TOPIC: Horror on the Orient Express - All Rotations

Continued....

Animal magic
The bear, Aktar informed us, was a magical beast. It existed only as an extension of Aktar himself, animated by a portion of his own spirit. Aktar was momentarily drained by the loss of the bear, but he would soon recover. We urged Aktar to take us to Pera but he insisted we were in no fit state to go there. Better to rest first and recuperate. Aktar took us instead to his own humble abode in Stamboul.

Tuesday 19th February 1923

In the wee hours
We sat around a bare wooden table while Aktar brewed tea on a stove. He crushed various dried herbs by hand and infused the tea. We told him about the dreadful skin-beast that his bear had saved us from and how the abomination had been formed from a dozen innocent children warped into something terrible. Aktar looked downcast. His own daughter had been kidnapped; like a number of other children in the city. He had informed the police of course—but the police arrested him as a troublemaker. The police had been infiltrated by the insidious influence of the cult and could no longer be trusted. We told Aktar that, James Rutherford, son of the British Deputy High Commissioner, was also a kidnap victim—but James was not one of the poor unfortunates at the cemetery. The cult must still be holding him and so perhaps others too—alive we hoped. The point being, we said to Aktar, that there was still reason to hope for his daughter. Aktar shook his head. In his desperate search for her, he had traced the cult to their lair, through a hidden entrance in the cistern beneath the city. He found his daughter—too late. The cult had done unspeakable things to her.

More tea anyone?
Aktar set his face hard. A vengeful countenance. He looked to us like the allies he needed to take direct action against the Brotherhood. “We must do something to bring down this cult” he said. “First you must regain your strength. Drink this.” he said, as he lay out a tray of steaming cups on the table. The tea was bitter but immediately invigorating. We drank our fill. It was like a magical healing brew. Faster acting than any medicine Ludwig had known. Wounds healed at an accelerated pace, aches and pains were lifted, the burden of tiredness left us, and our minds were relieved of guilt, nightmare and anxiety.

Exorcism?
Pierre still looked a little jaded. He’d looked that way since his strange outburst in the cemetery. Aktar reached out and touched Pierre’s forehead. Pierre jolted upright in his seat. In his mind’s eye he saw the blade of the guillotine dropping toward him. A crowd of peasants jeering excitedly around the scaffold. Before the blade struck however, Pierre blinked the image away and returned to his senses. Aktar withdrew his hand and gave a knowing nod. Pierre suddenly felt more alive than at any time he could remember. The sounds and vision of Revolutionary France that had invaded his mind were gone.

He’s not the quartermaster—except he sort of is
Aktar held out his hand to each of us one by one. Those that took it received a momentary vision, or felt relieved of their fears. All had their hearts filled with courage.
Pierre asked Aktar, “Mon ami. Do you know of a place called the Shunned Mosque?”
Aktar replied “Yes my friend. It is the lair of the Brotherhood.”
“Is this also known as the Red Mosque?” Ludwig enquired.
“Yes.” Aktar affirmed. “It is heavily protected. But I know a way in. One less guarded. We must go there tonight. Now!”
“But we have no weapons, no equipment” protested Letty and Percy in union. “Our belongings were either taken by the cult or else are left in our hotel rooms.”
Aktar moved over to the far side of the room, where his bed was set against the wall. From beneath the bed he pulled a strongbox. He smiled at us and asked, “What do you need?”

The dark streets
Emboldened with courage and furnished with a mix of revolvers, blades, artisan tools and medical supplies, we were ready to move out. Not for a moment did any of us doubt Aktar. Under the cover of night, he led us through the backstreets and alleyways of the city. No spies would know of our movement. Finally, at the entrance to the city cistern Aktar halted us and gave us a glance that spoke volumes. No words were necessary. He was giving us a last chance to back out. We were resolved to go on. Aktar nodded and continued on. We followed him down a flight of ancient stone steps. From the darkness, somewhere below, came the soft sound of lapping water.

