It is with great trepidation that I finally, after all these years, commit to paper those fantastical, terrible events of nearly a decade ago. Even now, to think of that dreadful time sends the most unpleasant shivers down my spine, and a cold and icy fear through my mind.

‘Twas about Mid-winter, the year of 1885; and I was in Wales, researching a story for my newspaper, a well known editorial based in London. The past few weeks, fearful whispers of death and black magic had been circling the editor’s office. Base rumors of some festering evil consuming a small village in the Welsh countryside were passing from mouth to ear to mouth again; I could not take five steps without overhearing another conversation on the topic. They told of a man – no, a demon- who terrorized his tiny hamlet with evil rituals, and of the blanket of death that now lay over the town like a burial shroud.

Of course, I thought such things blasphemous rubbish – the talk of bored and idle minds with little better to do in their lives but gossip and speculate. No doubt some appalling morbidity had swept through the unfortunate village, and that this ‘Demon’ fellow, probably a new comer or with an odd or deformed visage, had become the undeserving target for their fear and pathos. A well-known writer myself, I discussed with my editor the possibility of investigating these accusations of sorcery, and revealing it to the world as the fallacy it most certainly was. After some measure of persuasion, he agreed, and I found myself the next day with a railway ticket in my hands, and a warm jacket wrapped around my shoulders.

The station beckoned, but as I went to step through the door my wife, who had been quietly standing behind me, gripped my arm in terror. “Peter,” She said her voice frantic and worried, “I have a very bad feeling about this. Please, don’t go.”

“Myra, my darling,” I tried to reassure her, smiling “Do not worry, nothing untoward will happen. It is simply a minor research assignment; I will be back in a fortnight at the most!”

Myra held my gaze for a moment, then sighed and nodded her head in resignation, “Try not to be too late, Peter.” She said, before retiring back to the bedchamber, coughing to herself. I worried for my ill wife, but the doctor had only two days before informed us that it was but a simple cold that would pass in due time, and so I stepped out of that door and flagged down a passing cart traveling in the direction of the station. Oh, how I wish now that I had listened to her!

The train was crowded, but I had paid for my own carriage with privacy, and a bed. I shut the compartment door, blocking out most of the external noise and carry on. Making a pillow of my jacket I laid myself down on the bed and contemplated my next move. The train would not directly transport me to the village in question – a near-anonymous place named Janville – and the nearest station was half a day’s walk away. I theorized that the exercise would likely do me a lot of good, as admittedly I had been quite the sedentary creature of late. Soothed by the gentle thump of the trains wheels turning round and round I fell into a deep and peaceful sleep.

I awoke some hours later as the train pulled into my station, and I departed from the mighty engine, and handed one of the conductors a generous tip. The station was quiet, the day cloudy and cold. I realized that if I were to set out today I risked getting caught in the dark, and I cursed to myself.  Having scouted quickly around the area, and finding no adequate place to stay the night, I made the fateful decision to set out for Janville immediately.

The road to Janville turned out to be little more than a thin dirt road winding its way through coastal cliffs. A strong, icy wind was blowing off the sea, and it chilled me to my bones even through my jacket. As I continued, I found myself with the odd and disquieting feeling that something was watching me. Pulling my jacket closely around me I scanned the area with my eyes, but the worsening light made it difficult to spot anything. The darkness was closing in rapidly, and yet it could not be any more than five in the afternoon. I quickened my pace, hoping to reach the village before it became to dark to see, but the momentum by which the blackness encroached gave me little hope, and only now did I acknowledge my folly in starting out so late in the day.

It was barely more then an hour later that the darkness had completely dominated the sky, and all that I now had to guide me was the few flickering lights in the distance, which I could only assume was the village. Barely able to see in front of my face, my foot struck against a raised rock and I fell heavily to the ground. I was truly lucky not to have fallen into the ocean, as it was I ha torn my pants and delivered a nasty graze to my knees. I sat there for some time, wondering what to do. It was too dark to safely continue onwards blindly, and too cold to simply sit out the night.

As I dimly contemplated my few options, there was suddenly a low growl behind me and I spun, terrified. In the night I could see nothing of the creatures that stalked me yet the hairs standing on the back of my neck told me unequivocally that they were there and that they wanted my blood. My searching hand found a small rock on the side of the path and I brandished it in front of my face, a pathetic act of defiance that could surely only buy me but a few seconds. My mind raced as I wondered what creatures these could possibly be, that they would hunt a human such as myself, for I was certain that there were no wolves in the area. I heard, rather then saw; the beasts close in around me. Ineffectually, I waved my rock around me, yelling at the creatures, trying to make myself appear more dangerous, more threatening then I actually was. It did not work, and as they crept ever closer they began to emit howling barks that sounded as if they were some cruel imitation of laughter. I lashed out sightless in the dark, and struck what I can only assume was the over-muscled side of one of the ghastly things. As I hit it, my arm bounced back off, as if it were made of rubber and the rock was flung from my hand. The beast took no notice of my blow whatsoever.


It was then, as I prepared myself for the last moment of my life, that there was unexpectedly a flash of hot, red light above me. A wave of blistering heat washed over me and I found myself blinking tears out of my eyes as my skin cracked and blistered. It was unbearable!

