Once she becomes used to the strange noises and motions of the woods, a wave of tiredness washes over her. Unused to the fresh air, her head becomes light and dizzy. Just a moment’s rest, she thinks, as she sinks into a cushion of fallen leaves.
Her eyes snap open and dusk has fallen. The nightmare flutters at the edges of her consciousness, then is gone. She curses herself for falling asleep, but becomes afraid when she realises that she is lost. Hansel would have left a path to follow back, she thought. He was clever like that. She lifts her mud-stained skirts and hurries through the trees, heels sinking into the soft earth and causing her to stumble. The sun is merciless in its descent and darkness slides its long fingers through the spaces between the tree trunks.
Hope flutters in her chest when she glimpses a hut in a small clearing. As she draws nearer, she sees that the little house is made of dark metal tainted by shimmering rust, the colour of congealed blood. Its angles are all bent and odd, rivets holding its beams together like knee-joints. The windows are empty gaping holes and the wind is sucked and expelled from the hut in breathy sighs. The air is tinged with the taste of metal.
Gretel hesitates for the second time that day. This does not look like a friendly place. Whoever might live inside does not seem the type who would welcome visitors – that is, if anyone even lives in there at all. She takes a tentative step forward and tries to peer into one of the hollow windows. Dry twigs snap under her boot. But they aren’t twigs. They are tiny bones, charred black. Hundreds of them.
A wave of horrific familiarity overcomes her. She has seen this place before, in the sleeping recesses of her mind. Disbelief paralyses her as she watches the motions of her nightmare unfold. Metal screeches as the hut inhales and expands, unfurling the pillars of its construction outwards into eight long legs. The plinths of the doorway split into quivering pincer-fangs. It rises up and up, its eight empty window-eyes pinching closer together as it shifts, burning orange with the growing furnace in its belly, the fire roaring and causing the expanding metal to boom.
Gretel falls to the ground, her legs useless. She claws her way backwards, mouth open in a terrible silent scream. Her dress snags and tears on the animal bones. The spider takes a few grinding steps towards her. It opens its mouth and closes in. Gretel can see the white-hot flames inside it burning crunched-up trees and licking the inside of its metal belly, scorched black and smoking. The heat burns Gretel’s face and the smoke blinds her, her eyes watering and stinging. She breathes in a lungful and coughs. The cough uncorks her lungs and she screams.
The scream seems to startle the spider, and it shunts backwards, perplexed. Perhaps it has been a long time since it was able to feast on a young girl, and had grown unaccustomed to the power of their lungs.
Gretel, seeing her chance, scrambles to her feet and runs. She runs towards the densest part of the woodland, hoping the great thing will become caught in the thicket. But instead it powers through the underbrush as though it were soft carpet, and splinters through thick trees as though pushing aside curtains. Its front legs flail as it lurches, gathering up broken wood and cramming it into its gnashing mouth. The furnace inside it roars with vigour.
Darkness falls and Gretel stumbles blindly. Her dress is torn to shreds, and her flesh fares no better, long red gashes burn her limbs as she claws through the forest. Exhausted, she slows. This is the part of the nightmare when she realises there is no hope, and wakes up. Moments pass. A strange and absurd calm overcomes her as she realises that she will not awaken. The moment of her death is upon her, and her mind cannot accept her impending fate.
A long metal leg wraps around her torso. It lifts her from the earth. The pinch of its hinge breaks her spine. Pain shoots, reality amplified in punishing retaliation against her disbelief. The spider swallows her whole, pushing the fleshy bundle into its mouth with its pincer-fangs.
The rabbits in the nearby field twitch their noses. They can smell the reek of burning hair and melted fat. With it, the wind carries the human stench of the city, and the thrum of the factories. They lay their ears flat and dart into their warm comforting burrows, deep in the cradle of the earth.
The Fallen Safat
The Safat live in the sky. Unlike other birds, they never set foot on land and never rest; they spend their lives soaring above the clouds, riding high thermals and feasting on stars. Every year, the females lay their eggs in flight. As the eggs plummet towards earth, they hatch and tiny birds dart into the air before the shells smash to pieces on the ground.
