The Last Hour of Arthur Oggleharrow

By Marshall Cunningham

“Five, four, three—” “You’re not helping.”

“I never said I was.” “Mm.”

DING! DING! DING!

The entirety of Damwell Hall quaked from the central clock’s roar. 3 AM arrived.

One hour remained.

Lord Oggleharrow shook his head as a nasty, blood-laced cough ripped through his throat. Little red flecks stained the beige carpet of the dining room. He didn’t bother to clean them. Instead, his pale green eyes stared at the maroon marks. His eyebrows, the only hair left sticking to his sun-spotted head, had always been akin to two skinned skunks slapped across his face. Their furrowing at the sight of the blood made his wrinkles ripple like a lake post-oil spill, opaque cheeks stretched hard against sharpened bone and chapped lips frowned like a vulture who’d robbed a family of three of their prized puppies instead of four.

The apparition sighed across the table from him. She glowed a faint, hollow green, but still kept the features that she’d had in the minutes before her own death: twisted nose, frazzled gray hair, discolored eyes (one purple, one hazel), and warts up and down from her forehead to her bare, disgruntled, two-toe-missing feet.

“It’s not as scary as you think it’ll be.” Lady Kensdale tried to reply to the brutish outburst with some comfort, sliding away her ticking pocket watch as she did. She was, afterall, the closest living owner. The other ghosts didn’t care so much about Arthur now. He’d been running the manor for far longer than any of them ever had. They wanted him dead. They wanted him to be with them. Then they could enjoy him–maybe with a little less of his pompous arrogance, too.

“I told you, I’m not worried,” the elderly man, one arm gone and a cane permanently gripped in his “free” hand, replied. “I’ll only miss taste. I’ve had the same peppermint and lavender tea for thirty years now. You expect me to survive without it?”

“Well, it won’t be ‘surviving’—”

“Oh, enough!” shouted the Lord. He hobbled into one of the oaken chairs and stared at his bare rose-colored cup. “I’m not scared, Marge. I’m not. Got me?”

“So I’ve heard,” she said, drifting down in the chair beside him. It took great effort to stay in one position, to give some semblance of looking like she was sitting.

“I chose this. I knew the terms when I signed. I…I’ve lived here, alone from the world, with you all, and…and I’ll die and end it just like I agreed to. There. Nothing more—”

“And nothing less, I understand,” nodded the lady. “You still have time to write, you know. Don’t you have some estranged wife or kid to leave something to?”

“I did that when I left them,” he said after another bloody cough. “They think I’m dead already.”

“Oh, beat them to it, then. But I will say—”

BOOM!!

The door to the dining parlor swung open as two more ghosts—twins by the shape of their jagged blonde curls, oversized suits, and burnt faces—burst in pushing a trolley clattering with tea.

“Merry Death Day, Lord Oggleharrow!” shouted the one on the right.

“Hour to go! What a show!” the other cried out with glee.

“Oh you hags!” yelled Kensdale. “You never celebrated my Death Day like this!”

“I don’t remember you being the longest ruling monarch of Damwell!” joked Lord Junie Folleyton as Lord Mooney Folleyton drifted the steaming kettle towards the table.

“I take it back,” groaned Arthur. “If I have to serve with these fools, I’m scared like a demon in heaven.”

“You’re just tired, Oggy,” said Mooney, filling up his cup. “We all know the feeling. But just think it—a few measly minutes and there won’t be a lick more pain or feeling or worry. Just floating around and finally settling down with us.”

“I’m overwhelmed with joy.”

His tone didn’t agree.

With a shaky hand, he reached over and sipped the peppermint lavender tea. His throat burned at the back of his molars; his nose flared at the stirring, biting smell. “But it’s good boys. Thank you.”

“A pleasure as always,” nodded Mooney.

“Let’s just hope the next fella won’t be so pushy for his daily tea! I’ll make you serve it to him, Oggy, just you wait,” Junie joked.

“Who is the next one here anyway? Has there been any word?” asked Lady Kensdale.

“A man much younger than I was when I arrived.”

“He sickly?”

