[The Secret World] Samhain 2013: Spooky Stories - Chapter 3 & 4: The Lantern Man & The Confession of Ellis Hill

Venue: The Secret World
Created by: Funcom
Event: Samhain (Halloween 2013)
Mission:The League of Monster Slayers presents: Spooky Stories of Solomon Island
Location: The League of Monster Slayers' Clubhouse near Innsmouth, Solomon Island, Maine
Chapter Three: The Lantern Man
Chapter Four: The Confession of Ellis Hil

Chapter Three – The Lantern Man (By Eleanor Franklin)

The Dufresne boy was here earlier. Dropping off the newspaper, he claimed, but he normally doesn't linger around.  I invited him in, and he clearly wanted to ask me something. I thought it might be something about Ed so I tried to put his mind at ease by offering him tea and candy. That just made him more nervous. Eventually, he told me what he wanted. A ghost story. One about Solomon Island. This mansion has plenty of ghosts, but those stories are a little too personal to be shared. 

But I do remember one story that would probably work well in his book. It took place over a long time ago. And like all good stories, it starts with love. 

- Eleanor Franklin

The proposal had been accepted and the families were in agreement - that spring Samuel Towne was to marry Scarlet Piedmont. It was no surprise to anybody else on Solomon Island, the two families had held neighbouring farms for decades and sweet Scarlet and strapping young Samuel had been walking out together for months.

Solomon Priest was going to officiate and all over the island, as the snows and darkness of winter set in, men began carving furniture for wedding gives and women began sewing dresses to wear to the celebration. A wedding in spring was always a good omen for the year.

Samual felt like a blessed man. His world overflowed with happiness. Everywhere he went, he was greeted with smiles and congratulations. And Scarlet, beautiful Scarlet was everything he could hope for. She made him happy, and he hoped that he could do the same for her.

But then the pox came to Solomon Island. It was winter, and most people were locked up tight in their houses. Still it seemed to spread, through closed doors and solid walls. People began to whisper about a black rider who trotted along the snowy streets, throwing handfuls of plague dust into chimneys.

But that is another story and needn't concern this one.

By the by, Scarlet got the pox. Her beautiful skin became covered in lumps. Her face became a ruin, her eye sockets swollen and her mouth torn apart by the angry pustules which seemed to spring from every pore. And yet, she recovered from the disease, scarred and disfigured, but still alive.

And she was still engaged to be wed in the spring. She demanded that her parents keep her betrothed away, lest he catch sight of her.

Samual beat at their door day and night, demanding to see his beloved. But they turned him away, pleading more time for Scarlet to recover from her illness.

As the winter passed, she sought out all manner of cures for her disfigurements, sending to New York for medical advice. She nearly beggared her father buying fake cures from every snake oil salesman and charlatan that passed by.

In the end, she grew desperate, and sought out the local shaman. The Wabanaki had been devastated by the smallpox and she came to visit this shaman in the ruins of what had once been a great settlement.

Among the ruins of his people she asked if he could cure her beauty. He gestured to the piles of rotting corpses that had once been his tribe.

"My sons will never hunt again and my daughters will never sing by the campfire at night. My grandchildren will never laugh and run. And you ask only for beauty? Are you not happy with your life?"

"My beauty is my life" Scarlet replied quite earnestly. "I would gladly pay any price to make my skin smooth again."

The Shaman gave Scarlet a small flask and told her to rub the liquid within onto her skin. She would get what she wished for. She left him to his grieving. That night, she heated snow in a giant iron pot and poured a bath.

She washed herself thoroughly and then uncapped the flask and rubbed it into her skin. She started with her arms, her breasts and then her face.

A tingling warmth began to radiate from the places where she had rubbed the ointment. Using a cloth, she rubbed at the skin of her arms, and the pox scarred skin sloughed away, revealing a layer of shining new skin beneath.

Scarlet began to cry, great sobs of joy which shook her entire being. She cried out to her mother and father who came rushing into the room.

"Look at me!" She cried. "I am beautiful!"

Her mother screamed and covered her eyes. Her father, hand trembling pointed towards the large full length mirror in the corner and Scarlet turned to look.

Scarlet had become scarlet in truth. The acid in the flask had eaten away the skin from her arms and chest and her face, her once beautiful face was melting into ruinous goo.

