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A Pamphlet On The Gallinipper

A Pamphlet From The Eminent Doctor Kelvin Osiris On The Hidden Origins Of The Gallinipper


FOREWORD

It has taken many years of dedicated research to find, translate and collate the numerous Stories, Folk Tales and even Urban Legends of a supposed mythical creature, oft described in these old, not so old and in some cases recent texts that display and describe the acts perpetrated by the creature known only as the gallinipper.

Some may have heard the term before, some may even believe they know its meaning, but there has never before been such a comprehensive list of tales brought together in one place, all translated carefully from their original languages, and printed here for the first time in their unedited entirety.  Within these pages perhaps lies the real truth to the legend, but that is for you to decide.
Yes, you, the Reader.



About the Author

He is the eminent authority on this particular mythical creature; being a man of letters, an adventurer and an artist.  He alone took a Trip, an Exploration into the Unknown, where he systematically hunted down, begged, borrowed, searched through the World's Libraries from California to Kathmandu and listened to the indigenous people of numerous Lands for their Stories of the infamous gallinipper - and here are those Stories presented for the first time in print - anywhere in the world!And his name is, of course, the eminent, the legendary - Doctor Kelvin Osiris.




THE TRAVELLER
Abbel, Hungary - Circa 1813

Once spring has come and the days grow longer, the trees sprout and the young buds grow, then it soon becomes time for the gallinipper to venture out - out into the woodlands and the fields.  Fierce they are, vicious and aggressive; and they sting and bite.  Once abroad they hunt, they creep, they trap the unwary mammal, upon which they feed and store what remains for the nights without.  And the sensible people hide, to leave only the foolish, who suffer the consequences of ignorance and bravado.
But here, deep in the Village, the doors were closed tightly when the world was within the season of the gallinipper; windows were sealed and chimneys were blocked, children tucked into beds and told to play in their rooms.
But the adults?  They were more cautious and more wary.  They would sit like statues at their kitchen tables and wait it out, desperately trying to remember if they replenished their stores enough for the months to come - hoping they had fixed the hole in the roof.
And then the gallinipper would stride about unheeded, unnoticed - undisturbed - outside those soft wood slatted doors and the delicate glass pane windows.  The weary traveller would find no peace here.  He would do best to move on, and quickly.
But not this night.  This night the traveller insisted - the traveller loitered.
He demanded entry to the first house he knocked upon.  Oh, how the residents cowered - cowered like cowards in the pantry, all light extinguished and their breaths held.
And the knocks came, one - two - three - with no reply.  A short pause suggested the traveller had moved on, but there again the knocks came, louder than before.  Another pause, and this time the knocks were followed by a voice; it boomed and echoed through the empty kitchen as it crept over the dust and the darkness, eventually finding the ears of the hidden, there in the pantry, in fearful clinches and clutches, punctuated by the whimper of a child once or twice.
"Hello?" came the voice, "Is there anyone in there?  It's Peter?  Peter Swift?  Hello?"  There remained no reply.  There could never be a reply, not in the season of the gallinipper.  Footfalls could be heard all around the outside of house, as the traveller looked for signs of life and egress.  He continued, "Hello?  Look, I'm sorry to bother you at this time of night?  See, I've just come from Garsdell.  It's a heck of a trek from there?  All I want is a drink of water, and perhaps a bed for the night?  I tried elsewhere, but no one's answering?  It's getting dark.  Let me in for just a few minutes, will you?  Hello?"  A face suddenly appeared at the pantry window.  The face was bathed in shadow, so it was difficult to make out the features.  The traveller rapped on the window as he had the door, "Hello?  Wait!  I just saw a leg!  You just pulled it back!  I saw it!  Hello!?"”
"Please, leave us alone!" shouted the Father, instantly regretting raising his voice.
"Hello?  Look, I just want some water?  Surely that's not too much to ask?" insisted the traveller.  It wasn't, was it?  Some water?  That couldn't hurt?  The Father then got to his feet and took down a small canister from their stores, opened the tiny window and threw it out at the man.  The traveller picked it up, "Oh, thank you, Sir, for the water!  So what's going on here?  Why are the streets empty and the doors all closed?" asked the traveller, taking a huge swig from the canister, letting the water drip out the sides, streaking his dirty cheeks and running down his sunburnt neck, soaking his mud covered shirt and chest.
"Go away!  It's not safe!" shouted the Father.”
"Oh, so that is you, Walt!  Walt Garner?  I knew I got the right place!"”
"Please, leave!  You're drawing too much attention -" –“
"But Mr Garner?  I came with a tale, a story from your son, Uri!  Come on, open up?  Hear his story!"”
A low anxious mutter began from within the darkened pantry.  Some words were heated, some forceful, some were even graceful.  Eventually Walt Garner spoke, "Our son Uri is dead. He died in the war."”
"See, now that's the thing, Mr Garner!  He didn't!  Can you believe that?  It was a miracle, I said to him, and that I would drop in and see his Parents, on my way back home!  Mr Garner!  Open up, so that we might embrace?"“
The reply came swiftly and vehemently, "He is dead!  Go, traveller!  Say no more about it!"
"I don't understand?  Why won't you open up, Mr Garner?  What's wrong?"  The traveller sounded genuinely concerned, but there came no reply.  Then the traveller asked once more.  This time there was an answer.
"Don't you know?  Aren't you aware it's the season of the gallinipper?"”
"The season of the what?  Is this why all the houses and shops are shut?  For superstitious nonsense?" asked the traveller.
"Leave now and quickly, or they will mark my house!" said Walt Garner, stoically.
"Don't be ridiculous, Sir!  There's nothing out here!  It's dark, sure, but other than that, there's nothing, not even the chirp of a cricket, a call of an owl, or the sound of a wood pigeon.  There's nothing, Mr Garner.  But if you insist on keeping your place locked up -"
"How can I trust you, that you are who you say you are?"  This was followed by angry mutters from the others in the pantry.
"I don't know - something about Uri?  Something to prove I know him?"
"Yes.  Something like that."”
"Let's see.  He did recite these words from a poem a fair amount - 'high in the tree, did sing my love, of grace and piety, that my wanderings are enough'.  There's more to it than that, but I don't remember the rest?"”
A rumble of discussion followed from within.  The Father spoke up, "Anyone who knows that poem, knows those words.  It is a popular one." said Walt Garner.
"Okay.  Right.  He did say - yes, of course, he said, 'tell my Mother that she was right.  The roses do smell sweeter the further from home we are.'"”
A muffled whimper came from inside.  It was from a woman, followed by further discussion.  Finally the conversation stopped and Walt Garner lifted himself to his feet and turned to face the traveller through the window in the pantry.  They stared at each other then, judging, determining, with no word spoken - then Walt Garner nodded slowly.  He instructed the traveller to return to the kitchen door, where Walt would allow him entry.  The Father left the door to the pantry open, with the family hidden inside, who were holding each other closely, haphazardly seated upon the floor.  Walt Garner slowly and carefully took hold of the handle to the kitchen door as he also took the key from his pocket and turned it in the lock until it clicked.  Cautiously he turned the handle, opening the door enough to let the wind howl in.
The traveller was silhouetted by the town light that stood proudly and shone outside the Garner's Village House.  Slowly, the traveller took a meaningful stride into the property, waiting until Walt Garner had closed and locked the door once more.  The traveller dropped his bag on the floor and began to remove his heavy clothes.
First his coat dropped to the floor, like a heavy wing unfurling.  Next he removed his hat, which had held his long straggly hair in place.  Then he began to remove his thick gloves, one at a time.  The removing of the gloves revealed a claw-like hand, with sharp talon fingernails at the ends of the long bony fingers.  The traveller smiled.
"Mr Garner!  Don't you know it's the season of the gallinipper?  Just letting any old stranger into your house?  Well, aren't you a kind soul?  I wouldn't have been so trusting, were I in your place!  Now, your son, Uri, he tasted ever so sweet, with just a hint of sourness within.  Isn't that telling?  Ah, I wonder what you will taste like?  Or you, Mrs Garner?  Aww, and your other children!  You spoil me with quite the buffet, wouldn't you say, Mr Garner?" smiled the razor sharp teeth of the gallinipper incarnate.
And how he did feast!  With so much blood -





THE WRITHEN ROAD 
Beroflec, Canada - Circa 1981 

Writhen it came, out of the flames and fire.  Writhen it walked the lands, for the men with swords could not tame it; they could not kill it, nor could they banish it.  It slithered away, to repair, to recuperate.  It went into hibernation, until the world was ready for its return.
But the world would never be ready for its return.  Not now - not in the future.  And yet - it returned.