“No.”

“Suicidal?”

“Not yet.”

“Running away from family, friends, loved ones, and duties of the outside world?”

“Seems something close to that.”

“Aaaahhhh,” sighed the twins simultaneously, “Seems like a classic in the making, then.” Arthur wanted to laugh but couldn’t risk another cough. Forcing one out would cost him a quarter of his hour, maybe more. Instead, he took another sip. That turned into a swig. That turned into a downing of the entire cup.

He’d been a classic. Two kids, a wife, two dogs, a cat—the American dream, one might say. But they just irritated him. He couldn’t have that peace he wanted. That precious, precious stillness that comes from a worryless life. He taught himself how to hate them and looked for a way out. The paper talked about some manor in England–he thought he could get a job there as a butler or something close. It was far away from America. Far enough away to feel dead, if not seem it. Upon learning more, though, he found out the truth. You don’t work at Damwell, you own it. Or, for a better term, rent it. You get the life of burdenless luxury living exactly how you want, and in turn, when you die, you serve the others coming in. Simple as that.

He awoke from his remembrance to find Marge yet again in a bantering battle between the twins, this time lecturing them on how they deserved their deaths when the pool house caught fire some hundred years back.

“Mooney!” cut in Arthur. He raised both his cup and himself, careful not to topple to the ground. “Another fill. And leave the rest in the kitchen for later.”

The ghost obeyed, but not without a childish smirk.

“Leaving us already, ol’ chap?”

“Don’t say that!” burst out his twin. “He won’t be gone for another fifty-five minutes!”

“Enough, enough, enough!” The Lord took another draught of tea before hobbling towards the looming, lavish door leading out of the dining room. “I intend to spend my last hour in peace, got me?” None of the servants questioned him. They shuffled, casting awkward looks around to each other, and slowly started to float away. “Just…just have some decency for a moment, will you! Now…” He turned back to the door instead of facing them. “Good day.”

Damwell’s halls swallowed Arthur. He wobbled like a defeathered bird lost in scarlet twists and burgundy turns. The walls rose hundreds of feet high, the scarce light of candles leaving the ceiling and chandeliers abandoned in the darkness. Briefly, they paused around turns and became gilded railings. From there one could look down and see the coming and going of staircases, libraries, drawing rooms, servant quarters—it was safe to say that, in comparison to other English manors, Damwell was closer to a castle than some home.

Damwell was composed of nine stories, each stuffed not only with every need Lord Oggleharrow could dream of, but also with all the other ghosts who came before him and the dreams their wants procured. The libraries (sorted by author, A-Z) contained every book ever written; the theater, added by Lord Stobbencrone in the early 30s, played any film one could want; the kitchens overflowed with any food at any time; no Lord or Lady dared lack in Damwell. After their reign? Well, those are different stories…

Arthur passed many on his way through the Hall. Echoes of a blabbering cry came from a lone corridor belonging to Edwin Grissleman. He’d been in tears the last three hundred years. There was no changing him now. Further along, Catlyn Lylittle, a former princess dethroned, slapped around her backbone-less lover, Viktor J. Jentle. Through the walls, their bickering disturbed the Hall’s strictest butler, Sir Romneydale, who belittled the pair to the point of tears. They didn’t care. Well, Viktor did, but he didn’t dare show it lest he be beat down into the floors below.

This noise–the incessant, depressing, irritable noise–multiplied down every hall, up every stair, and into each and every room. How had the Lord tolerated it for so long? Why must it annoy him now! At the end of days of all times!

His limping on his cane could only move him so far but, thankfully, far enough to a quiet reprieve at the Hall’s furthest edge, to a lane of windows painting a scene of the rich, rolling hills and tufts of shrubby trees surrounding the home. Autumn would soon be fading into winter. Already the leaves had turned tawny, the wooden skeletons littering the horizon. For Arthur, it was a beautiful sight, one of his favorites.

Yet the drape of nightfall still covered it.

That didn’t stop Lord Oggleharrow from staring out into the darkness. It was a privilege to, really. The ghosts weren’t able to look outside. For all their powers, be it to drift through walls or know the time of the current owner’s death, that had to be the biggest downside.