Seven men, one woman and a dinghy
At the bottom of the stair, Aktar picked up a lantern he had previously left there and brought its light to life. Shadows receded from us as he raised the lamp. He led us along a flagstone walkway to where he had left another object of use—a small wooden dinghy. We crammed ourselves into the boat and Aktar, for the second time tonight, rowed us out across the water. Travelling through the cistern was a surreal experience. A huge underground artificial lake. The rows of fluted columns, structural archways and vaulted ceilings were from an ancient time. The scale of the cistern was breath-taking. Aktar piloted us toward a stone pillar engraved with impossibly old writings. He worked a block of stone out of the pillar and let it drop with a splash into the water. He reached into the hole that had been created and pulled at a lever. Stone scraped on stone and powdered dust trickled from the hidden doorway as it revealed itself in the pillar. Aktar swiftly stepped from the boat and through the exposed aperture. He beckoned us to follow as he descended a narrow spiral stair that lead to a tunnel system beneath the waterline of the cistern.

Claustrophobia
The tunnel was cramped and claustrophobic. The low ceiling forced us to walk hunched and the width pressed in against our shoulders. The wall was covered in black filth; a layer of ichor, a substance that defied any attempt to identify it. Aktar led the way holding aloft the only source of light we possessed. The tunnel was perhaps fifty yards in length and ended at a stone door. Aktar half-turned in the confines of the passage to face us and spoke in a half-whisper, “Behind this door lies the Shunned Mosque.” None of us made reply. We were eager just to get this done. At a push, the door yielded easily enough and opened into a tomb.

The chambers beneath the mosque
The tomb was lit by an eerie green light that flickered like an unnatural flame. The remains of important members of the cult from down the years were interred here. Thankfully there is enough room to stand upright and reclaim some personal space. An arched door, under a heavy masonry lentil, was set into the wall at the far end of the tomb. We passed through the door and up a short set of steps into a small library chamber of sorts. Alcoves brimmed with leather-bound tomes and rolled scrolls. The lone sentry in the room looked just as surprised to see us as we were to see him.

The Super Sentry
We set upon the sentry without delay. We couldn’t allow him time to call out an alarm. Eight against one odds was overwhelming in our favour; we charged en masse. The sentry however, swatted us away like flies. The cultist moved like a champion boxer. We were battered and bruised in our pitiful efforts to bring the man down. Pierre almost had his replacement lip ripped away. Finally our adversary succumbed to our numbers. As he fell, he cracked his skull on the bottom step of the stone stairs that provided us our only way onwards. Blood pooled around the head of the broken cultist. We rubbed at our aching jaws and blooded lips. Father Mika, having refrained from joining the physical assault, now sprung into action with a roll of bandages and a magic sponge. As soon as we were patched up, we crept up the stairs to a door. From behind the door came the sound of many muted voices.

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VI THE SHORT VERSION

Tuesday 19th February 1923
Three in the morning at the Shunned Mosque.
Mingling with the cultist crowd the great hall.
Enter the remaining missing kids. James Rutherford among them.
Enter the red-robed cultists carrying the pieces of the Simulacrum.
Enter Salim Makryat. The old man reads from a scroll.

Aktar makes his move while we rescue the children.
The kids are freed but we are captured.
Aktar the actor.
The Simulacrum is absorbed.
The deposed Salim Makryat is skinned. If he wasn’t already dead, he is now.
A new leader rises for the Brotherhood of the Skin.

Captured again. Tortured again.
Professor Julius Smith is prisoner too—limbless, sightless—but not burned.
Makryat tricked us. It was he, disguised as Smith back in London,
who sent us across Europe to collect the Simulacrum for him.

Makryat is off to London.
He has absorbed the power of the Simulacrum and has 100 hours to act before it corrupts him irrevocably.
In London he will perform the Ritual of Cleansing and become incorruptible.
We too possessed the Simulacrum and therefore are corrupted by it,
but as we didn’t absorb the power the corruption is working slowly.
Our decay is inevitable.

Makryat tells us there is no escape from our imprisonment.
As soon as Makryat is gone—we make our escape.
A race to England.

VI THE LONG VERSION

Tuesday 19th February 1923

Three in the morning
Beyond the door was a stair and corridor taking us into the Shunned Mosque. The grumbling voices we heard earlier are growing in volume and multitude—there are obviously a lot more cultists ahead of us than we anticipated. At the end of the corridor we arrived at an open space used for storage. The space was divided from the body of the mosque by a hanging curtain. There were shelves here filled with jars and boxes. They contained numerous oddments, including surgical equipment and stopped glass vials of questionable fluids. Ludwig unstopped one vial and lifted it to his nose. The pungent aroma was nasty and was not reminiscent of any medical draught that Ludwig had ever known. He returned the vial to its box. The only items worth taking were scalpels, to which everybody helped themselves.

