The Station Master's Cottage.

It was abandoned long before the railway line was closed. Today it is principally the travellers who see it: a series of glimpses between the trees, as the highway veers to bypass the town. First impressions are often pleasant. In memory, a diseased greyness seeps in. A sense of blight comes down in a heavy curtain and no subsequent viewing, however sunlit, will dispel that.
The town has grown northward, away from the station master’s cottage. Something terrible happened there but the facts are dimly remembered. Few recall the event that overshadows the annual fair. It was no day for festivities in 1952: the station master, his wife and two grown daughters were discovered inside the cottage. The women were found unclothed, in obscene poses; the station master locked himself in his study before cutting his throat with a razor. The town’s policeman let it be understood that no suicide note had been found. In fact, when he broke down the door, he found the station master’s journal beside his chair.
The diary was a catalogue of perversions. From his first days in the town, the station master had recorded his vile amusements. The sergeant was not a religious man. But the book was a burden he could not bear alone; he took it to the station master’s former clergyman, who declared it the work of the devil. They agreed to cast it from this world. Page by page they burnt it in the pastor’s fireplace.
The sergeant was transferred to another town. The pastor was left to grapple with his questions. The station master had been a devout man, regular in his attendance. How could God have permitted such mockery? If ever a man belonged in Hell it was the station master. How could the Lord turn aside and stay His hand when filth such as that sang His praises? Doubts and rough whiskey left the pastor a hollow man. He became obsessed with the cottage – a jeering tribute to depravity. The pastor hoped to see it burn. But he lacked the courage to light the flame.
Faint hearts abet the enemy, and sometimes we betray our finer instincts. We offer aid or consolation and hurry on, disowning the gesture. Evil derides such compulsions. The black hymns of the pit reward pride and passion, and endurance. The darkness is ever rising against the tenuous light. Kindness is fleeting. Evil builds.
And evil waits. There is a boy, impatient to be a man, who looks restlessly for a future beyond the town. Lately he has taken to wandering while his parents sleep; a week ago, distracted by his conflicts, he found himself at the cottage. From the window of the study a bespectacled old man stared down at him. His face was locked in a silent scream – the boy fled. But youth won out over caution and he returned. Last night the old man walked into the boy’s dreams. The boy knows now that this old man is not a man at all… furthermore, he is not screaming.
He is laughing.

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Tags:

cottage, devil, diary, evil, family, haunted, horror, obscene, station, story, town and writing