One year, a little Safat did not break free from his shell and landed painfully against the crashing ocean. His shell shattered open and he was thrown into the waves, which twisted and broke his tiny wings as he shrieked for help.
For three days and nights, he was tossed upon the reckless waves before washing to shore, exhausted. His soft white feathers were tattered and salt-encrusted; his wings dragged limply by his side. Crawling beneath the shelter of a rock, he looked up at the sky and the distant shimmer of bright feathers reflecting the sun as the Safat glided into the heavens. He cried himself to sleep.
The next morning, the little Safat awoke with an idea, as though it had been planted there in a dream: he would climb to the sky. The bird set off, limp wings dragging behind him, upwards and into the mountains. As he climbed, many animals with jaws of jagged teeth slinked past with curious eyes, but strangely nothing ever ventured close to the weak little creature. His stomach burned with hunger and longing, knowing that he could not reach the sky to gorge on burning stars. Nevertheless, he ventured on.
Soon, the trees became dense and leafless, their branches like ink spilt against the sky. The little Safat found his forked feet sinking into numbing snow. He shivered, willing himself forward in the lifeless land. Ice froze between his feathers. Only his fast-beating heart was still warm, until a scream stopped him in his tracks.
Turning fearfully, the Safat saw a huge dog devouring the bowels of a wriggling human. The human’s eyes rolled madly in their sockets, then went dull. Catching sight of the bird, the dog barked – deep as gravel - and galloped towards him, blood and saliva dripping from its fanged mouth.
The Safat’s eyes bulged as he flapped broken wings in a desperate attempt to escape. Just as the beast was upon him, it seemed to melt, its matter dripping upwards as it shifted into a figure as tall as the barren trees. The Safat blinked in shock at the Wendigo, a giant monster of ice and mud.
The Wendigo stopped short of the infant Safat and cocked the upper part of its mass, which could only be considered the head, tilting the dead branches entangled through its body like great antlers. Slowly, it gargled and creaked as it stooped down upon the Safat, widened a gaping hole lined with rows of uneven teeth, and swallowed the tiny bird.
Screaming deafly in the drowning medium of the Wendigo’s flesh, the terrified Safat fell past bubbles of blood and tangles of meat, until it fell all the way out of the Wendigo’s back and into the snow.
The confused Wendigo pivoted with uncanny speed to face the troublesome snack. Lying crumpled in a tangled mass of mud, ice and blood, the Safat looked up wide-eyed at the faceless monster. The Wendigo swallowed the Safat whole once more, and once more the Safat fell right through the creature.
Frustrated and puzzled, the Wendigo towered above the tiny bird. It began to snow, but the Safat was now too cold to shiver and didn’t dare breathe as the Wendigo peered down at it with empty eyes.
Finally, the Wendigo shifted and a sharp crack came from within it, like the breaking of a stone heart. The Wendigo deflated down into a merciful bow, its antlers touching the snow just before the Safat. Though relieved, the Safat dared not move. A sighing, strangely human, moan resonated from the pit of the Wendigo.
Cautiously, the little Safat stepped onto the offered antlers. No sooner had his clawed feet left the snow, the Wendigo rose up to its ten-foot height and slid uphill through the trees. The broken Safat was nearly knocked backwards by the rush of air.
<
br /> In almost no time, they reached the top of the mountain. The Wendigo stopped as abruptly as it had started. It stooped, the ice within it grinding, long enough for the Safat to hop from its perch before drifting away into the woods.
The Safat looked about. It had finally reached the sky. The air was thin and fit comfortably in his fluttering lungs. He looked down at the clouds from the great altitude he had finally reached. But the sky shone with a splendour he could not reach, and when night fell slowly about him, the stars twinkled in painful temptation. All the while, the sky was void of movement: his family was not there. For the first time, he realised he was truly alone.