#

The bus driver had taken a wrong turn and not for the first time.  There appeared to be no turning point either, at least not for another five miles.  The roads around this area were very confusing.  One turning looked very much like another, and to this inexperienced driver who had been lumped with the unpopular route, nicknamed the Writhen Road due its twists and turns and the long miles of nothing, he was on a losing streak before he started.
Oh, and the early morning drives were the worst.  In the Winter there was the darkness and a descending morning mist which tricked the eyes.  It was a wonder that those poor drivers were able to keep their eyes open, it being a tedious, sleepy route, and that was for sure.
The road he had accidentally taken twisted this way and that, distorted in the endless tree, soldier like in salute, and the familiar corner, just like the last.  It was certainly writhen, that road, amongst the writhen trees of the writhen forest.  It raised the hackles in its oddity.
Despite the time of day and the unusually clement weather, a strange mist had dropped just above the road surface.  Visibility became distorted and the driver became confused.  He realised he must have missed the turn-around point, as they had surely been on this road for far too long already.  He looked through the rear view mirror at his passengers.  They seemed largely unaffected by his mishap, too wrapped up in their own worlds to notice.
The bus slowed to a near stop, as with each increasing second the driver was losing it.  He lost all awareness of where he was, and what he was doing.  Eventually he forgot why he was doing it and stopped the bus entirely.  This triggered some kind of a response from the passengers, but the driver wasn't listening.  He thought he could see something out there, amongst the twisted tree roots, something he must go to.  He opened the door to the bus with a hiss and stepped off, leaving the door open, allowing a trail of mist to creep aboard cautiously.  Only one of the passengers watched as the driver walked off into that mist.
"What the Hell?" the passenger said, out loud.
Another had become aware of what was going on, "Where's the driver?" a young lady asked out loud.
"He walked out there, into the mist." said the first man, pointing to the spot where the driver had disappeared into the trees.  Exacerbated, he raised his eyebrows in surprise.
"When's he coming back?" asked an old woman, way at the back.
"I don't know, do I?" replied the first man.
"Shouldn't someone go look for him?" asked the young lady.
"Be my guest." gestured the first man, with the sweep of his hand.
"You're a man.  You do it." she said.
"Oh, okay!  Here we go!  Thought you feminists all burned your bras or something for this equality stuff?" he said.
"Don't be ridiculous, you old chauvinist pig!" said the young lady.
"I'll go." spoke up another man, who stood up and walked towards the front of the bus, pushing past the first man, who huffed as he passed.
"See?  There is a man on this bus after all." said the young lady.
"You want me to smack you one?" said the first man.  The second man placed a hand on his shoulder.
"I wouldn't, friend." he said.
"Oh!  Our great hero!  Off you go!  And don't forget to send us a postcard?" said the first man.  The second man just looked at him, until the first man felt uncomfortable and sat back down, sheepishly examining the floor.  Within seconds, the second man had exited the bus, much as the driver did.
Long, anxious minutes passed, with not a sign of either the driver or the second man.  Time dragged, and emotions grew taught within the bus.  Every passenger sat quietly, some examining the mist and trees for a sign of life, or some flicker of a lighter - anything.  Even the regular noises of a forest were absent - nothing but the occasional crack of a twig somewhere out in the mist to break the absence of sound.
THUMP!Something hard hit the side of the bus, shaking it.  The young lady stifled a scream.  Then - THUMP! - another bang, and the world fell silent once more.
The croaky voice of the first man broke the thick silence, "Maybe - maybe someone should go out and see what that was?"
"I'm guessing you're not volunteering, then?" said the old woman in the back.
"Why don't you do it, then?  No one owes you a living, you know!" spat the first man.  The old woman stood.
"Alright then, as there are no men left."”  She strode confidently to the front of the bus and stood on the step, peering out into the mist.  WOOSH!  Swiftly and suddenly she was dragged into the blinding whiteness, without a further sound.  Seconds later, another - THUMP! - on the side of the bus.  The first man, with the only guts he could find, quickly closed the bus door and cowered in his chair.
"Oh God!  Oh God!  Oh God!" he repeated over and over again, huddled in a foetal position, hugging his knees to his chest and rocking back and forth.
The young lady was frozen to her seat.  Another bang - THUD!.  This was followed by a chittering sound, echoed dangerously in the mist.  THUD!  THUD!  THUD!"It's trying to get in!" said the young lady, with sudden realisation.  THUD!  THUD!The first man just whimpered in his seat, relieving himself into a puddle of urine collecting around him.  His eyes darted about to catch every slight movement, sound or vibration - and each one drew a gasp from him.  Scratches, outside, like nails down a corrugated sheet of metal shook any resolve he had left.
The young lady, who was more aware, thought on her feet.  She ran to the front of the bus, and climbed into the driver's seat, grasping, searching for the keys in the ignition.  They were missing.  They must still be with the driver.  She climbed back out of the chair and opened the door.  The first man, he cried and pleaded for her to stop, but she was resolved to slip outside.
She kept her back to the bus, sliding squeakily along the side, never taking her eyes from the blinding mist, until she reached the place where those fearful thumps on the side of the bus had occurred.  Blood and undefined liquids plastered this side of the bus.  The young lady squatted down, looking blindly into the mist, and felt around for, hopefully, the keys.  Other things however connected with her fingers, but she did not look, in case her insane bravery deserted her at the time she needed it the most.  Squishy, slurpy liquid ran through her fingers - and she couldn't help but groan at it.  It was disgusting.
Then something in the mist moved.
It looked burned, blackened and twisted; distorted beyond recognition.  It only flashed for a second, but it increased the young lady's need to find those keys, and quickly.
Her fingers landed on something metallic, something bulbous at one end and thin at the other, serrated over one edge, flat on two sides.  She gasped in excitement, gathering the key into her hand.  The young lady then took the same route back to the front of the bus, back through the door - each step she could feel something watching her; hungry, angry, with an intensity born of an old, old age.  As she turned to climb onto the bus, she almost felt something coming from the whiteness to grab her exposed ankle, but it was fleeting and she was aboard now, firmly closing the door behind her.  The first man still remained in his puddle, rocking to his own rhythm.  The young lady climbed back into the driver's seat, pushed the key into the lock and turned.
But if only it were that easy -
The engine turned, wheezed and spluttered to nothing.  She turned the key again.  It spluttered to nothing.  She was becoming desperate.  She kept turning and tuning.  Damn!  She had flooded the engine!  What now?
THUD!  THUD!  THUD!  Chitter - chitter -Was that a laugh?!
Oh God help us!
That was a definite laugh, with guttural clicking, like the croak of a forty-a-day old woman.  A screak of nails against metal made tears involuntarily fall from the young lady's eyes, the calling forth of the oldest instinct known to life-kind - that of Fear.  The screaks were almost rhythmical, taunting, accented by the chittering laugh of the unseen.  The first man whimpered more, his mind totally lost to his lizard brain instinct.  Only the young lady had any kind of mind to react.
"We've got to get off this bus."
"Are you mad?  Yes you must be!  Hahaha!"  At least it got a reaction from the virtually comatose first man.
"I mean it.  If we all get off, go in a group -"
"Then we'll be picked off, one by one!" argued the first man.
"Not necessarily."  It was a new voice, this one coming from a woman about six feet tall, dressed in a power suit.
"Who are you?  What the Hell do you know about it?" continued the first man, incredulous.
"A lot more than you it seems." smirked the woman at the first man, "I'm a microbiologist.  A bit of an expert on arthropodia, as it goes.  That chittering - it sounds insect-like.  If we travel in a large group, they would likely see us as one huge entity."
"They?" asked the young lady.
"Oh, there must be swarm of them - hive mind, you know." she laughed, "What?  You think it's one giant humanoid looking creature?"
"I don't know what I thought -" tried the young lady, shuffling on the spot.
"Well, I say we go.  No time like the present, don't you think?"  It wasn't really a question, more an instruction.  The first man simply stood and fell into line, robotically magnetising to the nearest authority figure.  Another five people came to the front of the bus from different hiding places of the now redundant vehicle.  They linked together like a rat king, clinging to each other in one large whimpering group as they carefully slid out of the opened door and into the chilling mist.
Sixteen eyes darted this way and that, searching every loose shadow and every protruding twig.  As one entity they shuffled along the relative safety of the road, the one unit moving cautiously, slowly, testing every footfall for faults.  And it was silent out there.  Not a sound, not even a snapped twig, or the low monotonous hum of the universe simply functioning.  They continued until they were finally out of sight of the bus - the safety of the bus - when the first crack fell.
It sounded, in that invisible whiteness, bouncing off the tiny water droplets that created the mist, like it was everywhere at once.  CRACK!  A collective squeak rose from the group, and many became frozen to the spot.
"Keep moving!" whispered the arthropod expert, but many couldn't comply.  And like a gunshot - BANG! - the darkness came in and snatched one of the group away.  Some screamed and quickly the hole was filled up, yet others still could not move.
"Come on!  We can do this!"  This time it was the young lady, finding her voice once again.  It seemed to hit some basic nerve command that forced the legs to move, the feet to lift.  BANG!  Another was torn from the rat king, and the group began to move faster.  Too fast in fact.  One tripped over another and they all fell into a heap, crying and screaming.  The first man was torn from the fallen group, like a taut elastic band.  His blood curdling scream could be heard sliding further and further away until a heart thudding crunch sounded like an echo in the white mist.  Then, all around them, the chittering began in earnest.  The creature sensed its prey was all but done.
No one who remained had a mind with which to reason, and sensibility was overtaken by survival most basic.  Everyone got to their feet somehow, and they ran, they fell, some were dragged away, while the rest were left with screams and chittering laughter - but there was an end in sight.  Lights!  Car lights from a road!
"Quick!  You go!  Keep running!" said the young lady, pushing the remainder of the group before her.  A little bravery had returned to her now that she saw the road, and that bravery turned into an altruistic sense of security.  She looked behind her, back into the mist.  Dark shadows flittered this way and that, breaking the purity of that whiteness.  She heard the feet of the others in the group run from her, then stop.  She turned her head, cautious of what she might find.
Before her now, the thing, the blackness - the veiled blackness - stood with one of the group held out in front of it.  It shivered and vibrated, which created the chittering sound.  Then it took the head of the person it held into its mouth and bit, crunching the skull efficiently into bits.  The young lady just stared.
And she advanced.  She didn't know why, but running away didn't seem to achieve anything.  The creature watched.  She came virtually side by side with the monstrosity, seven feet - eight feet perhaps - which continued to watch her.  When she had passed it, the creature seemed to turn and face her, holding the headless body forward like an offering or a present.  To the young lady it didn't compute.  She turned, walked backwards still facing the creature, which continued to offer the headless body, hopefully, generously, until the young lady stood upon the road where an advancing vehicle had to swerve to miss her.
"Are you insane?!" yelled the driver, from his open window.  The young lady continued to back up - the creature now barely visible, statuesque, resembling a leafless tree in the wilderness, holding a dead body in its branches.  The young lady reached the car and opened the door, climbing inside.  She turned to catch sight of a shadow where the creature had been, running back, deeply back into the forest.
The young lady then looked to the driver with the wild eyes of a frightened animal and said, "Yes, I very probably am."





THE REDEMPTION OF EVIL 
Czech Republic - Circa 1240

Lonely was the Man of God, lost high upon the hill, where the tower sat amongst the trees of oak.  The wind was howling, the sun was behind the cloud, and a grey old man sat beside the fire, the warmth barely touching his bones beneath his weather-ravaged skin.  He would tend to the needy, the lame and afflicted by his meagre understanding of the medicines and herbs he was taught once, and a long time ago.
Nights were not as chilly as they had been, as the death-winter had been washed away by the returning of the new; spring had arrived and the air filled with the odour of growth.  One such night, not far into the season, someone came to see the old man, seeking succour, seeking redemption for some past misdemeanours; a malady struck about him that drew him to perform acts for which he needed someone higher than himself to forgive his trespasses.  The old man, he understood this more than any other wisdom - that confession was good for the soul and thus a form of redemption from the crimes this man felt he should be ashamed for.
"Tell me, my son, what it is you feel you require forgiveness for?"  The man kept his coat about him, confidence a requirement for comfort.  He took a seat opposite the old man, huddled himself up into a ball, perched there on the flimsy stool.  He kept his face hidden throughout, which raised no suspicion upon the old man, for he had seen many afflicted with sores, disease and leprosy within his many years of treating such people.  There was no horror to which the old man would rescind, however.  The man croaked to life, a speech darker than his covered self, but it was clear a voice, one born of violent natures, but desperate for change to the very nature to which he succumbs.
"I have killed, Holy Man.  I have killed many and much." replied the man.
"Are you a soldier?"
"Of sorts, perhaps."
"Then if there is a righteous cause, you will be forgiven -"
"There is no righteousness in what I do, Holy Man.  There is only evil."
"Surely not such an indelicate word, my son?  There are many shades before evil."  The old man poked the fire.  Cinders flew up, caught by a draught, burning into nothing.
"And there are many lights before good." said the man.
The old man nodded, "So tell me, for what action do you believe you are influenced by evil?"
"Is murder not enough?"
"I would know the nature of such murder before I give comment, my son." countered the old man.  The owl of wisdom had been perched upon the old man's shoulder for likely more years than the man before him had been called alive.
"If you wish." shrugged the man, a motion which forced half of his body to move awkwardly, "I first killed when I was young.  It was second nature to me even then, the feeling of cleansing even as I eviscerated the man upon the path.  It was warmth, it was spiritual, but yet I felt empty, my soul haled to the deepest, darkest recesses of my core.  I did it because I needed to, but I lost part of me then.  And it continues -"
"There are things beyond our comprehension, my son; things we cannot control within our lives.  I understand your need for forgiveness now, but I must hear it all, so that your soul be depleted of these bad memories, to be filled with goodness and light - if such is what you desire?"
The man sniffed, "I cannot live with it any more, this pain that makes me strive for the destruction of another?  I require peace - nothing more.  Goodness and light, I fear, is beyond my nature."
The old man smiled, "That is yet to be determined, my son."
"But it is the fear that drives me.  I know not whether such a powerful tormentor may be slain by forgiveness from a Holy Man."
"Then why did you come to me, my son?" asked the old man.  He poured himself a drink from the pot upon the stove, offering the man a cup, which he refused.
"Because it is worth a try.  It is worth the effort if I may become more than I am and thrive without my very nature taking over."
The old man put a hand on his leg, to comfort him.  It was nothing more than bone.  The man must be suffering far more greatly than he would reveal, "My son?  You are malnourished.  Perhaps I could make you -"
"No!" shouted the man.  He drew a heavy breath in and calmed himself, "I am sorry.  No, I require no food."
"But you are naught but skin and bones, my son!  Let me help you off with your coat, that you may relax a little -" the man fell backwards, stunned by the movement of the old man.  He slid upon the floor, scuttling almost to the darkness of the corners within the tower, "My son!  I am sorry!  I meant not to harm you!"
"It's of no consequence, Holy Man.  I am - furtive.  Mind me not.  But please, I ask, do not try and unrobe me.  Within is a sight you would not wish to see."
"All is right, my son.  If you are more comfortable with it -"
"I am."
"Then forgive me my impertinence." smiled the old man, sitting again at the chair by the fire.  The yellow and orange light flickered upon the man's face, making sharper the angular lines of the emaciated features of the poor creature.  He had obviously suffered much in his anticipation or actual perpetration of evil, perceived or real.  It didn't matter much which.  He was a soul in need.  That was for why the old man still trod upon the earth - to serve others, with succour, if such was required.  "Now continue, if you will, with your determination of your sin." said the old man.
The man remained where he was, in the comforting shadow, but sat up carefully, "The fault of mine, absurdly used word within the context of my actions, is in the unnecessary nature by which I kill.  That is to say, I have no motive, other than the desperate need to concede to the screaming desire of the beast within.  It requires no motive.  It only requires to kill."
"It is right to say, you feel diminished by the act - the blanketing beast about you, compelling you without consent?" asked the old man.
"Yes.  I act, because it compels me to."
"Like a hunger?"
"Very much so.  Like no hunger I can conceive of beyond my understanding.  Pure, unadulterated evil thoughts, and I am unable to react."  The man drew his legs further into his body, his head further into his knees - a reaction to his realisation, perhaps, of saying the words of the thoughts that so haunted him, said out loud, even to someone other than himself.
"Then it may be that you have not the control of your mind which you think you have.  So call it madness, though this be a pejorative turn of phrase to encompass all in a falsely educated context.  That is to say, you have perhaps the lack of control upon certain - natures - within your mind, preventing you from being able to do anything more than observe.  I have seen it many times in my many years, in the field hospitals about the world, in the asylums and the prisons there be, containing men such as yourself, when you are diminished of responsibility from your actions by a chemical imbalance within your internal physic.  Which I might add, concludes that you are not responsible for the deaths, due to a - difference - to others within your mind."  Silence then fell, with the crackling of damp wood the only sounds in the circular room within the tower, until it was broken disturbingly by a chittering sound from where the man was hunched.  His form shook as the chittering became more rhythmical.  The man was laughing, but the sound he made was a laugh not of this world - yet embedded within it.  The chittering eventually turned into a husky, guttural laugh from the man, who began to unfurl from the spot where he had been seated.  He rose, and rose, and rose.  He continued to a height almost in touch with the beam that sat above the fire.
"My son!" exclaimed the old man, marvelled at the hidden half of the man he had welcomed into his home, "What have you become?"
"I am as I always have been.  I am a product of my nature.  I am evil incarnate."  The man completed his transformation, by the fabric of his coat unrolling, like thick dark wings of leather, revealing the truth beneath, "I told you, Holy Man, that there was horror beneath my covering.  See me now, as I truly am!"
"You are the creature they speak of!  You are the beast abroad!" spluttered the old man.
"I am.  True it is that I am the scourge of the land, the plague, the red mist; I am the horror by which children are made to eat their food, clean their rooms and go to sleep.  I am that which lurks beneath the bed, hides in the shadows and pounces upon the unwilling.  I asked for redemption, for forgiveness.  I did not ask for diagnosis of madness."
"True, it must be me who is the mad one!  For I do not believe what I see!"  The old man grasped desperately behind him for a hand that did not come, did not comfort.
"It comes to this, then?  I have no recourse?  I cannot be saved?" asked the man, now a creature.
"Something such as you has no redemption!" screamed the old man.
"Such that it is my nature then." spoke the creature, once the man, resigned.
And he tore the old man asunder, his blood dousing the fire beside him and eventually he was done.
So it would seem that evil has no redemption.  It is corruption and nothing more - for where there is not a soul to save, there is simply a nature to complete.





