The Warden of the Castle

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The Warden of the Castle Page 6

by Claudio Hernández


  He was insane.

  14

  But that cold winter night changed everything.

  15

  The bogeyman looked at him like so many nights ago. Danny turned, but an icy, bony hand settled on his shoulder. Danny understood immediately. Tonight would not be the same as all the others. He wanted something. He wanted Danny.

  Danny turned and stared at him in his empty sockets. The bogeyman showed him a pair of rows of sharp teeth and raised a dark hand with extremely long nails. Danny's heart slammed into his chest. The bogeyman grabbed one of the sheets and with its fine nail ripped them easily. Danny pulled away from him, starting a break from the bed, curling up at one end of it, his eyes wide and then he began to scream.

  The bogeyman raised his hands and showed him cold black claws and a skin on his gray fingers. And the depth of their empty basins. He was smiling and Danny screamed more and more until he was disgusted.

  The door of the room burst open, making the hinges squeak. It was Dad who had a wrinkly, devilish face and clenched fists. But his features changed at the moment, going from the red of his skin to absolute white. I had seen. This time yes.

  The bogeyman looked at him and got out of bed. Danny was still screaming and mom also appeared on the scene. She was stunned and horrified. The bogeyman was finally in front of them, showing what it was. A monstrous being of claws like spatulas, greyish, extremely thin and bony. And their eyes. They were not there. Panic gripped them and Danny kept screaming on the bed, now sweaty.

  Then the bogeyman threw itself against Peter. His long nails ripped the right arm of his pajamas very easily. Peter screamed and clenched his fist. He lifted it and just as long ago it happened with Danny's arm-which he regretted every day as he passed-dropped it, this time, on the head of the bogeyman. The blow sounded cascade as if something were breaking under his fist. Something hollow and dry. The bogeyman staggered and dropped to its knees on the floor. Peter's fist in the midst of a heartbreaking cry came down violently again. Wendy was shrieking now in the hallway. Her face was scratched by her own nails. The second blow sounded more hollow and hollow and something cracked at the level of his knees. The bogeyman fell to the ground with open arms and nails spread like black wings. Peter, heart racing in a nervous breakdown, grabbed him by the arm and lifted him. I weighed little. She looked at him for a moment and threw him hard against the window she had shot. Remains of crystals fell on the floor and the carpet. The burst went with the bogeyman. And suddenly there came a breath of cold air. Danny stopped screaming. Wendy was more frightened but soon her eyes filled with tears and she knew that it was over. Peter gasped, looked at the broken window for a while, then looked at Danny who had already shut up. But not everything is what it seems to be.

  “Hi Dad,” Danny said smiling at him and showed him a claw-like hand with extremely long black fingernails like spatulas.

  Everything You Have Lost

  The warden moved his creaky chair again to add fuel to the fire. The atmosphere was warm. At the exact temperature that Lovecraft needed to breathe normally. Breathe? If he does not breathe now, the warden thought, as he stooped and crushed his belly and threw new trunks into the fire. These creaked nothing else comes into contact with the fire and the shadows were more prominent on the roof forming more strange shapes up there.

  —Like the old master of horror said “and the next story is...” He raised one of his hands and, like a magician, began to celebrate the content of his next story.

  Edgar Allan Poe expected a story according to his style and found it here or at least that seemed to advance his features of the orange face by the light of the torches.

  “A long trip, in a carriage, a snow storm. Horses galloping while breathing heavily. Bad luck and fate, wants them to have an accident and under the carriage the boy Bart Lachance is trapped. His leg hurts. Mom is dead and her sister is pregnant. But Bart has a sudden pain of appendicitis and his sister breaks water. William the father and husband of the late Sue, has to face a difficult situation.”

  A murmur rose in the air. The warden smiled again.