He set his cane against the wall and let his hand rest along the windowsill. The brief flicker of candlelight behind him made the faint image of his face flash against the black. Had he really begun to look so…gone? The sickness had taken the last of his hair and shrunk his fingers skeletal. But his face…his eyes sat lower than before. How long was it since they stood tall? Gazed across the grounds with dignity?

Where had the time gone?

And when did he leave with it?

Groaning, he looked past his reflection before his paleness could fade into a light shade of green. The outer darkness still remained. A part of him always wondered what the world would look like on the day he died. He’d grown up imagining it a wasteland. War would consume everything eventually, so why try. At least, that was the sentiment back home. The days would be long and red, and his body nothing more than another corpse in the charred, broken wasteland. So it was a good surprise that trees and grass still bloomed and changed with the seasons. Even if no one could see them now.

But back home…the idea lingered longer with him than he’d suspected, just as it had earlier at Marge’s mention. It used to cross his mind more frequently in the first few years after his arrival. Now it seemed more like a dream, or a memory he couldn’t quite see. What would it look…

No, he couldn’t. It was a waste of his time, his precious time, mind you.

But just a thought. A few seconds to linger.

That worked, for the black started to fade in the elder man’s eyes, revealing the wide, endless scape of the Nebraska plains. The wheat still drifted against the wind like the sea. Their golden shimmers made the small ramshackle house, a chipping yet vivid white, look like a boat drifting away from shore.

It looked exactly as he left it. Perhaps the inside too would still be as it was, with its thin walls and tight rooms. If he thought hard enough he could just about picture it…

“I’m not giving him up!”

“For the love of GOD, Lucille! We can’t afford another one!”

“So just kill him, huh? ‘Fore he even gets a chance?”

“You think this is a chance? Really? Really!?”

“It’s better than death! Stop talkin’ like this, Johnny! You’re better than that.”

“Better than what, huh? Better than trying to provide for the four of us, barely scraping by when I do? Why don’t you go out there and slave all day!”

“No, you’re better than some devil!”

“45 minutes remain.”

Blood splattered upon the glass. The shock of Marge’s voice broke Arthur from his dream and into a cough that almost dropped him to his knees.

“Y-You, you,” he tried to mutter while regaining himself, “you wench!”

The woman smiled and barely concealed her laughter with a wink.

“Just keeping you on schedule. This how you plan to spend your final moments? Staring out at, what, nothing—”

“No!” His shout both cut her off and echoed down the rest of the hall. “I’m resting my mind, Marge, and… and planning. Now, where’s Mikles?”

“I saw him last in Library K. And you ask for him why?”

Arthur adjusted his grip on the cane. He squinted his pale green gaze at the ghost.

“To talk to the only person here with some sense!”

Library K was only a few flights down from the window. The Lord hobbled his way in and found, drifting between the shelves with a duster in hand, the 84th Lord of Damwell Hall, Rasper Mikles. His rotund gut pushed out his patchwork coat jacket and made the already oversized suit pants dangle over the tops of his shoes. The man’s patchy black hair faded into a scattered mustache loosely gripping his face. Little moles dotted around and matched his rich, hazel eyes that, upon spotting Arthur, grew.

“Merry Death Day, Artie!” cried the ghost, rushing down and saluting the Lord. “Little less than an hour now, yes?”

“Forty-four minutes, as Marge reminds me.”

“Oh she would, wouldn’t she? But with so little time, it’s surprising to see you here.” Nodding, Arthur limped forward. He reclined in one of the deep maroon chairs placed in the library’s heart. The endless lanes of tomes rose so high around the pair just looking up made even the ghosts dizzy.

“I’m here because you’re the sanest one in this whole place, Mikles,” he sighed, resting his cane against the chair. “The only one I can tolerate at this time.” The complement took the jiggly man by surprise. He straightened his back and fiddled with this top button, hoping it would hold this time.