THE WENFORT HOME FOR WORRIED MINDS
Kent, UK - Circa 2004

In a dream-wakeness I become aware I live inside an eight foot creature, reared upon its hind legs, eviscerating a screaming man, ripping him apart with razor sharp claws, snapping my jaw forward to take another piece to quieten that endless noise coming from his throat.
I am there, yet not there.  I sit behind the eyes, focussed on blood, like some rabid beast - I can see it all, sense it all, but I cannot change it at all.  I am not in control of the actions, forced to look through the creature's eyes, as it murders another innocent victim.
The world snaps away and I wake for real, where I am drenched in sweat, closer to exhaustion than ever I could be, simply by laying in bed.  I get up and wash, but nothing seems to relieve my tiredness.
To my eternal shame, this has happened at least three days a week for three months, without fail.
Next night, I am determined to control the creature, as it skitters about the place, chittering away hungrily.  The sound echoes a return, which hits me in the gut and makes my very marrow shiver.
The creature catches a scent.  I muster all my mental energy into an intensive concentrationial state.  The creature moves toward the scent, dropping to its haunches, moving forward carefully.  I focus my mind hard, and with a force of will I try to halt its legs, yet regardless it moves on.  I double my efforts.  The creature continues in search of its prey - and I scream in a silent voice for it to stop.  Suddenly, it’s there, upon the victim.  I struggle in my cage, made of flesh, to rend the creature's mind from mine; but I see its actions and I feel its longing - its hunger.  Again I am powerless to stop it, and there is left another dead body, with another restless sleep.
There are no books I can read, nor are there stories I can find, yet I am determined to work out exactly what's going on, what is it that's happening to me?  So I go to see my Doctor, my GP.  He asks me many questions, certainly not pertaining to the problem in hand.  I insist I must see a professional, to which he regrettably acquiesces, capitulating to my desire.
I find therapy is like a conversation with my friend.  It takes many journeys, but always ends in the same conclusion.
Nothing.
The therapist knows nothing, save the most simplistic of behaviours, none of which answer my dilemma.  It remains with me the one option I have left, which is to volunteer to be sectioned - perhaps a drastic move, but I am finding the lack of movement on my condition requires desperate measures.
"Ever hear about conservation of movement?" speaks the man sat beside me, in the common room of the Wenfort Home For Worried Minds, out of the blue.  It was the type of conversation to be had during the day, once the pills had been delivered and the more worried minds were well sated and more harmonious.
"I think so," I reply, "Why?"
"Oh, nothing.  I'm reading this article about it."  He shows me the page to which he is referring, "It's an interesting concept, don't you think?  See, most animal species display it - except for humans, of course."”
"What made you think of that?"
He shrugs, "Like I said, I don't know.  Just came across it in this magazine, that's all."”
"You have a strange mind, you really do." I say.  He looks at me and laughs.
"What are you laughing about now?" I ask him.
"If you could see what I see, you would laugh too."  I don't know to what he's referring, but that's where the conversation ends.  That's often where the conversation ends.
The dreams become increasingly infrequent after this.  I notice the creature takes less opportunity within my dreams.  I inform my therapist all about these changes, in our private one-on-one sessions.  The therapist becomes increasingly interested and offers sessions both day and night.  Often I take him up on it.  I tell him how this vision-scape I seem to have invented in my mind is now taking its toll on my health.  We discuss it and we realise I need to take control of it.
Then comes that day, the day I have never wanted to see.  But I know I have to.  I have no choice.
On this day, my therapist presents a Newspaper clipping.  It tells of a vicious attack on a man not far from the Hospital Grounds.  He suggests to me it is articles such as this that are perhaps feeding my fantasies, that I have read some in the past and that is what is taking root in my subconscious.  I take the clipping from him.
It bears a great similarity to my dream.  A little too close.  I ask to see him again that evening.   He agrees, and we take a session on the veranda.  The sky is clear and the moon is high.  The wind catches the leaves in the trees, shaking them, tinkling, rustling in the evening breeze.  The wind dances, blows through the humidity of a spring-summer lawn.  I feel funny.
I feel I am falling into a dream.  I first lose my balance and fall to my knees.  I have an intense pain in my joints and my body is blanketed in sores.  I sense I am sinking within myself, as I slowly begin to rise, raising my head skyward.  I chitter, and I catch the briefest glances of something monstrous in the therapist's glasses.  The therapist is frozen in fright.  He is stunned, open-mouthed, sucking in the rasping breaths, trying to catch his own senses enough to move his muscles.
But it's too late.
I feel my arms grab him and lift him to my mouth.  I have no power, no control, no matter how much I try and struggle against it.  It feels like I am in a dream, unable to move my own limbs.  The creature moves those limbs for me.  It opens its maw wide, reactively my mouth, and closes the dangerously sharp teeth with a SNAP! around my therapist's neck.  The creature forces me to bite down hard, and is immediately sprayed with blood.  I am sprayed with blood.  And it only seems to excite the creature to continue.  I am speechless, I am unmotivated - I black out within my own mind but things still happen, and the creature continues.  My mind saves itself any further distress by no longer recording what happens in front of me.  Shock, mercifully, takes over.
Madness is now a part of me, and I awake to find straps holding me down to a gurney, keeping my four limbs motionless, with a further strap holding my head firmly down.  People are staring at me.  One of them takes blood from me, another looks at my chart.
I am in trouble, and I think I know why.  It's simple when you get down to it; I am forgetting about conservation of movement - the trick that would allow me to control the beast.  So obvious, now I think of it.
And I feel funny, but I understand him now, the creature within.





NOISES IN THE ATTIC
Pengate, New South Wales, Australia - Circa 1979
Reprinted by kind permission from ‘Folktales And Urban Legends; A Blog - by William Harris’

Did you ever hear the one about the family in Pengate, New South Wales?  Or maybe you heard it from Garid in Poland, Feroise in France, or Ethreda in Argentina?  The places might have changed, the names altered to protect the families, but trust me, the true origin of this story is from Australia.  And here it is, in its entirety, with never a name changed or a punch pulled.  This is the true story of the Gallagher family of Pengate, New South Wales.  And the time?  Late April, 1979.

#

It was a pleasant evening when the Gallaghers first moved into their new home, which they had chosen particularly for the excellent schools and the quiet neighbourhood.  The house itself - a two storey detached property with swimming pool in the back garden - was nestled comfortably on the apex of the cul-de-sac, with the Wilsons on one side and the Chelbys on the other.  The family were tired after their long trek from Wallamalumba in Perth, so had little time to look around that first night.  They lumped all the furniture approximately where they had planned to put it, ventured into the attic in the darkness, filling one quarter of the space with odd and ends, then slumped heavily into their beds, hoping to be fresh for the next few days of unpacking and acclimatising to their new surroundings.
It was Simon, the youngest boy, who first noticed the strange statue-like object in the attic.  He punched it and kicked it; he threw things at it, but nothing affected it.  It remained there, solid to the touch.
Simon told his Sister Ellie of this object up in the attic.  She snorted with derision at her Brother's imagination.  Unrelenting, Simon told first his Mother, then his Father of the item.  Mother wasn't interested, focussing more on delighting her new neighbours with wilful ingratiation.  Father took only a passing interest.  He simply assumed it was something that had belonged to the previous owners of the property, something they didn't wish to take with them, or dispose of themselves.  He told Simon, his Son, that the following day he would venture into the attic and see for himself this solid object, situated in one corner, pretty much out of the way, doing no harm.
It was that night the noises began.  There was scratching, scraping, chittering - Rob, the Father, could think of nothing other than some kind of wild critter had somehow found its way into the attic, and that he would flush the little creature out as soon as morning came.  So, once it became daylight, and after a thrown together breakfast, Rob Gallagher climbed into the attic.
There it was, the solid object, but of the critter, no evidence could be found save a few odd scratches about the solid object in the corner.  Rob tried to lift it, tried to roll it, but it didn't budge.  So he found a length of pole and at first tried to lever the object, then to strike it.  It remained, much as it had before Rob's intervention.  Solid - immovable.  Rob made plans to contact the previous owners, to see if they would either return to remove their possession, or at least provide some reimbursement if Rob was to contract someone to remove it.
So Rob contacted the Agent for the sellers.  They remained vague, despite Rob's insistence.  Rob pushed the issue, and eventually the Agent relented.  They had, in fact, sold the property on behalf of the owners, or more accurately, the next of kin of the previous owners.  They had, so Rob was told, simply vanished one day.  As they never returned to the home, they were presumed dead.  A few words with his wife, Shelly, told Rob that the neighbours knew very little more than he, that the family had indeed left the property, never to return.  The neighbours had subsequently assumed it had been a midnight run, from debtors or the Bank foreclosing on them.  More than that, the neighbours didn't know.
But the Son of the Chelbys said he thought he had heard screams from the house the night before they left, but his Mother had insisted it was some kind of cry of a wild animal, somewhere on the property.  Rob contacted the Agents again, but of the next of kin's details, they wouldn't release.  So Rob was stuck with this stupid thing in his attic.
As the weeks passed, not one day went by without either Rob hacking away at the object, trying to break it up, or Simon kicking and punching it.  The other family members couldn't care less, it was true, but not hammer, nor power saw, nor sledgehammer shifted that damn object!  Not even a scratch did it receive - no mark or blemish tarnished its surface!  Yet each night, they could hear scratching and scraping and chittering, despite there being no sign of that God-forsaken critter!  Rob would take his frustration out on the object, knowing it was venting and nothing more.  Even Simon eventually became bored and stopped his tyrannical attack on the solid, immovable object.  Each night the noises continued, becoming louder and more frequent.  Ellie, the Sister, began to complain of being watched at night, which Rob took very seriously.  He began to suspect the noises from the attic weren't those of a critter, and that they may be those of a pervert, or prowler.
So the next night, Rob climbed into the attic, holding a length of pipe, and hid behind some towered boxes.  He heard the scratches, louder this time, seemingly coming from the corner of the attic.  But it was the chittering noise that froze Rob's soul.  It was deep, it was close; it felt like it was right on his shoulder, like the chuckle of a desiccated man on his last throes of life.  Rob couldn't move, he lost track of time, and it wasn't until the morning did he become aware of his surroundings once again.  There was no noise, there was no laughter; there was only Rob's staggered breathing in the calmness of dawn.  Again, during that day, he hacked away at the object in the corner, and again it was to no avail.
Rob had taken as much as he could stand, so he gave in and called a contractor to do something with the accursed thing - get rid of it and damn the cost!  It had gone on far too long, and Rob's wife Shelly, along with the children, were beginning to notice how much the stress was getting to Rob.  Simon cried often, wishing and hopping he had never noticed the object, and never brought the subject up to his Father.  But it was too far gone for that.  It was too late in the day.  And Ellie, she never lost that feeling that someone watched her from somewhere, despite the many times Rob ventured into the attic.  And each time he did, that same feeling of time passing unnoticed struck his last nerve.
The contractor, he looked around the object, tried to lift it, much to Rob's chagrin.  Didn't this man realise that was the first thing Rob tried?!  The contractor made a summation and gave Rob a quote, promising to return the following day with his crew, to remove the object once and for all.
So that evening and late into the night, the family stayed together, protectively, in the living room, huddled up underneath quilts.  What happened next is left to supposition - principally - except for one piece of video footage, capturing one frame every twelve seconds, from the security camera Rob Gallagher had installed in the house.  It pointed down the hall into the living room.
The first frame shows the Gallaghers, all together, in a deep sleep.  The second shows some person, or some creature, over seven foot tall, perhaps eight, standing there, watching the family sleep.  Its features, those that could be made out, were angular - perhaps too angular to be human.  Speculation, of course, but once the next frame of the video comes on, the man is gone - and so are the Gallaghers.  All that remains are the quilts, barely ruffled.
No one saw them leave, the contractor upon his return the next day could find no signs of them, but the boy next door insisted that this time - definitely this time - he heard a scream from the house next door.  Police insisted it must have been a man over-stressed by work or something - perhaps the move itself - that caused him to take his family out somewhere, perhaps by persuasion or coercion, to vanish into the Bush, never to be seen again.  That remains to this day the Police's official report.
But of this object that so haunted the family, it could not be found.  The contractor had insisted it was immovable on its own, yet it was gone and so was the family.  People said it was a murderer, who had hidden out somewhere in the attic and just killed the family, removing their bodies somehow.  But there was no blood.  Not one drop, anywhere in the house or the attic.
What did turn up in the attic however was some kind of casing, cocoon-like, of animal origin.  But no ordinary animal.  This casing would fit a big bear, or a giant moth - neither of which would hibernate that way.
Speculation rose, and continues to rise, of some huge beast, some creature of unspeakable size that had been hibernating in that attic for some time, and that the constant disturbance of the family, Rob's efforts to destroy it, had woken the beast.  Now angry, it destroyed the family utterly, then simply disappeared to somewhere it could finish its hibernation.  I suppose you could say that if there is anything be taken from this, it is this; don't poke the beast, because you may not like the consequences.
Rest in peace, Gallagher Family.





