Pilgrimage

by Andrew Dobell

  Chris frowned and shivered. Something felt deeply wrong here as he watched her sit on the edge of the well, seemingly oblivious to him. He knew he shouldn’t stay. Every logical bone in his body screamed for him to turn around and leave this place, but his innate curiosity about the world - that was a big reason for his mountain adventures so far - wouldn’t allow it. The need to know, the need to see more, to see what was over that hill and up that mountain drove him forward. He walked forward, hearing her for the first time. She was crying, softly, gently, but undeniably.

  Who was this woman?

  Chris stepped closer, the mist between them thinning, revealing the rags she wore, ripped to shreds and stained brown from mud and who knew what else. The scraps of clothing she wore almost blended into her grim mottled skin. She seemed to be covered in bruises and varicose veins, while boils bubbling up through red raw skin could be seen here and there with some of the bulging pustules already burst, leaking yellow juices over her dirty skin. As he watched, he felt sure he saw something move under the skin of her thigh.

  His stomach sank and he nearly lost his evening meal, catching the need to vomit seconds before it overcame him. But, still, she ignored him and continued to cry.

  Composing himself, Chris coughed to announce his presence to her.

  ‘Um, hey, are you okay? You don’t look well,’ he said. He was only maybe two or three meters away from her now, and she suddenly stopped crying and everything grew still and silent, as if the whole village had heard him and had stopped to listen. He was imagining things, it was already quiet, he told himself, not wanting to freak out over something he must have imagined.

  The girl slowly moved her head, turning it towards him and looking at him from under wet dirty hair that hadn’t seen a comb in weeks or months. More bulging pustules that looked thin and ready to burst covered her left cheek while brackish black saliva leaked from the corner of her mouth. Her dark eyes locked onto his, staring at him, as if angry for the interruption.

  ‘Aaah, hi, are you okay? You don’t look okay. Can I help you at all?’

  She stared at him, unmoving, as if weighing him up, judging him before answering. As he watched, something definitely moved under the skin of her cheek, crawling over her muscles, just beneath her skin.

  ‘Look, we can help you. I think you need to see a doctor,’ he said.

  In less than a second, she was on him. She moved so quickly, like an animal, pouncing on him and throwing him to the floor. He hit the muddy ground with a thud, the wind knocked out of him for a second, leaving him gasping for breath.

  The woman convulsed, her whole body shuddered as her breathing became ragged and halting. Catching his breath finally, Chris took a big gulp of air, feeling the life-giving oxygen filling his lungs as the woman heaved and then threw up on him. Black slime vomited from her mouth onto Chris. He turned from her, doing his best to cover his face to keep from ingesting any of it. Something was in the slime, he realised as he felt small solid, but lightweight stuff hitting him along with the black goo. Chris flailed, having lost all composure as he swung his arms about, kicking his legs in blind panic. The fear and disgust was visceral, primal, and came from a part of him he didn’t know he had. He just wanted to get away and would do anything to achieve that. He suddenly noticed something tickle him, something moving lightly over his skin.

  ‘Urgh!’ he yelped. The noise he made was utterly involuntary and came from a place of pure fear.

  He glanced at his black, slime covered arms and saw things, insects, crawling on him in the goo. They were huge and running all over him.

  He could feel them under his clothes and in his hair, skittering about as his attacker vomited more at him.

  Just as suddenly as she had attacked, the insect woman was knocked off him, sent flying onto the ground next to him and coming to rest against the side of the well as he saw Katelyn lower her leg. She’d kicked the infected woman off him with an impressive display of strength.

  Chris sat up, madly brushing the insects off of him. He found a couple of them trying to eat into him, to get under his skin, but he pulled them off and threw them away. Katelyn helped, pulling his shirt off and then using it to knock them off and wipe away the slime. Chris looked over at the woman who had attacked him. She’d sat up, putting her back against the well as her body continued to convulse until it bulged at her abdomen and then burst, with more black slime and crawling insects covering the ground around her.

