Stated by Kevin Scampton (1982-2022), 15 March 2019, Clacton-on-Sea

'Stay clear of Emeric Street' he uttered with immense difficulty while violently clasping the sleeve of my shirt with his ancient crooked hand. Clinging to it as if it were the sole reason for the miraculous untanglement of his tongue. I didn't mind all that much that his long and bark-like nails were digging into the material, ripping the threads apart as I was, at that moment, just standing there frozen, motionlessly staring at the old man, my left arm chained to him. He spoke. The thought exploded, spreading rapidly through my brain, knocking on doors of each of my psyche's departments and infecting every member of them until I was convinced it was, indeed, true. I could not find the motive for this utterly unexpected event, as I have only paid visits to my grandparents once a year or two. They were an offbeat pair of old folk. Really old but always in motion, as if the merciless time reshaped their facades but never had any say in the maturing of their inner features. Not a single fragment of hospitality came directly from them. Upon our scarce reunions, it was me and my mother that prepared tea or meals while they continued to seem to rush behind their daily tasks. The only moments when they had slowed their pace or gave us any attention was when we invited them to the table for refreshments. After a quite meaningless exchange of, what you may call news, grandma would always give my silent grandfather a focused gape. I was always persuaded she was expecting him to conclude our meeting in a decisive and uninviting fashion, however that has never happened.

'Let me tell you what I have seen, son. Not much air left in my lungs.' said he. Being entirely cloaked in the odd feeling of shock that neither brought me excitement nor fear but a strange blend of those two, I have fashioned a curious nod and decided to satisfy the old man and listen to his story. He let a bestial, dog-like sigh out and withdrew from holding me.

We stood in a small windowless room on the ground floor of his neatly kept but aged house. In this room he kept a senselessly excessive amount of mechanical tools and countless bits of various materials. To give you examples, there laid hundreds of triangular pieces of plywood, some thousand pieces of metal only the wildest of artists would consider of use and so much steel wire you could possibly circle the entire planet alongside the equator. The elderly man pointed towards a small alloy stool stationed in the corner with his large hand. The hand that had surely faced hard work more than once and had its share of encounters with injuries. We struggled a tad bit, but managed in the end to get the seat out of the outright jungle of wires and ropes. He instructed me to sit down, explaining he's not fond of this particular stool and that he simply doesn't need to sit.

'The blasphemous Hungarian scum' he started his story in a fashion you would expect from an eccentric and a mute man. 'A stain nobody knows how to wash. Believe me when I say Clacton used to be an entirely different town. Before they showed up.'

Having lived in Clacton-on-Sea throughout my whole life and knowing not a single person of a Hungarian bloodline I have felt a node of chilling characteristics rush down from between my eyes to the very end of my spine. The odd feeling of missing out on something meaningful due to some unexplained and incredibly rare circumstances. But then I immediately realised that the things I will now have to sit through and diligently listen to are most definitely going to be some incoherent racist ramblings of a rotten mind. The realisation stretched my face into a delicate smirk. 'T'was around '52. Lots of them all came to us. After the war and all. As if driven out of their homelands. I don't mind most of them with their weird traditions and language. It is only the cursed Magyars I despise deeply and with devotion, my son. Farkas.' he gave himself a pause there. 'Motherfucking Farkas Halasz' he muttered the name harshly and with great care, as if speaking about a valuable opponent he is forever and forevermore struggling to best.

'Never heard of him until he had his damned moment of fame appearing on the faces of every local newspaper. "Landowner murders his guests". It was not mere guests, I know for a fact. See, the man had a respectable stretch of land. Laying on the southwest corner of Church Road and Elm Street. Wah! Emeric Street it is, these days. I'm quite positive he had to do with this change.' Grandfather Mark, now a freely talking man, abruptly stopped the flow of words, charged up and let out a bullet of spit so rapid and powerful as if he was trying to jab a hole through the hardwood floor and into the cellars.

'Made himself a lord, he. Remember when I told ye it was not ordinary guests he had calling that day? T'was two officials of the town hall's department of development on their duty of informing the inhabitants of Emeric Street a school was going to be erected besides their homes and that there was a considerable possibility the construction site might overlap with the existing back gardens they are owners of. This was meant to be severely compensated, either financially or by handing out land elsewhere. This promise was the last thing the clerks have voiced in a decent human way. After, only shrieks of absolute bestial horror could be heard for a short while. Not shrieks of struggle or fear of something you wish not to interact with ever again. These shrieks had no littlest trace of hope within them. They rang as if they were audible markers, alarming any other living being in the vicinity, to not approach the place they were coming from. Now you may ask me, how do I know of this affair that was the birthplace of a story so viciously distorted by the press? Well, I was the young chap who happened to be the only witness as far as I'm educated. The chap that none of the newspapers have ever mentioned. I stood there by Farkas' high fence, entirely frozen. I must add I was a small fellow back then. Too short to be able to see much after the two clerks shut the black metal gate behind them and proceeded on. Although the emotional richness of the sounds those two made I shall never forget. Then I ran.' His voice rattled irregularly during the last few sentences.