CRIATURA DA ESCURIDAO
Rendole, Brazil - Circa 1996

In an Amusement Park, somewhere near Rendole in Brazil was a Rollercoaster, just built, called Criatura Da Escuridao - Creature Of Darkness.  Aleixo Dulce, even upon hearing of it being built, knew he had to be there the first day, for its maiden voyage.  A trip was planned and he invited his best friend, Cosme Nela, persuading his other friend, Odilon Imaculada, to come too.  Of course the girls got to hear about it, so convinced their other halves that they better take them too, or there would be Hell to pay.  It wasn't ideal, but it had to be done.  So the road trip began, eventually taking just about ten hours to drive to the fairly remote Rendole from their home.
The road leading to the Amusement Park itself was flanked by trees, which led Cosme to joke that anyone could be hiding in there, ready to strike.  Lorena Fernao, his beautiful fiancé, smacked him hard on the arm for scaring her like that, but he simply laughed and rubbed his arm where she had hit him, with a mocking sad face.  This caused the rest of the car to join in with the fun - it was how they were, this group of six.  They shared laughs, they shared tears, and more importantly, they shared life.
The entrance to the Park - a large clown’s head with the actual drive-through part where its mouth should be - loomed overhead, as they headed for the carpark.  And there it was; Criatura Da Escuridao, gleaming in the hot Brazilian sun, enticing; inviting.
"We better park a way from the main part," said Aleixo, as he turned the car into an as yet unfinished part of the vast car park, stopping the car under a cover of trees that encroached into the tarmac, "Don't want to get stopped by those maintenance men."  Aleixo nodded his head to the troupe of light grey men and women, scurrying around with broom, prop or box, picking up litter, polishing anything that shined, and finishing off those little paint jobs that were always left until last.  The Park had been closed most of the year and was due for reopening in the next two days, which dictated the flurry of activity as the workers tried to make the place ready for customers when Saturday came around.
"Look at it!  Just look at it!  Isn't that the best God-damned thing you've ever seen?"  Aleixo was transfixed on the Rollercoaster, with its many twists and turns, curves and drops.  It was something he had waited a lifetime to see, and now he was finally here.  Aleixo made for the Park proper, calling over his shoulder, "I'll see you all in an hour or two.  I need to see a man about a plan."  And then he was gone, leaving the others to their own devices.
"He seriously has a problem you know, Branca." shrugged Cosme jokingly at Aleixo's girlfriend, Branca Zeze.
She chuckled in return, "Don't I know it!" Branca replied.  Odilon and his girlfriend, Jacinta Demetrio, just looked into each others eyes, lovingly.  Lorena and Branca had been poking fun at the two of them all the way there.
"You know I think its a good job we didn't tell our parents we were coming here?  Those two wouldn't have stood a chance of being allowed to come otherwise." chuckled Lorena.
"Well, that and we borrowed my Parent's car to get here." added Branca, and the two girls fell into a fit of laughter as they walked arm in arm, following Cosme as he seemed to know where they were going.  Lorena thought she saw some tall man on the tree line, watching, or more precisely staring at them out of the shadows, but she didn't mention it.  It was probably one of the workers caught short, and with his dick in his hand saw these girls.  She took it as a compliment really, even as they wandered off to perform some mischief of their own.
Eventually Aleixo came and found them at the strip bar in a nearby town.  Lorena and Branca were causing far too much trouble as usual, enough to get a warning from the Manager, before they called it a day and found somewhere to sleep.  They found a flea-pit of a Hotel in the same town, and the next day was made ready for that night to come.

#

"Guys?  Meet Lucas Gabriel!  Lucas?  These are my friends!" said Aleixo, with a smile and sweeping hand to gesture at his giggling and mildly amused friends.
"Wow.  He's cute!  If only Aleixo weren't here?" whispered Branca at Lorena, while eyeing the man up and down, in his over the top uniform.  She had lust in her eyes, but laughter in her mouth.  Lorena nearly fell over with the exaggerated humour of the comment - perhaps down to the Dutch Courage they had partaken of earlier.  Branca still had the dregs of the quarter bottle in her bag, for later.  Always for later.
"Hi.  Hello.  Yes." stammered Lucas effectively.  It elicited an aww from Branca, to which Aleixo simply rolled his eyes.  He hated when she flirted, because it almost invariably meant she was drunk.  He didn't like her when she was drunk, but the excitement of getting to ride the Rollercoaster before anyone else - it was beyond anything he had imagined.
"Lucas here said he can get us on a technical run, didn't you, Lucas?" said Aleixo, patting the security guard on the back.
"He means a practice run to make sure the ride's safe for tomorrow." explained Cosme to the uninterested girls.  Odilon and Jacinta weren't listening anyhow.
"Yes.  But we have to wait until the workers go home.  Lucas says it would be his job if he let us on and anyone saw." said Aleixo.
"That doesn't sound right.  You sure you want to do this, Aleixo?  I mean, if its a practice run -" began Branca.  Aleixo simply shot her a look, and she relented.  It wasn't worth the effort of an unnecessary argument.  Let him have his little play, if he wants it.
Rendole threw up little in the way of excitement, at least as far as the group could ascertain.  In Cosme's opinion, it simply meant they had to make their own entertainment, while Aleixo wept over his Rollercoaster.  It didn't hold nearly the power over him as it did Aleixo.  Sure, he enjoyed them, would ride them, but he didn't love them like Aleixo.  That one had an unhealthy obsession with them, but then he had been for as long as Cosme had known him.  He put it down to the times Aleixo would ride the amusements at various Parks with his Father.  When Aleixo's Father died, it hit him hard, and the obsession with Rollercoasters began right back then.  Whatever it was, though, Cosme really didn't care.  He would follow his friend into Hell if he asked him to.  It was the kind of person he was.  And it was the kind of person Aleixo was that he never asked it of his friend.  But they both knew it was there, and that was enough.
Then, suddenly, Jacinta ran into the group, her and Odilon having found a little place to be alone for a while.  She was crying quite uncontrollably.  Her hands were covered in blood, "Oh my God!  Come quick!  It’s Odilon!  They've killed him!"  As one, the group rushed up to Jacinta, concerned.  The girls covered their mouths in shock and took the poor girl by the shoulders, as she led them to a workman's shed, around the corner.
Inside, Odilon was squirming, grabbing at his stomach where the blood soaked into everything, thick and bubbling around his hands.  He was pale and sweating and groaning in pain.  Lorena screamed and Branca fell into fits of tears, as both Aleixo and Cosme dropped to either side of their bleeding friend, pools of the red stuff gushing about him.
"Damn Odilon!  Let me look!" Cosme tried to force Odilon's hands from his stomach to see the extent of the injury, but Odilon did not relent.
"Odilon!  Let Cosme help!  He knows what he's doing!" tried Aleixo, grabbing hold of Odilon's hands in comfort.  Jacinta was inconsolable, and Lorena just stooped, shaking uncontrollably as Branca paced about.
"We need to call someone!" said Branca, not quite sure where to put herself.  But Odilon gestured for Aleixo to come in closer, as Odilon's voice was too soft to be heard.
"I - I'm sorry!" spluttered Odilon, his breathing laboured.
"What've you got to be sorry about?!  Don't be silly, Odilon!  You have nothing to -"
"But - but - I -"  Then Odilon leaned forward and planted a kiss on Aleixo's lips, following the action with a fit of laughter.  Jacinta couldn't contain herself and joined in with the frivolity.  The rest of the group looked shocked, then Aleixo got it.
"Not funny, Odilon!  Seriously not funny!"
Odilon shrugged from the floor, "Well, it was a bit funny." he said, still grinning broadly.  Cosme then got to his feet and shook his head, taking the confused Lorena by the shoulder and leading her outside.  Branca scowled first at Odilon, then at Jacinta, who simply grinned inanely back at Branca.
"Well, you lot are always saying we're boring so -" began Odilon as he got to his feet, wiping the blood ineffectually from his t-shirt.
"But come on, Odi, there are limits!" accused Aleixo, helping his friend from the wet clothes and shooting Jacinta an unamused look.
"Come on, Aleixo!  It was a joke!" said Jacinta in response, still laughing.  Aleixo then led Branca from the scene, leaving the two amused ones still in the cobweb of their own sick amusement.

#

After the six of them made up again, it was nearing time for the technical run.  Lucas the Guard hid them in the back of his booth until the workers in their grey jumpsuits left for the night.  Once the coast was clear, he called them out of the back and led them to the Rollercoaster Cars - Aleixo and Branca up front, followed by Cosme and Lorena, and in the back Odilon and Jacinta, still on a high after their prank, congratulating each other on the perfect reaction it caused.  Odilon, when it came to it, didn't like being considered something he wasn't and sometimes - just sometimes - he had to prove who he really was.  He had to show his guts to the others, like it or not.
"Keep arms and head inside car."
"What?" asked Aleixo of Branca.
"It's what that sign says.”
"Oh, that?  They have to put that as a warning at Rollercoasters.  There's some really stupid people around, you know.  Take unnecessary chances, when they really don't have to."
"Not you though, eh, Aleixo?" nudged Branca playfully, but Aleixo's mind was on the twisting tracks of the Rollercoaster; Criatura Da Escuridao.
"Are you all ready?" called Lucas Gabriel from the control booth.  They screamed yes - some more than others - and he began the motor, the satisfying hum building as the car juddered into motion and the girls screamed in mock fright as the boys whooped their excitement enthusiastically.  Right then, everything, every bad thing was forgotten - at least for a while - and the car chink-chinked up the ratcheted climb of the fresh new and polished clean tracks of the Rollercoaster.
Branca was sure, just as the ride started, she could see something flash out the corner of her eye - something large, thick and black.  She looked round to the others.  They were too excited, too focussed on the ride, but she knew she saw something.  Maybe it was a big bat, or something?
The Car continued to rise until it hit the apex of its climb, slowly tipping, and eventually dropping, fast, then faster, until it hit its first dip and rose again, twisting and turning, gathering speed as it did so.  A minute passed, though it seemed like a hundred - and the ride wasn't even halfway through.  It was more than Aleixo could have ever wished for.  Even the Car slowing down to rise again was just anticipation for the next exciting thrill of the drop, of the twist or the loop - but it was Branca who spoiled it.  As the Car rose at walking pace up the next glorious rise, she called out to him.
Branca was sure she saw something this time.  It was unmistakable, "Aleixo!  Look!  I know I saw something!  It was a man!  A man standing way up here!  How can that be?"  But to where Aleixo looked, all he saw was a rush of something dark.  There was no man, that was for sure.
"Branca!  Why do you have to do this now?  You know how long I've waited for this ride!  I'll kill you for this when we get -"  But Aleixo couldn't finish the accusation, because he had no mouth with which to complete the words.  In fact he had no head any more to form the words, just a bloody stump where it had once sat on his fleshy neck.  Branca screamed uncontrollably and all of a sudden, the Car stopped.  All anyone could hear once Branca's breath had escaped her to scream any more was the chilling noise of someone, or something chittering somewhere around them, out there in the growing darkness.
Cosme was the first to act.  He grabbed at the harness that tied him into the Car and helped first Lorena then Odilon out of theirs.  Odilon helped Jacinta out of hers just as the Car began jerking forward.  They crawled, jumped and pulled themselves from the car, as it began moving solidly forward.  But Odilon was half a leg still in the Car.  As the Car moved rapidly along the tracks, Cosme grabbed his arm and the poor Odilon was left gripping Cosme as he dangled over the hundred foot drop.
"Quick!  Someone help me, before whatever that thing is comes back!"  Jacinta and Lorena then dropped to their bellies and helped pull Odilon up to the relative safety of the tracks.  Just as Cosme pulled Odilon back up that little stretch, something came crashing down onto the tracks, something round, smashing hard onto the metal tracks, bouncing and coming to a stop near Jacinta's feet.  She screamed as she recognised Aleixo's face, full of fear and bashed up.
Whatever was going on, Cosme was sure they needed to be away from here.  He turned to grab Lorena from whatever it was she was doing and get away.  She was sitting on the floor, head bowed, "Lorena?  Come on girl!  We gotta get out of here!  Come on, grab my -"  Then he saw it.  Her eyes had been plucked out of her head, taken out of her skull from the large hole at the back, where blood soaked hair was lightly covering it.
Cosme couldn't believe what he was seeing.  Lorena, his girl, his everything, his life.  He staggered back, his rear foot coming into contact with the remains of Aleixo's head where it had bounced on the tracks.  He tried to grab onto something, anything.  Odilon made a grab for him, but there was no way he was going to catch the stunned Cosme now.  Like a film running in slow motion, Cosme came into contact with the ground, but not before bouncing three or four times off the framework of the Rollercoaster itself.  By the time he hit the ground, he was very, very dead.
Odilon's arm was still outstretched when he felt something sharp cut into his belly.  First he looked down to see what it was.  Then, as he saw his guts spilling from the gaping wound there, his hands made to impossibly stop the flow of entrails from his inside.  He dropped automatically to his knees, looking up to the beautiful Jacinta, who was even now running to him, shock and something indefinable on her face as she tried to help her beloved stem the outflow of his insides from coming out.  Even as she cried, as she continued to push the offal into the now dead Odilon, she failed to notice that behind her an eight foot creature had dropped to the tracks, and was looming over her, with its arms outstretched and tipped with razor sharp claws, ready to receive Jacinta into the fold of the recently dead.  The creature chittered as it advanced, its body vibrating as it did so.  Only when the shadow fell over her did Jacinta look upon the angular face of death.

