by E.W. Pierce
*
The inn was empty, save the innkeeper, surly as ever. The man served him a bowl of lukewarm onion soup and a heel of moldy bread and retired himself without another word.
Marten ate without tasting, his mind consumed with the strange events of the day. His horse, disemboweled in the night by wolves of two legs or four. The emptiness of town once they’d left the main road. The boy and the sad look he gave Marten as he considered his cold, empty house. He felt a pang of guilt at how he’d left the kid standing there, crying. The boy had helped him find a new horse and deserved a kinder recompense. He thought about returning to find the boy, but was loath to leave the inn now that night had fallen. He resolved to make amends with the boy, should he see him again before leaving the following day.
Mostly though he thought of Michelle; how bright her passion had burned through the night, and how cold she had greeted him less than a day later, as though he were a stranger. The boy’s words echoed in his head. People lose time. Could she truly not remember?
Marten pushed away from the table, giving Baron leave to finish. They went outside. The moon was full, a great circle in the sky. All the colors drained from the world, save the spill of silver moonlight and the long black shadows. Slipping out the gate, Baron ran off to see to his business before sleep. Marten made preparations of a different kind, retrieving a short blade of silver and his crossbow, with a dozen silver-headed bolts, from his wagon. Just in case.
Baron barked, loud and with rancor, the echo shattering the silence. The dog had wandered around the far side of the inn and was nowhere in sight. Heart hammering in his chest, Marten ran toward the noise, trying to hold the sword and load the crossbow at the same time. Baron was growling now, deep in his throat. The crossbow bolt tumbled from Marten's fingers, the shaft splintering under his boot. Marten set the crossbow and ammunition down before he destroyed anything else.
The barks cut off abruptly. Marten froze, ears prickling. The wind moaned and the world was quiet. He crept around the fence toward the inn's corner, his hand trembling at the sword's weight. Taking a deep breath, he peered around the building.
Baron stood near the fence, staring intently at something in the shadows. “Baron,” he whispered. “Here.” He whistled softly.
The dog glanced his way. Considering the shadows one final time, he followed Marten around to the gate. Marten stopped only to retrieve his crossbow and then hurried them inside.
“See something?” Marten eyed the shadows. There was nothing there so far as he could tell, but the dog had keener eyes than he. “Come - let’s go back inside.”
He barred the door to his room and jammed a chair under the latch for extra measure. The window was locked. Setting the crossbow within easy reach, and the sword under the pillow, Marten climbed into bed. Baron curled up on the floor beside him and was soon snoring. Marten lay awake for a long time, listening to the old inn and startling each time the building groaned.
In time, he slept.
Nightmares plagued his dreams. Baron, standing over him on two legs, hunched, his body twisted and deformed. The dog's grinning face as he leaned over Marten, groping his face with long, spindly fingers where before had been soft paws. Marten tried to scream but he had no mouth. And then blackness filled the world and he knew his eyes were gone. The creature’s fingers made soft sucking noises as they caressed his face, and it made clicking noises that sounded something like laughter.
He awoke with a start, his hands flying to his face. Eyes and mouth were there, as they always had been. His heart slowed and he let himself back down onto the bed. Just a nightmare. Gods, but he was tired. Thin morning light fell through the window. His eyes burned. Just a bit more sleep. Marten dozed until the painful yowling of his stomach could no longer be ignored. He sat up, scratching idly at the prickly scruff on his face. Hard to believe it'd only been a day since he'd last he’d shaved. His body ached and his joints cracked loudly as he worked his stiff limbs.
Marten froze mid-stretch; a trickle of icy dread wormed its way into his stomach. The door stood open, the chair he’d propped behind it set casually aside. How could the door have been opened but from inside? And where had Baron got to, for that matter? Had he somehow let himself out? Impossible, of course, but then he remembered his dream. Baron, standing tall like a man. The long, questing fingers.
He fled the room, leaving behind meager luggage and threadbare clothes, taking only the weapons. The inn’s common room was empty, the dour innkeeper gone. Shrugging on his overcoat, Marten stepped outside. The pale yellow sun already slanted toward the west. He’d been asleep for almost an entire day. Longer, mayhap, he thought as he fingered the beginnings of a beard. More than a day’s growth, surely. People lose time, the boy had said. He'd lost three, maybe four.