  1

  Tommy listened, absorbed in his grandfather's story to the fire of the fireplace. Outside the wind whined and smashed the snowflakes against the windows with a constant click. It was the year 1980 but the story, the story, dated back many years, when carriages or carts pulled by horses were the only way to get around and work. What I was telling him happened in the family, but several generations ago. And Tommy's grandfather, as a good accomplice, inherited the story to his grandson. As his ancestors had already done. Tommy's elbows were on the carpet, his face resting on both hands. He had a bright look and his cheeks were red from the heat of the fireplace. His grandfather rattled in the rocking chair, all bones and taut and dark skin from the stains of time.

  “In Placerwille there was not enough guarantee to be able to have a delivery in conditions. In addition, her entire family was in Boston and decided that it would be a blessing to spend there her last two months before the expected date of childbirth. Then they would add another three months' stay so that they would become very fond of the creature and return to Placerwille, where nothing ever happens. Except that a thief would...”

  His grandfather's voice faded with an ever-lowering sound until it disappeared completely, at which point Tommy was deeply engrossed in his words. At the bottom of it all, the dances of the flames of the chimney were heard. And Tommy's eyes were closing, but he kept listening and listening.

  2

  William was an excellent surgeon but he was in the wrong place. He lived in a small village called Placerwille, but he planned to go to Boston, where he would practice his profession better. Besides, his wife would be with his family. But at the moment William had decided to take a few months off to attend the last two months of pregnancy of his eldest daughter and after childbirth, later, would decide whether to return to Placerwille, where he had buried his parents and a brother. Maverik would replace him all this time and was not a bad doctor either, but he did not master the art of surgery.

  Shirley, her twenty-two-year-old daughter was seven months pregnant and still did not know the sex of the baby to come. But they were happy. Maybe they would give Bart Lachance a little brother. A vagrant thief, pregnant and then abandoned and left far west of Maine. A scoundrel, William had told his daughter a thousand times before the inevitable happened. And she believed that he loved her and that he was a good man. The decision to travel to Boston to visit Mom's family would be a good idea to forget step by step, facts. Yes, starting a new life would be best. But that would already be seen over time.

  William would have wanted another child, because his daughter was already an adult and the boy almost too, but Sue was old enough for it. However they tried.

  3

  Everything went very fast and in the worst of the winters they were heading for Boston in the carriage pulled by two lordly horses. The whole family shivering cold inside the car but with the illusion far above the ego. Everything was going to be all right, and Placerwille was finally leaving behind. And as fast as they took the carriage and entered the forest following a winding road of snow and ice, what happened they did not expect.

  4

  One of the horses slipped and unfortunately broke the leg causing the other horse also to be stabilized. Scattered, the two horses, with their front legs open, their snouts smell the ice and the part that held them to the car broke. Inside the car, with two seats in front of each other, with two doors in whose glass windows it was snowing, began to move frantically and to be launched like a projectile towards the ravine that there was before the curve. One of the horses remained on the side of the road, buried against two twisted trees that were dark after the blow that precipitated the fall of the snow. The other horse, whinnying like a Cossack, plunged into the emptiness entangled with all the strings that the diligent one once threw. This one had been made immediately after the horses, brushing all the face in the gro
und and breaking the clavicle and something more. The snow turned red where his head lay inert.

  The chariot also fell in the void under the heavy snow.

  5

  William Lachance woke up, his face covered with snow and with the impression of not knowing what had happened. But in the cool of the air caressing the face and the footsteps of the seconds, William remembered. The last image he had in his memory was the wide-open eyes of his wife Sue and his mouth in a gigantic O of astonishment and fear. There was a lot of rattling in there, in the cart that fell apart as it fell to the bottom of the ravine. He saw splinters everywhere and his children moving like dolls in their seats. He saw his wife leave and saw the darkness.

  I look around anxiously and fearfully. And he saw many split boards covered almost entirely with snow and the roof of the cart, as well as the open suitcases scattered over an area of ​​several meters. How long have we been like this? He wondered in alarm. His heart was alive but galloping under his chest. He was bleeding from one arm and blood stained the snow with red.

