The woman turned to her younger companion, who merely nodded and continued nursing the infant at her breast. A tense silence ensued. Pietro sighed and led Max past the table, where there was a half-barrel of some filmy, fermenting alcohol. It smelled toxic. Dipping a wooden goblet into it, the man promptly drained it before offering it to Max, who declined and turned instead to the younger woman.
“What is her name?” he asked, smiling at the baby. Heavy, unblinking blue eyes rose to meet his own. The mother could not have been older than twenty. Her wan features offered nothing more than a blank, hostile stare.
“Take your food and go,” she said.
“The moon, Pietro …,” hissed the older woman, looking past Max at the man, who had continued drinking.
“You think I don’t know?” snapped Pietro, hurling the goblet into the barrel. The women stiffened. Wine sloshed over the barrel’s rim, running down its sides to soak the straw-strewn floor. With a grunt, Pietro tossed a rag toward the older woman and motioned for her to clean the mess. She went about it immediately, but with the same limp resignation with which Mina had held Max’s hand.
“There’s no need for that,” said Max sharply.
The man glowered at Max, his red face trembling with impotent rage. Pietro was broad in the chest, had perhaps been a man of consequence, but those days were long past. Bloodshot, calculating eyes broadcast the man’s thoughts as if they had been spoken aloud: Here was a tall, well-armed youth who must be cajoled, not conquered. The man swallowed his rage and bustled toward a back pantry that had been converted into a disgusting smokehouse, where rank haunches of meat hung from the rafters. With a grunt, the man shoved a piece of dried lamb at him.
“Later,” said Max, reverting to English. “I want to speak to the children.”
“Eh?” asked the man, as though pretending not to understand.
Max abandoned any pretense of civility. Towering over Pietro, Max jabbed a finger in the man’s soft belly and repeated himself. The man closed his eyes, trembling in anticipation of a blow that never came.
Looking into Max’s hard face, his foul breath came in short, gasping sputters. “I am not the monster here!”
Pietro’s face was now covered with droplets of sweat that ran into his blinking eyes. Max glanced again at the hanging meat, the rusted cleaver that lay across a crude chopping block. His eyes spied another small shoe lying in the dark corner by a broken stool. There had been many small shoes by the door; far too many to account for the dozen orphans he’d seen.
Max stared at Pietro’s round belly, the jigsaw teeth chewing nervously on red-stained lips. Horrific thoughts began to flit through Max’s mind.
“What are you doing here, Pietro?” he asked quietly.
With a defiant stare, Pietro cursed and spat at Max’s feet. Seizing his wrist, Max dragged him roughly through the house, past the bewildered women, and out the front door. Marching him across the yard, Max threw the struggling man into the hay pile. The children abruptly stopped their chores and stared at Pietro, who merely lay panting in the morning sun.
“Is this man hurting you?” asked Max, rounding to address the group.
The children said nothing, but instead turned their attention to the two women who had followed and stood watching from the doorway. The young mother clutched her baby and screamed at Max to go away and leave them alone. She said he should go away, dig his grave in the hills for all she cared, but he must go away at once—couldn’t he see that he was hurting poor Pietro?
It was nonsense and Max wasn’t having any of it. He had heard of such gruesome things in wartime but had never witnessed it for himself.
Spotting Mina among the group, Max called softly to her. “Mina,” he said, continuing only when her eyes shifted from Pietro to him. “Is this man hurting you or the other children? You can tell me, Mina.…”
“No,” she whispered, her eyes shifting back to the old man.
At this, Pietro covered his face with his hands and devolved into silent sobs.
“Then what’s the matter here?” Max asked, bewildered. “What’s wrong with you people?”
Instead of answering, several of the older children helped Pietro to his feet and led the sobbing man back into the house. The rest returned to their chores, leaving Max to gaze about in stupefied silence. Regardless of what Mina had said, Max knew something was off. The witch had been frightened of this place; the children’s eerie calm and quiet resignation suggested some terrible, numbing trauma.
