Authors note: I started this with no clear idea of where I was going and found it nearly impossible to write. I’ve only just started trying to learn to write fiction and I was following the Niel Gaiman masterclass along with suggested reading. But the lockdown gave way to work and trying to save my business. The story of a boy meeting his house monsters seemed such a simple story but quickly became so hard and unwieldy that I’ve kind of written the opening chapter to something completely unexpected. Maybe I’ll return to Dean one day. Either way, this has taught me a lot aboutwhat not to do when writing. Which is good as well. Basically don’t expect much from this one. I just put it up here to show I’m doing something.
Dennis Meene
The noise just wouldn’t stop. For the first few weeks, they had been patient enough, but over time the noise had just gotten steadily louder, more strident and more obnoxious until after 30 days had passed. The patience of the youngest of them finally snapped.
“This,” he lamented, “is simply unacceptable!”
“Yes, Dennis.”
“Kraig, it’s not even summer! They aren’t meant to be here during the longer nights, do they even know the shifts we pull?!”
“Dennis,” Kraig sighed, “we’ve talked about this, they don’t even know we exist… That’s kind of the point.”
“Well it’s just rude,” Dennis folded his arms in a sulk, “should let the Woodies in one night just to show em’ how lucky they are.”
“Dennis,”
“… Yes?”
“Do you ‘really’ want one of ‘them’ inside the threshold?”
“….”
“….”
“Maybe only a small one..”
“No.”
“Fine. F-i-n-e, so what do we do? Any bright ideas? It’s nearly noon and I haven’t slept a wink. Did you know they are currently playing Cowboys & Indians, one of them hid next to me under the bed!” Dennis’s voice ended in a bit of a squeak.
“That must be very tough..”
“Under the bed! Kraig, where I was sleeping!”
An uncomfortable silence had just settled on the two when it was savagely broken by the warbling cry of a child swinging a plastic tomahawk and chasing another larger child wearing a stetson. The whirlwind of tiny forms flew through and around the speakers, as the children jumped from sofa to arm chair-throwing themselves under the dining room table and throwing various epitaphs at each other. To add to the din throughout the incursion, Barnabus, the German Shepherd, gamely kept pace barking overexcited encouragement to the tempest that was the “boys”.
Finally, after much yelling the Stetson-wearing cowboy Ben, decided that he was not in fact “dead” and was not going to play any more. With which he marched out the room with a horrified and apologising Dean chasing after him promising he would let him come back to life but he had to at least lose a limb. Barnabus made to follow them but paused at the door and glanced back
“Dennis,” he huffed cheerily, “Kraig… “ he said with less enthusiasm
“Barnabus” the two chorused back.
“Sorry about all the noise lads, this lockdown has got them going crazy.”
Kraig cleared his throats gently, “Any uh… News on that front?”
Barabus flopped his ears back and forth.
“Nothing concrete, maybe late June, or July?”
The tiniest wail could be heard from Dennis as the sound of smashing glass drifted to them from somewhere down the hall and Barnabus’s tail drooped in response,
“Well duty calls!” he barked, “Good luck tonight Lads!” and with that Barnabus barrelled off after the children, barking manically, leaving a crystal delicate silence between the speakers.
Dennis began to make little weeping, snuffling noises from his principal mouths.
“Okay,” Kraig said slowly, “ Yeah, maybe we need to do something.”
“ .. Maybe,”
“No. No “woodies” in the building, you can forget about it, Nah, there’s only one way, we’re gonna sort all this out…”
“Well, murder seems a little extreme tho…’”
“No you moron, we’re not murdering the wards; Nah, we’re going to av’ to monster-up, pierce the veil and talk to ‘em!”
“Oh.. “ Dennis dragged out the word carefully “Shit.”
“Yeah,” Kraig sighed “, this is gonna suck.”
***
It was late in the evening and the sun was low and bloated red on the horizon when Dean finally stomped into the bedroom he shared with his idiot, unfair brother. The X-box had been taken over and Ben was too far into his game to allow Dean to mess it all up. The final argument has sent Dean off to find refuge in their room biting back hot tears that certainly were NOT due to the parting shots Ben made. Also, he wanted to read, not play that dumb game anyhow.
Dean made straight for his bed and reached out for his copy of the Famous 5, not even looking at the customary spot next to his pillow where such things were always carefully placed by Mum. Confusion hit when his hand struck bed covers and sheet. Squinting in the twilight he stared dumbly as the empty spot patting his hand around as if the book would pop back into existence, eyes darting around frantically he finally noticed it peeking out from just under the bed, frowning he reached down to scoop it off the floor and then froze solid, while his fingers were still inches above the cover, he watched it smoothly and silently slide out of view. Slipping into the shadows under the bed frame.
Pulled, it had been pulled beneath the bed! Dean leapt onto the mattress making sure his ankles were far from the black slot of space where his book had been taken. He panted, mouth dry staring at the edge of the bed. He tried to squeak out a cry for help but his body betrayed him and all that came out was a high pitched squeak of panic. There was something under his bed. Just as he came to this conclusion the last lingering rays of sun faded and the room was left in shadows.
“I told you this was a terrible plan.”
Dean paused on the edge of screaming. Had he just heard…?
“Well excuuuuse me for not being an exact expert on this”
“Look we just need something of his to form a connection right?”
“Well, it’s the famous 5, I’ve been reading it over his shoulder I mean, I prefer Tolstoy personally, but…”
“No, I mean, that’s all we need? No spell, no candles or incantations?”
“Right, just a thing in hand.”
“…”
“What?”
“… so… It’s in your hand Kraig.”
“Yeah, and now… Now we.. oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Shhhh…uger”
Dean had moved past terrified at this point, as curiosity had completely overloaded any built-in instinct to be afraid of the things under the bed. He now lay flat out on the bed craning his head over the side of the mattress to try and listen. He heard a deep and long sigh, a lot like his dad had made when he’d heard about the broken vase. But this sounded… different more like a crowd of people sighing at once?
“Dean?”
Dean didn’t respond, his heart was pounding like a drum. Another voice seemed to cut in.
“Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3, can you hear us?”
“Shut up! Dennis.”
“Yes.”
Dean bit his fist in incredulity, he hadn’t meant to speak at all, it had just sort of popped out. He was about to leap off the bed to the safety of the hall when he heard the voice again.
“Ahem, Dean?” the voice sounded deep, gravely, like two large rocks grinding around
Dean didn’t want to reply his fist between his teeth was meant to stop it but still, words poured forth.
“Yeff, y cun ea u?”
“…”
“Did you catch that?” a stage whisper filtered across.
“Dennis, I swear to all the gods and the spirit of the house if you speak one more time, I’m gonna’”
“I can hear you!”
Dean squeaked and stared at his traitorous hand which had unplugged his mouth without his permission. He was just preparing to replace the plug when he heard the gentle cough.
“Dean? I know this must be strange for you…”
“Strange? There are voices under his bed Kraig, I’d be shitting bricks if I were,”
“Dennis!”
“Mhm,” … “shutting up.”
“Who,” Dean’s voice quivered more than normal “who are you?”
There was a whispered debate that Dean couldn’t make out. Followed by a throat clearing.
“We,” Said the first voice, trying to inject some real majesty into his words ”are your guardian angels Dean.”
“…”
“…”
“.. and your names are Dennis and Craig?”
This pause continued for a considerable time before a long-drawn-out and tentative affirmative came back from the two voices.
“Yes…?”
Dean thought this through. He wasn’t a baby anymore, but he also wasn’t completely sure what guardian angels were meant to be, he was pretty sure they had grander names than Dennis, and he was also almost certain that they came through windows and didn’t steal books beneath beds.
“I don’t believe you.”
Dean tried to sound firm like his dad when ‘laying down the law’, but his voice sounded a lot more like a squeaky than he liked. He heard some desperate whispering moving around under the bed. Finally, it seemed to settle up under the bottom half. So he scuttled over and hung his body over the footboard craning to listen.
“… what if we offer him something shiny and interesting?”
“Like what?!”
“We have that Viking axe just lying around, he’d LOVE it.”
“We aren’t giving Dean an axe.”
“Well we’ve got to do something, they’re going to start coming out of the forest soon and we can’t hang around here, we need to man the defences.”
“… Fine, just leave the book here and we’ll try again tomorrow night.”
“We, err… Should we say something though?”
“Dennis, you say something, I am leaving, and “I” will sort this out tomorrow.”
There was the sound of large crunching footfalls moving off into the distance, then a kind of long whistling rustling sounds that Dean realised what Dennis sighing.
“Dennis?” Dean asked meekly.
“Ahh!”
“Sorry, did I scare you.”
“Nnnnhh… House gods do NOT get scared Dean!”
“Sorry, you just sounded like Jenny at school when she saw that spider.”
“I was startled, Dean… Startled, not scared!”
“Oh, and what’s a house god? Why did you lie about being angels.”
Another long sigh,
“We’ve got no time tonight, Dean. Look, we’re really busy, we’re busy every night, and we’re just looking for you and Ben too, you know, keep it down during the day.”
“Well Ben is an idiot so I’m sure he’ll just do what he wants”
“Dean, we’ll speak tomorrow, I’m leaving your book here near the foot of the bed.”
“…”
“Look, we don’t normally do any of this, we’re just…”
Then Dean heard it, a distant bell, the clang of a deep giant chime like that time he’d been in London and heard Big Ben ring. He heard a curse from under the bed.
“Dean, we’ll speak tomorrow,” an urgent serious quality filled the voice, “I’ve got to man my post.”
Dean heard more crunches, like hundreds of tiny toddler feet stumbling along. The sound conjured up an image of his little sister Imogen, Just like every time she randomly came to him, it left him feeling cold and clammy, The pit of his stomach-churning in time to the clattering of rocks and footfalls beneath his bed. Finally silence thick and deep settled onto Dean’s room. The last rays of twilight just touch the edge of the ceiling.
Dean counted to 10, taking deep breaths like his Dad had told him to do before something seemed scary then heart in mouth he jumped from the bed and rose up facing the black slot beneath his bed in his best ninja pose. He managed to hold the fierce kung-fu stance for about 3 seconds before overbalancing and falling slowly over to his left. After untangling his limbs he jumped back up to a newer, more stable, stance.
Nothing moved, the space beneath the bed remained dark, quiet and empty. After his body started to really protest and he started to hear his own heartbeat Dean finally let out a huge breath that he didn’t even know he was holding. But even then he found he still was panting a bit like he’d been running after Ben for the last 10 minutes. The darkness under the bed remained impossible to pierce even with Dean straining them to the point of bursting. He took 3 slow steps up to the bed and felt a tangy acid taste in his mouth as he forced himself to look under the mattress.
From here, it wasn’t a solid black, he could make out shapes, but he wasn’t able to work out exactly what they were. It wasn’t his box of Lego he was sure, it looked more like, more like leaves or a bush, or brambles like something out in the garden at least. He started to turn, deciding he’d be happy enough watching his brother play Xbox for a while. Not because he was afraid, he just had read enough of his book… His book! He could see it! It was just under the edge of the bed.
Dean shimmied closer, then backed up, then closer, chewing his lip, it had been so quiet for so long. He was sure nothing was around anymore. But it wasn’t just the silence, it was the lack of feeling anyone was there. His body was as sure as he was that the room was empty. Whatever was under the bed had run away. 10 deep breaths, he moved before he thought about it too much.
His hand snapped out impulsively and grabbed the book, then instantly tugged it to his chest to reclaim it, but somewhere along the way, something felt wrong. As his fingers grasped the book back it felt, wrong, like it was glued to the floor. Instead of pulling the book out to his chest, he found himself pulling down towards the book. He noticed with horror that he hadn’t even “grabbed” the book as such, his fingers had sunk into it like it was playdough or thick clay. He watched in growing horror as the book seemed to topple backwards as if down a slope. The weight of it pulled him slowly but surely down.
