Supernatural Horror Short Stories

by Flame Tree Studio

  All around him spread the corruption the Aramitama invaders brought from across the sea. They were men not unlike himself Takeda had been told, but seeing the state of the castle he wondered.

  Crusty unnatural lichens grew in corners and crept up walls, peeling and flaking like dead skin. The air was thick and moist, the tatami floor mats reeking of mildew. Even the shoji seemed wrong, as if the translucent screens were not rice paper but thin flesh stretched taught.

  He shook off his hesitation. Nishino lurked nearby, and Takeda would have his revenge.

  Perhaps it was the restless spirit of his slain daimyo, Lord Tennoji, that guided him. Or perhaps Takeda’s own hatred for Nishino and his treachery gave preternatural power to sense his villainy was near. Whatever the source, Takeda knew his long wait was at an end.

  Oh, and how they had waited.

  After Nishino betrayed their master to the Aramitama invaders, Takeda and the most loyal of the daimyo’s men swore secret oaths to avenge him. While Lord Nishino did the bidding of the Aramitama’s Great Khan and waged war on the Shogun, Lord Tennoji’s men dispersed and waited.

  Some took up roles as tradesmen or monks to dissuade Lord Nishino’s spies that they intended revenge. Takeda played the part of the dissipated samurai, consorting with geishas and stumbling home from sake houses in the small hours, debasing his honour in the hope of lulling Lord Nishino into complacency.

  He knew how people looked at him, the disapproval they whispered behind his back about how far the daimyo’s chief retainer had fallen. How he must never have had any real honour at all if this was how he behaved.

  But he bore it all, silently, letting people think what he wanted them to. If only they knew how bitter was the sake, how hollow the laughter of the geishas! Though it pained his honor, his honor – and that of his murdered master – demanded no less.

  In truth, he had not thought to make it as far as he had; none of them did. The main gate was only lightly defended, the guards easily overcome. Takeda’s men scaled the outer stone walls in two places without resistance. Where were the patrols of archers? There were some fighting men and a few of Lord Nishino’s samurai, but where were the rest? The bulk of Nishino’s forces were away at war, yes, but Takeda’s men spent a year scouting the castle. They had counted more men than this in Nishino’s personal guard.

  And what of the women and children, nowhere to be found? Likewise, Takeda expected servants of all kinds in a grand castle such as Maku, yet none mustered to put out the fires.

  Two more shapes hustled past on the other side of the shoji divider, and Takeda paused. Once they passed Takeda padded softly down the hall, but after only a few steps a chill ran down the back of his neck. Instinct sent him pivoting on the ball of his foot, turning his back to the solid wooden walls, readying his sword.

  The two men crashed through the wood-and-membrane screen from the adjacent hallway, swords drawn and screaming “Iä! Iä! Fhtagn!”

  With a graceful step to his left, Takeda slashed his katana in a vicious arc that split the near man from grin to groin. Making a sound like a braying donkey he fell and was still.

  Takeda rushed in a backward run to the far end of the hall, keeping the second swordsman in sight. He threw his sedge hat spinning through the air as his opponent charged, and the man slashed it in two, in midair, without breaking stride. “Iä!” he shouted as he closed.

  Was it an Aramitama word? Takeda wondered. A faint smile twinged at the edge of his mouth. Here, at last, was a worthy opponent in Lord Nishino’s employ.

  The clash of steel as their blades met sent harsh vibrations through Takeda’s hands and arms, a familiar sting that fired his heart and made him think of long years spent in the service of his daimyo.

  The fight ranged up and down the hallway, swords ringing, as first Takeda and then the swordsman gained temporary advantage. He spun through kata after kata – Opening Lotus, Snow Rolling Down Mountain, Leaves Falling on Water – only to be matched again and again.

  A space opened between them, and there was the briefest of pauses as each man caught his breath. Their eyes stayed locked, sword tips dancing a hair’s breadth apart, each searching for a clue as to his opponent’s next move and a way to seek advantage.

