by Byron Craft
I paused, peering forward. A narrow clearing in the overgrowth forming a corridor stretched ahead. I could see nothing moving there but as the rushing of the wind subsided, the silence was again broken by the other, fainter noise. What did it remind me of? It frightened me.
Something cried out, a whimper in the distance but it came from behind me. I turned abruptly in that direction. Besides the low weeping voice, the only thing that reached my ears was the crunch of my footsteps amid the dry, brittle grass and the sound of my own heavy breathing.
Focusing my attention to an area deeper in the woods, I came upon a tall clump of weeds. There was a low sobbing coming from the other side. Parting the lank greenery I looked in. A little girl about ten years of age was lying on her back in a circular clearing. She was startled and wild-eyed as if in pain. Fearful of my approach, she recoiled and drew back with a start. I tried to comfort her, calling gently to her inquiring if she had been hurt. Her breathing became even more labored. Cringing away from me she kicked at the ground with her feet. Again I asked what was troubling her but obtained no response, only more hysterics. I stooped down in an attempt to console her and she shrank from my touch.
“I won’t hurt you,” I said in vain, trying to gain her confidence. Instead she quickly got up, screamed painfully, staggered out of my reach and fled the clearing disappearing into the wood.
I was still squatting on the ground when she was out of sight. I was stunned. I didn’t know what to do next. I shouted for her to come back but to no avail and gave it up after a couple more attempts. I thought about running after her but I dismissed the idea. The child wasn’t interested in talking to me and my knowledge of the surrounding woods was too limited to permit a chase. She most likely didn’t speak English and a foreigner running after her yelling unintelligible words would probably increase her panic.
Strewn across a mound of dirt were her school books. Hoping to glean some information as to her identity from their contents, I bent over and started to stack them into a pile.
As I reached to pick up the last book, something in the grass caught my eye. A rusted metal Nazi swastika, about the size of a poker chip lay on the top of the mound. I examined it for several seconds and because of its badly rusted condition and the deep impression it had left in the earth, I decided that it couldn’t have belonged to the young girl and must have been laying in that spot for many years. I tossed it aside, picked up the last book and started back in what I thought was the direction home.
I heard a light, regular metallic clanking somewhere in the distance. It was the same noise I had heard earlier before being distracted by the frightened child. For some reason, I don’t know why, the rhythmic sound of metal being struck generated feelings of alarm and dread within me. I quickened my pace and covered a good deal of ground before realizing that the path I chose was the wrong one and in fact I had been traveling deeper into the woods past a thicket of dead and twisted trees into areas increasingly overgrown and wild.
The clanking increased in volume, growing louder and louder by the minute, until the magnification became so great that it resembled the peal of a blacksmith’s hammer striking an anvil. Looking back now I can’t say for certain if that increase in sound level was real or imagined. It could have been my imagination although it was real enough at the time to be deafening. It was so loud that if it hadn’t been for the armload of books I was carrying, I would have cupped my hands over my ears to block out the clamor.
The banging became the explosions of cannon fire. I thought I was in the middle of an artillery range. For a moment the air filled with the smell of burnt gunpowder.
I stepped up my pace and started to run. Blinded by fear I nearly collided into a tree but managed to side-step it at the last second. I didn’t run much longer; only moments later, stopping dead in my tracks, when hit with the realization that I was standing in the center of a clearing. The clearing... the very reason I came there in the first place. It was no longer as important to me as it had been before. There was a difference between that morning’s journey and the one of the previous day. Then I had merely been curious about exploring the woods and what I would find. Now I was terrified.
The opening in the brushwood was much larger than I had estimated. At least a good hundred yards in length and width, with only a few large oak trees scattered across its plain. The ground wasn’t as level as I had expected and there were no signs of a vegetable garden or once cultivated soil. The earth in the area had been disturbed and heavily dotted with a series of mounds. Some of these were boles of compacted clay no more than six feet in length. Many of these mounds bore the evidence of recent digging.
The explosions stopped the moment I entered the clearing but the light metallic clanking persisted. Towards the center of the glade, just off a little to one side, standing upright from out of the earth and located at the head of one of the boles was a short wooden pole. Atop the pole was a helmet, like the type the German’s wore in those old war movies. The metal headpiece was clanking in the breeze.
The graveyard setting of the glade made me tremble. I don’t know what I expected to happen. The tranquility of the setting, combined with the eerie atmosphere, put me on edge. I walked a full circle around the old army helmet and started back towards the woods. The second my back was turned, the explosions started up again. Without a moments hesitation I spun round and stared down at it as if expecting the post and helmet to be the source of the noise. I was frightened by the coincidence, for at the very instant I laid my eyes on the helmet the explosions subsided and the clanging once again resumed. I stared long and hard at the rusty headgear as it rocked in the light afternoon breeze, the brim lightly tapped against the wood.
Slowly, not believing my own powers of perception, I turned my back again on the site. Within the same breath the explosive sounds burst forth. I made a mad dash for the wood at an insane rate of speed that amazes me even to this day. I hadn’t covered much ground before loosing my footing. I tripped on one of those damn serpent shaped roots that grow over the land in morbid proportions. Falling face forward onto a pile of dirt I laid there gasping for breath.
