The Warden of the Castle
Claudio Hernández
Translated by Carlos Schrecker
“The Warden of the Castle”
Written By Claudio Hernández
Copyright © 2017 Claudio Hernández
All rights reserved
Distributed by Babelcube, Inc.
www.babelcube.com
Translated by Carlos Schrecker
Cover Design © 2017 Iván Ruso
“Babelcube Books” and “Babelcube” are trademarks of Babelcube Inc.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
The Warden of the Castle | Claudio Hernández
Introduction
The Sheet
The Undertaker
The A+ Girl
Rotten Apples
In the Mouth of the Worm
The Bogeyman is Under the Sheets
Everything You Have Lost
The Girl I Love
The Curious Case of Mr. Carl Farmer
Sometimes They Sleep
They Are Amongst Us
Fletcher’s Death
Horns, An Extraordinary Case
Pets Always Come Back
Catalepsy
The Fifth Guest
The Apocalypse We Knew
The Photocopier
The Shortcut On the Goat’s Slope
Children That Disappear
Hold while you breathe
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The Warden of the Castle
Claudio Hernández
This book is dedicated to the man who has always been my mentor, Stephen King, and specially to the late Bernie Wrightson. Although the latter has recently left us, his work will live forever for us to enjoy it. This one is for you, Bernie.
Index
Introduction
The Sheet
The Undertaker
The A+ Girl
Rotten Apples
In the Mouth of the Worm
The Bogeyman Is Under the Sheets
Everything You Have Lost
Time to Say Good-Bye
The Girl I Love
The Curious Case of Mr. Carl Farmer
Sometimes They Sleep
They Are Amongst Us
Fletcher's Death
Horns, An Extraordinary Case
Pets Always Come Back
Catalepsy
The Fifth Guest
The Apocalypse We Knew
The Photocopier
The Shortcut on the Goat's Slope
Children That Disappear
Hold while you breathe
Introduction
Stephen King was always there with me. He has been the source of all my influences. I specially draw inspiration from his first books and, more specifically, from the short story collection titled 'Night Shift'. I remember I spent months reading each story over and over again. It was also a very productive time for other master of horror, an illustrator this time: Bernie Wrightson's drawings took my breath away. He illustrated all the stories that delighted my "twisted" mind, enchanted by a fascination for Stephen King and Bernie Wrightson. The latter adapted stories by Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft, besides creating Uncle Creepy and a bunch of other monsters drawn in his particular mix of Gothic style and Frankenstein-like designs. Surrounded by the stories by Stephen King — also influenced by Poe and Lovecraft during his boyhood — and the drawings by Bernie Wrightson, I created in my mind a new universe that has now materialized in words. Short stories that entertained me in front of my bright, red Olivetti typewriter. A great deal of them were written while I was still very young, while others I have just recently finished, always driven by the same purpose.
I created a character with no name — I was unable to decide for a name — and, finally, I called him “The Warden of the Castle”. Then I imagined this man holding a lantern with a lighted candle inside it. He would lead you through the numerous darkened hallways of the castle until reaching a hall where everyone would be waiting for you. Resting their heads on their bony arms on a huge table next to a fireplace. The smoke from two torches at both sides of it drawing strange figures that would float up to the ceiling.
They, the ones who are no longer among us like Edgar Allan Poe, H. P. Lovecraft, Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley and the editors from the first DC comics among others, waited anxiously for a new story from the warden, who would sit on a red velvet armchair on one side of the table and let his low, husky voice resound through the room. The others looked at him savoring the moment.
That was the introduction for the stories I would write from that moment on and the low voice of “the Warden of the Castle” would break the silence of the night and tell them from the hall, howling over the sound of the flames in the fireplace. Ready to continue reading?
Go on, then. Welcome to the Castle.
Claudio Hernández. April, 2017
The Sheet
The warden of the Castle dropped the lantern on the floor, which sounded of broken glass. The little flame went out in a puff of smoke imbuing the air with a faint burning smell. Before this, a shadow that looked like the claw of a giant monster vanished the instant it tried to catch the warden.
They were waiting there, seated around him in comfortable, velvet-lined chairs, heated by the fireplace that covered the whole hall. Those uneasy eyes were waiting for something in the dark as the warden sat on his armchair. He dragged it closer to the table and the legs screeched like rusted hinges. The warden’s face twisted into an unsettling smile.
“Hello everyone,” said the warden loudly in a low, husk growl. “Tonight, I have prepared a special assortment of terrifying stories for you”. His fat fingers pointed to the ceiling, but nobody looked up as he continued. “The first one is called The Sheet. One may think it is a harmless piece of cloth, yet it becomes specially relevant when let on its own, or better still, when you are on your own. It is then that it swallows you like a drain.”
1
Jack Chamberlain was tired. The trip had been exhausting, but it had met his expectations. Under the pyramids, he found some good loot, but no, no golden sarcophagus. He did find several pieces from that era, one of them even in a pretty good condition. Besides paintings, statues and whatnot, there was a sheet. It was flawless, new and soft to the touch. He felt that was weird enough and decided to carbon date the sheet and use it as any old Pharaoh would have done: to nap on it.
