The Warden of the Castle

by Claudio Hernández

  4

  The hearse engine stopped a pounding of pistons that sounded like a huge belch and a cloud of blue smoke rose through the exhaust pipe that filled the air with burning diesel. Then the driver's side door opened slowly, and beneath it was a black shoe treading the dust on the floor, raising a little smoke around the sole.

  Bobby opened his eyes wider, as if they wanted to get out of the basins and Tom stopped saying that he was hungry. A sordid noise appeared in his guts and was mute. Everything was silent. It was as if the tall man moved with appalling slowness. At the top edge of the door appeared fingers clinging to her, and then the back of the white hand like the belly of a fish showed. A few moments later, his serious countenance with a deep, dark gaze seemed to look toward the bottom of the forest, toward the trees where they were and not to the pit of the earth that was already dry.

  Bobby instinctively backed away without making a sound but his heart pounded against his ribs. I thought I was going to die from a heart attack. Tom was silent and Danny adjusted his glasses over his long nose.

  The tall man once more showed his incipient bald head and the long hairs that looked like jellyfish from the base of the skull to the nape of the neck, moved to the sound of the air of that evening. He got out of the car and without closing the door went to the back of the car. Once there the hinges squeaked weakly and the man pulled out a large spade. He circled the car, and when he set himself on the removed earth, he began to dig without bending.

  "You're going to get it out of the hole," Tom said in a whisper.

  Bobby elbowed him and he moaned with a snort.

  Twenty minutes later, the three children could only see the shovel and the white, long, winding hair of the tall man in black.

  "It has to be over," Bobby announced, his heart still clenched. The others remained silent and the sun began to show like a fried egg almost flush with the rocky mountains.

  Then the earth stopped flying in the air at a rhythmic pace with a wheezing breath and the tall man was lost inside the pit. A moment later, before the expectation of those three children, the front of the coffin looked out the edge of the pit.

  Danny backed off abruptly and although he had not yet put on his T-shirt, he began to sweat copiously, in fear of his face.

  "Silence," Bobby whispered, bringing his index finger to his lips.

  "If we did not say anything," Tom complained. It was his guts that were grunting there, beneath his limp belly.

  The tall bald man appeared at the end of the coffin, and then his elongated bluish-white face could not see what color that guy had at some distance, let alone when the sun was parting with its last orange rays .

  He stepped out of the pit and grabbed the coffin as if it were a pillow and put it under his arm and began to walk toward the back of the hearse and put it inside as easily as the first time.

  Bobby, Tom, and Danny had their mouths open in a perfect O, and their eyes had almost swollen from how stunned they were.

  Then the tall man shook his hands and closed the door on a loud metallic clank, walked to the front of the car and took his place of driver. The engine moaned, purred, and finally started with an explosion in the exhaust pipe that now showed a dense column of dark smoke, since there was no visibility and without turning on the lights, the hearse went from there marking the ground and Crushing the lawn watered that August morning.

  "Have you seen that?" Bobby's voice sounded somewhat muffled and gasping at the same time.

  "No," Tom said, putting his hand to his belly.

  Danny's mouth was still open.

  5

  They did not see the man in black in the next few days and of course when they had him shot twice, they could not follow the trail even though the hearse was moving like a caterpillar, for a reason of weight, fear.

  However, they knew he was carrying all the coffins every day and Sheriff Bannerman was really busy figuring out what was happening there in the cemetery, while a throbbing headache would not even let him sleep. He questioned the most troubled young men in the city and the most well-known thieves, but none of them matched those atrocities. There was no reason for them. So the headache rose like a howling siren crying for help. Bannerman took some headache pills and slept with his regular gun in his hand all night.

  And things were soon coming to an end. The children began to disappear when the strange fog made an appearance.

