The Ghost of Winn Peterson

22. Vicar

Vicar watched as Winn ceased her tears and dissolved into the walls, her figure rippling out of sight. The headache from the whiskey was gone, as well. Perhaps they'd been connected, Vicar wasn't terribly certain. Now wasn't the best time to sort out whether his visions were a result of an isolated alcoholic stupour (as he hardly ever drank), pure madness, or actual evidence of ghosts.

Was it a good time for anything anymore?

Feeling nihilistic now, Vicar stood, paced about the room. His head ached terribly. Why couldn't he have just hidden in the attic until all of this passed away? How he wished he could have gone back to the times before Gaston was dead, before his library and job were burnt to cinders, before his father had ejected him from the house. Thinking on this, however, only reminded Vicar that there had never been a time his father hadn't visibly despised him, and thus, there was no place in the history of his life he could have gone back to in order to escape the fear his father struck in him.

Fear, that was it. Vicar had never considered that his father inspired fear, but that seemed a good reason for everything Vicar had done since. Fleeing the country was surely inspired by such a strong emotion.

Vicar sat back on the bed. He ran his hands over the wooden boards holding the mattress up. Long ago, Winnifred had lain here, isolated and removed from any hope of friends and family, bound by the sinister hands of the doctor who appeared so mysteriously in her life. To see the bed and the walls and the window, exactly as he had when reading Winn's account, filled him with a most uncomfortable sensation, and he soon turned his gaze back to Gaston's memo book, if only to escape the peculiar feeling.

The memo book was barely the size of his hand. Wondering why Gaston had been in here and how nobody had thought to look in the cold room for any of the late Andrews brother's things, Vicar flipped the book open and thumbed through a few pages. He turned the book over, stalling for a reason he couldn't ascertain.

Sighing and giving the window one last look, Vicar at last resigned himself to inspecting the mysteries that lay within the book. At first, nothing revealed itself. All was as normal as a collection of random notes ought to have been. Gaston's initials marked the end of each segment, all of which appeared related to the various rooms in the house. Beginning to lose hope that this meant anything at all, Vicar made to give up and throw the book across the room, but the very second he made to close the book, he spotted a name that gave him immediate pause.

Radcliffe. It was written in large, bold letters across a single page, underlined and written over until the page was pressed far enough in to damage the previous pages. Vicar didn't know what it meant.

Was Gaston's death somehow connected to the name of the doctor who tormented Winnifred and her friend? There was no other option in his eyes, none at all, for the appearance of the name. Heart pounding, Vicar looked to the previous page for an answer.

    Oct. 1 - Attempted transfusion. Nasty side effects.

    Oct. 6 - Gave in and called doctor. Father would have been annoyed. Vile headache.

    Oct. 8 - Doctor's arrived. Strange bloke.

    Oct. 15 - Feeling worse. Asked around about the doctor. Radcliffe doesn't belong to anybody around here. Igor's hardly a local name.

    Oct. 17 - Doctor doesn't like me asking questions. More medicine.

    Nov. 10 - Very weak. Placed my findings in the latter half. No longer suspect I'll make it past the month. Mustn't let Radcliffe in.

The notes ended there, but what Vicar felt instead of anticipation for the end of the brief story the page told was a nasty, sinking sensation in his gut. If this log of events was to be believed, and the memory of Gaston's demise had been preserved, then Vicar felt he knew exactly how Winn had become an apparition in his house.