The Strange Mrs Dandridge - Short Story

I

Mrs Dandridge had been one of a dozen old ladies living in the row of terraced houses known to the post office as Honeybee Avenue but to everybody else, it was known as the Hive.  She was presumably a widow, although Mr Dandridge had been dead such a long time that nobody could ever remember seeing him.

At one time, she had been friendly with the other older ladies living on the street, but her reluctance to invite any of them inside her own home and her extreme reticence about standard subjects, (such as the degenerate youth of the rest of the town with the notable exception of some grandson or other, or the influx of a small Polish community that threatened to overthrow the natural order of things), meant that she had experienced a gradual ostracism from the rest of the street. A year before she died, in the manner of outsiders the world over, she had instead become the subject of lurid gossip.

The nosy Mrs Beasley said she had seen Mrs Dandridge wandering around her back garden at an ungodly hour in some kind of haze, muttering strange things to herself (what Mrs Beasley was doing looking into someone else’s garden at this time was not discussed).

The magnificent Mrs Cole said she had heard strange noises from one of the upstairs windows; in the manner of an actress who really knew her audience, she refused to elaborate further – she simply raised an eyebrow and repeated ‘strange’.

The excitable Mrs Allen had confirmed Mrs Cole’s story, and added that at one time she had seen a green light blaze suddenly from the spare bedroom for a few seconds at the crescendo, but Mrs Allen was known to be a tad imaginative.

II

The final nail in terms of approval came a week before – a large package had arrived for Mrs Dandridge, and when there was no answer, the postman had delivered it to Mrs Allen next door and pushed a note through the letterbox. Mrs Allen, whose active imagination had been running riot after every discussion of Mrs Dandridge, couldn’t resist the opportunity to find out more, and opened the heavy box to “have a looksee”.

Inside was an extremely large, extremely ancient book with a set of symbols unlike anything Mrs Allen had seen before. The lettering and patterns seemed to weave together and shift on the cover and, after a few seconds, Mrs Allen’s head began to hurt. She couldn’t take her eyes off it.

A furious hammering at the door interrupted her trance. A full quarter hour had passed.

A wild eyed and wild haired Mrs Dandridge stood on the doorstep.

“You didn’t open it!”

Mrs Allen’s eyes widened in indignation “Certainly not!” Mrs Allen did not expect to be accused of such things on her own doorstep. The fact that she had was beside the point.

“Give it to me.”

It wouldn’t hurt to say please, thought Mrs Allen as she hastily shut up the lid and awkwardly carried it to the front door. Mrs Dandridge interrogative tone had vanished, and been replaced with a vague, dreamy look.

“Thank you, m’dear.”

And she was gone.

III

A week later a heat wave had struck. Mrs Cole’s dutiful grandson Paul had been visiting his grandmother and her friends in the way all good grandsons should – telling slightly risqué stories, pouring the tea, and flattering Mrs Allen. He was on his way home when he caught the edge of a very strange smell. Paul had never been around a body before, so he had little idea that, left in the heat, the smell becomes overpowering in a confined space and leaks out of windows and doors to pollute the street. He approached the house that seemed to be the source.

Unable to get any response from knocking, and remembering that this was Mrs Dandridge’s house - a woman he had found odd, but not known well enough to form the concrete opinions of his grandmother – he went around the back and found the back door ajar. Curiosity and concern overcoming trepidation, he pushed it open and went in.

The smell was overpowering, invading his nostrils and seemed to coat him in a layer of grease. Acutely aware that he was potentially trespassing, he called out.

“Mrs Dandridge?”

She wasn’t downstairs. He began to ascend.

“Mrs Dandridge?”

The smell was worse on the landing. He pushed open the door to the spare bedroom.

“Mrs Dan-“

The tableau before him was in many ways simple, but it took his eyes several seconds to process it. The simplicity itself underlined the stark, revelatory sense of horror he experienced.

A mirror was at one end of the room. On it had been scrawled a series of symbols and patterns in what was now a brown, flaky substance.

In front of the mirror was an emaciated corpse, a mummy that had been carefully dried out and preserved – this was later identified as the late Mr Dandridge.

In the far corner, a pizza delivery boy sat upright with a surprised expression and a cut throat.

In the middle of the room, a large book was opened at a page showing a horrific image of a demon that seemed to shift on the page. The two dimensional drawing seemed to have its own depth, and the mocking expression of the creature itself seemed to stare straight into Paul’s soul.

Finally there was Mrs Dandridge. The medics would later state that the expression of exquisite horror frozen on her face suggested that she had died immediately of fright. Paul could only hope that was the case, because whatever the strange Mrs Dandridge had seen that had taken her life had taken her eyes along with it.

The Hum - A Short Story

This story was written in about a day over Christmas after two things happened:

1) The internet was down for a month for no good reason
2) My DVD player started making weird noises

I since went back and tidied it up a bit. Enjoy!