  6

  The strange noise roused Ricky, a ten-year-old boy with red hair and a plague of freckles on his face from the dream. His thin hands clung to the sheet as if it were his salvation in case of danger. The noise was dismal. And the light of the moon penetrated the glass of his windows, dimly illuminating the room. Then he saw it. His eyes widened at times and he nearly screamed, but his mouth opened in an act of surprise. There was fog, as if a cloud had descended to its very window. The shapes moved with soft circular motions and smoke that faded.

  Ricky clung more tightly to his sheet, and his heart began to throb exaggeratedly, beneath his small, elusive chest. I felt pain but drowned out the cry. Then the noise returned again. It was right behind the window pane and even though it was summer and the nights became unbearable, Ricky slept with the window closed, but that did not save him that night.

  The noise, the closest thing to a chalk on a chalkboard, occurred at intervals of seconds.

  Behind the glass was a finger and what looked like a long, cracked and dark fingernail. It moved up and down and was scratching the surface of the glass. Tearing, squeaking, and the hairs stood on their end. And then he heard a quiet voice.

  “Ricky.”

  And at that moment two yellow spots glittered in the thick fog behind his finger and he supposed they were two eyes. For a moment he thought it was a wolf, and his heart struck his rib cage like a great iron hammer.

  "Ricky, come here." I have something for you.

  The next morning, Ricky's parents reported his disappearance to Sheriff Bannerman, who was now more than ever before with the headache. Three children had disappeared that morning.

  7

  He looks for Edward, a seven-year-old boy, dark and somewhat thin. He allegedly disappeared the night of the thirteenth of August in his Batman pajamas.

  They were the details that read on a sign stuck like a mucus on the crooked post of a telephone line. At the top was a frightened photograph of a weak child.

  "We've seen four of these posters this morning," Bobby said, climbing onto his bicycle. The saddle squeezed an egg and the pain was unbearable from the start.

  "Something strange has been going on since the tall man came," Tom said with a sandwich in his hand. This time it was cocoa cream and with the other hand he held the handlebars of his bicycle.

  "And since the mist appeared," Danny said, touching his glasses as usual. "Have you seen her?"

  "Yeah," Bobby said as he put his foot down on the pedal. "It's disgusting.

  “What do you mean?” Almost did not understand Tom's voice as he was talking and chewing at the same time.

  "He has a strange color and appears every night. Bobby paused after the pain in his testicle subsided and added. He leaves the fucking forest.

  "That mouth," Danny said.

  "We have to investigate," Bobby added, and began to pedal. "Follow me! Come on!

  And Danny and Tom got on their repaired second-hand bikes and followed.

  8

  Edward, Charles, Patrick, Norton, Linda, Betty, Susan or Ricky or any other child, was floating in front of the window, ignoring the law of gravity. It was as if the sticky mist that seemed to have dark tentacles had a floor where the child lay on his knees, scratching the window glass with his nail. The twitching noise of her nose awakened Eilen, a twelve-year-old girl with a curly blond mane and blue eyes that shone even in the dark. And indeed, it seemed that the moon shone every night as if it were a full moon forever.

  Eilen straightened up on the invisible spring bed and saw that the sheet was hanging
on the edge of the bed. His blue eyes also fixed on the pale, yellow-eyed face of that small figure scratching the glass and pronouncing his name.

  “Eilen.”

  The next day, Sheriff Bannerman looked with insidious curiosity at the stained glass on his window. He frowned and noticed that they were the marks of small fingers. Maybe a child. But the window was on the first floor and there was no staircase there.

  9

  Bobby pressed his fingers on the brake levers of his bike and skidded on the dusty ground outside Boad Hill, near the area bounded with Derry. Tom hit the back wheel of his bike and lowered his feet from the pedals to put them on the ground before an imminent fall. Danny, calmer, braked softly. The three children were in front of an abandoned house of picturesque style said Bobby. It was one of those big houses that look like Victorian, wooden, but they are not, they simply have many windows, two stories high and several eaves guarding the blue sky in summer and enduring snow in the winter.

