Midnight’s Fables

The Other Twenty-Two Birton Lane

Midnight leads you through the terrible halls of its museum, past the grotesque and the arcane, the beautiful and the dreadful, the whimsical, and the worrisome, before finally bringing you to a glass case containing a neat white paper note with the handwritten words ‘John Hannerdyn, 22 Birton Lane, GL23 1RX’ upon it.

“I like this one,” Midnight promises you eagerly. “A tale of curiosity and its consequences. And of just poor luck…”

***

John Hannerdyn lived at 22 Birton Lane, GL23 1RX. He had lived there for sixteen years, alone, in the snug but comfortable cottage associated with the address, and for the most part he was very happy there. The views were excellent, the nearby village was sweet and cosy, his job paid well, he had good friends and a good local pub, and as far as John was concerned, there were very few downsides to his life there.

In fact, he would say there was only one downside.

About a month after moving in, he received a letter addressed to a ‘Mr. Peter Anthrimisy’, 22 Birton Lane, GL23 1RX. Not unusual at all, especially given he had just moved. Post, he assumed, intended for the previous owners. He contacted his estate agent and tried to get the letter forwarded to their new address, but Edwin, whom the agency had sent to work with him in buying the house, said that the previous owners were the Smiths, and nobody there knew of a Peter Anthrimisy.

It wasn’t until a week later when the truth became apparent. John was just getting his living room furniture set up how he wanted it, when a curt and angry knock came at the front door. John opened it to find an impatient, wiry, short man stood before him, with a nervous energy and constant jitters, and long, greasy grey hair slicked back so that it stained the back of his collar. He wore a suit that had been tailored to fit a much larger man, and had a wild, dangerous look in his eyes.

“Can I... help you?” John asked with uncertainty as he looked down at the shaking man.

“You have a letter,” the man said aggressively, voice old and dry, filled with the same mad energy as his mannerisms. “It is mine.”

John frowned at the strange introduction, and it took him a moment to work out what the man could mean. It had been a week since receiving the letter, and he’d almost forgotten about it. After a moment of uncomfortable eye contact with the peculiar stranger, however, John finally remembered and went to retrieve the letter, handing it over to the man.

“They put the wrong address on by mistake,” John laughed uneasily. “Which house number are you? So I know where to take your post if it happens again?”

“Twenty-two,” the stranger – Peter Anthrimisy, it would seem – said, snatching the letter into his trembling hands, eyes darting about. “There are two of them.”

John frowned. “Another... twenty-two? On the same street? I’ve never heard of that happening before. How did that even come about?”

“I don’t know,” Peter snapped coldly. “Thank you for my letter.”

Then he shut John’s own front door in his face and was gone. John watched through the window as he scurried anxiously back up the driveway and disappeared around the corner.

“What a weird little man,” John mumbled to himself as he locked the door and went back to his day, arranging his new living room furniture.

So it had gone on. Every few weeks or months, a letter would be delivered to John that was intended for Peter, or vice versa, and they would swap. John wouldn’t have said he exactly got to know Peter better, but he certainly felt that he grew more accustomed to the neighbour’s strange mannerisms over time. After sixteen years in that house, Peter seemed outright normal, especially compared to certain other locals, and while John would never have been so brave as to call the man a friend, he certainly got used to him.

Peter’s house, the other number twenty-two, was down a long, winding lane a hundred yards down the road on the opposite side to John’s. It seemed that because the house had once been at the centre of a number of acres of farmland and now was more isolated from the rest of the street, that the builders who had constructed other properties and had numbered them had been unaware of its existence. This and no doubt some meaningless bureaucracy at the local council hall, meant that two number twenty-twos existed on the same lane. Not a 22 and 22A. Both were number twenty-two.

John had considered informing the postal service, or the town council, or somebody, and getting his address changed to 22A or something. But it was a nice little quirk of his home, and he wasn’t bothered by his little visits with Peter to exchange post – indeed, the strange neighbour was more often than not a morbidly fascinating form of entertainment. So, the numbers stayed, and for sixteen years John and Peter shared a street number.

At least, that was how John felt until the package arrived. Sixteen years to the day since the first time he had received a letter for Peter – not that John was aware of this at the time or had tracked such a date – a package was delivered to his door. It was a cardboard box, fairly large, perhaps large enough to fit a sewing machine or a table saw, certainly not so large as to contain a chair, and terribly heavy. Beneath the cardboard was an unyielding surface that sounded like metal as John strained to lift and shift the box into his hallway. Strange as Peter was, it was raining out and John had no desire to let his amiable acquaintance’s property get ruined by the weather, despite how inconvenient it transpired to be. He stood with his back to the door as he stretched out his back, bones creaking and cracking as he did, and looked down at the heavy box, panting a little from the effort it had taken.

“Now what could you possibly be?” John murmured aloud, staring at the blank cardboard. Besides the tape that held it together, its only feature was a single white note, printed in neat handwriting, with Peter’s address inscribed upon it and nothing else. No stamp, no parcel code, no barcode or QR. It had been hand delivered by the sender it seemed, though John had seen and heard nobody outside besides the sound of the knocking on his door.