'Then weeks, months, even years passed and my questions have never been answered. Not a single droplet of ink was wasted in order to detail the true events of the story. No school was ever built. And each instance of trying to determine the truth, and believe me, there were many, has met with stupefying cluelessness. The cluelessness which in a vast majority of cases and faces was genuine. Not a single soul in the entirety of Essex had a clear idea as to why the person publicly baptized as a murderer a few year prior was now walking free. Many a conversation ended with changing the subject or suggestions that there must have been an error in the press. For a long time, whatever I did, I never ceased to stay in the uncomfortable state of wondering while building wild and complex schemes in my mind in the name of finding sweet peace.

My long-lived lack of answers, in parallel with a dose of innate morbid curiosity I was born with, were reasons strong enough for me to eventually develop enough courage to pay the place a visit years later.

The old Farkas had been announced dead by now, leaving his property to his two scrawny-looking and certainly unsociable sons. I never really believed he died. Not after all those years seeing him go about his business, always looking as if ageing did not concern him and eternally receiving the utmost respect and treatment proper to a nobleman. I have never spoken to the man. To tell you the truth, I simply would not dare to.'

'It was May. A mostly rainy May. Beginning of May, 1965. I have decided to leave in the late afternoon hours in hopes of avoiding observers owing to the unpleasant cold wind and traditional supper time. The sun was hanging low and turning more and more blood red, saturating the many red-bricked houses of Clacton with its gloomy tint. Upon arriving at my destination, an uncanny feeling of forgetting something of importance rained down on my mind. It has gotten altogether dark before eventually establishing it must have been a trivial thing. I had my cigarettes, a torch and a somewhat rusty knife for the purpose of using it for a martial art called self defence. I entered the premises quickly and in a lowered stance. Rushed towards a blanket of leaves hanging from one of the three giant weeping willows present in the garden. There, according to my plan, I was to wait until I spotted the whereabouts of the inhabitants. About one frigid hour later there came footsteps.The sound led my eyes towards what seemed to be a miniature shed or a privy. The design of it gave the impression of lesser importance and, judging by a vigorous fungal growth that had swallowed most of its surface, neglect. The doors of the cabin swung open and two men exited it while maintaining an uninviting aura of silence. The Halasz spawn. They strolled on in a precise rhythmic fashion towards the mansion until disappearing behind the large front door. Only then have I taken note of the state in which the old house found itself in. No hint of its former glory or unique Balkan craftsmanship was to be seen. It looked as if a long forgotten pile of rotten wooden boards fell from the sky and by some miracle settled in the same area, more or less. Puzzled by the fact no lights were switched on after the occupants entered it, I gave myself a short speech for encouragement and rushed in the direction of the shed.' At this moment, my old grandpa took a step forward and grabbed my arm again pulling me closer as if he was about to tell me a secret.

'The door knob, if one may even call it that, nearly disintegrated entirely upon my pulling it. Upon closing the door I heard thunder roar distantly somewhere behind me. The inside was just blackness. It smelt of damp lumber and something more. I lit my torch and jumped startled, realising I was about one careless step away from falling into a hole in the ground. It wasn't a mere hole, son, but a staircase. Very steep and unconditionally uninviting. While taking the first steps down it came to me that I fooled myself utterly thinking I had a plan for all of this. What was I thinking? Well, my son, you will learn one day that once you fall under a spell of fascination, no abundance of rational thought is going to suffice to stop you from chasing it. I now admit to you that I was completely driven by obsession. Something has led me there. The steps were irregular and sloppy. The wooden walls of the staircase began showing microscopic white spots. Then bigger spots. Then more and more pronounced white fruiting bodies of a species of fungi I have never seen before. They had crooked, meandering stems of different thicknesses and lengths and seemed to intertwine in a chaotic way, like they could not tell the up from down. The caps in this specimen of mushroom resembled a leprous hand with exactly five twisted fingers each. The lower below the surface I got, the longer and more slender the weird growth got. To a point of resembling giant balls of white curly hair growing from the boards. The kind of hair I have a tradition of removing from the bathtub drain after that cursed woman is done taking a bath. It must've taken me well over 20 minutes to get to the large cave downstairs. The cave stretched far and wide but had a very low hanging ceiling, like a gigantic underground parking lot. It was mighty humid.

