The Daark Archive

  (Filed under: Field Reports  Haunted Objects, Reflective Inconsistencies) Three things you should know about mirrors: They’re terrible conversationalists. They always tell the truth  but never  your  truth. They remember. I learned all three during my time in the village of Holt-on-the-Marsh, where the pub serves gin that tastes like regret and every second house has lace curtains that twitch unprompted. The Call Mrs. Alcott, seventy-three and armed with more indignation than mass, phoned to say her “hallway mirror had started gossiping.” At first, I assumed early dementia or late loneliness. Then she mentioned the voice addressed her by  my name. That tends to narrow the possibilities. When I arrived, she showed me the mirror: gilt frame, cracked along one edge, positioned at the end of a long, narrow corridor. It was the kind of object that looked like it had opinions about you. “Every night at ten,” she said, “it whispers something new. Always just one...

  (Filed under: Field Reports — Cryptids, Deception, and Inadequate Lighting) If you ever find yourself driving through Lincolnshire after midnight, and your satnav says  “recalculating”  even though you’re on the only road for miles turn around. Unless, of course, you’re me. Then you put the flask in one pocket, the crucifix in the other, and drive straight into the fog like an idiot with a PhD. That’s how I ended up in Blankly Woods. The Reports For months, locals had been whispering about  something  in the forest. Tall. Hunched. Covered in fur that glowed faintly blue when the moon was right. One farmer described it as “a werewolf that’d been through HR training.” The Ministry labelled it a  Category 3: Unverified Zoanthropic Manifestation , which is bureaucratese for  “probably a badger, but send Daark anyway.” So I went. The Scene Blankly Woods sits on the edge of nowhere, which is impressive because nowhere’s been full for decades. Trees as thic...

  (Follow-up to “The Clock That Wouldn’t Strike Twelve”) First, a note of thanks to those of you who wrote in, theorising that the brass key opened anything from a confessional to a dimensional tear in Mrs. Bellweather’s handbag. Charming ideas, all. Only one of you guessed correctly, though I suspect you were joking when you said it. You see, the key didn’t open a door. It opened a minute. Let me explain before your tea goes cold. The Return to Louth I went back two nights later, thermos refilled, self-preservation switched off. The vicar had wisely taken up temporary residence in Skegness. The church was empty save for the clock, which stared down at me like an unsympathetic god. This time I didn’t wait for 11:59. I wound the clock manually a sin against both mechanics and theology and inserted the key into the small aperture behind the pendulum. It fit. Perfectly. When I turned it, the second hand moved backwards. And so did I. The pews brightened. ...

By Sebastian Daark, Investigator of the Mildly Unwise Listen. The day began, as most regrettable ones do, with hubris and a Scotch egg. I was attempting the impossible: swallowing half a Scotch egg while inhaling tea at the same time. For a brief, operatic moment, I achieved it then immediately began dying in several directions at once. The human windpipe, it turns out, was never designed for multi-tasking. The record player had just begun crooning an old jazz number when I choked. My life flashed before my eyes—not the whole thing, just the disappointing parts. The wallpaper. The tax return. The haunted cheese grater. When the fit passed, I sat gasping at the table, the egg victorious, the tea vengeful, and the record skipping on a single phrase that sounded alarmingly like,  “again, again, again.” That was when the knock came. A single rap at the door quiet, deliberate, and at least one octave too polite for the hour. On the step sat a box. No label. No postmark. Just a small met...

  (Filed under: Field Reports  Temporal Oddities, Domestic) There’s a clock in Louth that refuses to acknowledge midnight. No matter the day, the month, or the state of the moon  it stops dead at 11:59 and stays there until precisely 12:07 . Then it starts again, ticking as if nothing strange has happened. The locals have grown used to it. They call it the polite apocalypse   the time when reality nips out for a smoke. I was asked to investigate after a vicar reported hearing the organ play itself during the missing minutes. Apparently, it only performed hymns that didn’t exist yet. The Scene The church was cold in the way only English stone can manage  the kind of chill that smells faintly of sermons and damp wool. The clock hung above the nave, brass hands trembling like a guilty conscience. Beneath it, a small brass plate read:   Donated by Mrs. Prudence Bellweather, 1824. (That year again. Always 1824. Someone somewhere rea...

  (Filed under: Field Reports — Category 6: Spirits, Miscommunication, and the Unwise Use of Latin) They called me to Cleethorpes on a Tuesday. They always call on Tuesdays. The message was brief: “Girl speaking in tongues. Priest fainted. Bring biscuits.” I arrived at dusk, which is the exact time you shouldn’t arrive anywhere haunted. The sky looked bruised. The house looked guilty. The priest  Father Cavanaugh  looked like a man who’d just remembered he was an atheist. “She’s in the parlour,” he whispered, crossing himself without conviction. “Whatever’s inside her knows your name.” Splendid. That’s always how you want to start an evening. The girl Elspeth Morrow, age fourteen  sat in a floral armchair that had seen too much. Her eyes rolled white, her lips murmured “Invenit me, invenit me…” (“It found me, it found me.”) A shadow pulsed on the wall behind her — not cast by her, but around her, like the light itself had gone off-script. I se...