Storming back into the house, Max chased the dog away and counted the shoes in the pile. There were sixty-seven shoes but only fourteen children present. Pietro was now slumped against the table, where the older woman tried to console him. Cradling her wailing infant with one arm, the younger woman set about throwing bread, dried olives, and a round of salted meat into an old flour sack. This she threw at Max’s feet.
“Who are you to judge us?” she asked with teary rage. “You are a beggar—just a filthy beggar!”
“Who do these belong to?” asked Max quietly, gesturing at the shoes.
“Other children,” she muttered, looking away. “Other children who got sick and died.”
“Where are their graves?” asked Max, gesturing out toward the yard. “I want to see them.”
“Who are you to meddle with the dead!” she hissed. “Go to hell!”
“I think I’m already there,” Max muttered, brushing past her to inspect the rest of the house.
The ground floor was large, some forty feet to a side with a high, beamed ceiling that sloped down to meet a balcony that overlooked the great room from the second floor. Beneath the nauseating grime and filth that caked the walls, Max could make out faded frescoes. Long ago, this must have been a prosperous farm, but age and disrepair had driven it into a state of horrific squalor. Rat holes were evident throughout, and as he made his way through the unimaginable reek of the upper rooms, only one item served as evidence that humans and not animals lived here—a child’s rag doll propped carefully against a stained pillow.
But none of the rooms had bones or other evidence of cannibalism. He had been expecting a charnel house, but all he found was bedding and broken furniture. This held true for the root cellar and the storehouses.
But Max could not shed a nagging uneasiness that preyed upon his mind. The children were too quiet, too mechanical in their movements as they went about their chores. The three adults had borne Max’s investigation with sullen resignation. They sat assembled about the table muttering quietly to one another while the younger woman soothed her baby and Pietro rapped the bit of quartz against the table in sour meditation.
It was midafternoon when Max was satisfied that he’d thoroughly searched the house and surrounding area. It was cool, but he was sweating from his exertions, having thumped walls, crept into crawl spaces, and prodded through piles of filth that sent him retching into corners on more than one occasion. The place should be condemned, he decided, but it was not a house of horrors.
Given his filthy state, he needed to bathe and eyed the ancient well past the vegetable patch with something approaching desperation. To his dismay, however, he found no bucket or chain—just a crumbling pile of large stones that ringed a black hole some four feet across. A shift in the wind brought a faint, foul odor from its depths and Max recoiled. He turned to see Mina standing behind him.
With her same blank expression, she informed him that the well was dry, but the others would fetch him fresh water. Taking his hand, Mina led him back toward the house, where Pietro stood in the doorway holding Max’s sack of food. In no uncertain terms, Max was told that he was welcome to bathe, welcome to the food, and then welcome to leave. These instructions were delivered in a slurred jumble as Pietro wobbled within the doorway. The man was blind drunk, his eyes bloodshot from alcohol and weeping. Gesturing weakly for Mina, he held her against him and repeated his demand that Max leave before nightfall.
On the side of the house, there
was a trough filled with water the children had brought from a lake Max could see through a gap in the poplars that lined the old road.
“Ignis,” he muttered, spreading his fingers and heating the one remaining pail. Mixing the hot with the cold, he did his best to scrub the dirt and filth that he’d accumulated in his grisly search. Bringing the remaining water to a boil, he stropped and shaved using his father’s old straight razor. It was an imperfect job, but he felt both refreshed and infinitely cleaner as he let the chill breeze dry his face and skin. Tying his filthy clothes into a bundle for later washing, he changed into his spare clothes for the long miles ahead.
The sun had already set and the moon was rising when Max finished packing his gear. The family—or what passed for one—was all gathered on the farmhouse stoop as Max said farewell. The children stared dully ahead while Max apologized for any offense he may have caused. He had meant no harm. This elicited a disbelieving grunt from Pietro, but no more. The women said nothing but stared at Max with a restrained, simmering hatred that he found deeply unsettling. When Max asked if there were other humans nearby, Pietro grew furious and gestured at a darkening sky whose luminescent moon was framed by heavy storm clouds.
