Spriggan: Dark horror fantasy

by Julius Schenk

  The other was a girl. He tried to get a sense of her. He was surprised; she was born in the same land as him before he’d been brought to this awful place. Ripped up and carried across the sea. He would learn more about her; maybe she would follow the old ways, it would be good to have a priestess to help him. He looked at her; she had golden hair and black clothes. The priestesses always wore long black robes.

  She was greeted by another man and the machine left. The other one was also born here. He went to another metal thing in the front yard. A small metal home and she went inside of the house. He had waited years and years and could wait some more. When night came, he would find out who would live and who would die.

  Chapter Four

  The house was exactly as she’d expected. It was like a backpacker reality tv show with every cliché in the book. Sure enough, there was a northern English lug who’d already befriended his Irish brother from another drunken mother, and we’re getting pissed and talking too loudly about women that had been stupid enough to sleep with them. An Italian couple, who just sat and whispered to each other. A group of four or so people who didn’t look at her, so she had no idea about, and one girl was sitting all alone, a new friend she thought. Vicky walked up to the girl sitting alone. Her hair was short and brown with a big fringe. She was painfully skinny and taller than Vicky, which didn’t happen much.

  ‘Hello, I’m Vicky’ she said sitting next to the girl

  The girl looked up startled for the glass of dark red wine in her hand.

  ‘Oh hi,’ she said with genuine happiness ‘I’m Bree, did you just get here’ she said

  ‘Sure did, you meet that farmer? What a creepy perv right’ Vicky said

  Bree laughed and covered her mouth when she did.

  ‘Oh, it’s so good you’re a real person, these others are so clicky already, it’s like high school but with accents’ she said. She sounded Scottish

  ‘You Scottish’ Vicky asked

  ‘Yeah, but I live in London now.'

  ‘Cool me too I’m from London, Beckenham, it’s still London.’ Vicky said

  The girl laughed ‘great, can we sleep in the same room? This place is scary; someone already left you know’ she said

  ‘What? We haven’t even started yet’ Vicky said

  ‘I know, but it’s true, this girl, she seemed ok, she just took a few looks around and went nah. Roger had to drive her back to the bus stop; he was so mad, kept saying he needed ten workers, I guess we’ll have to do her share now.'

  ‘I can see her point, anyway, let's have a few drinks, a few smokes, get to bed and get this month over.'

  ‘You smoke too’ Bree said

  ‘yep’ said Vicky

  ‘This is going to work great before they all started to berate me, but they won’t mess with you.'

  Vicky did just as she planned. Her and Bree had a few glasses of wine, talked shit, and met the rest of the group. Except for the two lads, everyone else was ok, except she couldn’t remember anyone's names but Bree, it’s probably because she wasn’t trying very hard. The other group was one Asian guy who was called Bill or brad, two German girls and a German bloke. They were nice but thought they were above the rest of them.

  She had to share a room with Bree and the two German girls which was a pain because one called Ella was a reformed smoker and in typical reformed smoker fashion was a complete bitch about it. They couldn’t even smoke out the window. The bed was one of the worst she’d slept in. Narrow, hard and old, the blanket smelled like a wet dead animal, and she felt it moving, as if alive with fleas, she didn’t know if she could take a month of this. She’d laid there in the darkness for a few minutes dying for her last evening smoke and escaping her horrible bed. Vicky muttered to herself and climbing from the bottom of her bunk climbed out in the darkness, she searched for her jeans, slid them on and put on her boots. She crept out of the room as quietly as she could.

  The big farm house was dark and creepy. She knew the closest exit was the back door where she could get her last smoke of the night and then get some sleep. She felt a little buzzy from the few big glasses of red wine but had paced herself because she had no idea how hard they would have to work the next day. She didn’t want a red wine hangover and be forced to work in the hot sun all day.