  Takeda centered himself, focused on his breathing. Every sword fight is a dance, he remembered from his earliest lessons. Your opponent’s footwork will lead you. Look to the centre of mass: a man may feint, his eyes may lie, but his chest will always betray his movements before he makes them.

  In his peripheral vision Takeda saw the subtle change in the man’s footing, the shifting of his weight to his leading leg. The swordsman angled his torso almost imperceptibly, and Takeda had him. Anticipating the moment the swordsman sprang at him Takeda was already collapsing backwards in the Bending Reed kata, absorbing the man’s attack and using his own momentum against him.

  They smashed through a shoji, landing hard on the floor on the other side. Takeda’s katana was buried to the hilt in the swordsman’s chest, and it took all his strength to push the dead man off him.

  He crouched on one knee, catching his breath. The dual lasted no more than a minute, but Takeda had almost forgotten the fatigue after a battle, of the toll that total mind and body commitment to swordcraft took on the serious student.

  Panting, he acknowledged how much he’d missed it.

  His eyes searched the darkness for some suggestion of where he was. Slowly the gloom resolved into the faint outlines of a wide, low-ceilinged gallery, with a staircase to a higher level at its centre and a single exit on the north wall. The place smelled damp and sour, like fresh turned earth and rot.

  Drums started pounding somewhere in the castle, drums more felt than heard as their deep throoming reverberating through the floorboards and the walls. Did the tinny sound of cymbals join them, or was that more swordplay? The voices of many drums competed against one another, and Takeda couldn’t tell if it was a simple cacophony or some weird rhythm lost on him.

  He stood, and was taken aback by an eerie glow coming from the room’s central staircase, which revealed itself overgrown by thick vines pocked here and there with putrid-smelling flowers. Their queer petals gave off a phosphorescent glow that grew in intensity as Takeda moved toward them.

  The strange plants grew down the staircase from the level above, making the way impassable. They anchored themselves into the wood using a tangle of thin tendrils Takeda could not describe in his mind, even though he looked right at them. They were something like the runners sent out by climbing plants, but something too like the many-fingered coral polyps he had seen exposed at low tide.

  He squeezed his eyes shut. Why did it hurt to look at the plants and to think of them?

  The flowers glowed like green coals, and the sickly light gave enough illumination to reveal stranger flora lining the walls. Every few feet stood low wooden tables or narrow stone pedestals topped by grotesque bonsai, not one of which Takeda could mistake for a tree. Some had trunks, yes, but instead of tiny leaves or pads of fine pine needles, small sacks hung like pustules from withered-looking branches.

  Others could only be described as stalks which sprouted vicious-looking mushroom things, swollen with spores. Takeda put a sleeve to his face and backed away.

  This was an interior room, receiving no sunlight. What kind of plants grew in such darkness?

  The drumming continued, sounding louder through the door on the north wall. The hallway beyond glowed with fox fire, as if disturbed by his presence. He paused there in the doorway, sword in hand, and felt the spectre of doubt and trepidation creep upon him.

  Lining the hall were more bizarre plants. The hallway was so pregnant with the stench of rotting vegetation that Takeda tasted it on the air and gagged. Within, it was as humid as a summer’s day though it was still only early spring. Terrible fungi covered floor and wall and ceiling alike. Many p
ulsed and glowed with unnatural colors that Takeda had never seen in nature. Others hissed and fizzed with a sound like cold water dashed against hot stones.

  Takeda steeled his resolve anew. Beyond this hallway, wherever the drums were drumming, he knew he would find Lord Nishino. Would he let a few bizarre plants undo his courage? Had he not vowed his life to avenge his master?

  He turned back to the room of unnatural vegetation and spat upon the floor.

  With a grunt he dashed down the overgrown hallway, winding through dim passageways as the boom of drums grew louder. He held his breath as long as he could so as not to breathe in the reek, all the while avoiding looking too long at any one spot, for doing so meant seeing patterns, like kanji characters, begin to resolve among the fungi. Was it the language of the Aramitama, or something older, some dead tongue? The words were unintelligible to Takeda, but in his bones was the certainty they spoke of dread and terrible things.