#

Branca didn't wait, not for anyone.  Once she had seen Aleixo's head removed from his body, she had removed herself from the Car and began to dangerously climb down the side of the Rollercoaster structure.  She had nearly lost her grip as the body of Cosme came thundering past her, and she heard the sickening crack as Cosme's bones shattered and the blood burst from the delicate and fragile human form.  But she kept going, determined to get to the bottom.
Once she had, she didn't look behind her.  She ran, as fast as she could, zig-zagging in an effort to put off the creature tracking her.  She was forced to stop once or twice just to get her breath back, but she paused for as short a time as she was able, before picking up the strenuous pace once again, running across the empty and open car park, her bare feet climp-clumping on the raised tarmac.  She crashed into the side of the car they had arrived in, just as the morning sun was broaching the horizon yonder.  Branca got inside the car and, knowing Aleixo had left the key inside, turned the engine over.
It clicked a few times, but it didn't start.
She tried again, this time frustration showing in the tear-strained effort as she fought with the anger and fear that was rising in her, to get the damned car started so she could get away from this horror.
But still nothing.  The car was dead.
Then she heard chittering, all about her.

#

The sun was high and the day was still.  It was a great day for the Amusement Park, as hundreds of people had come out to take a ride on the new Rollercoaster, Criatura Da Escuridao - Creature Of Darkness.  The queue was already beginning and there was a hum of enthusiasm from the young and the old alike.  Some were quite anxious to experience the ride, and this came out in the odd silly shout or burst of sudden laughter as a joke told was given more appreciation than it deserved.
And there at the front, Lucas Gabriel, the ride's Security Guard, stood proudly, smiling to himself, eager to please the patrons as they continued to come.  It was fair to say that Lucas looked as happy as Larry - like the cat that had got the cream.
Then the ride opened and the first people took to the immaculate Car, strapping themselves in tight.  And the Park was buzzing with activity, from the Hoopla to the Teacup Ride.
From a vantage point above the whole Park, there in Rendole, the noises of excitement and fear almost sounded the same.





THE LONG KNIGHT
Kotimaa, Finland - Circa 1000


**Grateful thanks go to the Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura for the reprint of this story**
All Rights Reserved

Sigge Vanhanen was his name, and he stood at nearly seven feet in height.  He had been called Kontio by some, due to his resemblance to the sacred bear.  And if it be a bear that terrorised the town of Kotimaa, then he felt assured he could handle it.
The Long Knight was tasked with the protection of that town, Kotimaa - like a maan haltija - as some people of the town had been stolen away in the night, with no trace left of them at their home, nor a trail of blood about the vicinity.  If it indeed be a bear, then this alone was unusual.
Sigge Vanhanen looked to Kuu, shining in the sky, even as he drifted into a fitful sleep.

#

Sigge awoke suddenly, the grogginess of the deep sleep still a mantle about his shoulders.  The sky had turned yellow and red, and the screams of many brought him round.  Sigge turned to look at the commotion as he stood to his full height and the thick smoke of burning houses clogged his lungs.
"Where were you when we needed you!?" screamed one woman at Sigge Vanhanen as he stood there and gawped at the scene before him.
"Why did you sleep, while our town is burning down!?" screamed another.  Sigge could find no answer for them in his arrogant heart.
"I will find the perpetrator and I will kill it!  I will bring back its body, so that you can make a trophy of it!" blurted Sigge to the milling crowd.
But they were discouraged, by his promise and his pride, "We only wish that you were the man you said you were, and protected us!  Now we have nothing, but you still stand, waking from a sleep!" called one from the crowd.  Sigge looked to them, looked upon every smoke marked face, the sorrow behind their eyes as their whole world was taken from them, when Sigge himself could have prevented it - no matter what they said, though it be truthful and emotional, Sigge Vanhanen knew what he had to do.  He packed up his camp and went in pursuit of the one responsible.  The people of the town pointed distractedly in the direction the monster had gone and Sigge followed.
The snow was deep and the tracks were clear, once Sigge had found them.  They were odd by their design, being long and deep, like the maker of those tracks being taller even than he, and built rather more stockily.  But it was his pride that Sigge was looking to return to him, which distracted him from the lip of the cliff deeply hidden within the snow.  Sigge fell, over and over, hitting the rocks exposed on the way down, bouncing harder and faster until he came to a stop at the bottom, cut and bruised, but more shamed than anything.  He rose from his recumbent pose and searched about him for his pack and equipment.  They had become dislodged in the fall, and were scattered or smashed about the place.  Sigge had to go on; there was no turning back.
Despite the thick snow and the icy rivers, Sigge Vanhanen found again the track of his prey, pushing on, in pursuit.  But the path would not be smooth, even as Ukko brought down his hammer, Vasara, opening up the skies.

#

The ice columns that pulled upon the trees dripped holes of increasing size into the thinning snow as Sigge Vanhanen trudged through the long fields of white, broken here and there by brown vegetation pushing through the drifts, and the occasional village or town themselves would expose the rough edges of the rough built houses.
Sigge kept a wide berth from other people.  His pride was still in pain, and other people simply reminded him of the errors he had made for the lost people of Kotimaa; besides, they just seemed as Sielulintu to him - ghostly and distant, like wisps of smoke in human form.  It wasn't too long before he caught up with the trail of his prey.  Its passage became obvious, as Sigge came upon the first village in the dark.
He didn't know its name, but that didn't matter.  The screams were remarkably similar and the burning houses a familiar sign upon the sky.  They begged and pleaded, but Sigge couldn't hear them.  He only heard the voice in his mind telling him that he had done it again; he failed to corner the thing and stop it committing more evil actions.  Angry, growling like a Karhu, Sigge pushed on, and doubled his efforts.

#

The ice slowly turned to water and the snow melted to reveal the luscious greenery beneath.  Birds began to chirp as the weather warmed, while the land's animals escaped the bonds of winter and sped, galloped and gambolled their way about the green fields.  The more Sigge pressed on, the more warlike - feudalistic - the world became.  He circumvented many a battle in his pursuit of the prey, only occasionally losing its trail within the veritable destructive lands he ran through, but the constant collapse of a village to the thing - always that one step ahead, always just out of reach - was a collective reminder of his inadequacy, until one day, he simply lost the trail all together.
Despondent, Sigge Vanhanen approached a village, seeking respite.  He would rest, then he would find this trail again.  He had to, for it was his whole life now.  A promise was a promise - and finally that really meant something to him, when before it was merely words to secure payment.  He found a rowdy Inn and set about the beer.
"Why do you feel the need to be so warlike?" Sigge asked of the people in the Inn.  Some looked at him, but no one responded with words, "Why do you destroy that which you propose to protect?  To covet?"  Sigge slammed his tankard hard on the table and the beer fountained out like a waterfall.  This elicited the odd response, particularly of shocked gasps.
"May I buy you another?" asked a man, come to Sigge's table.
Sigge looked up to the man disinterested, "Why?"
The man took a seat on the table and instructed the Innkeeper to provide the two of them with more beer, "You look like you can handle yourself?  I have a proposition for you."
Sigge looked shadily out of the corner of his eye as he threw back what remained in his tankard, "Such as what?"
"It is a delicate matter, but I feel you -"
"Stop the procrastination!  What is it you seek of me?!" insisted Sigge sternly.
"There is a farmstead not far from here.  The livestock is being threatened by a fire-serpent, one that has taken residence in a cave on the hillside next to the farmland.  What I seek from you, sir, is that you rid us of this tulikaarme - if you be up to it?"
Sigge snorted derisively, "I banished a nest of tulikaarme when I was but a child.  It is a simple matter."
"Yes, for you - but we are weak folk.  We are farmers, not warriors."
Sigge stared intently into the man's eyes until he came to a conclusion, "Very well, I will deal with this creature.  Then I shall name my prize.  If that does not suit you, then -"
"Oh, no, no!" said the man enthusiastically, "Name it, and it shall be yours!"

#

The farmstead was covered on three sides by the hills that surrounded the Province.  Large patches of overgrown green grass stood out like pretty blotches on the hillside.  But there were also scorch marks, centred in specific points, burning the soil and making it impossible to grow anything there now.  The animals, such as they were, remained skittish - nervous it would seem, expecting something perhaps to attack them at any moment.
"As you can see, we don't have much.  But what we do have is our whole life." remarked the man to Sigge.
"As I can see.  When does the creature attack?"
"It has not attacked for the last two nights, but my Daughter and I - Aila!  Come and see the man who is to rid us of the beast!"  Upon instruction, Aila came out of the field and ran to her Father's side.  She was quite beautiful.  In fact she was the most beautiful thing Sigge had seen since he left his homeland.  He felt quite flushed.
Aila wiped her hand on a cloth about her waist and thrust it out for Sigge to take.  Her smile and her eyes nearly stole away Sigge's henki.  He caught himself in time and reciprocated, "So, Sigge is it?  You are to remove the beast?  This is such a kind thing you do for people you do not know.  And you don't know to what depths my gratitude swells!  Thank you!  Thank you!"
Sigge was frozen to the spot, "You're - welcome?" he managed at last.  Once he remembered to move his muscles again, he followed Father and Daughter into the farmhouse.  There, Aila prepared food and Sigge greatly received it.  Afterwards, Sigge settled into a bed for the first time in a long time and fell instantly to sleep.
Unfortunately for him, he was again woken by the screams of a woman.

#

The Father, name now known as Harmaa, stood in the large livestock field with his Daughter, Aila, frantically waving anything they had to hand - a long branch with flustered leaves shaking at its tip - at the beast that buzzed around them like a persistent insect bent on a poisonous sting.  Sigge ran out barely dressed, taking a long pole from the side of the farmhouse and raced out into the field to aid Father and Daughter from the attacks of this malevolent beast.
"Go beast!  Flee this land!" shouted Sigge at the creature as it flapped overhead, its mouth gnashing at the air and the threat of fire within its throat.  The creature shook about as Sigge encircled the beast, taking to its flank, to pull focus from the Father and Daughter, who were only doing their best.  But, as the man had said, they were not warriors, and the battle was no place for farmers, "Go!  Both of you, find shelter!"  But even as Sigge turned to speak, the beast struck Harmaa about the back and shoulders.  He dropped painfully to the floor, grasping at the impacted muscle and bone.  Aila dropped to his side, frantically looking for a sign of anything broken or bloody.  Sigge moved into a position above the two who were now prostrate, and continued to meekly attack the creature as it tried to get to the wounded one - an easy meal.  But Sigge's attacks became too forceful for the beast and it turned, crying angrily as it scooped up a consolation of a sheep in its talons and flew off toward the hills.  Sigge watched as the creature disappeared, marking its point and took a step to follow the beast.
"Wait!" insisted Harmaa, words a painful exercise in his current condition, "You need a guide!  The hills are dangerous, not to mention the caves where the beast lives!  Let me -"  Harmaa made as to get to his feet, but the strain merely forced him to drop back to the ground in a heap.
"You are not well enough, Father," expressed Aila, "Wait a moment, Sigge.  I will be your guide."
"No!  I forbid it!" shouted Harmaa, despite himself.
"I know the way, just as well as you Father!  If not better!"
"It is far too treacherous for you -"
"Father, understand this; I need to!  Please, see it as the only way?"
Harmaa looked into his Daughter's eyes, "You know I see every bit of your Mother when I look at that steely determination in your eyes?  Very well, but you stick firmly to Sigge, you understand?”  Aila smiled and kissed her Father's forehead before running back to the farmhouse to change, ”Sigge, I would have a word," gestured Harmaa, and Sigge complied, "See her?  I noticed how you look at her - don't worry!  She is very beautiful and of age!  No, what I mean to say is she is all I have left?  Both the plague and the fire-serpent have taken practically everything I have.  So please, look after her?  Protect her, and I beseech you - return her to me?  Can you promise this to me now?"
"Yes.  Yes I can." expressed Sigge, knowing he meant it too.  As Sigge got to his feet, Aila came running out of the farmhouse, dressed in leather from boot to neck.  The outfit complemented her burgeoning figure for all to see - but there was only Sigge and Harmaa present, so the gesture had to be for Sigge alone.  This was not lost on him, but a duty was a duty, and he set off to fulfil it, with Aila by his side.

