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Foreword
The house at 29 Argyle Drive was the scene of an horrific discovery in the spring of 2010 that turned the quiet, picturesque city of Christchurch into a circus of media frenzy.
The house and its history went viral and soon became the object of fervid speculation and conjecture on occult websites all over the world. Later, it was seized upon by extreme Christian sites, as the dire warning on the previous page shows.
Many people recalled strange things that had happened to them in the house long before it became front-page news. One posting, by way of example, is reprinted here.
…I am a retired businessman, residing in Sydney, after spending my whole career selling ball bearings and automotive steering systems. In 1992, I was visiting New Zealand on a business trip. My business was mostly in Auckland, but I had to make a side-trip down to Christchurch for a day of meetings with suppliers and distributers, scheduled for a Friday.
It had been a hectic few days already and the following Monday and Tuesday promised more of the same, so I decided, after the Friday meetings, to spend the weekend relaxing in Christchurch.
Beforehand, I made inquiries at an Auckland travel agency, and the girl there recommended a seaside suburb called Sumner as the perfect place to unwind. She showed me a selection of hotels and Bed and Breakfasts. One particular B&B attracted my attention, mostly for its reasonable rates, but also for the quaintness of the name: The Dew Drop Inn.
I booked a room there for Friday and Saturday nights and a seat on a flight back to Auckland on Sunday evening.
Friday morning, I flew down and went directly from Christchurch airport to my meeting. When the day’s business was done, I had a few pints with my colleagues in a pub, and I went out to Sumner by taxi, giving the driver the address of the B&B.
29 Argyle Drive Description:
The fictional address of the title is an old house that stands in the hills above the pretty seaside suburb of Sumner in Christchurch, New Zealand. The house is bought by a retired teacher who at the time ran an English language institute, part of Christchurch’s flourishing study-abroad industry. His plan is to shift the school from its cramped premises in the central city area out to Sumner. The neglect of more than a decade must first be cleared away. It is during this that the spiritual entities that infest the house first reveal themselves.
As the blurb says: “Some old houses are better left in the neglected state into which they have fallen…Some painful things should remain forgotten…”
The story contains all the usual suspects of the occult genre as the details of the house’s past are revealed – the Ouija Board; a séance; a terrifying walk-through of the house by New Zealand’s most famous medium; an exorcism; a stalking spiritual entity; spiritual possession and demonic possession.
The tale is set against the background of the once-beautiful city of Christchurch, which was destroyed by earthquake in February 2011.
While 29 Argyle Drive is an occult novel, it is also about our – and the media’s – obsession with things occult, as exemplified by the many thousands of websites devoted to the bizarre.
At the end, the focus shifts from a fictional horror story to a requiem for the real horror the people of Christchurch suffered on that February day; and which they still suffer.