As bad as it was for me, for the beasts it was even worse. In the most excruciating agony they howled into the night, as each one was turned to flame by the mysterious red light. Only now did I finally get the chance to view my attackers; and to this day I wish I had not. Great bulbous creatures of muscle and bone, like mutated dogs. Their yellow, bloodshot eyes bulged from their sockets like overfilled balloons, two blood-engorged tongues hanged out of their wide jaws which were themselves filled with row upon row of stark white, and razor sharp teeth. Most shocking of all, they had no skin as such, just torn shreds of red sinew that drooped from their frames. I must admit that I felt no pity as I watched these hellish creatures burn and turn to ash.

Once the last creature died, the heat that came from the mysterious red light faded, and was gone. The light itself, however, remained and so I looked up into the sky where it lingered. To my surprise it was not simply light, but a glowing red symbol that hung only a few meters above my head. It was strange to my eyes, resembling the pentagrams I had seen once in a book on witchcraft, and yet it was somehow different… a feeling of disquiet came over me, and  I shivered and diverted my gaze from the iridescent symbol – Just in time to see the man appear from the shadows before me.

He was an odd man indeed, wearing a black shirt and pants, with a long black overcoat that covered the majority of his body. His skin was pale and flaccid, with dark bowl-like circles sagging under his eyes. His black hair hung in wilted clusters from his head… But most striking were his eyes, which were of the deepest, yet brightest red. As I looked into his eyes a most incomprehensible fear came over me, and I fought the urge to flee. The next moment, he spoke.

“I do hope you are alright, Sir,” He said, his voice smooth and cold, “It is dangerous to be out so late in these parts.”

“L-Late?” I stuttered, “But it surely cannot be past six o’clock!”

He nodded, and let out an unconvincing laugh, “Indeed, and in this town that IS late. Come, you must still be shaken by your encounter with the Hellhounds… They can be… Bothersome.”

“Hell hounds?” I muttered to myself as I stood to my feet. The man turned, and beckoned me to follow him before setting off again down the path. I did not trust him, and unsure as to what was going on I hesitated, but as I noticed that the red symbol – the only source of light – trailed after this mysterious stranger, I found myself with no other option but to follow suit.

We walked in silence for a time, with the Stranger a few yards in front of me. I had many questions that I wished to ask him, but I found myself unable to articulate the words. In the end, he would be the first to disrupt the quiet. “You are Peter Brown, are you not? The writer for that London newspaper?”

“Why… Yes.” I said, shocked out of my reverie. How did he know who I am? As far as I knew I wasn’t all that famous in Wales at the time, perhaps this strange man once lived in London? “I’m here to research a small story for the paper… I didn’t expect to run into those… um.” While it had only been minutes since the attack, I refused to acknowledge the existence of those foul, terrible creatures. The man laughed quietly to himself and spoke again.

“A Story? I imagine you’ve come to investigate the rumours you’ve been hearing about us. As I am sure you can now see they are all quite true.” He laughed again, and for a second time I was strangely fearful of him.

“What is that symbol?” I found myself blurting out, and I glanced once more to the odd pentagram that traced a haunting path in the sky. It had bothered me since it had appeared, perhaps even more than those hounds had bothered me. For the first time I wished that I had only listened to Myra’s words of wisdom and not come to this God-forsaken place at all.

“Oh that? Just a little bit of black magic, nothing to worry about.” He stated this so matter-of-factly that I was immediately taken aback, and so I swore to hold my tongue until we had reached the village, not wanting to give the stranger another chance to shock me. In my mind I rationalized the events of the past ten minutes. The Hounds? Most likely nothing but regular wolves that my mind had transformed to hideous beasts in its fear. The symbol? Obviously a trick with lights and electricity, after all, I had seen people perform such feats before, correct? … I failed to think of a reason for such trickery, and instead ignored the problem, and for the heat I had no answer.

It was at least an hour later that we reached the small fishing village of Janville. It was a chilly, miserable place, and the few lights that flickered in the windows of houses shut off as we passed. “They fear me,” The stranger mused, “And so they should; though I mean them no harm.” For my part, I declined to respond. The stranger noticed and chuckled to himself a third time. We passed through the center of the village, past the town hall, the post office and the mayor’s house, and yet there was still only silence. Perhaps the people here knew, as the red light passed through their windowsills that they should be still and nary make a sound lest some nameless evil devour them. I shivered, again only partly due to the cold.

The man stopped at the north gates of the town, pointing up a small hill where rested a large house surrounded by trees and overgrowth. It seemed poorly taken care of. “That is my home,” The stranger said, “You may stay with me tonight, tomorrow you can do as you wish. I will be happy to answer any questions that you may have.”

After climbing the hill, we entered the house through a creaky, wooden door that was nearly off its hinges. As we entered, the symbol that had so far followed us without fail vanished, and for a moment we were plunged again into pitch black. I nearly panicked, but the stranger muttered a word alien to my ears, and a similar pentagram inscribed upon the back wall of the house lit up suddenly, bathing the room in the very same red light as before. The room was warm, but dusty and in desperate need of a clean. Books littered the floor, looking as if they had been read once and then thrown aside. Besides this the room was bare but for a small chair, desk and lamp in one corner. The stranger pointed to a door on the Western side of the room, “In there is the guest’s bedroom… It has not been used for some time.” Taking the hint, and with a strange weariness rapidly consuming me, I stumbled through this door and into the bedroom. It was as bare as the living room, with only the small one-person bed sitting in the top-west corner. I dragged myself into the bed, and I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. I minded the itching, rotten sheets not at all.