He managed to let out the start of a wail to his brother before he was sucked under the bed through the cobwebs and branches sliding down the hillside of small rocks head over heels. Bouncing and rolling to a stop in a huge pile of dead leaves.
Silence surrounded Dean, he heard nothing but his heavy breathing, a muffled voice far off seemed to be calling his name, sounding concerned. He sat up wanting to stare angrily at his treacherous book, it was gone, his hand was now coated black with dirt and grime. Getting on his knees Dean stood and for the first time took in his surroundings and froze. The wind gave him goosebumps, the trees surrounded and encased him, the stone hillside ran out in both directions for what seemed like miles. No house, no room, no bed. Dean felt a cold heavy feeling in his stomach as he tried to find something, anything familiar. The muffled voice of Ben slowly faded away leaving only echos. Dean felt the realisation in waves, he was lost in a forest that was under his bed and nobody knew where he was or would believe he could be there.
Author’s note:Another short story, little dark, perhaps even a little lovecraftian. I’ve read Stephen King’s “On writing”. Excellent book, if somewhat harsh, guide on writing. As always do comment with any constructive criticism. I’m just starting out, so it would be nice.
The wind snapped the upper branches against each other like scrabbling fingernails, while I couldn’t see them clearly in the pitch black around me, the sound, for me at least, is a comforting one. Many people find the trail creepy at night, but that’s usually due to ignorance and fear. They imagine all the things that could be there scuttling behind the trees and bushes along the route. For me, it was relaxing to be there, alone, and with a direct purpose. No choices to be made, no stressful mistakes, just one foot in front of the other, follow the path and you make it home.
The path had, in a previous life, been a train line running alongside the river but that train had stopped running some 60 years ago. At some point, someone smart at the local council made the decision to tear up the rotting sleepers, level-off the gravel and make the trail people friendly. Having a 31-mile bike trail with great views was a massive success, during the day people cycled, dogs ran and children laughed. It was always bustling with locals.
What most of the locals don’t know, which took me hours of perseverance in local libraries and online, is that the trail predates the train line, by a long, long way. There are references all the way back to the Domesday Book in 1066, which leaves an oblique reference to public land-way that bypasses lands right to the coast through the Land of Bishop Geoffrey of Coutances and on and on.
Also, If you know where to dig, literally not figuratively, and you’re looking for anything out of place even older shit that turns up. One sweaty evening of me digging into the riverbank found clumps upon clumps of Bluestone all demarking the edge of the tree line. What’s Bluestone I hear you ask? … Well maybe you didn’t, but I don’t care, Bluestone, is the fancy term used to refer to the smaller stones which are commonly seen at Stonehenge, all of which came from the Preseli Hills in south-west Wales.
This path, this land-way, is old, really old, perhaps older than I can fathom and just walking down it is to walk on the back of a long untold history.
While it might be packed during the day in modern times at night it was a desolate thing, empty from end to end as it carved a nearly direct line for 15 miles leading me from closing call at the nearest town bars to my village nestled near the ocean. 9 times out of 10, I’d just stay in town with friends or wait for the morning bus. 15 miles isn’t a casual stroll even on a clear day and when it starts at 1am well… It’s never a great idea.
In any case, I’d decided during a drunk epiphany that I’d rather walk home than sleep on a floor. No matter how good looking the company or how comfy the floor might be. That decision was a few hours before and my feet had finally found their moderately less drunken rhythm. It was around this part of the walk home when the forest emerged and crowded in on both sides of the path, the hiss of leaves and chattering of branches filled the night. As the buzz of alcohol subsided that floor back in town and dubious company seemed like more and more of a good idea.
If you’ve never walked in a forest at night, the world is silent and sound seems dampened compared to the bustle of the day, but you can still always hear traces of life everywhere around you. Owls call out, foxes, mice and other creatures scamper in the undergrowth. One time I even saw a stag on the path, just standing there like a 4 legged statue. One of the infrequent shoddy path-lamps backlit the massive animal through the mist like some horned giant pagan deity. I damn near pissed myself. But most nights, like that night, it was simply me, trudging forward, my thoughts the loudest thing to be heard for miles.
The forest was actually a welcome sign though, it meant I’d nearly finished my self imposed odyssey. I’d also worked out most of the alcohol from my system and the lethargy and regret at starting this walk were really kicking in. My feet still marched in steady time though eating up the trail as the canopy above slowly swallowed up the thin light of stars and moon. The gravel they’d used to pave the trail was thoughtfully light, nearly white in fact, so unless it was a new moon anyone could walk along it at night without getting lost.
For perhaps half an hour I continued trekking onward, my steps scratching grit occasionally, but it was only when I’d really made some headway into the heart of the trees something began to scratch at the back of mind for attention. A nagging sense of something off. It was a like a picture on the wall that’s not quite level and once you see it you can’t unsee it until you’re forced to take action, or that faint odour of rot when you’re about to cook some dubious meat and your body recoils instinctively. I tried shaking the feeling off, but eventually, I could feel my momentum bled away until I was just standing stationary, dead still in the centre of the path.
Profound silence.
This was not the comfortable silence of a library, the hushed awe of entering a church, or that quiet moment you sometimes have before a storm. But it wasn’t that babbling jumble of noises that you hear in any woodland either. The forest seemed to be holding its breath. When I scraped a foot across the gravel the noise seemed to be eaten up by the thick ancient barks around me and I slowly turned in place trying to pierce the veil of leaves, brambles and gorse. Trying to see… What? I’m not sure, just various shades of black looked back at me.
The alcohol obviously hadn’t completely cleared my system because instead of listening to every nerve in my body screaming at me “perhaps, tonight is not the night for this walk.” Another part of me rolled its eyes said “Fuck. That. I’m not walking 10 miles back to town just to get a bus because the wind stopped blowing.” There was no good reason to walk all that way for nothing. Snapping out of my reverie I shook my head a bit, stretched my arms let out a jaw-cracking yawn and went to move on.