  Fear rose again in his heart. What had Lord Nishino done here? What was the price of service to the Great Khan?

  * * *

  Takeda emerged from the darkness of the castle into a low-walled courtyard enclosing a stone garden. Thunderous drumming that shook his whole frame came from two dozen taiko of various sizes atop the low walls. Each was manned by drummers wearing only loincloth and hachimaki tied around their heads.

  At the garden’s center, amidst fresh-raked ripples in fine gravel, knelt Lord Nishino, arrayed in white breeches and matching haori jacket. A tanto dagger lay before him on a block of polished wood. Using a long brush he was intently writing a death poem on a war fan. His lone attendant knelt nearby, preparing a final tea ceremony.

  The chill of an early spring evening was already in the air, and the scene was lit by the golden light of a dying day. Looming over the scene was the great height of Castle Maku, yellow-black smoke and tongues of flame licking skyward from its wooden hulk. The tang of smoke mingled with the perfumes of flowers.

  A pair of guards stood on either side of the passageway, foolishly facing inward toward the garden to witness their lord’s suicide. The drumming drowning out all sound, they didn’t hear Takeda approach until he was on top of them.

  Takeda slipped his katana between the first guard’s ribs before the man could even get his feet set, and then whirled to avoid a vicious swipe the second guard made with his long-bladed polearm. Takeda jump-stepped to within a foot of the guard. Catching the polearm’s shaft under his left arm and pinning it, Takeda thrust his sword through the second guard’s throat before the man could even react. He died in a spray of gore.

  The drummers saw the battle at last and faltered, their unsettling rhythm failing. As the drumming died, Takeda heard the trickle of water from the garden, the sounds of battle from the parapets, and roaring above it all the castle burning.

  “Nishino!” Takeda screamed, brandishing his sword above his head. He strode out into the garden, feeling the crunch of bone-white gravel beneath his feet. He could fight on it if he must, but it would be unsure footing at best. The fight may start here, he decided, but he would lead the traitor back to solid ground to finish it.

  Lord Nishino looked up from his reverie, confused for a moment, and blanched. Takeda understood why. Nishino had only the dagger before him and was without his swords, his only armed guards dead by Takeda’s hand.

  Takeda advanced over a small wooden bridge spanning an ornamental pond. Instead of hungry koi, small jellyfish-like creatures pulsed through the babbling water.

  Standing at last in the center of the garden, only a sword-length from his enemy, Takeda saw the full corruption of the place. Bizarre plants like those in the castle filled the space, but many times taller. In place of the traditional stone lantern stood one of the invaders terrible altars, its pale limestone slick and stained black. It stank of sacrifice.

  Takeda sheathed his blade, and went to his knees. He bowed low from the waist, keeping his eyes on Nishino at all times. It pained him to show such formal deference, but the man was a daimyo, rightful or not, and honor demanded no less. It would show this ronin a true samurai.

  “I am Takeda, a samurai of the Hayashi clan. I am retainer to Lord Tennoji Kiyotsuna, the rightful daimyo of this province, whom you betrayed to the Aramitama. My men and I have pledged to avenge him. It is we who have defeated you.”

  Nishino gave a slow nod. “It would seem you have.”

  There was coldness behind Nishino’s eyes that unsettled Takeda. He tried to shake off the feeling. It had been a day for such things.

  “Odd that you should pledge loyalty to a dead man. Surely you know the Aramitama will win,” said Nishino. “There is no hope for those who oppose them. You are ronin. If you seek new masters, the promises the Aramitama make to loyal servants –”

  “Be silent, traitor!” Takeda’s blade hissed as he drew it half from the scabbard. “Remember that I came here to kill you, Nishino-san. I have seen the horrors within your household, the ones for which you abandoned honor and country. Your very soul! It brings me comfort that I cannot fathom why you have done what you have.”

  “Then I am undone.” Nishino bowed low from the waist, his eyes downcast. “I am already arrayed for death. I beg you: permit me the final honor of seppuku, that I may die as a samurai.”

