The town of ----port, unmarked as it was on most modern maps, held a certain inevitable allure for a man utterly fascinated with antiquities and forgotten things. There were undoubtedly other crumbling places of equal decrepitude, but as far as I know, none can evoke the same discomfort in their neighbors that, without exception, results from the mention of the name. Complaints are almost never specific, and when they are, they take the form of patently ludicrous ghost stories: haunted mansions, tormented maidens, and other obvious products of overactive imagination.
I prided myself to a conceivably excessive extent on my self-pronounced lack of belief in any such fantasy, but all the same felt compelled to have a look for myself, intrigued by the almost completely faded sign that marked a fork in the road that I drove twice a month as part of my duties as a representative of a well-respected distributor of laboratory chemicals. With no small anticipation did I take the ancient-looking branch, finding myself in a bizarrely thick woods, a place that seemed utterly unconcerned with the modernity of the area.
A good twenty minutes passed before I saw any buildings, which at first consisted entirely of collapsed farmhouses and their periphery. There was no doubt in my mind that the place had been utterly uninhabited for decades. Further in, some of the more intact hovels showed signs of recent habitation, and I was glad to have the company of the double-barreled shotgun in the back. Thievery would be very likely among the hungry vagabonds that would choose to scrape a living from such a territory.
To my surprise, the manor-like structure that was bound to accompany this spread of grimy cabins was, while in shambles, still recognizable as such. It could conceivably have been an impressively spired mansion in its heyday, but the pile of half-rotted timbers now barely merited the title of house. All the same, its place as the only distinguished architecture in sight appealed greatly to my love of the old, and stopped the car for a closer look.
I stepped out, pausing for a moment to retrieve my gun and all of the ammunition I had at hand, noting several extinguished campfires dotted about the grounds and concluding that such a large and possibly still habitable house would be an ideal shelter for robbers, scroungers, or whoever else might still populate this forgotten place. The sun was low, but still a good ways from dusk, and I thought it certain that I would return to the car by nightfall. All the same, I pressed a few candies into my shirt pocket as a safeguard against any unexpected cravings.
The front hall seemed largely intact, although I was saddened to see a once-grand staircase reduced to a pile of roughly cracked marble. Seeing that access to the interior via the front was going to be limited at best, I began a circuit of the manor, willing to climb through a low window or lever a rusted hinge in order to get a better look within. My hopes were largely in vain, and I had been reduced to a dejected shuffle back to the road by the time I had rounded the third corner.
That turn, however, brought to light a view that instantly rekindled whatever zeal for the aged and untouched that compelled me to this ruin from the first. What I had taken from a distance to be a collapsed stone wall was in fact a row of broken grave markers. More interestingly, I was unmistakably looking at the entrance to a crypt of sorts, set into a hillock in such a way as to be utterly invisible from my earlier perspective.
Had I not carried a trusty firearm, the slightly opened door and distinct footprint in the dirt nearby would have rendered the prospect of entry wholly unacceptable, but I was emboldened by the weapon and, furthermore, resolute that my time here would not be completely without remarkable occurrence. Adjusting a few details of my clothing and tightly re-lacing my boots, just in anticipation of an unsavory encounter, I took an excited, deep breath and pulled the crypt door open, further interested by the barely visible inscription of "von Messerherz" beneath a layer of grime: the very same family that I had heard mentioned, if mispronounced, in relation to the past of the small town of ----port.
My small electric light was more than adequate to cut through the distinctly musty air, showing me just the sort of long, cobwebbed hall one might have expected. A number of alcoves were set into the walls, although rather more than I had thought sensible in consideration of the mere two centuries that I had believed the place to have been inhabited. Most were occupied by greenishly aged caskets, but more than a few were empty and showed no signs of having been otherwise: the masters of the house had clearly intended for a longer period of residence.
A ways in, after one sharp turn, I saw a number of these alcoves that showed unmistakably recent scraps of food and shred of cloth. Aware that I might actually have cause to use it, I hefted the gun and pressed my teeth together, determined to at least explore a little further. The partial illumination provided by my light began to feel inadequate against the increasingly opposing darkness, and I found myself repeatedly calculating the distance between myself and daylight as the improbably long tunnel showed no signs of coming to an end.
After passing another few caskets, I reflected that none of the names included that of Lavinia von Messerherz, whom I understood to have been the only member of the last generation of the family buried around me. In fact, her father, Otto, and mother, whose name I had not been able to obtain but who was well known as a widow dead since 1837, were also nowhere in sight. I could only conclude that they lay still further within the walls, and began to wish I had more thoroughly inspected the early alcoves.
Shortly after that thought, I froze: there was no doubt in my mind that something else moved inside the crypt. More alarmingly, the clatter originated behind me, rather than further in. Since my own entrance underground, something had joined me. I raised the gun, ready to fire, and slowly moved back towards the right-angled turn and the exit that lay beyond. My finger shook somewhat on the trigger as soft but clear footsteps reached my ears. I kept my wits about me, but I was not unaware that I had a rather slight build, a few years away from the exercise of my old university fencing club, and was likely no match for a hardened, desperate thief of the sort that might lurk in a centuries-old burial place for lack of better shelter from the elements.
To my surprise, the unseen walker stopped. In response, so did I, decidedly shaken and pointing the gun nervously into the dimly lit hall, cursing the border of gloom untouched by the spread of the bulb and hoping that the loaded barrels would be a sufficient deterrent to permit a safe escape. Several moments of uncertain length passed, leaving me along with shuddering, low breaths as I attempted to maintain a manful degree of composure.