Remind me again. What are we doing here?
Peeking beyond the curtain blunted our confidence. Milling about in the great hall of the mosque must have been more than three hundred cultists. An abominable band of brothers baring unspeakable afflictions. Some were missing limbs or had limbs that were not their own grafted on to them. Many had stitched flesh across every exposed part of their bodies; some were minus an eye, nose or ears. Aktar reminded us that we were here to bring down this abhorrent cult and rescue any children we might find in the process. We either turn back, abandoning our mission, or else, “By the will of Allah!” as Aktar put it, press on to forge some sort of victory—no matter how remote the prospect of that may be. It’s now or never.

Looking like mutants has its advantages
Aktar drew back the curtain and we followed him through. We did our best to blend in with the host of Brothers. We bared our own mutilations; Pierre removed his mask, Cartwright his eyepatch and Ludwig his scarf. Everyone loosened garments to expose numerous patched-up wounds. Several weeks ago we would have stuck out like a sore thumb. Today however, we looked like shit. We might just get away with this.

The missing boy
The atmosphere in the hall was one of anticipation. Clearly the multitude was waiting for something to happen. The hall was large. At one end were the exit doors and stairs leading up to the minarets. At the other end, beneath the great dome of the mosque, the dominant feature was a large stone column. The façade facing us was curiously carved with five niches, so if an outline were drawn they would form the tips of a five-pointed star. A hush descended. A dozen pathetic and cowering children were driven into the hall by cultists waving birch rods. From his picture at the Consulate, we recognised James Rutherford among them.

A sort of a plan
Aktar leaned close and whispered, “They’re setting up for some sort of ritual. When it begins I shall move closer to the column. You rescue the children.” We gave our assent to his proposal. At this, a procession entered the hall and forced its way through the throng. Cultists in red robes carried with them the pieces of the Simulacrum. They made their way to the great stone column and set each piece in its place. The head piece at the top-most niche, the arms to the left and right niches and the legs in the lower niches. The result reminded us of da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man.

Enter Salim
A second procession appeared. Four burly Brothers bore a litter upon which Salim Makryat was perched on his throne. The old man was set down before the column and he stood up to face the gathered crowd. He drew a scroll from beneath a fold of his robe. He unfurled it reverently. The crowd was silent. Their leader began to recite from the scroll. An incantation that offended our ears but yet roused the Brothers. The voice was almost alien but we heard the words in English. Makryat began, “I ask this by the power of Sedefkar, by the torment of the flesh to be endured by those corrupted….” Aktar now made his move. As all eyes turned to Aktar charging toward Makryat, we used the diversion to attempt our rescue of the children.

And it was going so well
Aktar gestured toward Salim Makryat, unleashing a magical spell. A flap of skin appeared on Makryat’s face, wrapping itself around his head as it grew in size, and suffocating the Brotherhood leader. His mouth covered, the old man couldn’t complete the incantation from the scroll. Meanwhile, Banks, Pierre and Letty assaulted the children’s captors. Ludwig grabbed one child by the hand and pulled him away, beckoning the others to follow. The element of surprise allowed us to shepherd the kids away. We’d almost reached the relative safety of the exit door when events took a sudden and unexpected turn for the worse.

That’s not something you see every day
Aktar was pointing at us and shouting, “Foreign spies! By order of the Master. Seize them!” A swarm of stitched abominations, moved to block our escape. We managed to push the kids out through the exit and yell at them to run. We ourselves were unable to get away. Each of us quickly subdued by the cult and held, helpless and immobile. Aktar snatched up the scroll from the fallen Salim Makryat. He raised it and finished the incantation that the old man had started. Ritual complete, Aktar stood with his back before the column, his arms flung wide. We watched as the Simulacrum pieces enveloped Aktar and its power was absorbed into his flesh. Aktar’s bodily proportions swelled to accommodate the power of the Simulacrum as if the very pieces of the armour themselves were taken into his physical frame. His eyes bulged. His mouth emitted a silent scream. And then his face contorted as he burst into a fit of maniacal laughter.