“It is late and the children are hungry,” said Pietro, each word punctuated by flecks of spittle. “Go and leave us—we have nothing more to give you.”
“Thank you for the food,” said Max, bowing.
And with that, he hoisted his pack and set out for the road, keeping to its fringes as the moon rose higher over the rolling countryside. For the moment, it was a storybook night, one of those magical evenings where the clouds had a crowding voluptuousness, their soft contours set aglow by the full moon.
But the wind was rising, a bitter gale that swept across the landscape, bringing the smell of rain from the far-off mountains. Crowding out the moon, the clouds closed over its shining face and cast the land in shadow. Max had not been walking twenty minutes before a cold rain began to fall.
What began as a drizzle soon turned into a downpour. Hurrying beneath the branches of an evergreen, Max crossed his arms for warmth and considered what to do. He could camp here, certainly, but it was bound to be a miserable evening. Comfort on such a night would necessitate a sizable fire, and the witch’s talk of goblin tribes made him uneasy about drawing any attention to himself in the wilderness. Glancing back at the road, he considered the farmhouse. He had not walked very far; he could go back and bed down in one of the unused storehouses. They were hardly luxurious, but they had a roof, and a roof in the rain counted for much. Pietro and the others would not even know he’d returned.
Dashing back through the rain, Max kept to the canopy of branches that provided imperfect shelter from what was progressing into a sizable storm. Thunder rumbled overhead and the wind howled, but no lightning strafed the sky to light Max’s path. Instead, he conjured a pale blue light orb and relied upon it as he leaped over gullies and carved a shortcut across the slippery meadows and cold, packed earth. As the moon poked through the racing clouds overhead, Max glimpsed the silhouette of the farmhouse upon the hill.
Extinguishing the orb, Max hurried ahead, anxious not to disturb the occupants who might refuse him shelter. Giving the house a wide berth, he made for the nearest shed and slipped inside with nary a sound. He grinned in the darkness—here were four strong walls and a roof to conquer the elements. It was a small victory, but a victory nonetheless. Slinging off his pack, he set to kindling a fire, careful to channel its smoke out a slat that faced the countryside.
This accomplished, he leaned back against the ancient stone and listened to the wind howl while rain pounded on the roof. As he closed his eyes, however, Max heard other noises, too. Above the rain, he could hear screams—terrible, bleating screams of the animals in their pen. Something had driven them into a panic. As Max peered out the doorway, he saw the motley herd bolt from one end of the fenced enclosure to the other. Scanning about, Max squinted for some sign of a predator—a wolf or jackal that would elicit such a fearful reaction. However, given the gloom and the rain, he saw nothing.
Poking his head out of the shed, he turned toward the farmhouse to see if Pietro or one of the older children had heard the disturbance and had come to investigate. But every door and window was closed to the storm, so that not even a peep of light escaped. The lambs bleated louder—a pitched, frantic screaming—and now Max stood from his crouch to get a better vantage on the yard.
All the animals had fled to the southern end, except for one small lamb that remained in the center. There was still no sign of a predator, but something had clearly frightened the animals, which were frantically attempting to escape the pen. Fastening the harpoon head to his walking stick, Max went out into the storm.
Crossing the clearing, he trotted toward the stockyard, scanning the dark night for the shine of a predator’s eyes. Hopping over the fence, he tried to soothe the animals, but they continued to bleat and scream as though they were being eaten alive. Exasperated, Max walked to the center of the yard where the one lamb remained separated from the others and lay in the cold, wet mud.
As he drew nearer, however, details began to emerge on the small white form. He was looking at a child, a little girl hunched into the fetal position. Hurrying over, Max saw that it was Mina.
Her eyes stared ahead, unseeing, as she sucked her thumb and took slow, steady breaths. How or why she lay in the freezing mud Max could not guess, but the child would die of exposure if he didn’t do something quickly. Tearing off his coat, Max wrapped her within it and hefted her out of the mud. She made no noise as he did so—not a murmur of protest or thanks—but merely clung to him, a trusting bundle of ice-cold flesh.
