Persistence - Part I: Halifax

Writer's Note: This story, "Persistence", is my longest and most involved. I will be posting each section individually, likely over a somewhat long period of time. This draft is not the final edit of this story, but any changes between here and then will likely be minor.

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PERSISTENCE
Dominic E. Lacasse

Part II: Triumph (Link)
Part III: Stories (Link)
Part IV: Ellen (Link)

Part I: Halifax

   In the summer of 1958, I was preparing for my final year of study at my small university in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I was studying folklore and mythology, fairy-tales and urban legends. The stories that settle around any human area, the stories that come into and out of our minds, as surely as air to our lungs. I was romanced by the idea that these stories were everywhere, the kind of things that hide just below the surface of human life, stories that are considered uncouth and pointless by the society in whose creation they play such an intimate role.

   Convinced as I was of the presence of these stories in every human society large or small, it was a habit of mine to take short weekend trips to the small towns of Nova Scotia’s south shore to plunder fresh material. I devoured these stories, carefully marking them down in small black notebooks held together with masking tape at the spine, kept closed with frayed and drying elastic bands. As an H.P. Lovecraft devotee, my favorite stories involved the macabre– I had visions of carefully recording these wonderful creations of the general and undeniable insanity of the common human soul, publishing them in some great black tome that would rumble a deep bass thunder when dropped on a coffee table. A book whose indomitable mute presence would shock an entire room into uneasy silence. I knew I would never want for material; the unwritten tales in the communal consciousness of a small town are nearly always gruesome, if not outright disturbing. My duty was merely to find them.

   I had recently received a letter from a friend and planned to read it quite carefully, given that it was of importance to the next trip I had planned. This friend of mine shared my love of man’s unrecorded nightmares and had heard of a small town named Triumph, somewhere a few miles down the coast from Lunenberg. He had heard rumors of some strange mythology or superstition in which the town was involved and, happening to be driving through the area, stopped in to ask some questions. I gathered that his search was unsuccessful, and he went off to find his imagined subterranean cult elsewhere. Nevertheless in conversation he returned to Triumph often, and though he had nothing of a particularly gruesome nature to recall, I noticed a distinct change in his voice and his eyes whenever the topic came up. Slowly I became convinced that there was more to this story than I was being told. I suspected my friend of no trickery, but assumed that perhaps he had only touched the surface of something, something more subtle than he had at first imagined, and though he had concluded the search was pointless, I suspected there was perhaps more to be found.

   It being summer, my friend had gone home to his parents’ house in Moncton by the time my curiosity got the better of me and I had decided on a trip to the mysterious town. I penned him a letter, explaining my intentions and asking for directions and advice. Now that I had his reply, my planning could begin in earnest. Sitting down at my kitchen table, I opened the envelope and read the following:

   July 14, 1958

   Dear Jason,

   Glad to hear from you! I’m happy to hear that everything is going well. Aside from a devastating kind of boredom, I am also in relatively good spirits. I have found work as a government clerk. It pays well but is quite tedious, and I am looking forward to returning to the collegiate life.

   So you’re planning to visit Triumph, are you? Listen, my friend, I think I should tell you at the outset that I think it’s a bad idea. It’s not for your safety that I caution you, merely to keep you from wasting your time. Triumph, aside from lacking any kind of interesting legend that I could come across, is simply not a very hospitable town. It’s a fishing village of three hundred at most, with very little in the way of modern conveniences. The local people aren’t overly fond of outsiders and will not treat you with a great deal of hospitality. Were there something of note worth recording about the folklore of Triumph (which I seriously doubt there is) you’d need the devil himself to get it out of them.

   If you are determined to see Triumph, however, I can try to help as best I can. I don’t know exactly how to get there, only that it’s quite near Lunenberg. I simply went to Lunenberg and offered a man with a pickup truck a dollar for a drive out there. I suggest you try to make a similar arrangement to save yourself some trouble; half of the small towns on the shore aren’t even on most maps, and I doubt seriously that Triumph is on any.

   Once you get to Triumph, there’s a large granite building near the waterfront. Its owner is a man named Cyrus Peterson, and he rents a few rooms to travelers. It’s hardly luxurious, but it’s the closest thing to a hotel you’re going to find. It’s also worth noting that Cyrus and his son Jebediah were the greatest help in my own research, as they are much more amenable to outsiders than the rest of the townsfolk. Cyrus is greatly learned in the town’s history and Jebediah is quite familiar with its streets and locales. He may be willing to show you around, and his father will be happy to tell you anything you care to learn, as long as you provide him an ample supply of whiskey. I will write them now and tell them a friend of mine may be stopping in.

   Beyond that there’s little I can tell you. If you’re hell-bent on going through with this then I wish you the best of luck, although again, I would advise against it. When a town like Triumph is subjected to the investigational brilliance of a man like myself, nothing remains unhidden!

   Warm Regards,
   David Riley

   The caution he advised did not seem strange to me at the time. David often remarked on Triumph’s dullness, but I knew that there were stories everywhere, probably more numerous in places where other forms of entertainment are sparse. I was quite happy to read that the town had a hotel and that what seemed like a very knowledgeable resident had been alerted to my arrival. I was certain that this was merely a matter of asking the right questions, which my friend had not done. I was getting a good feeling about this trip and felt sure I would uncover something fascinating about the town of Triumph. I packed my things and set off for the road.