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I cannot say if the walls of this accursed place were made of dirt or rock, or even wood. Every surface with no exception was occupied by that bloody white growth.' He stopped unexpectedly and started rolling one of his sleeves up. 'Eh, why don't I just show ye?' What a ghastly view. From his elbow up, his arm was covered in what seemed like hundreds of very small hands attached to threadlike stems which were slightly bent in the middle, just like a human arm. The disgusting unnatural lattice bore no trace of damage from the thick sweater the old man was wearing. Before I had a chance to form a reasonable question he continued.

'Listen now. And heed my warning. What I have seen that day was no ordinary thing and one that certainly isn't welcome in this world. In one of the corners there lived an abomination.'

His voice started decreasing in loudness as if his transient permit to speak was spontaneously beginning to cease. From his very quiet mutter littered with grunts and sighs I could dissect the following description. There was a boat. A boat, standing vertically in the corner, like a sarcophagus of sorts that had an immensely peculiar inhabitant growing out of it. An oozing and white blossom of wet human and human-like arms. The whole structure was pulsating slightly until it burst open suddenly as if having detected the intruder. My grandfather started rambing like a madman by now. All I could understand from the babble was that the spectacle was a grotesque not to be surpassed even in night visions. The centre of the demonic flower was formed of what seemed like over 50 human heads. Ancient and fused together frenziedly. The heads and arms never ceased to move as if still hoping for an escape from this hellish congregation.

'Oh, the horror I felt when one of the slimy veiny white arms grasped me out of nowhere.' His voice seemed to fortify. 'T'was a strong inescapable grasp. I decided to fight for my survival, chopping at the robust forearm, white dense blood splashing in every direction. If I was to die I wished to know who or, in this case, what exactly was the opponent that was to best me.

I glanced at the centre awaiting my fate. Between other bulges barely maintaining the last recognisable remnants of formerly being a human face there hung the only head I could recognise even with my eyes tied up. The face of that blighted Farkas. The rest, well, isn't something I have experienced but rather heard. I've heard about the entire Halasz property perishing in monstrous flames. I've heard about a screaming madman barely escaping the scorching fire. That madman later turned out to be me. And the roars of terror so vivdly described by the following day's newspapers' were the last sounds I let out before today.'

#

Stated by George Halace, 2 October 2024, Edinburgh

The boy was a sturdy one. If one was to judge him by his physical form. It was when he spoke that you could immediately spot his fragility. He would always speak faintly and leave strange pauses after each affirmative sentence as if he was asking you for validation of the claim contained in it. Or as if he was waiting for you to grant him permission to continue. Due to this affliction of his, I will convey most of his story in the third person, although I will quote some of his words exactly like he declared them to me.

His name is Michael. My dead cousin's son. He showed up at my doorstep in Edinburgh, announced two weeks prior by a letter from some mental institution in Colchester. You would be considered completely sane to ask me why I would agree to hosting a distant relative I have never met before. And one with a history of psychic instabilities. For that I do not, unfortunately, possess a simple answer. I believe it was partly the hospitality I was taught back home or maybe the fact I was currently living away from my wife and my own boy, who I had to leave back in Boston in pursuit of what I consider a once-in-a-lifetime kind of work contract. Two weeks after his appearance, copious meals together and many a walk to the park he decided to detail to me as to why he had found himself restrained within the walls of a mental hospital. The events he was an oddly central part of were altogether much worse than an awoken occurrence of a deep-lurking spontaneous violence I admit to have had suspected.

Here's his story.

The train journey from Colchester to Clacton-on-Sea took the usual half an hour. Michael was visiting his friends he had made close personal affiliations with back in university. He had been doing that since they all graduated and rapidly spread all over the UK and beyond in pursuit of a comfortable life. Clacton was close and there was always something to busy yourself with there. He met with his mates, Kev and Dom or Tom, I believe. They hurried towards the marina in hopes of spending some jolly time under the banner of the blazing sun. It was July.