The wind pummeled him as he wandered through empty streets, calling for his dog. He approached some of the nearby homesteads but nobody answered. The doors were locked, the people gone. Spinning in a slow circle in the middle of the road, he realized none of the chimneys of Hodgersville were lit. He was alone in this frozen, forgotten place.
He returned to his wagon and retrieved what gold he had, not even bothering to count. He'd give it all to Herbert the horseman and be happy for the loss, if it meant he was away. And if Herbert was gone, same as the others, he'd take the horse.
So weighted down, and carrying the weapons besides, the climb back to Herbert’s house was an arduous trek. Marten had to stop twice to catch his breath, and several times the world seemed to tip on its end and his head went all fuzzy. He needed food, but that was not the full of it. He feared that something had happened to him. Was still happening, in fact.
The horizon burned like burnished copper as the sun fell past the edges of the world. Shadows, thick in the spaces between trees, inched toward the road in a creeping black wave. Herbert's house was dark. Marten didn't bother trying the door.
The spotted horse grazed lazily from the trough. Marten nearly collapsed in his relief. He'd thought for sure to find the house empty and the horses gone.
“Who is that milling about my horse?”
Marten jumped to his feet and jerkily swung the crossbow around.
Herbert leaned on a fence post. "Put that thing away," he nodded at Marten's crossbow.
“I just came to collect, as agreed.” Marten lowered the weapon.
“Awfully late, ain’t it? Come back in the morning.”
Marten ran a hand over the horse’s back. “I’ve seen my fill of Hodgersville and mean to move on.”
“Tonight?”
“Tonight.”
Herbert shrugged. “Seems a mite foolish to me, but as you say.” He waved Marten to follow. “Suppose you’ll want a bridle. Keep the gear in the house.”
Marten felt an irrational urge to run, to hop onto the horse’s bare back and gallop into the night as fast and far as he could. But the old man was right - it’d be difficult to herd the horse back to town without a way to direct it, and what if it ran off?
It was no warmer inside, the hearth unlit and cold. A rusty gas lantern rested on a round table, casting sparse light. Marten followed Herbert through a dark kitchen and down a set of stone steps. A lantern hung at the bottom on a large nail. Taking the light, Herbert moved down a narrow corridor of stone. “Just a bit farther.”
Herbert moved with surprising grace for a man his age, setting a brisk pace that Marten struggled to follow. His body trembled with fatigue and he wondered if he was feverish. “Why do you keep the gear so far from the horse?” His words sounded hollow and far off to his own ears. Marten slowed, his mind circling around something that seemed important, if only he could just make sense of it. The logical place for horse gear was nearby the horse, right? What then was Herbert hurrying him toward?
The world about Marten crystallized in that moment, as though a fog had been lifted from his mind. For the first time, he noticed the thick carpet of mist swirling about his boots, felt the co
ld radiating from the ice shrouded walls and the frozen ceiling. Realized, into what Herbert had lead him. This was a tomb.
Turning back, he ran into the dark. Stumbling, one hand on the wall to guide his way. He came to an intersection and froze, trying to remember the way they’d come. A moan echoed out of the darkness, coming from the left. Marten stifled a shriek and ran the opposite way, nearly tripping over his own feet. The noises receded behind him.
Time grew soft and unknowable in the cold darkness. Marten felt certain he’d gone the wrong way but was hesitant to turn back, lest he run into Herbert or whatever had been making that awful noise. The only sounds he heard now were his own – the quick cadence of his breath, the scuff of boot on stone.
The corridor abruptly opened into a room as the walls fell away on both sides. Standing immobile and holding his breath, Marten listened for clues of what lay beyond, but the dark was silent.
Fishing into an inner pocket, Marten produced an ever-match. His thumb rolled the igniter. Fed from a tiny store of fuel, a flickering flame winked into existence. The weak light was scarcely enough to see his boots by, but after so long in the lightless depths, it was as though he held the sun itself in his hands. Holding the light aloft, he stepped into the room and discovered the people of Hodgersville.
Neatly ordered, row upon row of cots