“Oh, why thank you, m’Lord! I know we’re friends and all, but this is, why—”

“Just sit,” Arthur mumbled. Mikles nodded and floated into the chair opposite him, leaning in and ready to hear his master’s words. “Tell me about your Death Day. You mentioned details ages ago, but I want the full story now.” Arthur averted looking directly at Mikles whilst he asked. He let his bony fingers dance across the slackened sleeve of robe.

“It would be my pleasure! It’s not a fun tale, I warn you.”

“Just tell it. I haven’t got much time.”

“Yes, of course, of course. Mine was nothing more than a horrible surprise. Just horrible! I was here just shy of three months when I was axed off. None of the ghosts dared tell me. Say what you will of them, Artie, but most respect you more than they lead on. But anyway, I digress. It was a train accident of all things, a train! I’d gotten lost trying to find my way back one night and ended up following some railings. Now yes, there may have been alcohol from the cellars involved, I admit, but I was just a lost man! Lost and then crushed just like that. No warning! None at all!”

Mikles’ story continued on, delving into every single detail of the night. Arthur found himself drifting from it entirely. It was only when it hit him that close to half an hour remained that he jumped back into reality and cut into the servant’s talk.

“What about before Damwell?”

What! What kind of question was that! Why had he even asked it? He was supposed to be away from his prior life, not trying to pry further into it!

Before he could retract it, Mikles rubbed his tubby hands together in anticipation.

“I’d thought you’d never ask! I like to say I was in the line of charity work, just…not in the eyes of the charity. I’d ‘scam’ them as some might say. It was through plenty of different avenues, be it false claims, false products, false promises, you name it. A real snake oil salesman.”

“Eh, there are worse people here,” joked Arthur. Part of him wished to pull out of the conversation, but the other begged to stay.

“Without a doubt! I know you’ve heard of what Lady Yarborough pulled.”

“Mhm. But why did you do it? What makes a man want to rob charities for a living?”

“Children, Artie! It’s always the children, the family, that sorta ruckus.”

His regret won over.

While Mikles rambled on about the charities still technically giving to the needy, Lord Oggleharrow faded back into his mind. The words overpowered the ghost’s. They came from all angles. All sides. They wrapped around his neck like a chain.

“Johnny, baby, please! Please, you can’t be doin’ this!”

“I ain’t changing my mind!”

“You promised! I did what you wanted! I got him out, I took a job! What more can I do?”

“Get off the ground and back in that house!”

“J-J-Johnny, no, y-you can’t!”

“Get! Up!”

“Baby! Baby!”

“Let go of me!”

“Teddy! Adalaide! Come out, please!”

“Those kids come out and I’ll knock all three of you out cold.”

“Sto-o-o-op, baby, please, you can’t leave!”

“I said, GET! OFF!”

“And that’s when I said to the lady, no ma’am, the cream helps your elbows, not your knees!”

Arthur grappled at his neck only to find nothing but saggy skin. His sudden awakening and shivers didn’t stop Mikles at all. The conman just kept running his mouth about his favorite scheme.

But as the Lord began to catch his breath, he gazed intently at his ghastly friend, more than he ever had before. He watched the way his chin wobbled against his collar; the curl of his lip with every laugh; the twist of his hands to illustrate the exact details of his crime. In that moment, Rasper Mikles brought a rage into his Lord. His rambles annoyed him just as much as the twins, or the criers, or Marge who began floating into the library with her watch out and ready. Not even the best of Damwell were good enough. They all came from evil and continued its legacy with every word and step and blink and breath—

“30 minutes, Lord Oggleharrow.”

His eyes cut to her. Squinted.

Had he any strength left, he would have beat away the ghost with his cane. Instead, he stared on as a dribble of blood leaked from his mouth.

“Daddy! Don’t go!”

Why now?

“Why do you gotta leave?”

Stop.

“Please stay!”

Please.

Arthur flung himself into the kitchens. The burst from the door startled both the Folleyton twins and the girls they flirted with, Emmadale Tithe and Mae Faithley, the pair matching their ages.

“Oh, Oggy,” said Junie with a jolt. “Back for the tea?”