The books were sprawled out in front of me. The detonations had stopped. Even the metallic clanging stopped. My ears had been blessed with silence only to be interrupted by the scratching of pine needles amongst the breeze. I was dazed and distraught, and oddly enough, the first thing that greeted my eyes was a clock. Yes, I know it sounds crazy, but here I was in the middle of nowhere, out of breath, mentally and physically exhausted and of all things I had come face to face with was a timepiece that shouldn’t be! The clockworks were shielded by a glass cover, the body of which was deeply embedded in a thick block of black granite. It was much like any contemporary clock except it only bore the single hour hand, which pointed directly at twelve.
My eyes traveled up the chunk of black stonework. It was a monolith and must have stood eight feet tall but from my angle, lying on the ground, it appeared much taller. The great black stone was surrounded on three sides by underbrush, which accounted for its subsequent concealment until then. Its surface was engraved with designs of writhing figures only half visible in the shadows of the surrounding trees. Crowning the top was an array of tentacle shaped sculptures, the lower half of which en-wrapped a devil-eyed figure. The repulsive design of the snake like appendages reminded me of the creature...that dark thing that had squirmed its way out of a crack in the earth and into my dream...or was it a dream?
Paralyzed with fear I stared at it for several seconds. My eyes eventually drifted back down the monolith to its strange clock-works. Below, etched into the night-black masonry, was an inscription. Engraved characters I found easy enough to read even in the shadows. It was short and brief. It was so powerful that I jumped to my feet with ice traveling up my spine and fled the scene. It read:
Heinrich Todesfall
1901-1983
I ran and ran. I ran as if hell itself were at my heels. I am
not sure of the direction I took but I did travel in circles for awhile. By some means I managed to obtain the correct headings and ended up back at the schloss.
If I live through this, I will never forget what happened within the remaining next few moments. A mental disorder overcame me. It must have been a series of delusions brought on by my encounters in the glade. I felt like a child lost and frightened, afraid of my own shadow coming home to find my parents not in. I raced to the security of my own bed. I wanted to pull the covers over my head and shut out the world around me.
Sprinting upstairs I scarcely took notice of the opened door to the tower. I flung myself full length upon the bed and clawed at the sheets and blankets. Almost at once, I was between the heavy spread and the mattress. It was when I was attempting to pull the bed clothes over my head that it happened. My pillow had several small spots of dirt across the clean white surface. It didn’t seem that unusual at first. Except for the even interlacement of the soiled tracking upon the linen, it didn’t impress me as anything more than a troublesome stain. Not until I noticed that the spots weren’t just specks of dirt, but soiled hand prints identical in size and shape to those we had discovered the day before in the tower tracked into the dust on the window seat.
***
Nightfall and the distant chirping of crickets was my next recollection. A star filled sky was in plain view from my bedroom window. A soft yellow light filtered in from the open door to the hallway.
I was half sitting up in bed sipping a cup of tea which Faren held for me. His face was in profile, silhouetted against the light of the lamp atop the bed table. His brow was furrowed and the rest of his face beneath the pale light displayed soft lines of concern.
A thick wool blanket covered my legs and I had been tucked in snugly about the waist. It was a while before I could speak in completed sentences but Faren was patient with me only prodding me gently from time to time with questions about my well being.
I told him about my walk in the woods, about the little girl I met there, and the discovery of his great uncle’s grave. I felt uncomfortable in relating anything more. I wasn’t interested in sparing Faren the rest of the details but after noticing that the soiled pillowcase had been removed and replaced with a clean one, I became reluctant to disclose anymore. When I asked about it, Faren answered in an evasive manner saying that he had spilled tea on it while I was unconscious and he took it to the cellar to be washed. There was no tea pot in the room and my cup was full. I was about to press him further about it when he mentioned that he had telephoned for the Doctor.
I felt uneasy around VonTassell and although I couldn’t quite put my finger on the reason, I knew he could not be trusted. I told Faren as much but my protests fell on deaf ears and shortly, the aged physician was on our doorstep.
Dr. VonTassell believed my condition was, “The results of getting the old house in order, brought on by overwork, nervous tension, and an over active imagination”, he said. Of course my pregnancy was the main contributor.
He prescribed a sedative, Valium, and a good nights rest. I wasn’t sure that it was a proper prescription for a pregnant woman but I welcomed the thought of a tranquilizer. When the Doctor went downstairs to get his bag Faren went with him. In a short while I could hear the two of them arguing in the parlor. I couldn’t make out everything they said but I gathered that they were discussing the Doctor’s diagnosis. Faren shouted, “I’ll prove she’s not hallucinating” and VonTassell asked him to keep his voice low. I was about to yell out to ask what all the commotion was about but stifled the cry when I heard my husband leave the room and the screen door off the kitchen slam shut.
