Hartfield's Nightmare

George Hartfield walked down the cobblestone streets of Oganfield. His shoes clacked off the dull, red bricks. The dream he had last night swirled around his mind. He was going mad and it was all that damned servants fault. Should have never hired her in the first place. He knew the moment he laid eyes on her she was going to be nothing but trouble.

Once again, his sweet tooth had gotten the best of him.

It had been too real this time. That thing whatever it was, he would swear almost reached out and grabbed him. No, that was preposterous he just needed something to settle his nerves. To restore his vigor. Yes, that's just what he needed. He thought mopping the sweat off of his brow.

The brownstone tenement building at the end of the street loomed in front of him. He shook his head in disgust. Bums slept in the alley, which reeked of piss and shit. George took his monographed neckerchief out of his pocket and held it to his nose.

"Festering disease pit," he swore under his breath, his face stuck in a cruel sneer. It was only be necessity that he found himself here at all. A man of his wealth and breeding would never be caught here other wise.

Unable to bring himself to touch the door knob with his bare hand, George twisted it with his jacket sleeve. He made his way up to the third floor, apartment 3B. He knocked on the well used wooden door.

"Who's there?" Came a gruff reply.

"It's Sir George Hartfield, I'm here to see a Mr. Beaucourt?" George answered.

He could hear the sound of movement and locks sliding. The door opened a crack and revealed an old man. At the sight of his dark skin George's face twisted in distaste. This had better work he thought. He was already shaming himself enough as it was.

"Mr. Beaucourt?" He asked his face still sneering

"Thats me." The man answered sizing George Hartfield up and down and clearly not liking what he saw.

"We have a mutual acquaintance who said you could help me with my specific problem." George said.

Mr. Beaucourt looked at George with rheumy eyes. George felt like he looked through him.

"You got yourself cursed? Gonna cost, and I don’t haggle." He said spreading his hands out in front of him, his smile anything but friendly.

George's face turned red. "I assure you I'm good for the money."

"Coin not credit," Was Mr. Beaucourt's even reply.

George pulled out a bag of silver dollars and some bank rolls and handed it to him. With an accountant's hand and a bank teller's eye, Mr. Beaucourt counted the money.

"Come inside George, we will get you straightened right out." He said with a smile.

George took a deep breath and followed him inside. The apartment had what some would call "old world charm". Filled to the brim with large furniture, dark colors, and red velvet curtains to block out the light.

A charlatans roost, thought George. Until recently he would have called all spiritualists nothing more than swindlers. Now he just wanted the whole business over with no matter the method. But the last thing he wanted was to sit down, not wanting to spend another second in the other man's company. For the first time in a long time George Hartfield felt out of his league.

Mr. Beaucourt took a seat in a large lion's paw chair, his old frame sinking into the well worn cushions. George sat opposite of him on dust divan. He made an effort to rest upon the balls of his feet so that he would not risk getting the dust, and grime on his clothes.

I'm burning all these clothes, George thought to himself. Or at least I’ll have the servants do it.

Mr. Beaucourt smiled at him like an all knowing sage, "Tell me about your problem George."

George gritted his teeth. "Do you really have to know? I've paid you, can you just make it stop?"

Mr. Beaucourt leaned forward. "No, it doesn't work that way. I need to know how you got yourself into this predicament so I can get you out. If I know what you did, I can figure out what kind of a curse you got on you." He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.

George took a deep breath. "It's the age old story. I'm sure you've gathered I'm a man of means with a respectable reputation."

Mr. Beaucourt said nothing.

"Well, as many in my position do, I took for myself a mistress younger than me. One who was well aware of the situation I might add. She knew damn well what this was. Yet, the money grubbing whore decided to attempt to blackmail me to leave my wife! Whom, I might add, is from a well to do family. It was perhaps my fault I should have none better than to involve myself with on of the staff." George replied.

Mr. Beaucourt cleared his throat. "What did you do to your mistress?"

George looked away his heart racing. "I had her beaten and humiliated. Only so I could get the evidence she had about the matter."

"Humiliated how?" Mr. Beaucourt asked.

"I told the men I hired to remind her of her place in any way they saw fit. After all, anything that happened can hardly be my fault! They were rough men and it's not like she wasn't already accustomed to their needs." George said with his nose upturned.

"What happened after that?" Mr. Beaucourt asked his voice cold as death. George found that he could no longer look the man in the older man in the eyes, he was too afraid of what he would see there. What would be waiting.