It was that first step, the very moment my right foot hit the floor that I knew, just knew, deep down, that I had fucked up. A flash of adrenaline crackled it’s way up my leg and I felt my calves burning. It was as if that single step had taken me way further than the last 10 miles, hell, further than the last 10 years, a disorienting feeling like plunging into tacky water or wading into a stream when nothing was there. Thinking back I wonder now if this is the feeling a fly might get when stepping onto a spiders web the only time I felt anything similar was entering the museum gates of the Auschwitz camp during my German exchange trip. You just knew that this place should never have existed and things that happened there had stained the land forever.
My next steps felt a little awkward and sore, I mean I had been walking for a few hours by now. The break-in my rhythm had thrown me for a loop and for a few disorienting moments I wondered if I was even facing the right direction, but for some reason, I just knew which way was deeper not due to my “Stunning sense of direction” or natural “Canny senses” (sarcasm intentional). No. there was a feeling of pressure, like something flowing against me from up ahead. It was as easy to tell what way was forward on that path as it is to tell which way the flood is flowing downhill.
When I continued my march, it was part obstinate rational thinking but mostly pure bravado, but each step reduced my stress a little, each one a decision made. “This is England for fuck’s sake,” I remember thinking “the scariest wild animal here is an angry badger, there’s nothing to be afraid of.” I was just in the process of finally shaking off the notion of things lurking in the shadows when I heard the branch snap.
The creaking strain followed by the crack of aged wood sounded off like a gunshot. For a moment all I could hear was a buzzing in my ears punctuated by the pounding sound of my heart. My mouth suddenly tasted of battery acid and what felt like a belt constricted around my chest. I realised I’d stopped all motion, frozen midstride.
My head snapped to follow the sound so fast it’s like it was on loaded springs. I swear I heard my neck crunch. It was all I could do to stop from screaming. The world had changed in a single heartbeat and suddenly I wanted nothing more than to be somewhere else, anywhere else. My eyes darted back and forth and all I saw were trees and swaying shadows. Every black space suddenly seemed to hold the promise of violence, every rustle of wind through the trees jerked my eyes to movement.
Now I’ve read once or twice that you can know if someone is watching you. That the feeling of being stared at is so clear that it leaves no doubt in your lizard brain. Perhaps you’ve had the same moment, you suddenly looked up for no reason to see someone staring back at you from a 2nd storey window. Well, fuck all those things, and fuck your eyes meeting a stranger’s in the street. Notch the tension up to eleven and imagine the feeling of knowing, just knowing without a doubt in your mind that there is something there, right there, behind you. And every muscle and fibre in your body has tensed like a steel cable, abso-fucking-lutely assuring you, that you are now. Something’s. Prey.
Let me try and give you a taste, the tiniest notion of what that feeling was like. Because to be frank, nobody I’ve told really gets this part. But indulge me for a moment.
First important rule. Don’t. Turn. Around. Maybe firstly take a breath and shake out any tension, because I want you to know, without a doubt that something is in the room with you. I know it’s there because I’m looking at it. No, I’m not guessing or imagining things for you, since my unintentional pilgrimage in that wood, well… Let’s just say I see the world a little differently these days and trust me, we all have something following us. It’s there, it’s in the room with you and it’s dangerous.
So, for a moment just focus and try really hard to imagine the room or wall behind you. Do not turn around for reference, use your brain. I want you to gaze into your memory and make it as vivid as possible, imagine the walls, chairs, tables all the familiar shapes, the texture of the carpet, wallpaper, peeling paint, the shelf of half-remembered books. Maybe it’s sunny and well lit, maybe it’s midnight and you’re reading this is a bar with nothing more than wood panelling behind you. Wherever you’re sitting, it’s just a room right, it’s just a place, maybe you’re lucky and there are people there, but they’re just temporary things. The room is what’s permanent.
Now, with that image as clear as you can make it, I want you to become aware of something. Because if you concentrate for long enough you’ll notice there’s a smudge, I don’t know where it is for you, perhaps a corner of the room, the edge of the panelling, a dusty book. But it’s there everyone has it and no matter what you do, you just can’t quite remember that part perfectly. It’s there, for sure, you know it’s there but it’s elusive. When you find that blemish, it’s suddenly obvious and it gets more and more obvious, like an itch you can’t scratch. “Why can’t I remember that like everything else?” So I want you to imagine walking up to that flaw and lean in close to it.
When you’re closer, maybe meters, maybe inches, we’re all different after all, you’ll see something strange start to happen, the smudge will start to shift and tear, sometimes it’ll unfurl like the petals of some ancient flower or maybe you’ll see paint stripping back to reveal the bones of the building beneath, books disintegrate into meaningless piles of pulp. You might even smell the fungal rot emerging from beneath that hidden gap you’ve exposed.
Now I want you to see that rot spreading out from that tear like a black ever-expanding tumour. It’s happening, right now. Behind you. But don’t turn around, because you need to keep your eyes fixed on that viscous cancerous mass a little longer. Because, if you don’t you’ll miss the moment it arrives, it’ll pull itself out of the hole, silent, massive, heaving, and as the oozing black birth fluid sloughs off in meaty chunks details begin to appear.
Twisted mouths with broken teeth poke through blackened skin, disjointed mandibles creak and clack together, the blinking twitching collection of eyes that cover parts of it like a rash, blink and dilate in mindless flutters. Then this miscarriage of a thing your mind has birthed will look at you, all attention locked on. Then you’ll feel it on the nape your neck, heavy breathing, the feeling of someone standing too close, your personal bubble has been penetrated as it starts reaching out with wiry clutching appendages.
Do not look back.
Just see it there. Just imagine it hanging from the hole it chewed through, a bloated, broken shape from childhood nightmares. Clawed fingers of multiple scabbed hands nearly caressing but not quite touching your neck, brushing through your hair. A black, leathery, spittle-covered tongue inflamed with ulcers flattens itself out ready to lick your undefended back.
Do not turn around.
Because if you do, well that might make it real mightn’t it? If you do turn and it is that it’ll have you, teeth and talons and thrashing limbs vibrating and salivating just waiting for you… and all it takes is that simple glance over your shoulder. The pressure of wanting to look is overwhelming, to escape the childish feeling, the feeling of something filling the space behind you just a glance away from release.
