They say in London, you are never further than six feet away from a rat. Well, the same can be said for death. For beneath the city’s streets are mounds of bodies. Plague pits, to be precise.
Upon moving to London, I was surprised at the considerable difference in the tube network between the north side of the city and the south. Transport links seemed so much better north of the river and I was curious to find out why.
Bodies, I was told.
They couldn’t dig far enough down to expand the tube network because of the pits. The southern part of the city, it seemed, was built over one large burial ground. A particularly famous department store was built over one and as a result, the basement floor is angled at a peculiar tilt as the construction workers were forced to navigate their way around an exceptionally large burial pit.
I accepted this explanation and didn’t give it much more thought. The flat I had found to rent was north of the city, so whatever was going on underfoot further south had little bearing on me.
Or so I thought.
I should have guessed by the name of the street.
Primrose Gardens.
Sounds pretty, doesn’t it? And it was. I thought I had landed on my feet when I secured the spacious basement flat in the quiet, tree-lined street of Belsize Park.
But everything comes at a cost. And the cost of this flat was that I would be sharing it with a number of restless souls, unbeknown to me at the time.
For primroses and death go hand in hand. They were planted over plague pits to mask the stench of decay emanating through the soil where bodies upon bodies lay.
It began with faint knocks. Shortly after moving in, I would wake to strange noises coming from underneath the floorboards. I put it down to rats at first. It was an old Victorian townhouse, converted into flats so rats and mice were not uncommon in buildings as old as these. But the traps I had laid, amounted to nothing.
It wasn’t long before the knocks turned to scratches. They sounded as though they were coming from within the walls.
After some time, the scratches turned to disembodied voices. I awoke one night hearing my name circling the room as if passed around in a sinister game of Chinese whispers. Burying my head under the covers, I willed for it to stop, praying to a god I had given up on a long time ago. I am not a religious person but the next day I dug out my grandmother’s prayer beads and hung them on my bedframe and they have accompanied me ever since. Moving out at that point was not an option so I convinced myself it was just my imagination playing tricks on me in the dark.
It was around that time I started to see what appeared to be faint faces in the bathroom floor tiles. No matter how hard I scrubbed at the floor, the faces would reappear. The psychologist in me knew our brains were hardwired to search for faces in everything even where there are none, so again, I tried to tell myself this was all in my head.
Events took a turn for the worse shortly after meeting Chris. Activity within the flat was always at its peak in the early hours of the morning, usually between 1am and 4am. Chris woke one night feeling a presence close to his face. Afraid to open his eyes, he heard a voice whisper in his right ear;
Touch my face.
He froze in fear as he heard the voice permeating his right ear as the only other person in the room was me. On his left.
Unable to move and too frightened to make a sound, Chris held his breath until he felt the presence retreat.
Shaking me awake, Chris told me we needed to leave immediately and to pack a bag.
Where? I asked in my hazy state. It was 2am. I told him to stop imagining things, I must have been talking in my sleep and he was confused at where the sound was coming from.
It was then we heard the rattle coming from the kitchen. Sitting bolt upright in bed I turned and reached for Chris.
A crash emanated from across the corridor and we raced out of bed into the kitchen.
The contents of the cutlery drawer were scattered all over the floor as if someone had yanked out the drawer and overturned it. Behind us the bedroom door slammed shut.
Grabbing my hand, Chris pulled us out of the kitchen and towards the front door. We fled up the stairwell to the street outside, not stopping for a moment to look behind us for fear of what may be following.
We stood in the street shivering from the cold but too afraid to go back for our things. In our haste we hadn’t thought to pick up our phones, money or Chris’ housekeys so we had to rely on the goodwill of a neighbour giving us shelter for a few hours until we could brave the return in daylight to collect our belongings and leave the flat for good.
We were spared that night thankfully by a kind neighbour who took us in. We told her what had happened, expecting her to think we were crazy but she sat calmy, nodding in quiet agreement and drinking her tea as we shared our story.
When finished, she sat in silence, staring into her cup for a few moments before speaking.
“Well, you lasted longer than previous tenants. They don’t tend to stay for more than a few nights. I guess it’s time you found out about the poor souls who lay here beneath the primroses.”
Now, it was our turn to listen. I could see Jean’s hands tremble as she clutched her mug tightly to her chest.