She screamed and fled the house, into the night. Later, they followed her trail. The pitter patter of her blood on the snow led them into the Moon Bog, a treacherous place to walk at any time of the year. They followed her trail right up until the point where the ice was cracked, as if something heavy had fallen through. After that, there was no trail to follow.

The community was devastated and a memorial was held. Solomon Priest himself said a few words. But Samuel Towne wasn't buying any of it. He didn't believe she was dead, how could she be? After all, she spoke to him every night! She would come, just outside his window and talk to him through a crack in the curtains. He knew her voice even though he never saw her face, he knew it was his beloved Scarlet.

Samuel became a shut-in, never leaving his room. He grew pale and drawn and his parents worried about him.

Abruptly, a week before the date originally scheduled for the wedding, Samuel began to return to his old self. He gathered flowers in the fields, ate heartily and joked with his family and even washed and pressed his old suit.

On what would have been the night of the wedding, he retired to his bedroom early. His parents, relieved by the apparent change of the past week, were happy to let him go.

In the night, they heard the door of the house open, and came downstairs to see Samuel, back towards them, walking off into the Moon Bog with a lantern held high. He did not turn back when they cried out after him.

And when they returned to his room, they found his eyeballs, tongue and the skin of his face lumped in a bloody mess on the floor.

It is said that he never found her, out there among the pools of the Moon Bog. But that he looks still, searching by the light of his lantern for the face of the women he loved.

Chapter Four – The Confession of Ellis Hill (By Ellis Hill)

I didn't have to write this. Hell, the sailors would never approve. But where I come from, you put a man in the ground, you owe him an explanation for why. Even if it is just a note written on a piece of paper that you tore from a notebook you found in said dead man's pocket. It's about respect. My mama always taught me how important that was.

Ellis Hill, I didn't know you. Fact is, the only things I knew about you were your job and your address. In a pinch, I could've phoned home and gotten any details I'd wanted - your habits, the names of your pets, your first love...anything. We may not be as connected as our landlocked brethren, but when you make a living selling information - you get really good about harvesting it.

It's funny though, in this day and age, how details can get lost in the noise. Take us. You were the new engineer at the airport and your uniform was the only one I even had the slightest chance of fitting into. The only guy who was within the age bracket I could pull off. I was even ready for the beard - had a story all prepared in my mind about my first shave in years. And in all that preparation, all that time I spent getting ready to take over your identity; nobody ever mentioned you were a white boy.

Ellis, let me tell you how I chuckled the first time I saw you through my binoculars. I didn't know whether to be proud or furious. On the one hand, it says a lot about progress in the world that nobody even thinks that is an important detail. Jesse Jackson would be proud.

On the other hand it made my job a lot harder. A white man turning into a black man? At some point in the process of interviewing for you new job, somebody local must have met you.

I've never been big on worrying though. I figured that would be a river I would cross when I came to it.

What happened next? Well you know. I waited for you on the road to the airport. Waved you down in your rust truck. Asked you for help.

I've always had strong hands but strength has never been the most important thing in a strangling. Endurance counts too. You gotta hold yourself steady and count the beats. You gotta be like a mast in a storm, moving with the struggles - bending but never breaking.

You struggled, I remember. Drumming your heels against the door of the truck, fists and elbows flailing. I could see it on your face, that feeling of helplessness. You knew what was coming, and you knew you didn't have the power to stop it. Your eyes...they wanted to know why. The worst thing about strangling, Ellis, is that it ain't nothing like Hollywood makes it out to be. You see, the first thing people do is pass out. That makes them easier to manage. But if you stop strangling, they start breathing again. The body wants to live. I respect that.

There is this period of silence, when nobody is fighting back and I'm just a man crushing the life out of your body. It takes minutes, but it feels like hours. Gives a man time to think, to reflect. It's not about strength any more, but mental toughness.

You gotta have a powerful belief or a powerful anger to get through that.

I was never angry with you, Ellis. But I am a believer. I believe that you needed to die so that I could get on with my business here.

I nursed you until it was over and then I threw you in the back of the truck and got to burying you. I've seen enough in this dark world to know that you might come back. If you do, I can't say I would want to meet you. But I wrote this so you know how things stand.

There's a fog rolling over Solomon Island. Dark days are coming.

I might have done you a favor.