Aktar the actor
Every one of us is thinking the same thing, “What have we done?” Aktar is no Turkish spy. His true name is not even Aktar. He gloats to all present, “Your Master has returned. I, Mehmet Makryat, am the Skinless One’s own hide.” He points to the suffocated old man on the floor, his own father, and issues an order to the Brothers. “Take the False One. The Imposter.” Several cultists rushed forward and we watched horrified as Salim Makryat was skinned by the deft work of many knives. Even though he was a beast, we hoped Salim was already dead before the horrific skinning began. His will done, Mehmet Makryat continued, “No longer will the Brotherhood of the Skin cower beneath the dome of a forgotten mosque. The Skinless One will come and do as we bid. We will show ourselves and our power to the world!!!”


MORE TO FOLLOW

.....continued

The guest suite
Mehmet Makryat hadn’t forgotten us. “Take them!” he commanded his minions, pointing in the direction of the minaret stairs. We were savagely beaten and dragged unceremoniously away. The winding stairs ascended through three floors of the minaret tower. Each floor filled with cultist relics, including the remains of skinned victims hanging from the walls like trophies. Each floor was also lined with iron-barred cells. Prisoners, stripped of their humanity, drooled, gibbered and wailed like madmen as we passed them. At the fourth and top level of the tower, we were slammed against the walls and chained. Our captors, satisfied we were helpless, retreated back down the tower stairs. We were left battered, bloodied and weary; our chains held us up, denying us the ability to sink to the floor for blissful rest.

Fancy meeting you here
We tried to keep our spirits alive with small talk when a sound drew our attention. There’s someone else here with us. From beneath a heap of dirty rags a man’s head was raised. The head craned as if straining to listen. The head had no eyes and only a single ear. The man tried to move but we were sickened to realise he had no limbs. The sightless man was nothing but a head and torso. He croaked in a London accent; “Does my hearing deceive me? George Banks? Is that you?” Banks, Letty and Ludwig gasped as they were the first to recognise the poor unfortunate. It was none other than our patron—Professor Julius Smith. Banks’ mind melted. He screamed until he passed out.

The ever twisting plot
In his deplorable state, the effort to rouse himself proved too much, Professor Smith lapsed into unconsciousness. Ludwig stared at the Professor. How Smith could be reduced to such a terrible condition and yet still live is a wonder, but what surprised Ludwig more was how the Professor had no burns to his skin. Only a few weeks had passed since the original band of investigators had been summoned to Smith’s bedside at the Old Nichol Street lodging house in Shoreditch. After surviving arson at his St. John’s Wood townhouse, Smith was in wrapped in bandages having suffered awful burns. His burns cannot have healed in this time; it’s not possible. And then an epiphany struck. Ludwig wished his manacles didn’t prevent him from slapping his own forehead. “Outrageous!!” he bellowed, “We have been played for fools!”

The architect of our doom
Mehmet Makryat was undoubtedly the mysterious man spied at Professor Smith’s New Year talk at the British Museum. He was the man who supposedly had died three times in the same night at the Chelsea Arms Hotel. He is the man who owns the Islington antiquities store into which we forced entry but were unable to open the trapdoor; the trapdoor sealed with an intricate locking mechanism and marked by strange iconography. It must have been Mehmet Makryat who summoned us from the Oriental Club to the Shoreditch house, aided by James Beddows, whose innocence now comes into question. It was Mehmet Makryat who at that meeting, disguised himself as Professor Julius Smith behind bandages and false burns, and duped us into this fool’s errand across Europe, whereby we have discovered and collected the parts of the Sedefkar Simulacrum for him and delivered them here, to Constantinople. Just as he wanted.


Wednesday 20th February 1923

Same shit, different day
The world had awoken to a new dawn. It was now Wednesday and we hadn’t had a proper night’s sleep since Saturday. For several hours, manacled in uncomfortable positions and hurting badly, we slipped in and out of the waking world. Heaven knows what time of day it was when the jangle of keys snapped us to attention. Two Brothers preceded Mehmet Makryat into the chamber.

