by Arthur Slade
“Eight fifteen, actually. And you’ve got to get on the bus early. You don’t want to argue with ol’ Gramps on your last night here, do you?”
I did. But I kept my mouth closed.
“We’re all going to need a good sleep tonight,” Grandpa added.
I changed into my nightgown in the bathroom. About fifteen minutes later we were all settled in our beds; Angie and I in one, Michael in the other next to the small window.
Grandpa knocked on the door then poked his head in. “Lock this tonight, will you? And if you hear anything . . . whatever it is . . . don’t leave this room.” He paused. “Good night.”
He closed the door.
10
“What on earth was that all about?” Angie asked. She was hugging her pillow. “I’m starting to get freaked out.”
“You’re not the only one—but I am going to lock the door.” I rolled out of bed and twisted the key in the door, then turned the handle and pulled to be sure it was locked. I tugged the old iron key out of the keyhole. It was about six inches long and heavy. I set it on the bedside table and crawled back under the blankets. “Maybe we should board up the window too.”
“There’s something really wrong here.” Michael was sitting up in the other bed. “Grandpa’s just not acting like himself.” He flipped his hair back out of his eyes. “I wonder if . . . like . . . he’s getting senile or something? Or Alzheimer’s?”
“Alzheimer’s is when you forget things,” Angie said.
“You know what I mean. Maybe he’s sick.”
“I don’t think so.” I paused, trying to find the right words. “I think it’s something worse. Well, this may be nothing, but after he phoned Mom and Dad he called someone else and talked in Icelandic. The only word I understood was draugr.”
“You mean . . . like . . . from his story?” Angie was squeezing the pillow even closer.
“Yeah, that same word. It might not mean anything. And I might have heard it wrong . . . but I don’t think so.”
Michael looked right at me. “Sarah, you don’t really believe that story was true, do you?”
“No . . . but Grandpa thinks something’s going on like that story or that involves it. I don’t know. It’s all a little confusing. He is scared of something, though.”
“What can we do?” Angie asked.
I shrugged. “Wait until morning, I guess. What do you think, Michael?”
“You’re right. That’s all we can do.” He settled himself below the covers. “I know one thing . . . it’s going to be hard to go to sleep tonight. Mega hard.”
“Should we . . . should we leave the light on?” I asked. They both looked at me, their faces pale.
“No,” Michael said finally. “I’d feel like a little kid.” He reached over and clicked it off.
The room went completely black. “Uh . . . good night everyone,” I whispered.
“Good night,” they echoed.
Hope I see you in the morning, I thought to myself.
It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. A silver beam of moonlight came in through the thin curtains, projecting an image of the window on my wall. It was obviously a full moon tonight.
Which didn’t make me feel good at all.
I couldn’t relax. I kept glancing back and forth, back and forth, from one side of the room to the other. I’m not sure what I was looking for.
But at some point my eyes must have gotten tired, because I fell asleep. And this time I didn’t dream. There was only darkness within deeper darkness.
I awoke suddenly. It took me a moment to remember where I was and that in a few short hours I’d be on a bus heading home. How much time had passed? Was it midnight yet?
I saw that the moonlight had moved farther down the wall. It seemed brighter and the shadow of the window was larger. Was the moon coming closer to the earth?
I could hear Angie’s soft, rhythmic breathing beside me.
Michael was snoring.
I laughed quietly to myself. A low, nasally, grumbling sound came from his side of the room like low thunder. Poor Michael, he always thought he was so perfect. Now I finally had something to tease him about. All the way home I could imitate his buzzsaw snoring. That would help the trip go faster.
His wheezy inhalations got worse, became thicker and deeper like he had suddenly developed a really bad cold. He wasn’t going to choke was he? Didn’t some people die from snoring too loud? Or too long?
Or was it they forgot to breathe?
Gradually I realized the snoring sounded more like deep, throaty growling.
Not coming from Michael at all. But beyond him.
Outside the window.
A dark shadow was creeping slowly across the wall. A twisted, bulky shape edged up to the windowpane, blocking the moonlight. The silhouette grew larger. I tried to move my neck, to look towards the window, but all the strength had been drained from my body.
Boards moaned as if something huge had leaned its weight on the outside wall, trying to get closer.
To see what was inside.
Then I heard a sharp scraping noise like a nail being drawn against glass. Digging a deep groove.
I still couldn’t budge. A cold Arctic mass of air crept into the room and was freezing me in place, slowing the blood in my veins, the thoughts in my head. I was trapped, helpless. I just stared at the shadow on the wall.
Angie wasn’t breathing anymore. At least I couldn’t hear her.
“Angie?” I whispered, my voice hoarse, my lips sluggish. It was hard to find the air to speak. “Michael?”
They didn’t answer. I tried to move my arm, to jostle Angie awake. I could only edge it slowly towards her, an inch at a time. It was becoming very hard to concentrate. I felt, oddly enough, like sleeping—that all I really needed to do was close my eyes and rest and everything would go away.