  Chris backed off. She was clearly dead ,now; her whole belly below her ribcage was pretty much gone.

  ‘What the holy fuck was that?’ Chris asked.

  ‘I have no idea and I do not want to stay here a moment longer than we have to,’ Katelyn answered him.

  Chris looked at her. ‘I couldn’t wake you,’ he said.

  ‘Wake me? I heard wailing out in the village, it woke me up, and you and Augustin were gone. I came running and found you and that thing,’ she said.

  ‘Teodor, is he okay?’

  ‘Sleeping soundly by the looks of things,’ she said.

  ‘We need to find Augustin; we can’t leave here without him,’ Chris stated.

  ‘Any ideas where he is?’

  ‘I don’t know, I was following him through the mist, but only ended up finding her,’ Chris said, pointing to the dead woman.

  ‘Right, okay. Let’s have a scan around, see if we can spot him,’ she said, and made to move off into the mist.

  ‘Okay, let’s do it,’ Chris said and followed her, glancing back at the insect woman for one last time before the mist obscured his view.

  Chris followed Katelyn around the square, going down some of the roads that led off from it, until, as they neared the road that led back to the house they had stayed within, he spotted two shadows within the mist ahead.

  ‘Hey, stop,’ he whispered, taking her arm in his hand to stop her, and then pointed forward.

  ‘Is that…?’ she answered him in equally hushed tones.

  ‘Let’s see,’ he said, spotting a destroyed cart rotting away in the square a little closer to the two shadows. He moved forward, making for the cover of the cart.

  The shadows grew more distinct as they approached, and it was clear by the time they had reached the cart that one of them was Augustin.

  ‘It’s him,’ Chris muttered, and made to stand and call out to him. He’d been worried that it could have been another nightmare in human from, like the woman at the well, so keeping hidden had made sense, but this was Augustin, their guide.

  ‘Yeah, but who the hell is that?’ Katelyn asked, grabbing his arm and pulling him back.

  The other figure was approaching Augustin, who looked fascinated by whoever it was.

  ‘Why are we whispering, he might need our help,’ Chris asked.

  ‘I don’t know, I just… something isn’t right here,’ Katelyn said.

  ‘You’re damn right,’ Chris said, and pulled away from her. ‘Augustin!’ he called out to their guide.

  Augustin stopped and looked over, as did the other figure, who appeared to be wearing a hooded cloak, obscuring their features, but, if he had to guess, the swell of breasts betrayed a feminine form.

  The figure in the cloak seemed to watch Chris for a moment.

  ‘Chris, is that you?’ Augustin said. ‘Where am I? What… Who is this?’ he asked, looking at the figure. There was a flash of movement as a black blur shot out at Augustin from the cloaked figure, making the rags of the dirty looking cape flap about.

  ‘Urgh,’ grunted Augustin, suddenly hugging his stomach as the cloaked figure flickered into the air as little more than a blurred after image, and was gone.

  Chris didn’t know what to think, but felt suddenly ill when he noticed the blood pour over Augustin’s arms, followed by ropey intestines bubbling out from inside of him.

  ‘Oh, God,’ Katelyn gasped from behind Chris, giving voice to the shock that he himself was feeling as he watched Augustin drop to his knees as more and mo
re blood and guts poured out of him until he pitched sideways and hit the floor, dead.

  Chris just stood there, not really knowing what to do or how to react. His world was swiftly turning upside down and the shock of what he was seeing felt like it might overwhelm him and drag him into a madness from which there was no escape.

  ‘Hey?’ said Katelyn. She was right next to him and had grabbed his arm, shaking it as she called to him.

  ‘Huh? What?’ he said, snapping out of the trance he’d fallen into and looking down at her, away from the gutted guide.

  ‘Snap out of it, I can’t lose you here, not now. We need you. We have to get out of here,’ she said.