  She crept passed the other rooms as quietly as she could and down the broad wooden stairs. She walked near the side of them so they wouldn’t squeak, she’d had lots of practice with majorly strict parents growing up in a house like this, if nicer and painted. She looked around at the bottom of the stairs and walking through the hallway made her way to the back door. Reaching out Vicky unlocked it quietly and walked out. The cold air hit the skin of her bare arms, and she wished she was wearing more than her thin sleeping t-shirt. It was hot during the day , then much colder at night. She just hoped she didn’t run into Roger.

  As if summoned by the thought, she saw him. She stopped dead and watched as he walked in the backyard. There was a small garden shed in the back paddock. She looked at him as he staggered into the little room and put on a light that was in there. She wouldn’t have thought it had electricity. What was he up to?

  She thought of her last smoke and realized he might see it. She crept a little towards the shed and waited, the light finally flicked off. He staggered out of the shed with a fresh new bottle of wine in his hand. She smirked. Boozy bastard. Vicky watched him walk away and left the shed door swinging, now might be a good time and never know when she’d get a chance like this, for all she knew they were only free with the booze on the first night and if she could sneak a few bottles now, she would.

  She quickly rolled a smoke and lit it, walking casually she snuck through the dark just a glowing ember showing her way. The shed was tiny, and she could see straight away the bottle as the moonlight shone in the doorway. There were a few boxes of them, she guessed, old stock or a slightly worse year.

  She reached out and touched the smooth surface of the bottles, she took one and tucked it under her arm. Looking to her left, she saw what she thought was an opened suitcase. In the moonlight, she saw it was filled with a girl’s shit, hair straightener, clothes, and a few photos; she took one that had two girls smiling and felt a shudder run through her. The main girl was a cute blonde, standing in front of a team of Whitewater rafters.

  Why would she leave her bags behind? She’d have to ask Bree if this was the girl who had already gone, she tucked the photo into her pocket. As she walked back to the house she cursed herself, why was she always finding trouble?

  She tossed her smoke to the ground and stamped it out. As she did, she heard something; it was like a soft hissing sound. For an unknown reason she was scared, it felt like something was watching her. It was like nature was saying not litter. She grabbed the butt and ran back inside.

  Chapter Five

  Once the darkness had fallen, he could move freely. He crept up to the glass of the front room and looked in at the people who had now descended on his grove. There was a lot of them and being so close he could hear them speaking; The room was filled with noise, that he knew they called ‘music’ it used to be played by people holding things, instruments, now it just came out of little things they carried and looked at constantly.

  He could remember the priestess, singing beautiful songs as they would cut someone's throat and feed the roots their blood, but that was very long ago. Half were men and half women; he could tell the difference. It was like males and female birds, yet in people, the women had more plumage and dressed in bright colors. Except for the girl. She wore all black and now it was night and colder, he looked at her carefully.

  Any hope that she might understand was gone in moments. In fact, as it looked she seemed the worst one. Around her body and arms, she wore the cut skin of a cow. She was a hunter who wore her kills around her neck to show them off. Not only that, he could smell her, she smelt like burning and some strange scent that hurt him. It was designed to repel insects and stank li
ke death.

  Still, as he looked, none of them, were doing wrong. She wore a skin, but it wasn’t an animal from his grove. Other sat at wooden tables, they drank from goblets and laughed but seemed to be peaceful. Then he saw the table. They had plates and had been eating.

  He knew these people ate animals. He sensed what was left. They were eating a dead chicken. It filled him with a burning anger, but he couldn’t take his righteous rage out on them. It was a creature from outside his grove. It wasn’t his job to punish them.

  After an age of watching, he had learned all their names, had heard their voices and would learn more. They started to drift from the big room and go to their beds. He crept to the outside of the home and waited to see if any of them would come outside.

  The hunter girl had gotten up from her bed. He was near the back door. Standing in the darkness. He could see her so clearly, but he was just a dark void to her weak eyes. They never saw him at night. He watched her as she slipped out of the house. She waited in the darkness and was looking at the man, Roger; he smelled of wine. She waited till he was gone and then went to a small room outside, which he’d just been inside.