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The Hum

I

Good morning, Doctor.

Yes, I am feeling much better. How are you?

Good. What would you like to talk about today?

Ah.

If you insist. 

The problem began, I suppose, when my motorbike hit the side of an articulated lorry. At least, that’s what they told me happened afterwards. I don’t remember, of course. I broke three ribs, both my legs, collapsed a lung and badly fractured my skull. They told me I was lucky. So did Mary. 

No, she doesn't visit any more.

I was in hospital for a few weeks before they discharged me, claiming me to be largely recovered. I was still in a wheelchair, of course, but they assured me the metal plate in my head had solved the most pressing threat to my continued wellbeing.  I was to have a nurse visit me twice a week to get me walking again, and a doctor’s visit every month to make sure I didn't present any, how shall I put it, neurological oddities.  

Of course, you already know all this. I am merely providing context. Narrative, if you will. It makes the whole thing seem tidier, don’t you think?

It didn't start until about a month later. On the day I came home, Mary had gone out and bought me several DVD box-sets of TV shows she knew I liked. It was while I was watching one of these - honestly I don’t remember what. To a man with my condition, television seems like such an abstract now. Anyway, I first noticed it beneath the dialogue. It seemed to be present in moments of quiet, in between what the actors on screen were saying. A low, vibrating hum. 

II

Naturally, I assumed there was something wrong with the cables at the back. When Mary got home, I asked her to check them for me. There didn't seem to be a problem at all, so when she went out next, she bought a replacement cable for the link between the DVD player and the television. 

It was still there the next day.

The television set and player were both fairly new – less than a year old. I thought it might just be me, so I did my best to ignore it from then on. It got worse, however, and by the end of the week, I could barely hear what was being said above the drone. Eventually Mary (to whom television is mostly a noisy distraction anway) sat down to watch something with me. After a few minutes, she declared she couldn’t hear anything at all. By this point the noise was starting to give me the headaches you have undoubtedly read about in my file.  I responded rather sharply that she must be deaf. 

The next day, both the TV and the DVD player were unplugged and put into the garage. It had become a point of contention for her and more than a niggling problem for me. It was probably the right thing to do, because unbeknownst to her, I had even begun to hear the hum when the television was switched off.

The neurologist didn’t help at all. He said that the plate in my head was settling in and that there was bound to be a few odd occurrences here and there. If I waited a couple of months, I would probably be able to watch it again. 

I asked him about people picking up radio signals on their fillings. He said that that was an urban myth.

III

A few days later, when I was more mobile, I wheeled myself into the kitchen to get a drink. There it was again. Below the slow natural hum of the refrigerator was a sharper buzzing. My hum.  I couldn't believe it. I wheeled back into the lounge.

I think that was the first time I really panicked. The first thought that crossed my mind was if I was unable to go into the kitchen, I was unable to feed myself during the day when Mary was at work.  The second, far more terrifying thought was that the Hum was spreading to other appliances.  What if it spread to every electrical device? What if it didn't stop? Many people talk of going back to nature or a simpler, more agrarian lifestyle. That was one thing. To be bodily forced into the 19th Century against my will was quite another.

Mary was very understanding when she came in. Her soothing tone and use of phrases like “crossing that bridge when we come to it” lulled me into a sense that perhaps everything would resolve itself. This sense was only surface deep, however, and beneath that black thoughts still danced.

The Hum got worse. Soon I was afflicted with it wherever I was in the house. By this time I had started walking again, thanks to my nurse, but the digital blood pressure machine she insisted on using sparked inside my head. 

Phones were now useless to me. All entertainment that was anything other than a book or a pen and paper was also now out. I couldn't even visit museums, once a simple pleasure, as a car ride was torture and the automated security systems clawed at my retinas. I was an outcast.

IV

In the end, Mary and I had to make that literally true. Mary found a cottage out in the depths of Wales that was perfect for this. It wasn’t hooked up to the mains; it had a gas-burning stove and an open fire. At the other end of the garden was a small shed, which Mary hooked up to a phone line and generator. She’d organised it to work out of there from now on, so she could keep her job and I wouldn’t be disturbed.  For the first time in nearly a year, I could relax. 

There is little else to tell. One week, while Mary was at a set of important meetings in London, she hired a housekeeper to come in on the Wednesday to give the house a once over. 

I don’t remember her name.

I had been reading steadily through The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes when The Hum hit me full force as it had never done before. It burned, it rasped, it gripped my spinal column like a vice. I was tormented, almost writhing in agony. Ah! It was all I could do to stand and reach for the poker by the fire.

I still don’t understand the screams of the woman, or Mary’s when she came in. 

Don’t you see, doctor?

I had to stop that damned woman’s pacemaker somehow.

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