The room is empty…. Right? Of course it is. Why would anything be there? Why not look around and find out? …
Eventually, you will, and surely when you do you’ll relax and shrug of course it’s empty. Yeah, it is now, but what about then, what about the cupboards or the attic? How long before every shadow and every snapping branch hides a black flexing mass just waiting for you to pay attention to it.
So that’s a taste I hope of what I felt, but just that. In that wood, it wasn’t a mental invasion. It wasn’t something entering my space, I had entered its territory and I couldn’t just turn around. I was already consumed.
I heard a grunt or was it a snort, an animal offering a challenge. A creature breathing in my terrified sweat. For a long frozen moment, I stayed locked in place. Some instinct told me that sprinting would be the last thing I ever did. That running would bring on the hunt instantaneously. So I did the only thing I could do, I took one rigid step forwards and waited. Nothing. I followed it up with another and then another, back muscles rigid, waiting for the explosion of bushes and movement before searing pain began. Stars clouded my vision and I realised I was panting not breathing.
I took step after painful step, slowly building up a momentum, not running, never running, but walking the way people do through rivers, I tried to inject false bravado I’d cultivated over a lifetime to stop bullies and thugs from starting a fight, radiating a sense of casual violence and false confidence with each footfall. I swallowed down the swelling fear in my throat and clenched my fists in my pockets until my palms ached. With each step, I felt like I was pushing through thick ropy currents a forest riptide.
I kept walking.
I can’t tell you how far I walked like that, I can’t even get a sense of time or how it felt. Walking through a forest, at night with every pool of darkness hiding from the moonlight or the choking moment wispy clouds briefly coated the moon, created a moment of absolute darkness which allowed anything out there to move right up to me, unseen silent.
I focused on the pale gravel and the path ahead, I kept walking.
Something brushed past my leg, a subtle feathery touch, I forced my eyes to stay ahead. Something shakes the branches of a tree above and I gritted my teeth and took another step. My head was pounding with adrenaline and fatigue. A spasming desire between seeing what was following me and a part of some deeper instinct, the same one I ignored earlier, saying “If you turn and look, you will see it. If you see it, you will die.” The logic was nonsense. The situation was insane. I was also sure that instinct was right. I could not turn, but nor could it make me.
When the structure appeared in my blurring vision for a second I was confused, then ice folded into my veins and my steps faltered. For a brief moment, I swear I heard a panting wet sound. The sound of something expressing a wet hungry pleasure at seeing prey stumble. I swear that I felt a hot breath on my cheek I steeled myself
“Must. Not. Look.”
The trees seemed to sigh, a petulant disappointment from those whispers that they hadn’t run me to the ground… yet. But up ahead loomed the thing that nearly broke me in the first place. The tunnel. The goddamn tunnel. I’d not even thought about it. But of course, as I was really getting to realise, wishing that something wasn’t there didn’t really mean shit.
The trail had been a train track as I said and like many trains, there were two ways to go through the hills. What someone had decided here, what some long-dead architect had decided was that a tunnel would be cheaper. I’d passed under bridges on the route already, those are where a road or crossing was required. They are about 10-15 meters tops. They’re straight and over the years they’ve been given lights. You barely notice them.
The tunnel is not like this, it’s a black hole. It’s a mouth hanging open wet with old rain and moss-covered stone teeth lining its entrance. I know that I was moving towards it, but I couldn’t escape the feeling that it was slithering towards me. I was the mouse frozen solid as the snake lunges forward to engulf it.
The tunnel’s throat is probably 60 meters long from mouth to exit. But what makes this unique amongst the various structures that remain, is the curve. It’s not a straight tunnel, it’s bent like an intestine which means even on a bright sunny day it looks dark and ominous. Like some hunched monstrosity waiting for people to just wander in.
I had to keep pace if I stopped that would be it, my body screamed that at me. But looking at the gullet opening up in front of me I wondered if I were wrong again my brain was trying to second guess my instincts, were those shadows and noises behind me like the games keeper beating the bushes. Were they like the clutching feelers of some sea creature drawing me down into its trap?
The wind moaned out through the tunnel mouth and when it hit me it was fetid, rank, hot and wet. I nearly stumbled again, retching, the only thing keeping me upright was the scrabbling sound to my left near the path edge. Something seemed to be shivering behind the bushes there, trembling in anticipation that it just might catch me. Teeth clenched, arms pumping I steamrolled headfirst into the tunnel and plunged into the black.
It was still behind me, the faint moonlight that pooled around the entrance was obscured by some vast shape, or perhaps it was a myriad of smaller ones, like a cloud. and I desperately wanted to finally look and know if it was another cloud or all those chittering slithering things my mind had conjured up. “Just keep walking, you’ll get there if you just keep walking.” I thought. But even remembering that moment, I wonder how much of that thought was mine.
The first 30 meters of the tunnel is like being in space, I’d occasionally felt unnerved here before. It’s like nowhere else on the route, you’re cut off from the sounds of the forest and you really lose a sense of where you are, I rarely carried a torch and at that moment I wasn’t really sure I wanted to see what that beam would reveal. Each step made it feel like the tunnel walls shrank in, the echoing crunch of feet on gravel changed to the wet slapping sounds of thick moss that stuck to my shoes like mucus.
My panting echoed chaotically off the walls and I was more than sure that I hear other sounds amongst my echoes, overlapping scurrying sounds just behind each breath. I still couldn’t see anything, for a fleeting moment I wondered if I was even walking the right way, hadn’t it already been 60 meters? I started panicking, what if that night for whatever reason the curve just continued forever and I was just going to walk on blindly like this until I finally tired and fell. I reached out a tentative hand to my left and screamed as I contact wet, viscous sludge.
The shriek was amplified in the narrow space and bounced through and around my body with such volume it hurt. But, I didn’t forget to raise my left leg and even though it felt like the air itself resisted I brought down my next foot and kept walking, it felt like a river pouring through the tunnel was sluicing around me, the current pushing me back two-steps for every one I managed forward, the shrieking echo continued vibrating around me carrying on and on, far longer than it should have. My head was bursting, it felt like swimming and desperate to reach the surface for air, but for a single moment of clarity, I swear I heard another note in that scream. A note of frustration.