Turning in defeat, the Safat was greeted by the silent figure of the Wendigo. It had returned to watch the little bird with the cursed life, the tiny creature who had survived the mighty force of the ocean, continual famine, all the predators of the woodland, the freezing cold, and the wrath of the Wendigo itself. Now, the Wendigo watched as the Safat survived the breaking of its heart.
Gliding toward the little creature, the Wendigo stooped once more. The Safat stepped onto the antlers with a heavy but grateful heart.
The strangest sight is not the ever-flying Safat in the skies, nor the wood-spirit Wendigo hunting its prey. It is a fallen Safat perched on the antlers of a merciful Wendigo, haunting the woods in unison.
The Atheist’s Soul
I look down at the gulls and the jackdaws. They glide through the mist, fading and reappearing as they ride the thermals, lamenting to no one with their sad cries. The clouds roll over the cliff edge. Behind me, scattered leafless trees grow sideways in submission to the endless wind. In the distance, I can hear the lighthouse’s apathetic warning.
I look down at my bare feet. My toes curl at the edge of the cliff. The wiry grass is sharp, but my flesh is beginning to numb in the cold. Rubble crumbles and falls – falls too far to see. I can just make out the waves breaking against the rocks. The sea is a distant hush – a sound unrelated to the violence below. The wind could easily unbalance me. I am waiting until it does. But then I am aware of a presence behind me.
I step back. An audience of one breaks the spell around me. The man is wearing a fine suit. Something about him makes me feel heavy and cold inside. The wind doesn’t rustle his hair. He is stark against the mist; everything looks dull and hazy around him. He is an anchor of reality as the illusion of life rages around him.
He puts his hand in his pocket, pulls out a business card and hands it to me. It reads in gold lettering: The Cliffside Hotel – residence by exclusive invitation only. ‘Please come this way, sir,’ he says. His gravity pulls me.
I follow him through a gateway concealed by perspective. We descend spiral stone steps, deeper and deeper into the cliff. The man stops to unlock a grandly carved mahogany door at the bottom of the stairs, and pushes it wide for me to enter.
We are in a huge, bright lobby. Marble pillars, tall fountains, art in gold frames. In the distance, gentle music is playing. Left and right, the lobby splits into two long corridors. Directly ahead, the wall is transparent. It is textured like rock, but I can see through it to the clouds, the birds, the sea.
The man leads me down one of the corridors. ‘Your room, sir,’ he says as he opens one of the doors. The room stretches out: red carpet, four poster bed, ensuite bathroom with a pool instead of a tub amidst a jungle of green plants. And the rock-textured wall with the view of the world.
Am I in Heaven? I ask.
‘No,’ the man says.
A dark shadow falls in front of the window. I peer down to the rocks below, and see a body, broken and twisted. The waves shoulder to meet it with curious prods, animating it like a puppet, playing with it until, making its decision, it picks it up and drags it into the depths of the sea.
My mouth hangs open. I look back to the man, quizzically.
A dark shadow falls in front of the window.
The man has a wry smile on his face. He backs out of the room, locking the door behind him.
A dark shadow falls.
Dead Cell
Denton had been awake most of the night, as usual, but his body clock was tuned enough to know that it was well past morning. And yet, everything was still dark. Every day for the past fourteen years the slam of metal and the flicker of harsh synthetic light had been his wake-up call, the smell of burnt coffee penetrating the constant musk of sweat and stale cigarettes as the guards changed shift. But not today.
Around him, he could hear murmuring and whispering. The others were beginning to stir.
‘Hey, Denton.’ Ren kicked the top bunk from below. ‘You awake?’
‘...Yeah.’
‘What time is it?’
Ren sounded confused. Unlike Denton, he never had problems sleeping. Was usually out like a light the moment his head hit the pillow – sometimes the guards would have to beat him out of bed. He never woke up before lights-up.
The bed creaked as Ren got up. He went to the bars, a swollen shadow in the darkness.
There was a light thud as Denton jumped down from the top bunk. He flexed his wiry muscles and stretched. When he first arrived, the other inmates had laughed at his slight frame, called him a runt. After Denton had put three inmates in the hospital wing and added three more years to his life sentence, most people left him alone. Ren, on the other hand, prided himself on his bulk; Denton looked like the kinda guy he could snap in half with one hand if he had to, but after sharing a cell with him for five years, he knew better than to try.