I didn’t like being alone in the house with the Doctor. His touch reminded me of a corpse, it was cold and clammy. I found it easier to quickly swallow the pill he offered so he would leave me alone.
It wasn’t long before I heard Faren enter the house again and through the haze of my Valium stupor, I managed to listen in on pieces of their conversation.
They were more civil towards one another again and I heard Faren offer VonTassell a drink. They must have talked for quite awhile, because I kept nodding off and waking up to their muddled conversation. At one point in their talk, the Doctor raised his voice slightly and some of what he said, although partly muffled, became audible. It was only the fragments of a sentence, the first part of I am sure of but the last word was foreign to me and I will have to spell it here phonetically. He said, “The coming of Thoo-Loo.”
The last thing I remember before dozing off for the rest of the evening was hearing the footsteps of Faren and the Doctor on the cellar staircase. It was too far away to perceive much of anything else and besides, there was thunder coming from the hills again. It was much louder than it had been before, making it increasingly difficult to hear. I do recall one sound other than the thunder. Unrelated as it may be, I am curious about what I heard or thought I heard that evening. It was a little later. It came from the cellar, I think. It was a low dull scraping. It sounded as if something very heavy was being dragged across concrete.
I awoke late the next morning to find Faren having coffee in the kitchen. He seemed distant in thought and a bit unnerved. He was holding something in his hand and jumped with a start when I entered the kitchen, dropping it to the floor. He tried to conceal the object from me. His movements in retrieving it were not fast enough to stop me from getting a good look. It was a dagger, very old looking, and an antique I guessed, and oddly enough, it bore the same grotesque serpentine design that was carved into the face of Heinrich Todesfall’s tombstone. The figure haunted a vague recess in my memory.
Fumbling to retrieve the knife and giving the impression of one being caught off guard, he explained that after VonTassell had left the night before, he had gone down into the cellar and discovered the dagger wedged between a large crevasse in the masonry.
Again, I caught Faren in what I believed to be a lie. Even though I was in a drugged state that evening, I know what I heard. It was the sound of two people going down the old rickety staircase, not one. Besides, didn’t I hear VonTassell utter those strange words just before he descended the cellar stairs? Why was he so evasive? What was he trying to conceal from me? I was about to ask those very questions when the telephone rang. Grateful for the interruption, Faren left the room for the parlor where the phone is kept.
I was preparing breakfast when he returned. He was relaxed and more at ease with himself. The telephone conversation seemed to have had a soothing effect on him. Faren told me about an acquaintance he had made. He was an American serviceman by the name of Jim Ruttick. Literally thrown together by Faren’s job at the airbase the two didn’t have much in common besides the English language, but in these parts, the disposition of the language barrier was good grounds for any friendship.
I couldn’t help sympathizing with him. I knew what it was like not to have anyone to talk to during the day. Not being able to communicate with anyone in town, let alone the indifference I had encountered there. I missed my good friend Emma and the delightful afternoons we spent together. For the first time since I came to this isolated place, I stopped feeling sorry for myself and realized that Faren must have been suffering as well.
The tears welled up in my eyes and I fell easily into his embrace. He spoke gently and in conciliatory tones. He told me of the argument he had with VonTassell that evening. The Doctor had questioned the credibility of my story and Faren went into the glade to locate the proof. Faren’s search was not in vain because it produced the young girls’ school books and the grave of his great uncle. He had even discovered the girls address printed on an inside cover and had made arrangements to return the books the next day. Faren didn’t say anymore, nor did he mention if the Doctor had done me any further disservice, but I didn’t care. Faren’s belief in me was all the comfort I needed.
I felt relieved. I felt I could trust Faren once more even if there were a few things left unsaid by him. Hindsight now tells me
this was a mistake. I wanted more than anything to confide in him, to open up. So, I told him of that first afternoon that I entered the field and of my strange dream. I vividly described the twisted tentacles that wriggled up from beneath the earth resembling the roots and undergrowth in the area, and of my odd, but timely rescue by Dr. VonTassell.
My story was painful yet it served as a release for my pent up frustrations. The tears flowed in streams down my cheeks. Faren begged me to stop but the telling of what had happened during those past few days out weighed the grief and I continued my account from the reverie of that first afternoon to my dream state of the previous evening carefully going over each event leaving nothing untold. All the while Faren held me in his arms attempting to comfort me the best he could.
When I was done telling my story he wiped my cheeks dry and held me close. It had been a while since I had experienced the softer, gentler side of Faren’s nature. I had almost forgotten what it was like. Naturally, he had always displayed signs of concern, but in the past few weeks the physical contact had been removed until that moment. We had both been too caught up with our remodeling chores that we had devoted little time to each other. Faren had also become more distant in the bygone weeks than usual.
I am sure he believed most of what I told him...except for the dream, of course. Doing a humorous, but poor imitation of W.C. Fields he declared it the probable result of something I ate disagreed with my digestive system. He lightheartedly quoted Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” in the same voice, “An undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an under-done potato.” We laughed together realizing how ridiculous everything seemed under careful scrutiny and I somehow became more willing to forget my husband’s indiscretions.