I kept walking, with a mantra filling my head “right foot, left foot, right foot..”
Hot liquid trickled down my face in thick rivulets,
“Sweat,” I prayed to myself, “it’s just sweat.”
I kept my hand slithering over the mucus and lumpy surface that was, I kept telling myself just the wet moss-covered wall,
“It is moss, it’s not skin, that thumping pulsing feeling is my own heart, if I follow the wall, I won’t fall, if I follow the wall the tunnel will curve and then I’ll be free from this place.”
I pant and wheeze like the air is up on a mountain top but I feel the wet humidity in my lungs.
When I saw light, it wasn’t dazzling, not glorious sunlight pouring in but even with the moonlight, I saw the slowly growing arch shape of the exit. I think I said something I don’t know what, but a chorus of echoes flowed back and around me like dogs, like chittering insects, I heard them all daring me to turn, daring me to look. I didn’t. I was fixated on that pale shoddy moonlight up ahead and with each step, I found the current lessen. Each footfall seemed to tear me loose from clawing unseen fingertips. I Didn’t run. Couldn’t run.
I breached the void and burst from the tunnel into the trail beyond like a trembling newborn, and all the echoes seem to cut off as one as I stepped on to that path. The silence was so profound and the pressure so suddenly lifted that I yelled out in savage agony and release, more of a roar. Trembling, heart weak and fluttering, sweat drenching my clothes and hair I moved like I’d run a marathon. I still didn’t look back. I was sure that hillside, that thing was still there. But I knew with each step I was pulling free, each step took me out of danger. Out of that hunting ground.
I was a few meters down the path from the tunnel, my body finally felt like my own when I heard the sound and my blood froze, I could almost have dismissed this whole event to alcohol-fueled imagination and childish terror but for that sound, it was distinct, clear and not my imagination, a growl, low and deep, deeper than reason, like all the rocks in the hill were grinding together so I could hear its frustration. I didn’t look back. I kept walking.
I don’t really remember the rest of my walk, I do know it started to rain and I got home soaked and shivering. I remember closing and locking the door pulling the bolt across the threshold so hard I worried I’d woken my parents on the other side of our home. I didn’t go to bed, I didn’t leave the door, I just slid down my back against the reassuring wood, breathing in the scent of home.
I never ever went near that part of the trail again, day or night. I still on occasion when reading a book, watching TV or relaxing at home feel a prickling sense of what I felt out there. Like a lingering afterimage watching me from somewhere. I ignore it as best I can. I dismiss the feelings, the memories, the growl. “It’s crazy,” the rational me protests “it’s just a fucking tunnel!”
But… I also keep an eye on the news and while it’s probably nothing I notice the number of people who go missing locally during clear moonlit nights, tear streaming families asking for information, search parties struggling to find anything, I see the shadows cast behind every street lamp, I trust my instincts, I stay far from those woods and I still sleep with the lights on.
As part of Neil Gaiman’s masterclass on writing he suggested that you take a well known fairy tale and then put a twist on it. So here we go. My meagre attempt, but I’m going to keep trying and writing. Stops me from arguing with the real Trolls online.
Thrun’s teeth ached with a long burning desire for any taste or texture other than river fish. The chilled mountain river provided it was true, the pounding ice melt slowed into a deep inclined pool under the broken hunchback form of the bridge above and it was the darting fish just under the thin ice that let him survive. His rummy eyes lazily trailed the flashing shapes below the surface and he took a deep breath of crisp mountain air into his barrel chest let out a long steamy sigh, long and deep like the bellows of a farrier.
His weathered forehead furrowed like old leather, trying to remember last time he’d eaten anything other than what he caught or foraged nearby. It must have been seasons back, back when the Thatcher’s daughter had still brought him eggs and a freshly baked loaf. He snorted, she was probably married and raising children by now, too busy for long treks to stave off guilt. Too long, too old, he vaguely remembered memories of taste, bright white teeth and auburn flowing hair.
His eyes followed a larger fish lazily swimming off further downstream, completely ignoring the wriggling bait. For a spiteful moment, he almost flung a rock to kill the creature, seething jealousy and resentment that it could leave this compressed canyon with such thoughtless ease.
With a force of will he lifted his massive crooked form from the rickety fishing stool, the thick trunks seemed to sigh in relief, his joints cracked and popped, echoing like the branches that exploded during the last harsh winter. The clanking rattle of metal chains accompanied his stiff movements as he shuffle-stepped to the fire pit.
He’d cooked the fat greasy catfish from yesterday and drying fish bones swung and bobbed in the breeze above him dangling from his bridge shelter like beaded curtains of bones.
He wasn’t entirely sure of his age anymore, with no mirror and no contact for many moons meant all he knew for sure was that greys had appeared in his matted hair and his thick taloned fingers once lean and supple were now gnarled and arthritic.
Some mornings it took him many flailing attempts to rise from his torn pile of rags that he called a bed. Occasionally he dreamed of silk sheets and roaring fires at banquets. But those seemed such distant memories he wondered if they were just that, dreams. Did that much food even really exist in the world?. Perhaps it had. But not here, not under the bridge…
He was about to add another branch the thickness of a man’s leg to the fire when he heard it. A sound unheard for at least 2 seasons, a “Trip, trap, trip, trap!” someone, or something was crossing the bridge. Followed by the stab of pain that always followed in the side of his skull. .
His shaggy head snapped upward, a grimace of pain and irritation, the burning impulse bound within his prison forcing him to speak, what came out was a raspy croak of his voice pushed out of his unwilling throat before vomiting from his barrel chest, “Who’s that tripping over my bridge?” boomed out, amplified by the narrow gorge..
The noise stopped, he raised himself up until his misty vision could look through the rickety planks. A child, no, a kid stood there, frozen, mid-step. Tiny horns poked from juvenile tufts.