#

The cave was hidden from obvious sight, being embedded in a short lip of rock about midway up the hill.  The approach had been treacherous as promised, with holes that appeared out of nowhere, buried beneath rotting vegetation.  Here and there were dangerously loose rocks that could lead to a deadly land slide, burying the unwary traveller beneath the onslaught.  Aila remarked how she had grown up around these hills and caves, long before the beast had arrived.  Now it was too dangerous to walk alone.  She told Sigge how happy she was to be able to do it again after so many years, and with such a strong, handsome warrior like him.  It rendered him speechless, that such a beautiful woman would give him more than a first look, let alone admiring him, but then Sigge had spent much of his life alone, his pride in his abilities and skills giving him an over riding sense of his own importance.  But he had been humbled by Kotimaa, and this seemed to be his salvation.  He followed the girl as she leapt from rock to rock until they finally came to the cave mouth.
The cave had been greedy, with bone of varying size, shape and animal sitting untidily about the large dangerous patches of blood, now congealed and staining the rock dark red.  Here and there were large patches of scorched stone, black and crystalline from the intensity of the fire-serpent's breath.  There came a rumble from inside the darkness of the cave, which echoed deeply.  At first Sigge guessed it a few fallen rocks inside, but the rumble became a roar, rhythmic and proud.  It was the tulikaarme, and it had sensed their presence.  Aila took out her torch and lit the pitch.  It blazed to life and spat its flames in the damp, chilly air of the cave entrance.  Sigge nodded to her and they entered.
The air was thick with sulphurous smells, and breathing became difficult.  The torch flickered often while they were trapped in the gusts of wind that ran deep into the caves.  There were more scorch marks on the path inside, and more evidence of blood about the walls and floor.  The throat of the cave was clogged with death.  Sigge saw a low glow ahead and gestured for Aila to hold back.  Sigge went in for a closer look.
The creature was curled around itself, presumptuously resting.  Sigge recognised the evidence of a tulikaarme nest everywhere he looked.  And he knew the only way to kill the beast was hard, fast and by puncturing the heart.  Its skin was scaly and thick, but around the heart it was soft and malleable.  Sigge returned to Aila.
"There is only one way to do this, and we must do it together," whispered Sigge.  Aila nodded intently, "I will take the torch and gesture for the beast, so that it is distracted by me.  In the dark like this, their eyesight is slow and turbid.  Light will dazzle it enough for you to strike."
"Wait, what?  Me strike?  Strike what?" she suddenly seemed quite fearful.
"I cannot distract it and strike, and you are unfamiliar with attacking tulikaarme in their nest.  Can you do it?"
Aila looked pensive for a moment, "Yes, I think I can." she said at last.
Sigge grabbed her arm.  It must have been a little too tight, because she flinched a little, "You must be certain.  Once I start, one or the other of myself and the tulikaarme will die.  Without your certainty, it will most definitely be me."
"In that case, then yes, I am certain."  As to seal her promise, Aila planted a certain kiss on Sigge's lips.  Sigge took the torch from her and searched for a sharp bone fragment.  Once he found one, he handed it to Aila.
"In the heart, Aila.  Be certain it is the heart, for if not you will only anger the beast and we may both die, then your Father will be lost."
"If you were to die, I would be lost also." she expressed, with a kind smile.  Sigge turned and rumbled his best war-cry, running rapidly toward the tulikaarme, which woke with a start.
Sigge had no time to watch Aila.  He thrust and swung the torch threateningly at the creature, which uncoiled and recoiled its long neck with each opening and attack of the torch.  Sigge had to be nimble on his feet, which was becoming increasingly harder as his muscles began to tire.  Once or twice the tulikaarme managed a swipe at him, but it produced only minor cuts and abrasions, mostly missing him completely, at it struck out blindly at him.  When the beast's internal bellows threatened fire, Sigge did his best to get out of the way, but mostly he received the tail end of a blast at his heels or over his broad shoulders.  He was beginning to tire and hoped Aila was somewhere close to striking the beast.  Then, just as the creature came in for a plunging lunge, it suddenly screamed skyward, the sound piercing and hitting the roof of the cave, where it dislodged some rocks which simply bounced off the beasts thick hide.  But the creature was dying and going through its last throes of life.  A disturbing rattle emanated from its throat as it breathed its last.  Sigge found Aila crouched on the ground and grabbed her arm, pulling her clear as the internal combustive gasses of the beast exploded, leaving nothing but a memory of the tulikaarme that had terrorised this family for so long.
That night they feasted; Sigge, Aila and Harmaa.  Harmaa had patched himself up and Aila helped him eat, but he was as full of revel as the next man on that night.
"How can we ever repay you, Sigge the Mighty!?  What is there prize enough to give a hero such as you?" called out Harmaa drunkenly.
"I did not do it alone.  If not for Aila -" began Sigge.
"Ah, Aila!  Now there's a prize worthy of such a task!" called out Harmaa, spilling some of his beer over his wound dressings.
Aila shot him an embarrassed look, "Father!"
Sigge also looked embarrassed for Aila in that moment, "Come now, Harmaa.  She is not for me to claim nor for you to offer.  She is your Daughter, not your property -"
"You don't think she is worth it?" asked Harmaa, surprised.
"I did not say that.  I think your Daughter is incredibly beautiful, intelligent and brave, and any man would be in envy of the one who called your Daughter Wife, but I do not claim another person.  I will only take someone who offers themselves freely."  And for the rest of the night, Aila couldn't take her adoring eyes from Sigge - so much did she look upon him that when they finally bedded down for the night, Aila found her way into Sigge's bed.  He wanted to tell her to leave, that he was nothing but a selfish, proud man, bent on loneliness for eternity, but her gentle warmth burned heavily in his own heart so much that he could not bring himself to remove her.  By the time early morning began, they were in each other’s arms, in lust if not in love.
When Sigge Vanhanen finally woke, he remembered why he was out this far from home in the first instance.  The thing that had destroyed Kotimaa was still out there, gaining more distance from Sigge with each breath, the path of destruction only growing larger in its wake.  Sigge became determined once more and took to the fields, looking first where he had come from, then to where he was headed.  Aila, now dressed herself, came to Sigge's side and took his arm.
"I know.  I know you can't stay.  I always knew you had to go, sooner or later." she said.
"If I could, you know I would, but -"
“It's alright, Sigge.  I understand.  We each have our path to follow, and yours is out there somewhere."
"But I love -"
"I will always be here, Sigge.  I will still be here, waiting for you when you return to me - if you choose to return to me.  I am not a naive child, Sigge.  I know you came to our lands with a purpose, and I know that purpose remains.  I am ever grateful, however, that you took time to halt your purpose while you helped me and Father live again, free from the mantle of the evil tulikaarme."  Aila reached up on the tips of her toes and kissed Sigge first on the cheek, then on the lips, "Let that be payment, for now, of the prize you may yet claim." she said with the warmest of smiles.
"And it would be payment enough, that kiss, for any man."  With that, Sigge Vanhanen ventured out into the land.  Within an hour, he had found the track of his prey once more and set upon its trail.
Though the land remained green in hue, it was soon accompanied by browns as the line of trees started.  Within a few strides, Sigge was deep within the forest, which seemed never ending.  The feudalism remained here, intensified in places, but Sigge simply bypassed it all.
It wasn't long before he reached the first town this side of the Farmstead that his prey had destroyed.  The houses still smoked, but the charred bodies and the lack of flame showed to Sigge it had been a while since the thing had been through this land.  Sigge, with renewed energy and effort from his recent venture with the fire-serpent, pushed on despite his need for rest.  He simply could not pause until he had found the thing, killed it and dragged its carcass all the way back to Kotimaa, as promised.  Promises meant something now.
He had something to look forward to as well.  Aila.  But the further into the deep forest he went, the more confusing the trail of the thing became, and because he was working beyond his physical ability, he again lost the trail in the fearful maze of trees, tightly packed together.  After some frantic searching, he eventually came to a clearing, where sat a man upon a fallen log, crying to himself.
"Tuuri!" cried the man, over and over again.

#

"It's my son!  My son!" cried the man as Sigge approached.
"What of your son?" asked Sigge.
"Oh, I'm sorry.  I did not hear you come." said the man, finishing his tears and wiping the running water from his cheeks.
"You spoke of your son?  Tuuri?"
Another new tear formed involuntarily in the man's eye at the mention of him, "Yes.  My son.  He is in much torment.  And I can do nothing for him - I don't have the strength any more."
"Why?  What is it your son requires?" asked Sigge.
"Tuuri is a child born of - indiscretion.  I have been less of a Father to him in the past, and it wasn't until he visited me, first in the spirit of a wild dog, then of a wild deer, that I knew he had died.  He told me through screams of terror, that he had taken forty days in searching Tuonela, looking for a place to rest, but the others of the land shunned him because of what he was.  He told me of how he ventured underground, to that place where both good and bad reside.  He said how dark and lifeless the place is, that land where everybody sleeps forever.   He was told - they could not allow him entry into Tuonela, not until his remains were properly buried; dug up, blessed, and buried in a graveyard.  Then he would finally find peace, and a place in Tuonela."
"I see." spoke Sigge, taking a seat next to the man, "Then I will help you -"
"Tapio.  I am eternally grateful to you!"  Tapio finally began to smile, an act much missed on his features, as the deep lines on his face indicated.
"Tapio?  Isn't that -" began Sigge.
"Yes.  It is a name often used in my family.  We're forest people to the core."
"Then, Tapio, how do you suggest we proceed?"
"Well," began Tapio with enthusiastic speech, "First we need to find where he is buried.  He could not tell me, for he did not know."
"That may be a problem."
"But I do expect him to return, perhaps in another form, this time being able to guide us to his grave."
"Then let us build a fire and prepare for your son's visit." spoke Sigge, rising and walking into the trees to find fire wood.

#

The skies were changing from bright to dark blues, and the myriad of pin points fell about the above.  They flickered energetically even as the spirit of a young man entered the outside of the illuminated camp of Sigge and Tapio.  The spirit was groaning, as though in despair, a tired scream of fear and loss as it ventured within the circle of light from the fire that crackled even as the spirit approached, like the chill of death was threatening the heat of flame.
"Tuuri!" cried out Tapio, upon seeing his son return.  Sigge had become alert as soon as the spirit had arrived.  Tapio looked to Sigge enthusiastically, "He wants us to follow him!" said Tapio, who began to follow his son's spirit, as it sank into the dark forest.  Sigge put out the fire and followed.
The living was led by the dead through the thick forest, between trees and rampant vegetation, over tough terrain and high mountains.  Sigge often looked to his companion, to see if he was able to maintain the stiff pace.  Perhaps it was the fulfilment of an absent Father's desire to placate his son, for the years of neglect, but Tapio was always at Sigge's more experienced heels, guided often by the spirit of Tuuri as he screamed his way from the thick forest to a place of lesser greenery.  Here, the land appeared patchy and the trees or bushes seemed thick and talon-like, able to cut the skin with its sharp protrusions, a haggard version of living branches and the jagged leaves that clung desperately to the bark for fear of falling into the hardy-enduring ground.  They were high up a hill, made of dirt, mud and thick moss.  The spirit looked mournfully at a place in front of a weather-hardened rock, alone in the vast brown land.
"We have found him." said Tapio, weakly as he fell to the ground and passed out.  Even as he did, the spirit left, knowing its job was fulfilled.  Sigge built a fire and made Tapio comfortable as he walked over to the grave.
It had been disturbed, and this much was obvious.  Wild animals had been about the flesh, exposing bone and the rotting remains of the Father's son.  Sigge carefully and reverentially dug the remains up and secreted them within a thick blanket he had been carrying, tying the blanket up with braids of his own hair.  He had seen this done by warriors when young, observed the respect they honoured their dead with.  Then he rested, waiting for the Father to wake.
The journey back to the clearing was done in a more respectful pace.  Once there, Tapio led Sigge, who carried the body in his arms, to a place beyond the clearing, where was a graveyard.  There, a plot was set aside for the relatives of Tapio, and a grave was already waiting for Tuuri.  Tapio blessed his son, as much as he was able, and Sigge lowered the body into the ground.  His obligation fulfilled, Sigge Vanhanen wiped his hands of the dust and dirt, taking a seat on the grass beside the grave.
"You don't need to remain here, you know Sigge?  I am at peace now that I know my son is also, and grateful thanks go ever to you, but I believe your path lies in that direction, onward toward the sand." said Tapio, pointing east.
"Sand?" asked Sigge, for he knew that the passage to Tuonela was led by a trek through that substance.
"Yes.  You know it to be true."  But before Sigge could argue, Tapio was gone.  All that remained was a dark bird, stretching its wings out to its side and about to take to flight.
Of course his path lay in that direction, for that was the direction his prey had taken also.  But Sigge well knew of what else lay that way; Lintukoto.  He could not allow that vile creature to enter paradise.  Sigge was already running before he had even left the graveyard.