Ren wrapped his fingers around the bars. ‘Marv. Hey, Marv.’
‘Yeah I’m here,’ came a voice from the left.
‘What do you thinks going on?’
‘I dunno, man, but I’ve been awake for hours. Keep hearing noises, like. Scraping, banging.’
Ren paused. ‘Marv?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You owe me a smoke.’
Marv sighed. ‘Here.’
Ren reached through the bars into the darkness, fumbling to meet Marv’s outstretched hand. ‘Ah!’ Marv cried, banging against the bars as he snapped his arm back. ‘What the hell, man!’
‘What? What?’
‘Something grabbed my Goddamn arm! If this is some kind of sick joke the wardens are playing... I think someone scratched me – I’m fucking bleeding.’
Denton squinted, trying to see through the blackness. He could hear slow footsteps, heavy breathing.
‘Denton, you breathe like an animal,’ Ren said.
‘Not me.’ Denton stood a few feet back from the bars, trying to see out too. ‘Look, what’s that? Down there?’ Denton pushed past Ren and crouched down. He reached out past the dropped cigarette and pulled something back through the bars.
‘What is it, Dent?’
‘Warden hat. It’s... wet.’ He sniffed it. ‘Blood.’
‘What the hell, man, you can’t smell blood. Give it here.’ Ren snatched the hat. ‘What the hell is this shit?’
The other inmates were beginning to get restless. They were calling out and banging on the bars, yelling questions and threats.
Denton shrank back into the shadows. ‘I don’t like this,’ he said.
Ren jumped at the sound of a raw scream. It pierced the air before droning on until it faded into a laboured croak. The inmates went silent. Denton’s limbs felt heavy as his blood ran cold as lead.
‘What the hell, man?’ someone cried from the other side of the block. ‘Trying to freak us out? Well it ain’t working. Screw you guys! You sadistic bastards! This shit ain’t legal! Come over here - I’ll show you scary!’ The inmate banged against the bars with each exclamation.
Denton had a knot in his guts. Part of him wanted to tell the bastard to shut up, but a bigger part of him wanted to see what would happen if he kept up the noise. Denton could make out shapes darting through the darkness. He blinked, trying to focus, unsure whether it was his strained eyes creating illusions. All the shapes were moving in one direction, towards the shou
ting guy.
The slam of metal accompanied a torrent of screeches. Slam! Slam! Slam-slam! Denton could do nothing but listen. He held his breath. Prayed to himself that the bars would hold, not for them, but for him: if their bars gave way, then so would his.
Metal crashed to the concrete floor. The screams rose to terrified madness. Some of the other inmates were shouting, but most were listening. The screaming died; the only sounds left were wet, slurping, crunching.
Denton’s mind raced. Perhaps wild mountain cats had wandered from their territory in a desperate search for food, he thought. Escaped zoo animals? Or even a new form of psychological torture the guards were enacting on one of their twisted power trips?
Eventually, the noises stopped. Denton stood against the cold, concrete wall of his cell, several feet back from the bars, and watched the shadows disperse. They were too tall to be animals. They shuffled around, their breathing heavy and laboured, or they stood in small groups.
‘What the hell is wrong with them?’ whispered Ren.
Denton didn’t answer. All the inmates were silent in the darkness, and he suddenly felt very alone. Something scuttled over his foot, and he jerked involuntarily, dragging his foot across the concrete. All the dark shapes turned as one towards him. Denton stood perfectly still, breathing slowly until the shapes lost interest.
It took Ren a while before he heard his name being whispered from the cell next to him.
He crept closer to the bars. It was Marv’s cellmate. ‘Yeah?’
‘It’s Marv. I think he’s having a panic attack or something. He’s breathing all heavy and won’t talk.’
‘Why the hell would I know what to do, kid?’
The Hours of Creeping Night - a Collection of Dark Speculative Short Fiction Page 2