“I’m here,” the Lord wheezed through clenched teeth, slinging himself past the ghosts and towards the stock of food and drinks lined along the metal counters, “for it all.” He snatched his cup from the counter. His lone, trembling hand made the cup wag against his lips, giving him a mere taste of the tea. It was cold–the heat long gone, leaving only the bitterness.

Arthur looked down into the cup. Streaks of red ran across the purple liquid.

“You can turn around! You don’t have to do this!”

“Quiet!” he roared back.

“Sir, we didn’t say anything,” Mooney replied, only for Arthur to continue his yapping.

“You’re gone! All of you, gone, gone, gone!” He slid further along the counter, doing what he could to stand and grab food at the same time. Strawberries, blueberries, muffins, crackers–all were blindly tossed into his mouth. He didn’t even care to swallow. He only wanted the taste. The movement. The distraction.

“I’m so sorry, Johnny, I am! Can’t you see that!”

Another bite.

“Daddy, what’re you doin’?”

And another.

“We’ll do anything just so you stay!”

And a cough, sending the juices and blood across the kitchen, almost taking the Lord out with it.

“Oggy!” cried the twins. They both darted to the man’s side and gave him back his cane. Once again standing, Junie wiped the thick trickles of blood from his chin.

“Death got you that wonky?”

“No, boy. I’m…I’m fine. They just won’t leave me.” Arthur’s head slunk down. The tickle in his throat signaled an incoming cough. They, along with the voices, would only grow worse, making his final minutes ones of misery. “I ignored them for too long, and…and now I’ve…I’ve let them out.”

“Who?”

Tears dripped down his cheeks.

His eyes squinted close.

“The ones I left.”

He heard the ticking before either of the ghosts. His wide, wet eyes shot over to see Marge glide into the kitchen, her pocket watch dangling towards the quarter-till mark. The warning was soon to follow. However, in his staring at the incessant apparition, he recalled the words she’d croaked at their earlier meeting.

“You still have time to write, you know.”

Maybe that’s what they needed. After all this time, just one note saying he was dead would calm them, would seal their voices and memories away before he kept them inside his mind forever.

Arthur started his hobble up again before Marge could warn him of the final 15 minutes.

He kept his hand steady just long enough to ink his quill without any spills. The loose parchment tucked under the heaps of books in his tight, candle-lit study would have to do. Three more coughs had left flecks of blood sprinkling the edges. He didn’t mind it. The ticking of his own clock gave him seven seconds past ten minutes to finish. Usually that time was taken by perfecting your eternal style, be it garments or grooming. The sharp brows and loose robe would have to do.

“Dear Lucille,” Arthur mumbled aloud to give clarity to his strokes. “I know it’s been a…a…a long while. But I write to you now. To say. I’m dead.”

The last word bubbled like erupting tar. Any closer and it might pull him in too early, smother him and turn his bones into the fossilization of a bony, prickly scab of scum. Looking at the word made it, for the first time, actually seem…real.

“My life, it’s been longer than expected. It’s been plentiful. But surrounded by scoundrels. I leave with nothing more to give. Apart from this notice. That I’m…gone.” He eased the quill down and let his eyes drift close. He’d done it. Lucille and the kids, wherever they were, would finally know what had happened to their father. The voices could rest now. His final moments wouldn’t be disturbed with the pain of the past. Only the thoughts of his eternal future.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

“Is that all you’re gonna say? Not even goodbye?”

“No, no, please, please! Let me go! Get away from me!” The shouts of Arthur Oggleharrow boomed throughout the entirety of Damwell Hall. He tossed aside his cane, threw the books at the invisible sounds bashing against his brain. “What else can I do! What else can I SAY?”

In the throes of his horror, the man slipped from his chair and crumbled on the floor. Kicking, screaming, crying.

“You’re gonna write us, right?”

“When will you come back?”

“I can’t, Ted! I can’t, Addy!”

“Why, Daddy?”

“What we gotta do to make you stay?”

“Nothing! It was never you, my babies. It was me. Me! ME!”

“Why won’t you tell ‘em the truth, Johnny? Why can’t you just admit it!?”