I knew I couldn’t surrender to this drowsiness. It was a sleep that would leave me in darkness forever.
My heartbeat slowed. My eyelids grew heavier. I didn’t seem to have the energy to stop them from sliding shut.
The house creaked. Even more weight was leaning on it now. The low rumbling outside the window grew louder.
With a huge effort I moved my hand an inch to my left and touched Angie’s arm.
She was ice cold.
“Angie,” I whispered. “Angie, wake up.”
No reaction. Not even a whisper. And I couldn’t find enough strength to shake her. It was getting harder and harder to stay awake. I blinked and my heavy, tired eyes stayed closed for what must have been a minute.
When I opened them again I could hear a soft sliding sound.
The window was being opened! I was sure of it. Slowly, quietly opened.
Then came a wet, hollow breathing. My limbs, my chest, everything had stopped working. I couldn’t even feel really frightened except inside my head. I had to keep myself awake. Somehow.
The window slid higher, letting in a chilling breeze.
And with it came colder and colder air. Not outside air, but something far different, from another age, another place. Air from cellars a hundred years old. From dark caves. From the deep, undisturbed chambers inside burial mounds. Heavy with the scent of dirt. It spilled into our room.
Every time I inhaled, my lungs grew emptier so that I needed more air.
My breathing slowed.
My eyes closed again.
It took all my willpower to open them, to stop the sleep from settling in on me.
Now there was no moonlight Only darkness. Whatever was outside the window had blocked it completely. It must be huge.
Then came a cracking sound of boards slowly being broken as the window frame was tested. The shadowy shape was too big to fit through that space. And yet it was forcing itself inside.
I moved my arm closer to Angie, found her hand. It was frozen, each finger made of ice. I imagined mine felt the same. But one of those icicles seemed to move. Was she awake too? Lying as paralyzed as me?
Maybe together, somehow, we could get out of this. Even if we could scream, that would be something.
I tried to open my mouth, to whisper to her, but my lips wouldn’t budge. I concentrated on squeezing her hand, but my fingers hardly moved at all.
A board snapped and part of the house surrendered to this outside force. Glass shattered, slowly. I could hear each creaking, cracking sound like ice breaking up in spring, then the tinkling sound of the glass hitting the floor piece by piece.
I had stopped breathing ages ago.
Another huge wooden crack was followed by a third one. Bits of plaster fell down. Then a fourth crack and a fifth. And I knew it was almost in the room, it was succeeding.
A smell floated into my nostrils, a stench of rotting meat and spoiled milk, of old urine and smoke. Inescapable and heavy.
The intruder was sniffing now, probably at the edge of Michael’s bed. It paused only to growl. I knew it was searching, that it couldn’t quite see us. The window was still creaking and cracking, so it wasn’t all the way in the room yet.
A window smashed in some distant part of the cabin.
I thought I heard Michael moan in pain.
Then Hugin started barking, outside. The deep sound of his warning brought me further away from sleep. I tried to move, but failed.
There was a loud growl in our room, low, angry, and threatening. The boards smashed and cracked. Plaster fell in on me from the ceiling.
Doors slammed here and there inside the house—Grandpa! He yelled something I couldn’t understand. A name. Or was he swearing?
He knocked over a table. Glass shattered. Then he slammed another door. He seemed to be desperately searching for something.
Hugin was closer now. His snarling sounded muffled. Did he have a hold of something?
There was a final crack of wood, a retreating throaty roar, and the remains of the window slammed shut, echoing through the room.
The thing was gone. I couldn’t turn my head, but I knew it had turned away from us to face the dog.
Hugin was struggling with something—someone—just outside our room.
I found I could move my eyes slightly, but my head refused to budge. From the angle where I was lying I could see the edge of the window and not much more. Half the curtains were off, had been knocked to the ground. It looked like the window had been broken along with a lot of the wall around it.
The back door slammed. Grandpa wasn’t going outside was he?
Grandpa! Don’t! I wanted to yell. Instead I just mouthed the words. My lips were too cold to move.
But the room seemed to get warmer. Or my body was. I could move slowly. I squeezed Angie’s hand.
She squeezed back, weakly.
Something huge slammed into the side of the house. Boards crashed, our wall shook and threatened to topple in.
My heart started beating again. I could breathe, too.
Grandpa started yelling again. In Icelandic. Short, harsh words.
He was outside. What was he doing out there?
I discovered I could move my neck now and I turned. The window had been smashed in, the remaining torn, dirty curtains were fluttering in the breeze. I couldn’t see outside. Both Angie and Michael were lying with their eyes open, their faces pale.
“Guys . . .” my voice was a hoarse whisper, my throat dry, “can you hear me?”
Angie gave me a muffled, “Yes.”
“I . . . I can’t move,” Michael whispered. “Sarah, why . . . can’t I move?”
“I don’t know,” I answered. “But I think Grandpa needs our help.”
“I dreamed something had a hold of my leg,” Michael said. I could see dark blotches of dirt on his bed. “It was a dream . . . wasn’t it?”