“You must understand, this is their land we are sat on,” she explained. “It angers them that we just carry on with our lives, not even giving them a thought.”
“Who?” I asked.
“The dead,” Jean replied. “You see, there is so much unrest here. The city had run out of room. The cemeteries were full from where the disease had ripped through London. Mercilessly taking anyone in it’s path. The plague showed no favour over rich or poor, adult or child. All who came across it suffered a slow, agonising death. They were deprived of a funeral, and here they lie, stacked beneath our feet in unconsecrated ground.”
Hearing Jean’s words made my blood run cold. Chris and I exchanged a nervous look as she continued.
“But the problem wasn’t just where to bury everyday townsfolk who had perished. This was and still is a city rife with unsavoury types. Crime was a problem then as much as it is now, and the disease was spreading like wildfire through the prisons. We housed some of the country’s most wicked criminals here in London, and they, too, had to be buried somewhere. And that brings us on to one in particular. His name was Edward Munn.”
At the mention of his name, the lights above us flickered, and I felt a chill pass through me.
Jean, looking unperturbed, paused to take a sip from her tea.
“It seems we may have company. It’s okay, he can’t actually hurt us, god knows he has tried.”
I stood up hastily, almost knocking my drink over.
“You know, I’m so grateful for you taking us in Jean, I really am but Chris and I really should be going as it’s getting light outside so we’ll get what we need from the flat and go.”
Chris reached for my hand and pulled me back down gently.
“I know you are scared, darling. So am I but I really think we need to listen to what Jean has to say.”
I nervously agreed and cuddled into Chris as we listened to Jean’s story.
“They say Edward Munn was the personification of the devil himself. He was evil to the core. He was found guilty of rape and the dismembering of his victims — mostly women and children. He would travel from place to place, taking refuge in the bowels of some of the city’s most deprived abodes where he would imprison and torture his victims before they begged for the sweet mercy of death to release them. He would perform satanic rituals on them, and strange carvings were found on the body pieces retrieved. When he was eventually arrested and convicted, he was awaiting execution, but the plague got to him before the hangman’s noose.”
“Are you saying his body was buried here?” I asked.
Jean nodded slowly. “But worse than that, legend has it, Munn wasn’t actually dead when he was buried. The jailors hated Munn, and it played into their hands perfectly when they found out he had the plague. They waited until he was too weak to resist before carting him up here themselves and tossing him into the pit, allowing him to fester here before being buried alive. They thought this was justice for his victims, but Munn’s alleged dealings with the devil meant the rage he took with him in death, spread like a cancer in the ground where he lay.”
I nestled into Chris tightly and wrapped the blanket around me. I couldn’t shake off the feeling we were being watched.
“Since the houses were built, misfortune has followed many whom have lived here. They say the ground is cursed. Everything which tries to grow here will spoil. Did you not notice the trees stop midway up the street? No one has lawns here, only patio. Even plants must be potted, for they cannot grow from the soil. If you pay close enough attention, you’ll notice birds don’t fly over this part of the street.”
“Can I ask what has kept you here for all these years?” I could hear the tremble in my voice as the realisation dawned that what she had said about the street was true, I just hadn’t noticed.
“Everything I ever loved, I lost in this house,” Jean said, looking away absently. “We lost our son at a young age and my husband never came to terms with his death. He lost his mind, blaming himself and I came home one day to find he had hung himself in the bathroom. I have no other family and I wouldn’t know where to go. Somehow, in some strange way, I still feel close to them both here.”
I reached for Jean’s hand and took it in mine.
It was then we heard the muffled footsteps coming from behind the door across the hallway.
“What’s behind that door, Jean? I thought you lived alone?” I asked, my voice trembling as my intuition was screaming at me to flee from the house.
Jean looked at me, wide-eyed, her face white as a sheet. “I do live alone, that door leads down to the cellar,” she whispered. “I think we need to — ”
Before Jean could finish, we scrambled to our feet and made haste towards the front door. As the safety of daylight embraced us, I turned to glance back just in time to see the figure of a man standing in the murky darkness of the cellar doorway. Sodden, decaying bandages hung from his grey skin, his cold, dead eyes fixed on us, harbouring such evil they could only belong to the devil himself. As we ran into the street, the last thing I saw as the door closed behind us was the man’s arm extending from the shadows, pointing a long boney finger as his black lips upturned into a cruel sneer.
Edward Munn had returned.