  The situation they were in, the very real danger of it was thrown into sharp relief, suddenly. Some stranger, maybe the person who had been terrorising them this whole time, had just killed one of their group. There was no saving Augustin, but he could help save Katelyn and Teodor. He could get them off the mountain and save their lives.

  ‘Right, yes. Okay, let’s go,’ he said. ‘I think we have to leave Augustin here; there’s nothing more we can do for him,’ he said.

  ‘Okay, if you think that’s best,’ Katelyn said, looking somewhat upset. ‘I hope Teodor is safe.’

  ‘Me, too,’ Chris agreed as they ran out towards the edge of the village and into the house they had camped in. Sure enough, there he was, sleeping soundly.

  ‘Wake him up. I’ll grab our things,’ Chris said, and started to throw things into his backpack and pack up their camping equipment while Katelyn woke Teodor up.

  ‘’What? What’s the matter? What’s going on?’ Teodor said, sitting up.

  ‘Someone killed Augustin. We have to leave, now!’ she howled at him.

  It took a moment to get Teodor to understand the urgency of their situation, but as he came around, he quickly agreed with them. As they gathered their things, they did their best to relate their experiences out in the village to him, which served to make Teodor pack even faster.

  Ten minutes later, they were out of the house and moving at a brisk walk away from the village, through more of those creepy dead trees. It felt like they were being watched and the nagging fear that something would leap out or creep up behind them drove them forward. Chris found himself looking left and right and constantly checking behind him for the next creature to come hunting for them. Katelyn and Teodor were doing the same, clearly as nervous and afraid as he was.

  As they walked, he noticed that the ground was becoming more and more uneven and rocky as they moved up and down slopes, and soon found themselves navigating through a dip with steep rocky cliffs, maybe four if five meters high on either side of them. The going was slow, but the mist was starting to fade and Chris no longer felt in immediate danger.

  ‘I think we’re still quite high up,’ he said, calling to Katelyn and Teodor behind him.

  ‘It looks that way,’ Teodor answered.

  As they struggled on through the early morning, the light growing by the minute, the rough cut in the rock they were navigating through seemed to become more regular and the ground flatter until it was as if this pass had been deliberately cut into the rock. And then, suddenly, it opened up as they found themselves on the edge of a sheer cliff, hundreds of feet above anything else and just a narrow ledge leading off to their right along the cliff face.

  Below them, clouds obscured their view, with only peaks of rock jutting through the grey mist, creating a surreal landscape and making it impossible to know where they really were. Looking again, trying to figure out which part of the Transylvanian mountains they were in, Chris just couldn’t see anything he recognised. If he didn’t know better, he’d say they were in another part of the world entirely. It was probably the fear talking, though, and maybe once the clouds cleared he’d start to recognise where they were.

  Chris turned to his two companions. ‘Looks like there’s only one way forward,’ he said. ‘Unless you fancy going back the way we came?’

  ‘I’m not walking through that village again,’ Katelyn said.

  Teodor looked along the ledge, apparently deep in thought, before turning back to them. ‘I think we’re close, you know,’ he said.

  ‘Close? To what?’ Chris asked.

  Katelyn looked around her, and then along the ledge. ‘You know what, I think you’re right. We might find the caves, after all,’ she said.

  ‘You’re kidding, right? You want to head into a haunted cave after what we just went through?’

  ‘We knew this wouldn’t be easy,’ Katelyn said.

  ‘Come on, let’s see where this goes,’ Teodor agreed, his voice excited suddenly.

  ‘Look, I’m leading the way. It’s the only way forward, anyway,’ Chris ordered them, feeling frustrated that after all that had just happened, they wanted to walk right back into the lion’s den. He made for the ledge and started to move along it. It was less than a meter wide, and often quite thin in places, or sloped, but Chris took his time and they made good progress.

  About an hour into it, as they rounded another bend, the ledge moved into a valley, the bottom of it still hidden beneath clouds, but opposite them another cliff face rose up, and as they moved into the valley, Chris spotted a rope bridge off in the distance.