The shotgun fired.
Something struck the cabin wall with the weight of a two-ton truck. Glass shattered.
“What was that?” Angie asked, frightened.
Before I could answer I heard Hugin just outside our window, growling low and hard as if he had a grip on some animal that he wouldn’t let go. Grandpa screamed. Hugin struggled, roaring and growling. Then he made a yipping, almost human, cry of pain.
An object hit the house. Smaller than the first time.
The shotgun fired again.
“What’s going on?” Michael asked.
I was trying to sit up. Unsuccessfully. “I don’t know. But I have to find—”
I was cut off by a scream.
Grandpa was crying out, a long and painful wail that suddenly died. This was followed by a roar I knew wasn’t a dog or a man.
I found I could move. I grabbed for the key to the door, knocking it to the floor.
I saw Michael stand up. He struggled to take the few steps to the window.
“Don’t!” I yelled.
He looked at me.
“You don’t know what’s out there,” I said, then I scooped up the key and went to the door. “We . . . we need to arm ourselves. We need something to protect us.”
It took a moment of fumbling to place the key in the lock. Then it wouldn’t budge. “Oh no . . . oh no,” I whispered.
I twisted and twisted.
With a clicking sound the key turned. I quickly rotated the knob and threw open the door.
Michael and Angie followed me into the darkened living room.
“What’s out there?” Michael asked. “Was it a bear? Did you see it?”
“No,” I answered. “But I think whatever—whoever—it is, it’s really big.”
I found it hard to move. My body was still clumsy. My legs and arms were tingling.
Michael went to the closet and found a bat. I took the hockey stick that was above the mantel and gave a steel poker to Angie. The stick felt too small in my hands. Who’d be scared of me?
We went to the back door, stopped, and looked at each other. I breathed in, my first good breath of air. “Let’s do it,” I said.
Michael turned the knob.
11
There was one light in the backyard, high on a pole. It seemed to have only about forty watts of power, just enough brightness to turn everything into shadows. We took a few tentative steps outside.
What I saw was enough to frighten me.
A large section of the fence was broken; long, thick slabs of wood looked as if they had been snapped like toothpicks. Grass was uprooted all across the yard. Then I looked to my left. Part of the cabin was caved in, boards stuck out like broken bones. It was the spare room—where we had slept. And it looked like there was blood on the wall. A large, spattered, black pool.
“It’s a battlefield!” Michael exclaimed. “What happened?”
“I don’t know. But we have to find Grandpa.” I clutched my hockey stick tighter and started out into the yard.
“Grandpa! Grandpa!” we yelled.
It was hard to make sense of the shapes around me. There was too much gloom and darkness. I squinted, wondering if I should take the time to find a flashlight. There had to be one in the house somewhere. But what if Grandpa was just a few feet away, lying on the ground?
I stumbled across a groove in Grandfather’s tiny garden. It was as if something had been dragged along the earth, through the carrots and pea plants. Part of Grandpa’s plaid shirt was stuck to a rake.
I picked up the tattered cloth. It was stained with a dark wet spot. I wasn’t sure if it was blood.
My heart sped up. I followed the track, coming closer to the end of the yard.
A few steps later I found his shotgun. The double barrel was bent
upwards.
Then I came to the edge of the fence. Boards and posts and wire were all broken and snapped, pointing inwards, like a bulldozer had slammed through it all. Just past that were trees and underbrush.
I thought I could hear a rustling sound.
“Grandpa?” I whispered. I couldn’t take another step. I felt safe in the yard, in the dim light. “Grandpa?”
The bushes moved. A twig snapped.
I moved backwards. Could I hear breathing? Deep, animal-like inhalations?
“Do you see something?” Michael asked.
It took me a second to find my voice. “Y-yes. We better call the police.”
I was still stepping backwards but looking ahead. Finally I turned and started running quickly towards the cabin.
Angie and Michael followed.
Michael slammed the door behind us and put his weight against it.
Angie was standing behind him, her hands tight on her steel poker. “Phone the cops!” she yelled. “Phone the cops!”
I dialed 911, hoping emergency numbers were the same in Canada as they were at home. An operator answered and I quickly told her what had happened, trying not to sound panicked. I must have spoken too fast because she commanded me to calm down and repeat everything slowly, which I did. “Make sure you stay in the house,” she said before she hung up.
Michael was staring out the door’s window. “I don’t see anything,” he said. “Do you know what you saw?”
“I . . . I didn’t really see anything. I just . . . thought I heard breathing.” I paused. “I could just feel it there . . . looking at me.”
“Maybe it was Grandpa,” Angie suggested.
“No. It was like an animal or something.”
I went to the living room window. The yard was still.
“Oh . . . geez,” Michael exclaimed.
“What?” I asked.
He was gawking down at his sleeve. There was a small gash on his upper right arm. “I must have cut myself. Not too deep but it’s bleeding.”
I stayed at the back door while Angie helped him wash the wound and wrapped a handkerchief around it. I noticed Michael was limping when he returned.