He rushed through this part but I can assume they weren't there for long before the watchful sun covered its eye with a thick cloth of white and blue clouds. The sky started weeping soon after. Being chaps that never enjoyed the staleness of sitting and staring at the telly, they have decided in unison to spend some time in the local gym, in hopes the poor weather will decide to retreat. The gym was called The Arena. It stood on Church Road. It was a half-tidy place, however quite cramped. Two rows of typical exercise machines, then a stripe of carpet connecting the entrance with the locker rooms, and a row of racks barely holding the selection of free weights of suspicious quality. Taking not much notice of the dubious characteristics of this not-so-perfect establishment the boys carried on with their quickly arranged workout plan. Anyhow, the place was a refuge from the ever-worsening conditions outside. Right after a flash of the oncoming storm instantaneously painted the walls of The Arena somebody in the background shouted: 'Fucking door is shut.' It was a matter of seconds until the whole aggregation present accumulated in front of the said door to scan the scene and come up with a solution. First came the search for the gym-keeper who had the keys and must have gone to the toilet. Stated search bore no fruit. The person was simply not to be found. With the second grand lightning the stir developed into an exponential chain reaction of excited sighs as each individual acknowledged the signal icon on each mobile phone was indicating a steady null. Michael's company, known from the bygone university days to possess resourceful qualities, rapidly began a brain-storming session hunting for solutions. A general air of panic was beginning to dense up as steel bars were flung at windows bearing no result whatsoever. No people could be seen roaming the streets either as if the blizzard washed them away from the town. The vivid description of the downpour raging outside chaotically was the last part of the story the lad has told me in a somewhat calm manner. I gave him a moment.

'Now comes the part with the demons' he mentioned, demonstrating that he was fit to continue.

The strangeness of the affair of this spontaneous, inescapable lock up was now to be reduced to triviality and replaced by an entirely different and much more grim scene. From the white and greyish wall of blur built by the rainfall of torrential proportions, the blur that seemed to surround the building, came an oddity only expected of a horror story writer's mind. One by one, dark and tall human figures began emerging like a cast of extras on a terribly grotesque film set. From all directions. More and more of them unveiling. They walked in a slow-paced, almost robotic fashion until the tips of their crooked noses nearly touched the wet large windows where they came to an abrupt, machinelike halt.

'I cannot tell you exactly how many of them there were. The building was only windowed from two sides. Weird people they were. Dressed in what seemed to be attire from eras long gone.' A few, rather simple-minded folk inside rushed towards them, beating at the glass senselessly and screaming for help. The bizarre gathering gave no response. Upon closer inspection it could be discovered that hiding behind algae-like mess of black hair covering most of their malnourished faces, pairs of terribly bloodshot eyes were visible. Each of the intruders bore an expression of lacking any trace of intellect. Waves of frantic and futile attempts to escape this madness interwove with periods of helpless tranquillity.

'Just like I can't estimate the number of those cursed men, it's also difficult for me to recall exactly how much time must've passed before the first blood was shed.' It must have been the casual manner in which he said that which left me bewildered. Michael then described the absurd mutilations of the body that fell out of one of the air ducts. Unknown to all gathered inside, one of the gym-goers must have chosen to try his luck in the narrow tunnels running over the ceiling. Soon after, and to much bewilderment and fear, another body fell out of the same hole. This fragment of a man was well-alive and dragging his torso, pulling it with the one arm it had left towards people who circled his victim. Killing 'it' with barbells brought a great stir outside. Some of the strange folk stepped back into the blur of the storm only to soon return with various instruments made of scrap metal that could only be used for violence. They never tried getting inside or using their newly acquired weapons. Well, except for the one limbless freak, that was quickly baptised The Fiend. The rain never ceased.

'It has gotten dark. The night came, so it must've been not more than 5 hours of being grounded inside the horror that most people in the gym have lost all their wits. Kevin kept babbling about his immense hunger and that something must be done with it. The other persons present either weeped, argued in an incoherent way or defecated or pissed right where they were standing. As if the immense distress stripped the badge of humanity off of them. The night never went away. I know what I'm saying. It was dark for well over four days. The grizzly downpour never went away either. I do not want to describe to you the events of those few days in detail. While steadily losing my vision due to merciless hunger and inadequate hydration with the available metallic-tasting water I have observed how a group of what used to be healthy people, now paced frantically on their fours with white foam dripping down from their mouths. The ones that could go on no more were swiftly eaten by the rest.'

He paused here, pulling something out of the pocket in his shirt.

'Well, the next thing I remember is the vexatious smell of iodine, the pure white hospital bed sheets and the needles. My determination and passion to prove the truth of events I was the sole survivor of is what has gotten me into the sanitarium.' He finished there and unhesitantly handed me the folded piece of paper he had just taken out of his pocket, saying he had simply found it in his shorts when he first woke up in the hospital ward. The page contained a bizarrely complex family tree of the house Halasz. A surname my grandfather bore. On the bottom of this oddly shaped mushroom-like hereditary schematic the names of me, my family and Michael were clearly present.