Nonchalance personified
Makryat was shaved and his clothes changed. He no longer bore any resemblance to Aktar the Gypsy. He lit a cigarette and leaned casually against the wall. He eyed us with mild amusement. “So, by now you must realise you’ve been working for me all this time, eh?” He looked at Smith—what’s left of him—and tutted.
“Poor Professor. He was just a puppet for me to pull his strings.” Makryat grinned then spoke on, “Beddows died screaming if you’re interested to know.” There was a poignant pause. “I suppose I should thank you for collecting together the Simulacrum for me. And for helping me defeat my father—the old fool.” He sighed, “You know. The story I told you about being able to destroy the Simulacrum here at the Shunned Mosque, it wasn’t true.” He stopped to chuckle for a moment. “I lied. It cannot be destroyed.”

Arrogance personified
Makryat continued, “Well, I’ve given you information. It’s only fair you give me some in return. So let me ask, what happened to Fenalik?”
“We destroyed him” answered Ludwig, with as much pride as he could muster.
“Good for you” said Makryat, “He’s no longer needed anyway.”
Makryat blew cigarette smoke toward us then went on, “For too long the Brothers have been idle; servile to The Skinless One under my father’s tenure without realising the truth; that The Skinless One is under my dominion. With him we shall rule.”
Banks challenged Makryat, “With him, or beneath him?”
Makryat didn’t flinch, “I shall use him.”
Banks almost laughed, “You think you can control a god?”
“The Brotherhood of the Skin, under my rule, shall use The Skinless One’s power as we see fit.”

Got a train to catch
Makryat stubbed out his cigarette and exhaled smoke. “Sadly, time has caught up with us and I have a train to catch. I am due to board the Orient Express for London. I’m sorry I cannot stay to witness your final moments. The Simulacrum corrupts those who possess it. I have the strength to resist for the next 100 hours. By that time I shall be in England, and shall have retrieved what I need to perform the Ritual of Cleansing. The ritual will make me incorruptible. For you however, your time with it has decayed you whether you realise it or not. You will succumb to corruption and mortal ruin. When you cease to be flesh you will be clasped to the bosom of The Skinless One.”Makryat let his words take effect. “As you have realised, I have left Professor Smith his tongue so that you may converse during your final hours, until the corruption devours you. Have a good day.” Makryat flashed a smile, and with that turned on his heels. He and his escort departed.

The Flapping what?
When Professor Smith was awake again he told us that he’d been here for weeks, ever since that monster Makryat brought him out from England. The Cult had tortured him and slowly dismembered him. He placed no blame on James Beddows. He believed his man-servant was coerced in his actions. He looked at us sternly with his eyeless sockets; “My time is over but for you there is still hope. The guards are brutes; physically strong but weak of mind. They could be tricked. They are afraid of an apparition said to haunt the mosque. They call it the Flapping Man, a spirit amalgamation of all their victims come to plague them. You could use this as a ruse against them.”

All in a flap
When the guards next came back they held knives to our throats and began to unshackle us. Ludwig asked “Did you hear that?” The pair of guards stopped to listen. Banks, Pierre and Lettty were quick to catch on. “It sounded like something moving, outside on the stairs” added Banks. The guards became distracted. Lying on the floor, Professor Smith had been ignored by the men, but now the Professor bit at one cultist’s ankle. The cultist stepped back in surprise and dropped his knife. There was immediate pandemonium as we broke loose. Pierre stooped to recover the lost knife and we quickly overwhelmed both cultists.

No time for last words
We couldn’t take Smith with us and in his condition he didn’t want to live. He urged us to go but pleaded with us first to end him. We looked at each other in dismay. He begged again. Pierre used the knife he had taken and cut the Professor’s throat. Smith choked quickly on his own blood. It was with heavy hearts that we left him. There was no time for Father Mika to say any last words and impossible to provide any sort of funeral. We had to escape. We were now in an urgent race to return to England, and Mehmet Makryat had several hours head start.

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A write up of the highest quality!

It was certainly a week of darkness, and brutal revelations...

VII THE SHORT VERSION

Wednesday 20th February 1923

A morbid plan. Behold the Flapping Man.
Behold THE Flapping Man.
Words of wisdom from an apparition
Reuniting James Rutherford with his father
Sir Douglas stumps up some cash for our return travels
A telegram to New Scotland Yard
Sod all left at the hotel

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