  It did not take much effort to see how his wife was dependent. The horse, with a broken neck and wide-eyed eyes, lay on the side of Sue's body, resting dispatched in the snow and a large pool of blood mixed with snow. William screamed in despair and clenched his fists tightly in anger. What is left for me now? William began to search.

  6

  He did not have to look for much, because the two were very close to where he had woken up. Bart Lachance, his son, was trapped under what was left of the car. At first when William shouted his name did not get answer for a long time, but finally a howl woke him of the commotion. He had a broken leg. Dad walked over to him and watched as the tibia bone peeped through his purple skin. Bart started bawling like a stripper and a few seconds later he woke up his sister Shirley, who was lying on the floor belly up and almost covered with snow. Her forehead was soaked with blood and her nose. William had a big problem in front of him. But while it was still snowing things got even more complicated.

  7

  “Does it hurt, son?”

  “Yes...”

  “I’m going to fix it now.”

  “What?” Bart’s eyes widened.

  “Everything will pass quickly. I just have to find my tools.”

  “Will it hurt?”

  William shook his head.

  “I have anesthetics.”

  Bart frowned in pain.

  8

  It turned out that the briefcase was near the remains of the carriage, next to the suitcases open and scattered over the white snow. The briefcase was open, and almost all the tools had been fired in several directions by jumping into the snow. William picked them up one by one, with severe pain in his left arm and shoulder. When she remembered, Sue began to cry.

  9

  “Dad, it hurts!” shouted Bart as his Father came closer.

  “Wait, son!” William said a little dizziness and with slight symptoms of hypothermia. He was full of doubts. In his mind, everything was gibberish. Bart had a broken bone and Shirley was belly up and did not know what she had for the moment, since somehow, she passed him close to her. Or maybe the wind, the snow, the screams of Bart, Sue dead, some of it all made him think wrong but he had to keep his mind cold and decide precisely. Knowing to take the right steps and is that suddenly I was stunned with so much disaster. He did not know how to react.

  “Dad, it hurts!”

  “I’m on my way!”

  William came to him burying his feet in the snow and watching as his son's face turned bruised by the intense cold.

  “Let’s fix that leg so it doesn’t hurt.”

  “It’s not the leg, it hurts here.”

  William was now white. It could not be. Did he have an internal problem because of the heavy blow? And it was not that she was in an operating room at the time, she thought reluctantly and anxiously at the same time.

  “It hurts a lot.” Bart's eyes began to fill with tears that fell on his cheek and rolled downhill to touch the snow. William felt it with his icy hand. Bart screamed. William felt him again in the groin and belly.

  “Appendicitis,” whispered William.

  10

  It turned out that the priority was on his son Bart who had suddenly given him an appendicitis attack. William had to use all his skill, but he wanted his son to die right there in the deepest pain. But then the most unexpected happened.

  11

  Shirley se había incorporado cubierta de nieve y gritó llevándose las manos a la abultada barriga.

  “Oh! No! No! I have broken waters!”

  And William with a lost look in his eyes and an anesthetic in one hand was perplexed. Now his head ached and his ability to react had diminished along with the frozen snow that fell incessantly.

  He had to decide.

  12

  He had to make a quick decision. Operate there his son Bart of appendicitis at risk of suffering a subsequent infection or attend the birth of his daughter Shirley. A strange feeling of puzzlement and confusion clouded his thoughts. He had to choose between one of the two. And I knew one of the two had to die.

  13

  His hand moved to the right area of Bart's belly and injected a calculated amount of anesthetic. He hoped it would not have happened in extremis of quantity. But he remembered that it was, after all, a local anesthetic, nothing inhaled or injected into a vein. And as Shirley's ideas and cries filled the open space of the snow-covered forest cleared, William sat up and turned to his daughter, holding her head and caressing her gently.

  “Breath,” he said.

  He had decided to intervene. In memory he had his wife Sue dead.

  “Can you move, honey?” I need you to get as close to your brother as possible. I have to operate on appendicitis.