  Bobby had taken them there because he knew the house hid strange things. Once he heard his father say that those who lived there appeared all hanged on the beam in the center of the room. That was in the forties and since then they have fired all kinds of stories about the house... that did not remember the name.

  On one side of this was a plain of cornfield, and on the other end a kind of giant mill, with several rusty blades for I do not know what function it would do there. Bobby had heard from his father that the house had a basement and that no one had ever come down because there were cries and moans.

  Tom and Danny were stunned after hearing this brief story. They let the bikes fall to the ground in thunderous metallic noise and there they left them, inert on the ground like an old garbage waiting to be devoured by the sun.

  10

  "There was a child behind the windowpane!" The boy was excited, excited, and frightened. But he kept talking. He was about eight years old and named Chris and allegedly witnessed how his six-year-old sister Emma was taken away.

  Sheriff Bannerman brought two white pills into his mouth and swallowed them with a lot of saliva. The taste was bitter but at least it calmed the headache and could think a little.

  "Chris, what are you wearing in the window?" Bannerman's gray eyes stared into the boy's dark eyes as he gripped it gently by both languid arms.

  “Child.” Chris watched as the Sheriff's eyebrows arched. "I was floating in the fog and I had a long fingernail scratching the glass that made a very strange noise..."

  "Chris," Bannerman interrupted, his lips moving strangely. There is a high floor from the window to the floor. No one can float in the air.

  "And I knew my sister's name," the kid added, ignoring Bannerman's words.

  "Chris, I want you to tell me the truth..."

  11

  "The windows and the door are covered with wood," said Tom crouched in the thickets that were very close to the house.

  "My father never told me they'd been covered," recalled Bobby lying flat on the floor.

  The boys were approaching the house crawling like snakes. Leaving behind them serpentine marks on the earth.

  "I'm getting lost," Danny complained, putting on his glasses. A mania incapable of eliminating it.

  “Silence!” Bobby's voice sounded like a whisper. "I heard something.”

  "Yes, I farted," Tom said, and it was true.

  “No. Besides that I heard a metallic noise. Like a car door closing”.

  "It'll be Sheriff," Danny said, touching his glasses again.

  Lying on the floor, they waited a few minutes and only silence was present on that hot morning of August twenty-third.

  "Let's go guys," Bobby said at last, moving his body again, crawling on the ground, filling himself with earth and occasionally feeling a twinge in his bare arms.

  Tom and Danny followed him like two heavy alligators.

  12

  When the engine purred and then roared like an angry animal, the three boys stopped behind a bush with eyes wide open. Waiting in silence and then, they saw him again.

  From the back of the house came the mule of the hearse without any brightness in the rays of the sun. It was as if the black of the body absorbed all light inside. Behind the wheel was him. With a prominent bald head and long pelts at the nape of the neck. He had, as always, a serious countenance and bushy eyebrows that darkened his gaze.

  The car turned to the left and headed the path that made its way through the bushes and the cornfield. Bobby crushed his face to the ground, so the man could not see it and the other microns the same. The hearse passed purring and bluish smoke beside them and slowly walked up the road.

  “Buff!” Tom snorted, and a small cloud of dusted dirt made him sneeze.

  “Don’t be a moron!” Cried Danny, touching his big black glasses again. "They're going to hear us."

  "Are they going...?" Bobby asked, lifting his sprinkled face off the floor. Who says there's someone else?

  Danny shrugged his shoulders.

  "It's the first thing that came to mind.

  Bobby sat on the floor and his head protruded over the dry bush.

  "Well maybe you're right and everything and we have surprise in there."

  "Are we going to get in there?" Tom asked, leaning on his hands.

  “Clear.” Bobby's voice sounded hoarse.

  “Uyyy!” Danny looked over the bush.

  Bobby looked at him with uncertain pettiness and added.