“I–I–I, I…I…”

His hand slammed against the wood of the desk. It lifted him up. High enough to see the page’s edge.

It gripped the quill. Dipped it back into the ink. Pressed it against the parchment. “I’m…sorry.” He wrote through fierce, bubbling tears searing his cheeks like boiling water. “I’m sorry, Lucy. I’m sorry Theodore, Adalaide, and…Johnny Jr. I was wrong. I was death walking. No. I am. I…I ask for your forgiveness. I don’t deserve it. I’m wicked. I deserve what’s about to happen.” He could hardly keep his eyes clear to finish his final line, the paper a droopy mess of water, ink, and blood. “In my final moments, you’re all I could ever want. If I could leave this place and come back home…I would.”

The quill dropped with a burst of tears. Arthur Oggleharrow covered his face with his hand to shield from the fires of shame and sorrow licking and lapping against him. He moaned. He whined. He begged and begged and begged to be set free.

Anything.

He’d give anything to take back what he’d done.

It was only when his tears ran out and voice grew hoarse that he let his guard drop. All lay still inside the study. All apart from the still moving clock that ticked! over to 3:57. Three minutes until his death. Three minutes until the blood rising in his lungs would drown him in the Damwell halls. But, for the first time in the full span, the entirety of life, the notion didn’t scare him. No. It made him smile

The Lord shot back to the paper and reread the final line.

If he could…he would.

Three minutes. It was all he had.

It would have to be enough.

With the last drop of ink he scratched out his signature at the page’s bottom; not the fanciful loops and tangles Arthur Oggleharrow would have written, the name nothing more than a guise used to hide his identity and conform to the Damwell ways. He put down the straight print of a husband, a father, and a newly redeemed man.

He signed as Johnny Irving.

Quiet streaks of light had begun to crack through the darkened cloud outside the window as Johnny hobbled by. Despite the cane, he descended the staircases with ease. The study had thankfully been only a few halls over from the exit of Damwell, marked a hulking oaken door and the entirety of the former Lords and Ladies crowded around, awaiting his arrival. The hundreds of hollow green glows shook him at first. They all looked upon him with eager grins. Soon, in barely two minutes, his body would collapse into a lifeless husk. The long-lived Lord of Damwell finally at the bottom of the ranks.

“So he arrives, barely in time!” Lady Kensdale shouted to the crowd. They roared and cheered as Johnny landed on the final step. “Come to end the celebration with us, your Lordship?”

“Move, Marge!” he fired back. The old man went right through her without a second thought.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Her cry was almost lost in the mumbled confusion of the crowd. They all watched Johnny race through them. One by one, be it the twins or the Mikles, he dove through, inching closer to the door.

“I’m leaving!” came his reply.

“Leaving! You can’t leave, you signed the contract!”

“Damn the contract!”

Marge didn’t waste a second. She flew over to the few feet still separating him from the door. The other ghosts followed suit, filling in the gap with yells of their own. “Oggy, have some sense, chap!”

“We were only joking about making you serve the tea!”

“This ain’t you, Artie! Don’t go out like this!”

“This is how you’re ending your life? With some crazy hope of getting out of here?” Marge’s sneer boomed louder than the rest.

Johnny felt the masses of the spirits begin to pile up. Alone, they were nothing but air; together, they shoved back like gusts of winds creeping into bellows the more they converged. “No,” he grunted through his teeth, “I know I am!”

His step lunged into the torrent of green. The ghosts pushed and pulled him away with every ounce of their might. These were meant to be his servants, his friends, his colleagues; now, they bit and snarled like demons locking him in hell.

“Keep pushing! He’s barely a minute left!” S

They were a poor choice of words. The ticks only made Johnny fight back harder. He staggered closer and closer, touching what remained of their souls, the villainy, agony, pain, torture, greed, anger, lust, hate. Every snare of evil whipped him, but he kept going. Nothing would stop him. Nothing would come between him and setting his soul free.

DING! He reached out.

DING! He gripped the knob.

DING! He turned it.

DING!