“Oh, what a soft sheet,” whispered as he caressed its soft, off-white surface. “I wonder what fabric it is made of.”
As he turned on his side to lean his cheek on the sheet, he thought that maybe what he was doing was madness. Resting on a thousand-year-old sheet. He would accidentally shred it, wear it and soil it without realizing how precious it was. His colleagues — archaeologists — would never forgive him for ruining it. And now they would probably be wondering where the hell was the sheet.
But Jack Chamberlain didn’t give a damn and he rolled in the sheet for a while, feeling a warmth and softness that he had never felt, until a sharp prick in his right ear raised all the alarms in his body.
Did he prick with a needle?
It was a sharp pain that had penetrated his eardrum and reached his very brain as he felt more pricks in his right pain, his side and his leg. He gave a piercing scream and howled like a wolf on his night hunt. He opened wide the eyes and say that the sheet had enveloped his skin as a single structure. The pain was increasing and he just could scream and stick his tongue out for almost a foot.
Now the sheet burned and was entering inside him, or even worse: swallowing him whole and absorbing him slowly. His screams were increasing and he tried to ge
t up from the bed, but the sheet drew him towards it and the bones of his arm cracked like dry twigs. Blood gushed out of the wound from which his humerus had broken through the skin and got in the sheet, which drank the blood as Jack watched until it went back to its original color. His ulna and radius also cracked. He felt an explosion of sharp pain that almost made him pass out and drained his strength to struggle. That sheet was fighting with him and swallowing him like the mouth of a gigantic toad. The last screams were heard and the last stream of fresh blood gushed from the wound before disappearing under the surface of the sheet. The last crack of bones under the sweltering heat was heard. A couple minutes later, the ominous and extended silence was broken by something similar by a burp. On the mattress, there was a sheet, smooth, flawless and as soft as it had always been. It was an off-white and smelt of mold.
2
On a down-on-its-luck motel in Boad Hill called The House of the Coming, in the outskirts of Maine, the chubby receptionist stumbled on her feet towards the desk after hearing the bell. It was a short woman with big breasts that hung up to her belly. She was wearing an extremely short skirt and a green shirt. She wasn’t wearing a bra and her huge knees, like basketballs, were showing under the black mini-skirt.
“How may I help you?” she asked with a tired voice that showed she hated that shitty job.
“What do you think?” asked the young man with blond hair and gray eyes.
“You came here to fuck?”
The young man’s eyes opened even wider.
“Careful! You are going to scare my girl with that kind of vocabulary,” he said while he held the arm of a black, skinny, tall woman. Her eyes were brown and her hair was as dark as the night outside.
“That’s what everyone comes here to do, right?” The woman behind the desk, who had propped her breasts up the desk and pressed her lips together.
“Hey now, little miss-”
“Missus,” interrupted the receptionist while she played around with a pen between her fat fingers.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!”, he said pretending to be appalled.
“Let’s get down to business, there is a show I like on TV,” said the woman raising her eyebrows. “Do you want a room?”
There was a short, but ominous moment in which they looked at each other.
“Yes, of course I want a fucking room,” answered the man stroking his hair.
“Well, let’s start with your name.”
“William,” he gave a fake name indifferently.
The black woman turned around and smiled.
“ID number?”
“Now that I’m trying to think about it, I can’t remember it by heart and I have forgotten my ID at home. You won’t just leave me on the streets, right?
“Sign here,” the receptionist produced a notepad full of handwritten text.
The young man smiled and took the pen that the woman was extending him. He scribbled something and heard the jingling of keys in a huge keychain. It looked like the trunk from a tree with two rusted keys. The man took them and looked at them as if there was something special about them.
“Number 217,” said the woman with a husky voice. “Ah! Be careful not to soil the sheet. It is new.”
She went the way he came.
“Wow!” was all the young man could say as the girl by his side laughed unrestrained.
3
The key did not turn on the lock, but it gave away under the strength of the man who called himself William with a screech. The girl lifted her hands to cover her ears, because the sound sent a shiver down her spine.
The door opened with a second screech of the hinges and led to a dark room as William searched for the light switch with his hand. With a loud click, the light of a 40-watt lightbulb illuminated the room, which was a straight mess. It was untidy and it stank, but William wanted things to go fast and a night was a night.
“That’s gross,” said Ayanna, which was the name of the girl.
“It really is,” agreed William getting first into the room. The warped, swollen floorboards cracked under his feet.
The bedside lamp was on its side; the carpet was wrinkled and it rested on one side. There was a flipped chair, the wooden walls were bloated and the bathroom didn’t have a door to speak of, but the bed was covered by a flawless sheet, as if it had just been ironed. The mattress it rested on looked like it probably was soiled by urine.
“Have you noticed the sheet is the only thing decent in all the room? It looks unreal in comparison with the rest,” said the young man.