  "Let's go inside the house!" And he crawled back down the floor toward the house. They were only five meters from the door that was covered with boards nailed with rusty nails. But they saw an open wooden door on one side of the house, right on the floor. It was from the basement. Bobby frowned and crawled toward her.

  13

  The steps were curved and made of wood. When they stepped on them, they creaked like dry branches under the foot of an obese. The interior was dark and the sun's rays did not reach the depth of the corridor. The shadows, less and less visual, drew strange shapes on the ceiling and beyond that the light did not reach.

  "Now what do we do?" Tom asked, his body paralyzed.

  "Advance," Bobby said, knowing it would not be a good idea.

  Bobby, who was the first of the line, stepped on a step that broke under his foot and let out an Ah! Suddenly he made reverberation in the basement of the house.

  Tom froze.

  “What's going on?” Danny touched for the umpteenth time his glasses, now blacker than ever.

  “Nothing”. There was a short but ominous silence, and he continued. “False alarm.!

  Bobby continued down the steps into the darkness, and then he saw something that lit up his face.

  “Behold!” The rays of the sun enter the bottom of the basement. There is a window with boards that let the light through the holes.

  It was as if he had discovered a treasure by the look on his face that neither Tom nor Danny could see.

  "Ah! Tom put a hand to his belly and thought of the sandwich right now, as explorers, they were about to discover something unique.

  His feet touched the damp ground that was nothing but dirt. The air breathed a mixture of rotting seaweed and saltpeter or something else...

  "What's that there?" Danny pointed with his index finger trembling.

  "What?" Bobby asked, scared.

  “That.” His index finger trembled a little more.

  "It looks like a wooden box." Tom's eyes widened. But it's so big...

  "Let's go to her," Bobby ordered, taking the initiative once more.

  When they had taken three or four steps, Danny stumbled on something soft and fell to the floor. During the fall, his mouth gave a strange cry and the final blow was deaf.

  “What happened?” Bobby turned toward them. Tom pointed at Danny and a rictus appeared on his round face.

  Danny from the floor saw him with the help of the little light that entered between the hollows of the boards of the window. It was a face. The fac
e of a boy with dark hair and his eyes closed. Edward, Charles, Patrick, Norton, Linda, Betty, Susan, Ricky. He had stumbled into his body, so he was not hurt, but was astonished to see that boy did not wake up and did not even notice, Or whoever it may be.

  Bobby saw him too, and sharpened his gaze to the muddy floor of the basement and discovered that there were more, lying on their backs and sleeping.

  "These could be all the boys and girls missing in the last few weeks," Bobby explained with a degree of amazement reflected on his gaunt face.

  “You're right!” cried Tom, beginning to gasp and make strange noises with his throat.

  “Silence. Something strange happens here.” Bobby's voice sounded rough as he stood still. With his arms extended like a robot in pause and his heart beating his chest.

  "And what is it then?" Danny asked, touching his glasses for the tenth time.

  Bobby looked back and saw it perfectly.

  "It looks like a trunk." A huge trunk that will hide things, I suppose. He doubted his own words.

  "I'm out of here," Tom whispered, trying to back off with his heavy, slow foot.

  "First we'll see what was inside that trunk," Bobby said. Then we'll go see Sheriff Bannerman and tell him everything.

  "Good idea," Danny said now without adjusting his glasses.

  Bobby took another step, careful not to stumble over one of those children lying on the floor. Then they followed him. Tom stepped into the hand of what looked like a thirteen-year-old girl judging by her small bundles beneath the pajamas at breast height.

  The three surrounded the huge box that would measure more than two meters long by five spans wide. Sunlight, one of the straight rays like a flashlight bulb with its dust fluttering around the light and everything, slid through the gap between two planks, illuminating the center of the box.

  "Three of us opened the lid with all our might. It does not seem to be stuck or anything. So it will be eaten. But Bobby's voice sounded insecure and his tone trembled.