“Uh, I’m sorry, I’m just one of the Gruff’s, trying to get to better food sir.”
Thrun’s vision blurred, the scent of flaxseed and tension wafted down above and all he could feel, all he could taste was fresh goat meat. His mouth filled with saliva, the chains hummed, his hands clenched.
“gobble you up” he mumbled in starving hunger. His voice booming through the narrow canyon. “Control”, he intoned to himself ruthlessly pressed into his fists until the skin broke and knuckles cracked, resisting the geas, resisting the chain.
“Please sir, I’m just a young little thing there’s my older brother coming later,” said the nasally prepubescent voice.
“Your… Brother?” Thrun’s brow creased up reflecting his total and complete confusion.
“Yes, sir, he’s much bigger than me, eat him!”
Thrun paused, his milky eyes wide, he wasn’t sure if he felt more shocked by the Gruff’s statement or the ease with which he had offered a brother over his own life. Thrun had a few false starts, responses ranging from screaming frothing rage, to choking sobs touched his lips but never quite passed. Finally, his great shoulders slumped in tired resignation. Face turning slack with tired passivity. He was the dark shape under the bridge, the kid was just a kid looking for better food. He’d say anything, even something that vile to escape.
“Get outta here” he muttered, his voice exhausted.
“Sir?” squealed the falsetto voice.
“Be off with you!” Thrun barked.
Immediately the skittering trip-traps flew across the bridge in a panicked flutter and continued up the path into the hills. As the clattering footfalls faded, leaving just the calming sounds of the river. He ran a hand down over his jowled features, heart thundering in his ears and started to calm. The aching need and command for violence ebbing into the rocks around him.
He took long deep breaths, so deep, so cold that the frigid needles in his chest stabbed as deep as his memories. Family, brothers, the love, the support, the camaraderie, all long gone now, like the taste of ancient meals. It was like a forgotten flavour, an ashy residue. He stabbed at the crumbling fire he’d been building and jabbed at it, vicious, angry movements letting a wild cloud of sparks fly up. He let the heat soak into his body and blamed the cold wet lines on his face on the smoke.
It was a long time later when the sun was still high but well towards the east, Thrun dozed fitfully, the mist of the river and the narrow gorge keeping the seething rays at bay. At first, he thought he was dreaming of the approaching sound of hooves on the path. His ears twitched in sleepy confusion, was this an echo? a memory? After listening a while longer he felt his mouth turn to sandpaper at the heavier, larger form start across the bridge.
Trip, trap, trip, trap, trip, trap…
“Stop.” The chains bursting words forth from dry lips each word a labour, “Who’s that tripping,” Thrun found he had to swallow back acid and bile “…. Over my bridge?” his voice booming and amplified through the gorge.
“Oh, I’m a Billy Goat Gruff..” a deeper more confident tone, the sound of a young adult who thinks they know all the world can offer. The arrogant voice of youth.
“I’m going up to the hillside to make myself fat on fields there.”
The flat dismissive tone, set Thrun to dislike this fawn already, he felt his face sour, he felt the pressure to perform his enforced duty swell like some unwholesome flower in his chest, “Oh… and What if I decide you’re too tasty to let past?”, he growled. His own anger surprising him.
“Well, the sun is awwwwfully bright up here!” Goaded, the Gruff, a hint of amusement in the tone, “, and I heard you trolls aren’t too fond of that”
A long silence extended between the two.
“Soooo… “, supplied the Gruff.
“Be off with you!!” Thrun snarled, slamming his fist into the base of the bridge pillar making it sway and groan. “Before, I decide to crush your body with rocks and leave your brother alone on the mountain.”
The sound of a few clattering hooves and then… Another, almost hesitant pause.
“…Why mention my brother?”, the tone was different, something else was there, but Thrun was too consumed with controlling himself to notice. Confusion? or perhaps suspicion permeating the Gruffs’ voice.
“Brothers are important,” Thrun grumbled, “t’s not right to leave a young’un on this mountain alone.”
Another long pause and Thrun heard the scraping of a hoof on wood, for a moment the buzzing decrees subsided. A few more taps and traps and then a long-horned silhouette stretched out to look down through the curtains of fish bones. The yellow horizontal slits of an iris penetrated the darkness and slowly followed the links of chain from the bridge”s base up to Thrun’s clawed and webbed foot.
Thrun saw the realisation, the shock as the eyes dilated and alarm as the Gruff finally perceived his massive form in its totality, Not a mossy slick bank but a mass that rivalled the bridge, rippling turf was hair, rocky outcrops sun scars, tawny branches his muscle. The Gruffs nostrils widened in terror, ears flattening as it skittered back from the edge, letting out a snort of challenge and submission, all arrogance swept away.
Thrun scrutinised the Gruff carefully, this was no kid. He was muscled and ‘big’ for his kind, scars crisscrossed his flanks from bouts over the years, horns were sharpened by mountain stones to needles. This was a Gruff to be sure, and a fighter no doubt. Black and lean with the speed of youth, Thrun wondered idly if he did make a move who would win out, his strength and experience vs youthful vigour. He was in his winter and this fighter was most definitely in his spring. Thrun idly shifted his bulk, while closing his massive hand over a smoothed river pebble the size of a watermelon.
A few hesitant trip-taps of the hoof, a few furtive circles and the 2nd Gruff seemed to come to a decision. Facing Thrun directly, eyes clear and direct.
“The Eldest Billy Goat Gruff is coming this evening.”
Thrun’s visage must have betrayed his inner thoughts because the Gruff hurriedly added.
“He’s the biggest of us, the meanest, the strongest….” The gruff, sighed
“Look my younger brother IS small and needs me and you … ” Another pause and shifting of hooves.
“Look, for your concern, I’ll offer you fair warning,” they locked eyes “the Elder is not like us, not like me and everything I hope the little one will ever be. The Elder has ice for a heart, fire for ego, and he has no fear nor need for it.”
“For your consideration,” the Gruff hesitated again, “I would stay here, stay silent, stay hidden and let him walk by unknowing.”
Thrun studied the Gruff, head cocked as another long silence descended.