#

The feuding places were slowly replaced by the traveller, often in groups with wares to be sold in profit.  The trees subsided to be replaced by that brown-green land, with grey jutting rocks ready to trip up the unobservant.  Eventually the trees became no more than shrubs, until even the shrubs vanished.  There was still evidence of the passage of the prey, but the trail was quite cold and Sigge knew he had to push on, ever harder, just to keep up.  Then came the sand.  Once he ran upon that surface, Sigge knew what was to come, and he only hoped he was ready for it.  That night he camped - when an extraordinary thing occurred.
Sigge was woken by the presence of someone about the camp, hiding somewhere, yet dangerously close.  Sigge called out, "Who is that who watches but doesn't speak?"
A spirit, distinct from the one Tuuri had exuded, came into sight.  This one was more present than the other one and this one did not scream in anguish.  Instead, it crept into the illumination of the fire and eyed Sigge sheepishly, almost apologetically, "M - my name's Lempo, and yes I know what you're going to say -"
"What brings you here?" interrupted Sigge, sitting up and eyeing the spirit curiously.
"I - that is to say, I have a problem?"
"I can see that." remarked Sigge to the spirit.
"I employed the help of a Shaman, and he did this to me."
"He must have had a reason to do such a thing?" said Sigge, expectant of the answer.
"I owed him money, it is true to say, but he was ruthless in his punishment.  He has taken my Itse, and he has hidden it."
"A little harsh, but if you owed him -"
"I owed him a pittance!  If he had waited one more day, I would have sold my bow and paid him!" spat the spirit.
"What if I bought that bow from you?  Would he then return your Itse?"
"I - don't know?  But if you would help me -"
Sigge smiled at the spirit, "It seems to be a common occurrence these days, friend." he remarked.
Once the sky had returned its brightness, the spirit led Sigge Vanhanen to where the bow was.  Sigge took it.  It was beautifully made.  He was not much an archer, more of a brawler, but he could appreciate and respect the work that had gone into making this weapon.  It was more a work of art than anything else.
"I make them myself." explained the spirit, "I have made hundreds in my lifetime, but this is by far the best I have ever made.  I found the wood one day after a particularly devastating outburst by Ukko and Vasara.  It felt powerful to the touch.  Making the bow after that seemed to come simply from within my mind, and I barely noticed the passage of time in my making it.  But it's yours, Sigge, if you can retrieve my Itse?"
Sigge put the bow over his shoulder and walked from the house, "I will ever endeavour to do my best." he remarked, as he set off in search of the Shaman.

#

A man was about his herbs and potions, cross-legged on the floor as Sigge approached him.  He showed little more than a passing interest in Sigge's presence.  Sigge had expected at least a second glance.
"Are you the Shaman that took the Itse from the man named Lempo?" asked Sigge.
"What of it?" asked the Shaman, without looking up.
"He wants it back." stated Sigge.
The Shaman laughed, "They all do, warrior.  But they never get them."
"Why?  What is it of their Itse that you so desire?"
"Oh, you know - there's value in much, not least the Itse."
"So you take it for profit?"
"Yes."
Sigge could not believe the man's arrogance, "This cannot stand." he said at last.
This made the Shaman finally look up, "Really?  How so, Bulk?" he said derisively.
"I have the payment to release the Itse of the man Lempo, here, in my hand." said Sigge, trying to control his rising ire.
"Your money means nothing to me.  Look, why do you think I lend money?  To make pitiful profit?" snorted the Shaman, "The value of the Itse is immeasurable.  I can assure you, you have neither the means nor the treasure with which to secure that man's Itse."
"So, you condemn a man to an eternity as a ghost, simply for your greed?"
The Shaman laughed again, "Why, yes!"
Sigge swiped hard at the man, but his hand just slid through the seated figure.  The Shaman laughed.  Sigge struck again and again, but nothing connected, "What are you?" cried Sigge.
"Now you see the power of the collective Itse!" called the Shaman, vanishing, but leaving an echo of a laugh behind.  Sigge turned to leave, but he came face to face with a solid wall.  He turned again, and there was a similar wall - and on the left and right.  The echoed laugh sounded again as sand poured in from the hole some distance above Sigge's head.
And Sigge was surprisingly calm, which astounded even himself - but the rough sand still tapped upon his head in unrelenting monotony, the level rising about him at a quick pace.  He would have to do something soon, or he would suffocate in this sorcery-built grave, and the destroyer of Kotimaa would have succeeded.  This was the light by which Sigge was spurred into action.  First Sigge began removing anything heavy he wore, taking the bow from his back.  As he did, the string was struck and something unusual happened.  In that second the bow was drawn, an arrow appeared between the string and bow.  It gave Sigge a flash of inspiration.
In the brief time Sigge had, he unthreaded his cloak, a tiny strand of material coming from it, unwinding in one long thread.  He braided the material, making it stronger, until he was left with a fair length of hand made rope, which he tied to one end of the arrow.  Then he fired, high, through the hole above him.
The arrow struck something.  Sigge pulled on it.  It moved a little, then stopped.  Sigge pulled it a couple more times just to be sure, then began to pull himself up, using the other end of the rope.  Dragging himself through the impacted sand was difficult at first, but once he had released his legs and waist from it, the ascent was simple.  When he reached the lip of the hole, he pulled himself out using the sides, until he fell on his back onto the rough ground - the solid, unmovable rough ground.  Once he felt comfortable enough to move, he got himself to his feet and looked about him.  He then saw where the arrow had found anchor.  In the heart of the Shaman.  So, Lempo's bow had found its target, it seemed.
Sigge found Lempo near where he had left him.  He was no longer a ghost, insubstantial.  He was now solid, as the man he was and always should have been.
"My Itse!  Oh, Sigge Vanhanen!  You are a true hero!  I thank you so much!"  Lempo was jumping around, hitting himself to make sure he was indeed solid.
"It was your bow that did the work." said Sigge, handing the bow back to Lempo.
"It's yours, as we agreed." insisted Lempo.
"I don't need payment, Lempo.  I have gained so much more, inside here." said Sigge, thumping his chest agreeably.
"I insist, Sigge.  It is a gift, if you don't wish payment.  From me to you.  You may yet need it.  I, however, do not."
"Then I accept it with graciousness, Lempo." said Sigge, smiling warmly and bowing in appreciation, as he took the bow back from Lempo, viewing it now as a new, astounding object of great value, for a gift given freely was greater than any treasure a man could find.
Lempo then reached into the folds of his clothes and took out an egg, speckled and common, "Now that you have done this for me, I ask but one more favour.  I ask that you carry for me this egg, to take it to Lintukoto, where it should now be.  It is like the egg that formed the world; that great egg of the waterfowl that exploded, leaving cover above, like a tent protecting all within it.  Will you do this further task for me?"
Sigge took the egg from the man respectfully, folding it into bunched cloth, "For a friend, I would go to the end of the world." expressed Sigge honestly.
Sigge Vanhanen took supper with the craftsman named Lempo, before setting off in search of the trail once more.  He found it within the hour and began his trek across the sand, to the end of the world - or Tuonela; whichever came first.

#

The going became tedious.  The land was stark - invisible of any foliage.  The heat rose from the sand, giving an impression of water, but there was none to be found.  It was truly the end of the world.  Sigge caught sight of the burning villages, more obvious here given nothing to block his vision, so that Sigge could see much further than before and actively see the path of the prey.  There would be no escape - and he would have to move faster.  The prey was ahead of him and could reach those warm luscious lands before Sigge had crossed half the width of the sand.  What destruction that thing might cause, given free reign in those lands, Sigge didn't wish to speculate upon.  Onward Sigge pushed himself.  For him it was do or die - there was no other option.
On the very next day, Sigge became confused by something ahead of him.  He knew the water was an illusion, but this seemed more like a stream; a thickly black stream or river, cutting right across his path.  As he neared it, he saw at first a boat, then a girl upon that boat.  She was pale, gaunt, but she looked healthy and wise beyond her years.  The closer Sigge got, the more her eyes deceived the age she appeared as.  And she seemed to be waiting there, on the shore, for him.
"My name is Tuonen tytti.  I am the one who ferries the dead to Tuonela." she expressed calmly.  Sigge searched inside himself and found he was not surprised, nor was he feared or cautious.  He stepped upon the boat and faced the girl, "The thing that you seek has entered Tuonela, by another route.  I am tasked with taking you to Tuoni and his wife, Tuonetar.  But first I require payment." said the girl, pushing out her hand, palm up.
Sigge searched about himself, "All I have is this egg?  I had promised to take it to the land of the birds, and I do not break my promises, not any more."
"Give me the egg, Sigge Vanhanen, and I will deliver it there myself.  Your destiny lies elsewhere.  Trust me, Sigge Vanhanen.  I will do this for you.  Are we agreed?"
Sigge reluctantly handed the egg to the girl, who quickly secreted it about herself, within her loose clothing, "I too do not break my promises, Sigge Vanhanen.  Sit, and I will transport you to the Inner City."
The land lay beyond the river, within the mist sodden clouds that formed about the boat.  The girl propelled the vessel with aeons of practice, deeper into the white shrouded sky.  Sigge couldn't help himself from straining to see what was upon the shoreline, but all he could see were the dead, bent in slumber, while some wandered the afterlife as shadow-like ghosts, staring into nothing - keeping to themselves as they wandered the halls of Tuonela.  Of the walls that contained the Dead City, they were thick, a dirty white with slivers of green about pock marks upon the surface, much like exposed bone turns once exposed to the elements.  The walls became higher the deeper they ventured in, until the boat came to alight by a jetty, sticking out sharply from a door built into the wall, where a man and woman stood waiting.  If Sigge were to be asked to describe their visage, he would find it troublesome.  They were of the dead, meant to be forgotten as soon as one sees them, but they remained pale, dressed in white clothes that were long and thick, and the voice of the man was deep and hollow, as though called from the grave.
"You are the one that they call Sigge Vanhanen?  Something that should not be has entered my lands." said Tuoni, looking to his wife, Tuonetar, who shuddered in fear, "And they say you are the only one who can rid us of it.  I give you leave to enter my lands and do as you will, with impunity.  The Guards will not confront you, and the dead will not disturb you."
"I thank you, Tuoni, and you, Tuonetar, for allowing me access to your lands.  I know it is unconventional, but that which is abroad in your lands is in need of removing - from your lands if not from the face of the earth." said Sigge humbly.
"It is as you say, Sigge Vanhanen.  If you do this for me, I will reward you in ways unimaginable." bowed Tuoni.
"I am at your leave, Tuoni; Tuonetar." bowed Sigge in reciprocation.
"Then go, find your creature and do as you will with it." said Tuoni, turning and walking back through the door, followed by his wife, Tuonetar.
"Would you be able to take me further up the shore?" asked Sigge, turning to speak to the girl, Tuonen tytti - but she was gone, evaporated into the mist.  When Sigge turned again, he was no longer on the jetty, but amidst the dead in the halls of Tuonela.  Then let it be thus; find the creature and destroy it.  As promised.
The path Sigge now walked was chilled, unlike the one he had followed across the sands, which had ever remained hot enough to burn the skin and cook the flesh.  There was a light emanating from the stones here - a kind of green glow, barely illuminating the dull greys and blacks of the walls and the dead that slept.  Darkness was amidst Sigge, but it held not the fear he would have expected.  When he did spot a Guard ahead, they would sink back into the shadows and become invisible.  Sigge expected this was the only time he could enter Tuonela and be allowed to feel this way.  He was well aware - and had always been thus since a young boy - that this would be the paths he walked when his time would come.  It had a chill to it to think that alive he walked the halls, but one day, perhaps soon, he would be doing it as a dead man.  It was humbling.
And then he came upon the place he had not reckoned on seeing, not for a long time.  It was the sleeping dead of his own family.  And there, at last, stood the creature he had been hunting, for what seemed a lifetime.  The place it stood next to was the spot reserved for Sigge Vanhanen himself.
It was eight feet in height, gaining a little even on Sigge.  It was similarly built about the body, though it resembled more an insect than human, even with its expression filled face, sharp and angular, split by the wide mouth that shone many needle-like teeth within.  The eyes burned with a hunger that tore at Sigge - the hunger of an entity demanding constant supplication, lest it take it for itself.  It stood there, drenched in a shining, almost pulsating and dripping black ooze, and it seemed to suck the air and atmosphere from any space it occupied.  It talked with the venom it produced and called them words, "Do you not wish to be here, in this spot, even now?"
"You do not belong, creature!  Not here, not anywhere!" screamed Sigge, the rage of a thousand miles finally let amok.
"I can but arrange it, if you so desire?" continued the creature, unabated, "It would be nothing of a trial to me, Sigge?  Just say the word, and it will be done."
"You, creature, have destroyed whole civilisations in your wake!  You have taken many, even those who sleep here now, in Tuonela!  If I were not tasked with utterly destroying you, I would be here also, but I must rid you of everywhere now!"
"Your place is here, amongst your ancestors, Sigge Vanhanen.  Come, embrace your destiny, and take your place here, this day."  The creature opened its arms, which dragged with them the thick, dark cloak-like wings, exposing the long sharp claws that even now dripped with blood.  The creature, with open maw exposing tooth upon tooth upon tooth to the foetid air, advanced upon Sigge.  Sigge took the bow from around his back and pulled back the drawstring, which preternaturally notched an arrow in place.
"For Kotimaa." said Sigge Vanhanen softly, as he loosed his grip on the drawstring.