  ‘We’re coming up on something,’ he said, pointing it out to his teammates, who started to get excited by it. Chris shook his head, bemused by their stupidity, and focused on what he was doing, putting one step in front of the other and ignoring the rope bridge ahead. Behind him, Teodor chatted excitedly with Katelyn, asking her for details of what she knew and offering his own ideas about what this might be.

  They continued on until Teodor called out to him. ‘What do you make of that?’ he asked. Chris glanced back to him, and then followed his pointed finger, looking ahead to where the rope bridge reached the opposite side.

  He could quite clearly see that a huge face had been carved into the opposite cliff face. It was carved to look like its mouth was open wide, shouting, or wailing with the rope bridge disappearing inside the darkness of its mouth.

  The look of it started to bring back that creeping fear he’d felt on walking into the misty village, and he felt sure that nothing good would come of going in there, but he knew that his two companions would insist on it and he couldn’t let them do it alone.

  As they neared the rope bridge, the ledge widened out, making the going much easier, but still there was only one way forward as the ledge stopped at the bridge. Teodor and Katelyn moved ahead of him, but Chris made sure not to be left behind. The mountaineer side of him wouldn’t let these two inexperienced climbers run about up here unsupervised, and he knew they would want to cross that bridge.

  Standing there, directly in front of the huge carved face, its mouth open wide as if in pain, he could feel the dread within him growing, threatening his very sanity.

  ‘You want to go in there, don’t you,’ he said.

  ‘It’s what we came here for, so, yes, I do.’ Teodor said.

  ‘Sorry, but yeah, I kinda do. This is what this trip was all about,’ Katelyn said.

  ‘Okay, sure, but we do this carefully and professionally and you listen to me and follow my directions, okay?’ he said.

  They both nodded, smiling and clearly excited.

  Made mainly out of rope, the bridge had wooden planks as a base to walk on, but they all looked rotten and old. Chris went first, telling his two teammates to hold onto the ropes of the bridge with both hands after using a rope to connect them to each other. Stepping cautiously out onto the wood of the bridge, Chris directed his two teammates to follow his steps and put their feet only where he put his as they took it one step at a time.

  They were half way over when Chris heard a feint snapping noise from behind them. He looked back and heard it again, spotting a poof of rope fibres blossom into the air.

  He’d thought he couldn’t feel any worse than he already did, but that was quickly proven wrong by the immediate intense fear o
f falling to his death if this bridge collapsed, and it was looking like it might actually do that now.

  7

  For a brief moment, Chris looked down through the gaps in the wooden slats and into the grey void filled with clouds, and, for just a moment, felt utterly terrified and frozen to the spot.

  It took all his focus and determination to pull his eyes away from the drop beneath him, but, somehow, he managed it and fixed his eyes forward, focusing on the goal of crossing this damn bridge.

  His attention now focused forward, he kept moving, doing his best to pick up the pace without worrying anyone too much. He chose not to spread any panic by telling them of what he had just seen back from where they had come. If they knew the bridge might be about to fall, the fear might make them put their feet in the wrong place, and then they’d be falling for no good reason at all. Besides, it might not snap, he thought, looking at the rope in his left hand.

  He moved cautiously, putting one foot in front of the other, focusing on the darkness of the mouth and the ledge he could now see within it. If he could just reach that far side, he’d be able to hold onto something should the bridge fall and keep the others from dropping.

  The wooden planks strained the ropes as he shifted his weight onto them, making them creak and crack as he moved. Left foot and right foot, left foot and right foot; all the time keeping at least one hand on the ropes with as firm a grip as he could manage. Time seemed to slow down as the far ledge grew closer and closer, taunting him with how near it was and yet how far.

  The last few planks of wood passed beneath his feet and finally he was there, on dry rocks and safe. He turned to watch the other two, and smiled as Katelyn made it. She was soon followed by Teodor, who was breathing hard.

  ‘Well done. Christ, I thought that bridge might go at any time,’ Chris said.