“It looks like it’s been ironed, but its color is faded.”
William rested his hand on the sheet. “It is soft, though. Touch it, Ayanna.”
She got closer and caressed the soft sheet. “It really is.”
“It’s probably the only thing that is brand new around here,” he said going around the bed, which was missing a leg, without lifting his hand from the sheet.
Ayanna nodded, still at the open door.
Suddenly, William felt a tingling sensation on his finger tips and a strange feeling as if a fish was kissing his fingers. Something pulled him forcefully and William drew the hand away quickly.
“Ah!”
“What happened?”
“Nothing,” he looked at his hands and they were turning red. Something weird has happened, he thought. As soon as he had come back to reality, he didn’t want to think about it. It was so... unreal!
4
After closing the door, Ayanna left the swollen moon shine on the dark sky. The soft moonlight got through the window. William closed it and the room was only lit by the yellow lightbulb.
Ayanna arrived at the bathroom with long strides to have a shower first. As she expected, the light did not turn on.
“Hey!” she shouted coarsely. “Power doesn’t work on the bathroom.”
William smiled. “Thankfully I don’t feel like taking a shit. I would hate shitting in the dark.”
The girl went back to where William was, the only chair in the room. No fucking couch, he thought as he spread his legs and showed his crotch. Ayanna sat on one of his legs and caressed his lips with a finger.
“Before fucking I need to take a shower,” said Ayanna moving only lightly her swollen, red lips. “So, I’ll get outta this fucking room, and I’m gonna ask that fat receptionist for a shower. Later I’ll be back, so wait for me, okay?”
William shook his head and he started having an erection. When she got up, Ayanna saw the bulk in his jeans and winked at him. She turned around and went towards the door moving her hips from side to side.
The door screeched when it opened and it closed with a loud thump. A cloud of dust lifted from the ground lie the smoke of a cigarette, and William sprawled in the chair.
5
“Hey, lady, the power of the bathroom in the room we got doesn’t work and I need to take a shower,” explained Ayanna wagging her finger in the air.
The lady did not say anything. She just turned around and looked in a small cabinet with all the keys for the free rooms. She chose a random key and gave it to Ayanna with a stupid smile on her face.
“Here you go, suite 223,” said the woman behind the desk. A bright key hung from a keychain that looked like a log. “This one even has how water,” she added widening her smile.
Ayanna took it with a snort and the keys clinked as they changed hands. The receptionist entered a room at her left, where she always was, and said something that was muffled by the television.
6
William thought that it was taking too long for Ayanna to return, so he decided to take a look at the corridor outside to see in what mess she had got. He looked at both sides. The corridor was lit by the moonlight, but she wasn’t there. He called her a couple times, but she didn’t answer so he came back in and slammed the door shut. The cracked hinges squeaked.
“Fucking girl, she just had to shower before,” he said aloud. “That’s something you do after.” He had
lost the erection and his dick rested limply on his yellow underwear.
He returned to the chair and sit. He waited for some time, and then, saw once more the sheet, still laying flawless on the bed. The ivory color of the sheet stood out to him, and thought that it must have been as old as the rest of items in the room. However, he recalled the pleasant feeling he had felt when he had touched it and how it had dragged him.
He got up and walked towards the bed frowning. He looked at it from all possible angles. It was perfect when seen in comparison to the rest of the room. Who the hell would leave a lamp fallen on its side on the nightstand, but still take the time to place the sheet perfectly on the bed?
He extended his arm and touched its surface with his fingers. It was soft to the touch: silky and pleasant. He could almost feel its warmth. He rested his open hand on the sheet and was surprised to see the print of his hand, which disappeared just moments after. Is it that ‘viscolatex’ thing? Or does it have a layer of viscoelastic material or some shit? He couldn’t find out, but realized he didn’t give a fuck either, not about anything that wasn’t getting busy with Ayanna, so he gave up.
He thought the best move would be to start getting undressed before she was back. She would find him there, laying on the bed, dick out and all. He started taking off his tight, white shirt and the lightbulb lit the tattoo he had on his back. It was a tiger or some shit like that. Lower, he had a drawing of a curvy chick. The pants and underwear followed suit before he laid down on the bed, completely naked.
He fell on the sheet and his weight rested on broken springs and the soft touch of the sheet on his skin. “It is so soft...”
He caressed it with both hands, feeling it with the palms of his hands and the pain of the uncomfortable springs was balanced by the pleasantness of the sheet. He spent around two minutes like this before feeling something strange.
It was like a great drain suctioning him. He felt as if his skin was getting stuck to the sheet, which was getting warmer, and it stuck to his skin.
William woke up from the dream of a wild night and his mouth twisted in a sharp scream. He felt his whole body connected to the sheet as if he was being vacuum-packed or a powerful magnet attracted his body to the sheet. He tried to move his head, but couldn’t. The sheet was holding him and sucking him inwards. The pain started to be unbearable and he felt as his skin would fuse with the soft touch of the sheet, which was like a burnt plastic.
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