  “Shall I give you more consideration than you gave my master!”

  Takeda’s recurring nightmare was of the horrors his master had suffered upon an Aramitama altar, butchered alive by one of their foul priests because of Nishino’s treachery. He always woke screaming when, in the dream, the priest gazed into a bowl of his master’s blood and Takeda’s own face stared back.

  Nishino remained bowed low, the roar of the fire behind them filling the space between the two men for a long moment.

  “Honour demands no less,” said Takeda, hating the words as he spoke them. “Even for a wretch like you.” Nishino straightened up, a look of gratitude on his face.

  “Do not think me so selfless,” Takeda said. “I still intend to make your head a gift to Shogun. Only then will I consider my vendetta complete. And I permit you seppuku only if you use this blade.” From a small scabbard in his belt, Takeda withdrew a tanto, holding the cold steel out on his fingertips for Nishino to examine.

  “This is my master’s knife. I would see you die upon it.”

  Nishino gave a grim smile. “Most fitting.”

  Takeda cast a skeptical eye at Nishino’s reedy attendant. “Where is your second?”

  “I have no second,” Nishino said.

  Takeda straightened, shocked at the thought. He bowed low again.

  “Then I shall do it.”

  Nishino nodded. “Do not strike until the last moment. The suffering is important.”

  Takeda thought this an odd thing to say, but nodded his ascent. He would not begrudge the traitor all the suffering on earth. Standing, he positioned himself to the man’s left and drew his sword, ready to decapitate Nishino when the pain of suicide became too great to bear.

  Nishino drank his final cup of tea with a slurping sound of appreciation. At this, one of the drummers gave a cry and the taiko sprang to life again, their cacophonous rhythm accompanied by clanging symbols all out of time.

  Takeda stood impassive as Nishino opened his haori wide, picked up the tanto and, drawing a deep breath, plunged it into his belly. He dragged the knife across and up through his abdomen, his face red and twisting in agony. He made only the slightest grunts as he widened the cut.

  A few sharp intakes of breath and Nishino exclaimed through gritted teeth: “Truly, this gives relish to the tea!” He slumped forward with a gurgling noise.

  It was Takeda’s cue, but as he raised his sword a powerful salty smell overcame him, drowning out the stench of blood and bowel. It was like the fishy scents he remembered from his childhood on the southern coast.

  As red, steam
ing rivers of Nishino’s life flowed upon the ground, so too did a thick, viscous mucous. Coils spilled from the daimyo’s slit belly, not the reds and pinks of a man’s innards but greys, and cold blues and greens. They flared from beneath the slumped corpse with a wet, sticky sound revealing themselves as unearthly feelers and protuberances, thrashing and probing the air.

  Takeda staggered backward, crunching Nishino’s war fan underfoot. What devilry was this? Looking down at the man’s death poem it was not kanji but the dread symbols from the fungi staring back at him in dark ink.

  This was never about death with honor, he realized, but about birthing something terrible into the world.

  High above the drummers on the wall, all around Castle Maku coiled fearful limbs like those that burst from Nishino’s body, but vastly larger. Seeming immune to the fire, they thrashed here and there striking at Takeda’s men through the smoke, hurling them from catwalks and parapets or crushing them within their terrible coils.

  The gruesome limbs in the garden writhed and flailed as they slithered toward the blackened altar, dragging Nishino’s corpse along like the shell of some terrible crustacean.

  This garden was where the women and children had gone, and the servants, and even Nishino’s own fighting men. All to sate these terrible gods of the Aramitama. Takeda looked to his feet, understanding at last the true nature of the crushed matter he stood upon.

  He was screaming but the drums drowned it out.

  The creature heaved itself upon the stone altar, its rotund hulk sluicing free of the corpse. Takeda dropped his sword, his sanity destroyed by the unfathomable sight he beheld.

  From a beak-mouth the creature made horrible, guttural vocalizations in a dead language that never was.

  At the murmur of its name Takeda’s knees buckled. He bowed low and from a deep and primal terror he worshipped the thing.