   That day the weather favored me, which was a stroke of luck, because the traffic did not. I walked for what seemed like ten miles before a passing motorist acknowledged my desperate thumb and pulled over to let me in. The driver was a young woman who talked my ear off about nearly every aspect of her life. That ride took me most of the way to Lunenberg; the rest of the trip I shared with several large bags of grain in the back of a rumbling, coughing flatbed. I arrived in Lunenberg at a fortuitous time, when several residents of the nearby villages were gathering supplies. I found a teenager who was in town buying huge spools of rope and he offered me a ride free of charge, which I gladly accepted.

   The drive took about half an hour. From Lunenberg the road grew narrower and more rough. We turned on to what seemed like an access road, barely wide enough for the truck itself; once or twice my driver had to carefully detour into the woods to allow the passage of other vehicles coming from the other direction. Small hand-painted signs pointed this way and that, down roads even more close and tangled. We turned at the sign marked TRIUMPH and bumped along through clawing branches for a mile or so before the forest suddenly dropped away and I saw we were driving through a large yellowish field. Far to the right, that field drew close to the endless storm-grey ocean which lapped at Triumph’s weathered shore. A slight mist turned to heavy fog quickly as we drove, and evening began to close in. Looking out the window, I saw first scattered sheds and warehouses, then poorly-maintained houses on the perimeter, becoming more dense and somewhat more presentable the closer we got to the town proper. When we arrived at what I took to be the main road, there were very few people on the streets. Peering into windows I saw large stoic mothers preparing bottomless stews on wood stoves.

   “Well, you going anywhere in particular?” my young driver asked. It was one of a very few things he’d said since we met.

   “Do you know a Cyrus Peterson? I was told he rents rooms.”

   “Yeah.” the youth replied curtly, taking the next right. After a few seconds we were outside the hotel. Large and granite-faced, stained with the rains of decades by the sea. Not ominous, but ancient and lifeless, grey. A light, cold rain was beginning to fall. In the yellowing glow of a streetlight the rain billowed like sheets in the wind, washing against the granite behemoth. Somewhere the rain dripped and plinked onto something metal. I climbed down from the cab.

   “I live up the street here, brown house. You need anything, let me know.” I turned to thank my driver but he was already pulling away. The look he gave me as he drove away was not a trusting one.

   Eager to get out of the rain myself, I went into the hotel. I was in a sort of parlor, and the rooms were suffused in a dull yellow light. To one end of the room was a massive wooden desk. From a door behind the desk, a large man suddenly burst into the room. He was broad-chested and stout, wearing a white shirt to match his hair and chomping on the end of an unlit cigar. He gave me a grin.

   “Hello there!” he called. “Hell of a night, isn’t it?” I looked out a dirty window and saw that the light rain had turned into a proper storm. Waves of rain crashed and foamed in the street. A gust of wind shook the window in its sash.

   “Yes,” I replied. “It came on fast. I hope it’s not here to stay.”

   “Oh, don’t you worry about that,” the man smiled. “It’ll blow itself out soon. We get lots of little squalls like this around here. I’ll bet it’ll be a fine day tomorrow.”

   “Good to hear.” I stepped up to the desk. “You must be Cyrus Peterson?”

   The man nodded. “And yourself?”

   “I’m a friend of David Riley, I was told he’d written to inform you of my arrival.”

   “Oh yes, that’s right. That guy was out of his head. Thought we were some crazy people out here.” Cyrus laughed loudly. “Imagine that! I believe he’d been listening a bit too long to those shows on the radio.”

   Cyrus saw me to a comfortable room. As David had warned, modern conveniences were conspicuously absent. What troubled me most was the lack of a telephone; I had expected at least to see one behind the counter downstairs. When I asked, Cyrus told me that telephones had simply never become popular in Triumph. “Nobody sees the point,” he told me. “Everybody you’d want to talk to lives right down the street.” However, aside from the lack of the telephone and the general antiquated appearance of the furniture and appliances, the room seemed perfectly reasonable. I was suddenly struck by a profound exhaustion. I had hoped to stay up late and try to get some stories out of Cyrus, but instead I simply laid back on my bed, kicked off my shoes and drifted into a deep sleep.

   I was suddenly awoken several hours later by something I could not identify. I thought it had been a dog’s bark, but upon reflection I was sure there had been no noise at all. Nevertheless my every muscle was tensed, my hands in tight fists, my eyes staring fixedly into the inky black void in front of me. I was sure something was outside my window.

   Turning and switching on the tiny electric light on my bedside table, I walked to the window and opened it. Outside I saw nothing but the rain, lessened again now, drifting over the street like fine snow. If there was something here it was here no longer. With a sigh I turned back to my bed, prepared to surrender my search and go back to sleep. Just then, in the corner of my eye, I noticed something moving. My eyes snapped to a small figure, hidden almost completely in shadow, only the suggestion and metaphor of a person amidst blackness. A young woman, perhaps, huddling in a fetal position, hands covering eyes in equal parts shame and fear. Nothing was said but I knew her name. It was Ellen Daress.

   And then the room was flooded with light. I was in my bed. The corner of the room where the figure had been was empty. The window was still shut, the light on the table extinguished. For all its imagined reality, my encounter with the figure had been a dream and nothing more. Yet the name would not leave me and remained foremost in my mind as I climbed out of bed and looked for the shower.