“I’m obliged to challenge,” Thrun said almost mildly amused, clanking the links of his chain and causing tiny flickers of light.
“It’s what you might call a compulsion. Not a calling.”
The Gruff eyed the chain then the bridge and then finally his eyes roved over the barren mountain top. His hoof pawing repeatedly at a single stone like a man might drum a finger.
“I’m sorry,” he finally said with a surprising amount of resignation, “I’ve got to be there for my brother” there was a note of bitterness in the last words.
He gave one long last look at Thrun before saying, “Good luck to you and for what it matters thanks for letting him past; I can see you had to force that hand.”
“Be off with you,” Thrun muttered waving a dismissive gesture. “Don’t need no thanks from a Gruff.”
Another short pause drifted between the two before the Gruff inclined his head directing the horns towards the swirling river, eyes unfocused as his muzzle bobbed up and down slightly as he nodded, before swivelling in place abruptly and flying up the mountain path with barely a sound. Leaving Thrun to settle back against the ancient stonework and mull over what had happened.
By the time the 3rd Gruff arrived the valley was dark as coal and mists were settling down on the mountain. The crack of each hoof echoed in the valley as the weight of each landed precisely and heavily exactly where the owner wanted it to be placed. The sound not only roused Thrun from his dozing but also spoke volumes to him. Over the decades he’d heard many feet, hooves and even claws on his mountain path. Each footfall had its own story to tell, nervous, determined, exuberant. But these were the first he’d heard that pronounced a single note of deadly resolve.
The Gruff didn’t trip-trap across the bridge so much as shatter the wood with each step.
Crack, Snap, Trip, Trap.
“Who’s that tripping over my bridge?” Said Thrun, the words for the first time in a long time, clear, unencumbered sounding heavy with their finality.
“It is I! The big Billy Goat Gruff,” said an ugly hoarse voice from above.
The movement came before thought, reaction before comprehension, Thrun’s form shifted like a great fluid mass pulling him up over the gorge edge like a wave landing him squarely on the far side of the bridge. The moaning, creak of straining foundations echoed down the canyon as he reared up to his full height. Dust sifted from stone supports and the metallic clatter of his chains grated on the ear. As silence slowly returned to the canyon the only sound remaining was the gushing creek and the rattling of a thousand fish bones scrabbling at each other.
The elder Gruff stood like some kind of iron fashioned golem, steam bursting from flaring nostrils flat slit eyes missing nothing. At the size of a horse, the Gruff lived up to his lineage, scars covered his flanks and face, his horns sheathed in dark stains and almost gleaming in the moonlight.
Both stood facing each other like bookends on the bridge, from a distance one could confuse them for oddly ornate statues adorning the ends of a worn-out bridge. The only thing that revealed the truth was the shimmer of heat and vapour that rose from the two forms. The way the sounds of the valley, the mountain and hills seemed to hush in preparation for a storm.
They said nothing, nothing needed to be said, Thrun’s eyes drilled into the Elder as firmly as the Elder’s hammered into him. With that penetrating drawn-out moment between them, Thrun felt that he could almost taste the Elder’s bloodshot rage and discipline. He wondered fleetingly if the Elder also could taste some of his weary, distended will and unending hunger in his.
For the first time in forever he let the words out without resistance, letting all his starved body and hopes out, the world had been holding its breath and now Thrun released it all in a foghorn blast of manacled words.
“Now I ‘m coming to gobble you up”
If those words were intelligible Thrun had no clue, but as icicles fell from bridge beams the two impossible forces moved like blurs, a primal force; a wave and a wall, a hammer on an anvil. Inevitable and final. The echoing crash of impact when it came made avalanches fall from peaks, fish to jump from streams and children cry out in fear from their bed’s miles away in the village. The two shadows on the bridge had become one.
As the snowflakes drifted back to the ground and the distant sound of landslides receded. Thrun felt his lips turn up in the most unnatural of shapes for him. A smile.
The Elder held his body in perfect locked posture, a martial form, lance-like horns finding their targets with ease. Too much ease, Thrun imagined in his mind’s eye, the Elder’s huge eyes wide with surprise, wondering why the huge hands were not clamped on his flanks with their claws like steak knives, why the teeth and not snapped down on his muzzle like a vice.
The Elder drew back and Thrun felt his body slowly lower onto his creaking knees, he heard the bloodied horns whip back and forth in confusion, the air whistling, creek babbling, the throaty blasts of steam from the Elder’s nostrils in unsteady confused blasts. Thrun’s arms slowly lowered from their outstretched posture, he had spread them wide open like a man might supplicate to the sun or a troll the moon. But now they sagged as if they were weighed down by far too much.
With ragged holes for eyes and the slowly dulling sense of pain, Thrun realized that he felt more of the world around him than he had dared to for years, the river sounded like a torrent, he hills like a humming dirge and in those fleeting final thoughts he finally for decades felt his rusted chains lose their grip on him.
Thrun heard the hoof pawing, felt the earth trembling, the charge approaching and as he smelt the hot flare of rage from the Elder’s mouth, at the feeling of insult, of being used as a simple tool.
Blissful sleep began to take Thrun then, away from the hunger, away from the pain that slowly bled out, a sigh erupted from his body and for a fleeting moment, Thrun smelt freshly baked bread, felt a strong hands lift him away from all the fears and regrets cradling him in a warm loving embrace as the mountains welcomed their long lost infant home.
Not sure what to write on it. I’m still typing up my views on creating a new community so that’s an ongoing project. I’m also working on a few programmingprojects now on hiatus because of work I’m doing on a business (that’s really in difficulties before it’s even started).
I know that people say that if you write a blog it should be a service to the people who read it and released on a timely schedule. I think I’ll take a page from Seth Godin and if you don’t know who he is…
at these.. Oh and you should read his books if you have time.
He is a writing machine far above and beyond me but maybe, just maybe I can write a paragraph or transcribe my deluded writings for at least 30 days (Matt Cutts would be proud 😉 I could form a good habit of expressing my thoughts online and also the progress I’m making towards creating a new kind of school here where I live.
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