery as this. How?
- [22:21]
Walter de la Poa
The twilit grotto was of enormous height and stretched farther than any eye could. There were buildings and other architectural remains. In the center, a circle of monoliths, but dwarfed, everything dwarfed by the spectacle on the ground. An insane tangle of bones. Human, or nearly so. Like a foamy sea, they stretched pastures of demonic frenzy, either fighting off the menace or clutching other forms. Which animal is.
- [22:53]
Captain Norris
Yes, these skulls suggest a rather baffling mixture. Mostly lower in the scale of evolution. Emphatic. Anthropus in every case, definitely human. Actually, some of them seem to be.
- [23:05]
Walter de la Poa
Supremely, insensitively developed types. Horror. Horror upon horror.
- [23:12]
Captain Norris
All the bones gnawed.
- [23:14]
Walter de la Poa
Altars serving as butcher shop and kitchen. Mostly by rats. Cauldron, dining table. Not all by rants.
- [23:23]
Captain Norris
My joke.
- [23:24]
Walter de la Poa
Goblets. Brown stained and dried arbor upon horror.
- [23:28]
Captain Norris
Notice the stone pens over here. For the keeping of herd, I expect. And out of which they must have broken in their last delirium of hunger or rat fear. Herds of some primordial human type. Fascinating. And there, a row cell nearly rusted through, their tenants still rocks inside.
- [23:50]
Walter de la Poa
And on the bony forefinger of one, a few ring with my own coat of arm.
- [23:58]
Captain Norris
Strange ideographic carvings here on some of the skulls Here. Look at here. Look at this. Power. You know, I believe they're Phrygian in origin. Cases of formerly arranged bones with parallel inscriptions in Greek and Latin.
- [24:15]
Walter de la Poa
Still downward, I could hear them. Where else? Where else could they draw me across the grotto? Carrying pits of sword bones, picked bones, open skulls, nightmare chasms. Unhallowed sentries grinning their unnamable. Then. Then to the edge of a depth hideously foreshadowed by my dreams.
- [24:48]
Captain Norris
An apparently boundless depth. Power. There's no end to it.
- [24:55]
Walter de la Poa
A great mouth lined with human debris.
- [25:00]
Captain Norris
Spewing, swallowing, yawning out from the primordial power. Power. Stay out of it.
- [25:07]
Walter de la Poa
Stay out of it, man. The rat questing new horrors, determined to lead me on. I ran, ran. Following them, following them. I heard voices, echoes. But above all that insidious studying, I felt them all around me. I was one of them. Part of the ravenous army that feasts on the living and the dead. Well, why shouldn't rats eat a Dilla power As a Dilla power eat forbidden things? No, no, no. I am not that demon in the twilight grotto. It's not Nahi's body I tear apart in a blood I kiss upon and flesh. Are you faint and peer at what my family do. I'll learn you how to blush. That is what they said I said when they found me in the blackness over the half eaten body of Captain Naris. Now they have blown up Hexham Priory and shut me into this barber room at Harnwell with fearful whispers about my heredity and experience. When I speak of poor Naris, they accuse me of a hideous thing. But they must know that I did not do it. I did not do it. They must know it was the rat. It was the rat whose scampering will never let me sleep. The demon rat that raced behind the padding of this room and beckoned me down to greater harmony than I have ever known. The rat. The rat. They can never hear the rat. The rat in the Wall. That was the Rat in the Wall by H.P. lovecraft. The part of Captain Norreys was played by Bernard Mays and Powers was played by your host, the blackmass, Eric Bowersfeld. The technical production was by John Whiting. And now, good night.