A personal delivery, and a heavy one, expensive too probably. Good thing he’d brought it in out the rain. His curiosity piqued, he considered breaking one corner of the box to look inside, but he didn’t want to offend Peter or cause any strife. He resolved to wait until the rain had stopped and try to take it over himself. Perhaps Peter would volunteer the information if asked. Either way, John left the parcel where it was and continued about his day.

The rain halted briefly an hour later, and John took the opportunity to drag and load the heavy box into the boot of his car, and drove it down to his neighbour’s house. He’d been there plenty of times before of course, delivering or collecting post and packages, but something about the house seemed... wrong this time.

Despite its owner’s eccentricities, the house itself was a perfectly normal two-storey farmhouse, stone walls, old windows, floral curtains, a long gravel driveway and an empty and disused barn off to one side. The pipes and guttering were probably pure lead and lethal, and the vines climbing up the side of the building could have been planted by Celts. In short, it was a very normal English farmhouse.

Except today. Today... something was wrong. Maybe it was just the dimming evening light and the grey rainy sky above. Maybe it was just the way the shadows seemed a little too long and a little too dark. Maybe it was just that John was tired and aching from moving the heavy package.

But he couldn’t explain the silence. The countryside is never silent. There’s always birds or bugs or crickets or livestock, the wind in the trees, the way long grass rustles, the sound of life filling the fields and forests. It’s never silent. Except for now. Now there was nothing. Not a bird or a bug or a cricket or a cow. No wind, no rustling leaves or grass... when the engine switched off and John climbed out his car, the sound of the shutting door and his own feet on the gravel was all he heard. That and the elevated sound of his heart beating in his chest.

He strode up to the old front door, dark brown wood, none of the new PVC stuff, and knocked firmly. It often took Peter a few minutes to appear, but a single set of knocks was all he ever needed. He always complained if more knocks came than he felt was necessary, and John wanted him to be in a good mood for when he asked what was in the box.

Five minutes passed, and John almost knocked again, but he knew that Peter often took his time. He wanted to know what was in the box. He almost needed to know. He had to be patient. Had to wait. Another five minutes passed. Ten minutes was longer than Peter had ever taken before. Perhaps he really hadn’t heard this time. Perhaps he was asleep or out the back somewhere, or perhaps he was out...

John almost knocked again, but just before he could, the old door opened and Peter’s face peered out from the darkness within. The sun was almost setting now, and the world was growing dim. The darkness inside the house seemed deeper somehow than should have been possible, and John almost physically shuddered as he saw Peter’s disembodied head peering out from the void.

“A package for you,” John forced himself to smile. Big heavy box, feels like metal. I had to drive it over, much too big to carry all the way over. Could you give me a hand getting it out the car?”

Peter nodded silently, and stepped back into the darkness and out of view for a moment, before emerging again and stalking jitteringly over to the boot of John’s car, which he opened without hesitation or waiting for permission.

Using his fingernail – which wasn’t particularly long but must have been wickedly sharp – Peter cut through the cardboard corners and edges, and lifted open the top of the box like a lid. Inside, as John had guessed, he saw a solid grey metal surface, and as he came to stand beside Peter at the back of the car, he saw it had a folding handle and a recess. Peter grabbed the handle and lifted, pulling the entire metal box up and out of the cardboard with ease, as though it were light as a feather, and set it down on the gravel behind the car.

“You must be strong, it took me ages to shift that thing!” John exclaimed, almost involuntarily.

“I am,” was Peter’s only response, as he began to fiddle with a latch on the front of the box which seemed to be designed to fall flush. Gingerly, with anxious and trembling fingers, Peter slowly lifted up the lid on top of the box, and exposed what was inside.

That... wasn’t... possible, was it?

The front and back of the box were absent, on the inside at least, as though John were looking down into an extensive length of ventilation ducting. A square metal tunnel disappeared into darkness in front of and behind the box, but... that couldn’t be... because the front and the back were there! He could see them!

A rhythmic, crawling, banging began to echo down the tunnel, emanating from an unseen distance, and John suddenly found himself feeling very, very afraid. Maybe it was the silent countryside, or perhaps Peter’s impossible strength, or just sixteen years’ worth of his neighbour’s weirdness, but he grew certain that he was in dreadful danger from the contents of the box.

Leaving the boot door open, he leapt into his car, turned on the engine, and pulled off, almost toppling as he span the car around, skidding on the gravel, and gunned it down the driveway and back home.

He didn’t take his foot off the accelerator until he was parked on his own drive, and didn’t breathe until he was indoors, the house locked up, windows shut, blinds and curtains drawn, lights off.

He locked himself in his bedroom and stared out the window, peering between the slats in the blinds. He sat like that all night, an unnatural panic seizing his heart, yet nothing came. No Peter, no boxes, no creatures in impossible vents.

John woke up the next morning to the sound of knocking at his front door.

He must have fallen asleep after a few hours of staring, waiting for his strange neighbour to show up.

Why had he run? The box was strange, impossible even, but... looking back it hadn’t been frightening. But the silence around that house, the darkness inside it, and the sounds of a creature climbing through the tunnel. John suddenly found himself paranoid about unseen things lurking beneath his bed, and indeed every item of furniture he passed.

The knocking came again at the door, and with terrible nerves he made his way downstairs.

Looking out the hall windows, there didn’t appear to be anybody out there.

Just another cardboard box. The same shape and size.

The same address.

Except this time the name on the top was his…