  She lit a small fire which she carried in her mouth. It stank, and a line of smoke raised from it. He realized it was burning tobacco leaves. They must have done it for enjoyment. She went into the shed and coming out in a moment; she seemed upset. He felt fear on her, he could sense it like an animal his grove was being hunted. What had she found? He saw her throw the fire to the ground and he hissed at her.

  He was so close to her. He could hear her breath, hear her heart beating faster and faster in the night. He could have reached out with a quick hand and crushed the life out of her. He felt the fire starting to burn a small plant on the ground. He smiled, it was enough.

  He raised his hand up to the height of her throat. She still couldn’t see him, in the dark, but looked up at where he was and seemed scared, she quickly reached down and grabbed the hot thing and ran inside. He smiled again. The little plant was unharmed, and thus she was safe.

  He crept off into the darkness; he knew tomorrow they would give him lots of chances to strike.

  Chapter Six

  Vicky barely slept at all that night. She left her jeans and boots on and waited for the barest scrap of daybreak before waking Bree from the bunk above her. There was a slight chance it was nothing, so she’d play it sane just in case, but in her experience, things we’re always as bad or worse than they seemed. She woke Bree up by shaking her. She woke startled but smiled at her, then looking at Vickie's face, became serious.

  ‘What?’ Bree said in a sleepy voice.

  Vicky pulled out the photo of the blonde girl.

  ‘Is one of these, the girl that left?’ she said in a whisper.

  Bree sat up and looked at it hard, then her.

  ‘Where did you get that?’ she asked.

  ‘I found it in Rogers shed at the back last night? Is it her.'

  Bree looked at it again, thought a moment and then spoke

  ‘It’s not her, either of them, she was a redhead, what else did you find?’

  ‘A suitcase of girl’s stuff’ she said, the fear leaving her

  ‘Roger said his daughter stays here sometimes it’s probably her, you worry a lot’ she said laughing

  ‘who’d have a kid with him?’ Vicky said

  She let out a sigh and kicked herself for not getting any sleep and worrying about nothing; She really shouldn’t have watched ‘wolf creek’ before she came here, that was a bad idea. Roger was a perv, but that didn’t make him a killer. Yet she kept thinking every Australian in the country had a torture room full of backpackers and runaways.

  She didn’t get more than another hour’s sleep before it was Brees turn to wake her and she had to stumble down to breakfast. Now it looked like a real hostel. Hung over rats from the world over sitting at the big table eating cereal, toast and talking about vegemite vs. marmite.

  The two lads looked the worst off, they had taken the open bar to the extreme and looked very seedy. Still, she smiled to watch them suffer. They were already pissing her off, they just sat at the table and waited for the girls to put food in front of them. Bree placed a box of cereal in front of one.

  ‘I want the other one’ he said to her, none to sweetly.

  Vicky looked at his stupid face and smiled to herself; she was in the right mood for this. Lack of sleep and he was English; he was giving her country a bad name.

  She spoke just as Bree brought him the other one, her voice a perfect imitation of a five-year-old child.

  ‘Mummy I want the other one’ she said

  Bree laughed as did a few others.

  ‘what’s your problem bitch?’ he said getting angry

  ‘I’m sorry I’m just tired from shagging your mom all night’ she said back

  ‘what? girls can’t use that joke’ he said

  ‘But it’s so much better when we do’ she spat back

  ‘you a lesbian then, you look like one?’ he accused

  ‘ask your mom’ she said back, to more laughter. She saw the look in his eyes change and realized she’d pushed him too far and he was the kind of guy who would happily slug her.

  The big English idiot stood up and lunged at her across the table just as Roger walked in looking fresh as a daisy. Everyone stopped.

  ‘what’s this shit?’ he said calmly but looking far from it.

  Vicky decided she had gone too far ‘oh nothing just English people talking football, or soccer as you call it’ she said.