“It’s going to be okay,” Max whispered in her ear while the animals continued to scream. “We’ll get you someplace warm.…”
Mina began to tremble and clutched him with a sudden ferocity. Holding her close, Max turned in the direction she had been staring.
Thirty yards away stood the old stone well.
Something was crawling from it.
~16~
HORRORS IN THE WELL
As Max watched the thing crawl from the well and spill onto the wet earth, he was grateful for the darkness. The sky seemed alive. Clouds roiled and raced across the moon, whose light fell upon the sickening shape, which began to creep down toward the yard.
The creature’s advance was so bizarre, so hideous, that Max stood rooted to the spot as its forelimbs dug into the soil, pulling its body forward. If it had legs, they were merely dragged behind the creature as though some accident had damaged them beyond repair. At times its progress was no faster than a crawling infant, but periodically it would shoot forward to cover ten or even twenty feet with a crocodile’s swiftness. The monster was roughly man-shaped, but its limbs and joints hinged in odd directions, to create a horrifying silhouette as it slid down the rain-soaked grass toward the animal pen.
Mina had gone perfectly rigid and clung to Max with every ounce of strength she could muster.
“We’re getting out of here,” Max whispered. “Don’t look at it.”
Backing away, Max reached the fence just as the monster had arrived at the enclosure’s opposite end. Scrambling over the fence, it fell heavily onto the earth, but promptly righted itself in a fitful race to reach the spot where Mina had been lying.
“Stay quiet,” Max whispered, swinging his legs over the top rail. “Shhh …”
Once out of the pen, Max backed slowly toward the farmhouse, his eyes fixed on the monster as it prowled about the center of the stockyard. It did not exhibit any interest in the animals, which were left to panic and bleat in the far corners. It focused solely on the spot where it had expected to find a human.
And then the monster screamed.
It was a terrible sound, one that mingled human chords with something altogether alien. It was so sudden and jarring that Max almost dropped the child to clamp his hands over his ears. The scream was too
much for poor Mina. Whether compelled by some insidious lure in the monster’s call or driven by mere terror, Mina responded in kind.
Again and again the child screamed, a bloodcurdling cry that cut the monster’s wails short.
The nearest lambs bolted for the opposite end as a blur hurtled past them to crash against the uppermost rail. For a moment, Max caught the moonlight’s gleam on a single white eye that stared at him with an awful, unexpected intelligence.
Racing to the house, Max rained frantic blows upon the front door.
But no one answered.
Perhaps they were simply too frightened, but Max feared there was a sinister complicity at work. He guessed that Mina had been left in that pen as some sort of offering, a sacrifice to the dark shape that now slid over the rail and crawled toward the house.
They could run, of course. The monster was no match for Max’s speed, and he could whisk Mina far away from the danger at hand. But here was a houseful of people, and whether Pietro and the women had made some devilish bargain, he imagined the children were innocent. He could not leave anyone—not even a criminal—at the mercy of this thing.
It was coming now, closing the distance between the pen and the farmhouse. Gathering himself, Max sprang onto the lower portion of the gabled roof, still clutching Mina to him. The tiles were slick with rain, and he nearly slipped before his fingers caught a lip of tile over the ridge. From this vantage, he could see the monster clearly and realized, to his horror, that it was not dragging a pair of broken legs.
It had no legs at all.
Instead of legs, a dozen writhing tentacles extended from a humanlike torso whose back was matted with long hairs. It was the tentacles at its base that periodically propelled it forward at lurching intervals.
These tentacles propelled it now out of view, onto the front porch. Once Max clambered up the roof, holding Mina tightly, he slid down the opposite side and toward a shuttered window. While he pounded against the shutters, the creature screamed again and Max heard a dull thud from far below. No one answered at the window. Setting Mina down, Max kicked furiously at the shutters, shattering them into pieces and exposing the dark space within.
The Fiend and the Forge Page 25