  Shirley nodded as she breathed faster and faster.

  Papa grabbed her armpits and began to drag her into the snow.

  She screamed loudly.

  14

  “Does it hurt here, Bart?” Dad was feeling the area where he had injected the anesthetic.

  Bart shook his head, his eyes watering.

  “I'm going to make you a little cut, my son, trust me.” William's fingers held the scalpel in a trembling hand. That could not be happening to him. He brought the edge of the scalpel to his skin. He kept shaking and finally pressed a little, just a little. The skin was torn in a clean cut and from the cut came abundant blood that covered the blade of the scalpel.

  At his side, Shirley was sweating despite the intense cold.

  15

  “Breathe deeply,” said the Father while parting her legs.

  Shirley felt a mixture of shame and fear at that moment, but she spread her legs.

  16

  While Shirley was dilating and screaming, Dad was on his task to remove appendicitis from his brother Bart, who had bloodied eyes from crying, but fortunately the anesthesia had greatly alleviated the pain and William's now more agile fingers found the appendix swollen. It was time to remove it. Bart was losing too much blood. Between the breaking of his foot and now with the belly open. Some snowflakes sneaked into the wound.

  17

  It came from buttocks. A small piece of glass appeared in the vagina and William put his hands on his head.

  “What’s going on, Dad?”

  “It’s coming out backwards, we have a problem.”

  Y los ojos de ella se dilataron aún más de lo que estaban. Y de pronto sintió o advirtió que los copos de nieves estaban helados.

  18

  “Am I going to die, Dad?” asked Bart.

  There was a long silence. Blood gushed from the wound constantly and there was a large pool of blood around his body. The snow tinged red. William began to cry helplessly.

  19

  He pulled at his legs while the vagina dilated considerably and she screamed at the top of her lungs. The baby was almost out of the way, and his purplish, greasy ass could be seen.

  “Push,
honey,” he said with a smile on his lips. But it was erased from his face as soon as Bart called, his complexion terribly pale. He had sutured the incisive cut and had managed to remove the appendix. There were feces in the gut that smoked on contact with the cold, but William tried to clean the whole area as well as he could and then sutured the gut and wound.

  20

  And things could not get any worse. The snowstorm had rushed through a shower of snowflakes crashing on their faces and bodies, as if it were dirt, preventing them from seeing any situation clearly. Bart was shivering with cold, and his purple face did not give much hope. She still had the broken tibia and it was peeking through the flesh, white and red. The pool of blood around the leg caught by much of the top weight of the cart, was getting bigger. And if things did not turn out worse, William noticed that the baby had the umbilical cord around his neck, while Shirley stiffened with screams of pain and sweating that contrasted with the intense cold. Things got out of hand with William.

  21

  For a moment, and forgetting the strong pains of his left arm, William thought that cold winter afternoon would be the last for them. He was certain that everyone would die, like the diligent, like his wife Sue, like the horses. Meanwhile, the snow was piling up and covering the tracks.

  22

  Her vagina cracked and blood began to flow. But the baby had shoulders outside and the cold licked the heat of it. William saw the umbilical cord tightly around his neck and the baby was purple, greasy. For this, he quickly pulled him. When the head of the baby came out, the vagina made a sound like a stopper coming out of a bottle, only this time it was a dull sound. He saw her face. His eyes were closed and his fists were on his chest, also closed. He had an ugly purplish color. Shirley felt like a sudden vacuum and an inexplicable rest. His baby was born.

  “Is Dad okay?”

  William quickly cut off the umbilical cord and wiped it off his neck. He held the baby, who by the way was a boy, and then lifted him up into the air, picking him up by his tiny legs. The baby had to cry. Shirley's eyes widened and she turned pale at the sight of her bruised baby, almost covered in little snowflakes glistening on her wrinkled skin. William slapped his ass. The blow sounded dry and short. The baby did not cry. William insisted again on the attentive look of his daughter.

 

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