  ‘we’ll’ he said looking at the spilled food on the dirty table ‘you’ve made a mess boy, and you can spend all day cutting down that tree in the front yard’ Roger smiled as he walked out, ‘rest of you have ten minutes.’

  The day was as she’d expected. While the big English lug trimmed and cut down a massive old tree, because it branches hung over Rogers caravan, the rest of them were learning the fine art of reviving a winery. There were at least a hundred rows of vines that ran along the border of the property in what would have been once neat lines. The vines were now brown and overgrown, dying things that we’re filled with blackberry as well.

  ‘It’s simple; you just cut right back till it's only around two inches from the ground’ Roger laid out a pile of old tools, saws, gloves, and shears on a small blanket he pulled from a small nearby shed.

  Vicky looked at Bree as he walked away ‘what is he talking about? I don’t know a lot about vines, but these are dead as dead can be, they won’t regrow now’ she said

  ‘well, he knows more than us, maybe they will replant seeds at the base of the old ones’ She said.

  ‘how long will that take? How fast do they even grow?’ she asked again as she took hold of an old vine in a gloved hand and ripped it free throwing it to the middle of the row, this was going to take ages.

  They worked all day in the rows as the sun slowly rose higher and higher above them, and they stood right over their heads shining down. She was glad she’d put sunscreen all over her arms and face this morning even though it had been cold then. The Australia weather would trick you. She talked with Bree as she worked and liked the girl she was quiet, but funny if a little odd.

  ‘what do you mean, you don’t have to be here?’ Vicky asked her

  ‘Oh, I’ve already done my three months at a different place, I just like working on organic farms, I don’t want to worry about money, Bills and that stuff on my holidays, I just work, live, enjoy the world’ she said back

  ‘you’re a hippy then?’ Vicky said with a laugh

  Bree laughed ‘I guess so, I am a vegetarian and try to be vegan as much as I can without being too annoying about it, no soy milk in a place like this, so I adjust’ she said

  ‘that’s cool, I’ve worked a dairy farm, so I get it, dairy sucks, too bad chocolate and cheese are so good’ she said back.

  ‘yeah, too bad’ Bree looked over her shoulder across the field to the English guy
who was cutting down a huge branch off the tree ‘he really shouldn’t be doing that.'

  ‘why not?’ asked Vicky

  ‘That tree looked old, it wasn’t in the way, he could have just moved his caravan if it was annoying him’ she said

  ‘Yeah, but people don’t think that way, let’s get lunch’ she said and smiled.

  ‘You go on; I saw some flowers at the end of that row, I'm going to pick some for the table.'

  Vicky just shook her head, nice, odd but nice. Vicky started her walk back to the house with a nod of goodbye.

  Chapter Seven

  He had forgotten so much; he’d been viewing the destruction of these defilers with an almost glee, but he’d forgotten the pain. He’ forgotten the rage and senseless waste. They came out of their wooden house and set to their work of destroying, cutting, and ripping. They were busy, and they worked hard in their mindless destruction. A team of defilers, spreading out all around the farm to hurt things.

  A group of them, led by the hunter girl went to the old vines. They were doing natures work. Even he knew that the dead and dying must clear the way for new growth. Yet, they were like spiteful children at their toil. They had sharp metal tools that cut the dead vines, yet also ripped up the things they called ‘weeds.’

  One of them spent an age, with a sharp metal spade, digging the ground the ripping out a deep and vigorous blackberry bush. It was young and beautiful, and he could hear and feel it screaming as the boy tore it out. They were fine plants, strong and grew deep roots. People didn’t like the spikes, but they should just avoid them.

  The worst was a big strong one. He came out of the house; anger streaming from him. He took a large axe to an old and proud tree at the front of the house. He watched in horror as the tall boy raised the axe above his head and then with all his force brought it into its trunk. He felt the pain of the tree lance through him. He was hit with a wave of rage, but the sun was up, there were tens of them. If he attacked him and stopped him, he would surely be brought down by the rest of them, they were like ants, kill one the others come in droves.