"The damn dreams started. Every night, each one more horrible than the last. Then stuff started disappearing around the house. Especially stuff I was looking for. It's driving me crazy." George said deflating like a balloon. "I think she wants me to lose my mind. Humiliate me like I did her."

"I think you did far worse, George." Mr. Beaucourt said rubbing his chin. "Let me ask you something... Is something coming for you in these dreams? A specter or a presence of some sort?"

"Yes, but I've never seen it. Is that bad?" George asked. His brow began to drip with sweet. Damn, he thought, of course that would be important. "You don't think my house has ghosts now or some of that malarkey do you?"

"I'm going to give you a sachet. You put this sachet underneath your pillow and everything should stop." Mr. Beaucourt said. He stood up from his chair, faster than George would have credited the old man being able to move. He rummaged through a big antique roll top desk he had shoved into a corner. After some shuffling, he produced a small red bag.

"You just put this under your pillow and everything should be fine." Mr. Beaucourt said. "Even if your house is chock full of ghosts everything will be okay, but only as long as you do what I told you too.

George snatched it from his hand and bid him good day. Finally, an end to his nightmare, George thought. And if it didn’t work well he knew where to find the sorts of people that would be more than happy to sort out that old charlatan for far less than George had just paid him. In fact he wondered if he might just send them Beucourts way even if it did work. Wasn’t like he could just let a man like that know all his dirty business.

That night George was more excited for sleep then he had been in months. He looked at the little bag, sachet Beucourt had called it and sighed. He was probably being conned, but this was the only solution he had. Either way after tonight George Hartfield would make sure Mr. Beaucourt learned his place.

How dare he talk to a Hartfield like nothing more than common rabble! And how dare that man judge him, he thought as he lay on his bed. He could feel it in the old man's rheumy stare.

Oh, yes he would learn to the rue day he disrespected a Hartfield. This thought comforted George as he pulled his silk sheets higher in his bed. His wife had long since been sleeping in a different room. Something that had suited them both quite well.

All the better to bring in his mistresses. George was a man known among his friends for his conquests after all wasn't a man of means supposed to do such things?

He couldn't wait to tell them about this adventure: fit with magic and everything. To think he bed a witch! He laughed to himself as he drifted off to sleep.

He awoke in the morning, stretching up his arms to meet the sun. It worked, he thought to himself, the damn thing actually worked. No more dreams, no more of these damned nightmares that had him writing through the night.

George smiled and went to get out of bed, but his body wouldn't move. Then he saw it; a large dark figure at the end of his bed. Eerie green eyes burned like fire where a face should be. As it made its way up onto the bed, George tried to scream but no sound escaped his lips. It was as though everything from his neck down was completely paralyzed.

The green-eyed creature looked like an old woman. Naked, it wore its drooping wrinkled skin like a loose robe that fell in folds around it’s stubby legs. Slowly it made its way towards him, waddling as it’s overly long arms swayed with each step. The creatures sagging breasts dragged up the sheets under its sway. Even though he couldn’t move he could feel it as the monster touched him.

George screamed in his head as it opened its mouth to reveal blackened stumps of teeth as it straddled him. George wanted to be sick. The thing started to breathe in deep and slow and then, like a serpent, unhinged its jaw. George could do nothing as its thin, maggoty white lips covered his, suctioning tight over his entire mouth.

He felt sick as the thing started to breathe deeper and deeper, forcing his lips apart. George realized with horror that something was coming out of him and flowing into it.

For the first time in his life George felt a new sensation as his world turned black. He felt powerlessness and loss. Soon he didn’t feel anything at all.

In a rougher part of town, Mr. Beaucourt sat once again in his comfy chair. Across from him sat a beautiful girl much younger than he.

"Looks like you're on the mend." He said to her.

"One day at a time." She said. She fidgeted with the hem of her dress. "I heard they found George... I mean Mr. Hartfield dead in his bed." She said twirling a strand of her curly red hair.

Mr. Beaucourt smiled. "Is that right? Well at least he died like he lived: In comfort."

"But the curse I put on him only brought him nightmares. It was only strong enough to maybe drive him crazy." she said, biting her lower lip.

"True, but you would be lying if you said you didn't want him dead for all the pain he put you through." Mr. Beaucourt replied. "And it wasn't your curse that did him in. It was the sachet I gave him, made the link strong enough for something to come through."

"Death is to merciful." she all but whispered.

Mr. Beaucourt chuckled then loud and strong. "Oh yes, but you forget there are worse things than death. And trust me when I say that our mutual friend Mr. Hartfield is by now well acquainted with them."

The girl looked at him then and for the first time in the last few months actually smiled.