#

Sigge woke with the sound of a scream tearing right into his focus.  He was in the camp, just outside the village he had been tasked with guarding - Kotimaa.
The scream was like a razor-sharp knife cutting down his spine.  He rose then, and picked up the bow he didn't remember putting down the night before.  He wasn't the same man now as the one before he slept.   He ran to the interior of the village as the one who had fallen asleep outside of it.
It seemed that Sigge Vanhanen, the Kontio, had been reborn.





THE RETURNING SON 
Saxton, Ohio, USA - Circa 1972


**Story Adapted from Police Reports and Dramatised in 'True Cases Magazine'**
Sergeant Randall 'Randy' Goodson Jr had served his time and completed his tours.  The War, for him, was over now.  But it had done something to him, something that would stay with him for the rest of his life.  Randy wasn't the same man who left those fifteen months ago.  The returning son was different.  Subtly different in so many ways.
Mr Goodson, himself the survivor of many armed conflicts over his military career, saw his son become more and more withdrawn.  This wasn't unusual for one returning home from the horrors of war, being a time for reflection when adrenaline was no longer controlling his actions.  It was the restless nature of his son that drew Randall Snr's attention.
Randy would spend most of his days tired, despite the long nights he remained locked in his room.  Randall Snr would hear scratches and noises he could only describe as chittering from inside, and whenever he would gently knock his son's door, the sound would stop, but there would come a feeling of being watched, closely, like a curious predator over a new-found prey.  Randall Snr learned to leave well enough alone, at least for the length of this adjustment period his son must need to return to civilian life.  What his son had witnessed, perpetrated even, Randall Snr could only imagine, from the news reports that came daily of those who served in foreign lands for the freedom of others.  Blood, mangled limbs and guts blown out from an IED, and so much more would have been Randy's daily, hourly, life.  No one simply got over something like that.  Randy would need time, and for now, Randall Snr would give him the space he required.
One morning, Randy was particularly distraught, staring into space over the breakfast table.  Randall Snr, seeing the distress in his son's eyes, prompted his son to relay why he was in such floods of tears.  Randy relented after Randall Snr reminded him that he too had seen things he could not forget.  It was a true bonding moment, as his son relayed a story of such horrific dimensions that it was further broken down by a shot or two of bourbon.
The story started in the Village Randy and his squad were tasked to guard from the insurgent army of rebels, striking through the countryside without a care for gender or age.  They burned the people alive, these evil people, stripped skin from flesh even as the victims watched, screaming or cursing.  The TwoThreeTwo's had been stationed there for the majority of a two month period before the horror truly began.
First came the darkness, like a blanket over the sky.  Then came the rustling of creatures scurrying about.  All the doors were closed, windows barred, and the TwoThreeTwo's capitulated.  The strangest kinds of knocks would sound on the bamboo slats that made the houses, thumping here, scraping there, always followed by some kind of noise like laughing, but no ordinary laughing - more a kind of clattering, chattering, chittering sound.  It was more animalistic than anything else.  The occasional scream could be heard on the outskirts of the Village, but they quickly died away.  Eventually the knocks and the noises left.
This happened for five days without relenting.  But each day they would venture out of the houses, and though people were missing, there was no sign of blood.  Nothing.  Just the keepsakes of that person carelessly tossed around.
On the sixth day, Randy could take no more.  He persuaded his squad to wait on the outskirts of the Village, for the return of this strangeness.  Randy was convinced it was the rebels, the insurgents, and wanted to catch them in the act, so that solutions could be found to end their reign of terror.  So they waited, camouflaged amongst the trees, hunkered down for the returning rebels.  And they waited.  And waited.
Something caught the attention of one of Randy's comrades and soon all eyes were on what the soldier was pointing fervently to.  It was a man - a very tall man, shrouded in a kind of dark black cloak.  Then another, then more - and more and more, until the skyline was filled with the man's kin.
And suddenly Randy heard a voice, raspy and hollow, but somehow in English.  "I can smell you." it said, inside Randy's head.  He thought he had imagined it, thought it was an abhoration brought on by the stress of war, but it spoke again, "I see you."  Randy's heart began to race.  Could it actually see him?  Randy looked about him to see where the voice was coming from, but all he could see were his squad, prostrate upon the floor, watching the horror even as he did.  Randy looked down.
He held a knife and it was bloody.  How?  Then he looked again at the squad around him.  They were cut, sliced, stabbed - viciously and unprovoked.  Had he - had he done this?  But the bodies, they were rotting, turning green.  How long had he been standing there?  Something had caused him to black out, to somehow make him kill beyond his will.  One of his comrades had even had his throat torn out.  Randy wasn't capable of something like that, surely?  The strange man dressed in blackness was gone, along with his kin, and the Village was left in ruin.  Randy had no option other than walk, through war, through danger, until he found his people.  He was near death when he strolled into the Base.
He was treated then, both mentally and physically, but a bit of that experience stayed with him, never left him.  What he saw was put down to battle fatigue and likely the strange things the squad was offered to eat and drink in the Village, along with a fertile imagination.  Randy accepted this explanation and completed his tour, returning home.
But he couldn't forget that day, when his squad was slaughtered and Randy was left alive, because now it didn't make sense.  Now Randy had time to contemplate it and realise it had been a plaster over a much deeper cut.  Randall Snr, upon hearing this story, assured his son he would do everything in his power to make sure Randy had the best medical treatment he could afford, and they would make an appointment with a Psychiatrist first thing the next day.  That night, the noises continued from within Randy's room, but Randall Snr believed he understood more of why his son remained tired in the mornings.  It was because he was lost to that story, alive in his nightmares.
The next day, Randy was out and Randall Snr was forced to go into his son's room, for laundry and such.  It was then that things changed for the Goodsons.  Randall Snr found the bloody clothes there, hidden under a pile of some kind of compost material.  Then Randall Snr remembered the news reports of a local death, presumed to be by some kind of big wild animal, due to the nature of the gnawing and punctured flesh of the victim.  It couldn't be him, could it?  It couldn't be his son?
Randall Snr just sat back and waited, waited to see what his son did next.  It could be a coincidence, couldn't it?  He could have bloody clothes for a number of reasons, couldn't he?  It didn't mean anything really, he assured himself.
But when night fell, Randall Snr was determined to see into his son's room, to see how he fared at night, so he used his military training to sit in watch of his son's window, to watch what unfolded.  At first it was normal - Randy would undress, get into bed and fall asleep, but after an hour or so, when he was perhaps falling into a deep sleep, Randy began to shift and shuffle around the bed.  Eventually he would seem to wake and scamper into the deeper shadows of his room.  Then he appeared at the window, like lightning.
His face was more angular in this light, catching the sharp edges of his cheekbones.  His hair seemed receded, but that could be the sweat that bubbled upon his brow, wetting his hair down.  His eyes seemed larger in the light, and Randall Snr could make out no pupil, just a blackness.  Suddenly the window would open and out scurried Randy, shrouded in a kind of dark, dark cloak.  Then he would disappear into the shadows.
Eventually, after a number of hours, Randy would return and slink back into his room via the window.  To Randall Snr, where his son went was a mystery, but the rest of it explained a lot.  He decided not to confront his son about his actions and would merely observe Randy's comings and goings for the next week.  Every night the same would occur; out he would slink, still slinking he would return.  And on the news, there were more reports of animal attacks.  The National Guard was to be sent in.
The next night, Randall Snr was determined to follow his son, if not to find out what he did of a night, at least to protect him from the National Guard and those zealous hunters with their quick trigger fingers of shoot first, ask questions later.  So when Randy left the house that night, Randall Snr followed him.  Once they reached the outskirts of the local woods, Randall Snr lost sight of his son.
He was still determined, however, and used the skills of searching he learned in the military to track his son.  Eventually he came to a clearing, where within there was a commotion.  A huge beast, which must have been over seven, perhaps eight feet in height once stretched out, was huddled over a dark ball of something, which the beast was feasting upon.  It couldn't be, could it?
All of a sudden, from the other side of the clearing, Randall Snr could see flash-lights swinging this way and that, followed by muffled voices and the barking of dogs, straining at their chains.  The creature seemed oblivious of the advancing Guards.  Randall Snr sensed something innate, something within him that compelled him to yell.  He screamed Randy's name and the creature turned to see him, plain as day, right into his soul.  And the creature dropped the messy torso from its hungry grasp, sweeping deep into the trees even as the National Guard raised their guns and began shooting at the fleeing creature.
Randall Snr was eventually caught and questioned over his involvement in what had occurred that night, but he insisted he had very little memory of the event, simply that a bear or some such had been scared away, into the night - for there were no more crazy animal attacks after that night, no more strange creatures in the dark.  And, for some reason only known to Randall Goodson Snr - his son, one Randall Goodson Jr, had disappeared, never to be seen again.
But it is said, by some that is, that at night, they could hear the chittering in the darkness, just out of sight, and a quiet rasping voice would whisper to them, "I can smell you.  I can see you."


**Printed by kind permission of Gavrey H. Kinton**




THE OLD TREE OF THE FOREST 
Origin Unknown, Elbe, Germany - Circa First Century BCE

It is well known that there are stories of creatures that bite, cut and claw, sting and poison - all the way back to the cavemen and their paintings upon the walls of their caves.  But the first recorded story of the gallinipper came from a tribe of the Germani people, so named by the Romans.  The word Germani means a seed or offshoot, further translated to one related, and kindred - or allies to the Celts.  That old story was written somewhere around the first century BCE, and was thus recorded for posterity by the early Teutons, but its origins are far older, even than those two thousand years gone.  To spread to the wider world, it would take the continued work of the Historian Tacitus to save it so that future generations could learn of the tale.  And here it lies -
There was an Irminones tribe with an oral history that told of an even older, forgotten tribe that existed before the world was fully formed.  That tribe sat on the Elbe watershed, somewhere in the vicinity of modern Hamburg.  They were a warring tribe, but then so many were back then, with their hundreds of towns which were dotted about the dozen or so fortified encampments abroad.
Though this may at first seem an unkind, unfriendly land, they held a strong belief in hospitality, including the establishing of a law forbidding the refusal of such, even to the wandering man, or those people in need.  But the people desired more; they were carousers, supplicating their want to dance, to sing - to drink, often to excess.
This desire was, however, to be tested.  Even the clouds darkened as a stranger walked into town.  And it would have remained ever thus, if what they did had failed.  But there was no one to blame, not really, in the end.
The people of the land dressed in simple clothes and farmed, or herded cattle, while some others shepherded the flock.  When this did not replenish their stores, the people would hunt to make up the shortfall, themselves being egalitarian communalists, all for the Chieftain and by extension for the people.  Farm work was done principally by women and children, who tended the fields of barley, rye, wheat and pulses.  The Chieftains were the leaders of the clans, and clans were divided into groups, led by the ties of family.  The man of the tribe could have multiple wives, but only if he could afford it.
So they invited him in, this stranger - this wanderer.  He claimed his name was Ansigar, and the people had no reason to distrust him.
"You are welcome amongst us, Ansigar.  Take of our hospitality.  Drink of our drinks and eat of our food, and when you are sated, take of a bed, until your time has come to depart." declared Ekkehard, the Chieftain, to the long, tall figure of the man called Ansigar, who took him upon his offer and made himself as though at home.
Ansigar then caroused with them.  He took liberties, and pushed his luck, but it was no more or less than the people of the town offered in the first instance.  It was uncomfortable at times, but law dictated their humbleness.  Ansigar was indeed a man to take advantage of what was offered, above and beyond that which many would consider fair.  Once he was filled, the dark clothed, tightly wrapped Ansigar took a bed, wherever he fell.
This happened for three weeks - longer than was healthy for the stockpiles of the people of the town.  But he carried on unabated.  That was until the twenty second night, when enough had become enough.
Ansigar was forcefully dragged into the town square and thrown down at the feet of Ekkehard the Chieftain, who viewed the man darkly as he addressed him, "Ansigar, as you are named; you stand accused of stealing valuables from people of the town, and along with this crime did you take of a woman without her permission.  Also that you affected cattle by your degenerate actions.  By our law, you are to stand severe trial - you are to undergo the ordeal of guilt or innocence.  Sindri!  Bring forth the boiling water!"  The now gathered crowd parted to let the short stocky man through the tunnel made for him, carrying the huge vat of boiling water over to the place where the accused clambered to his feet.
"You cannot do this!" Ansigar cried, "What you accuse me of is preposterous!  I took only what was offered!  It is your law to -"  Ansigar received a whip of a thick wooden pole over his shoulders that heaved the breath from his body.  Sindri grabbed Ansigar's left arm and thrust it deeply into the boiling water.  Ansigar screamed and made the cattle restless, who cried their reply to him.  The flesh sizzled and Sindri pulled it out.
"Take him away and keep him there!  Three days we must wait, and see if the burn heals!" declared Ekkehard, turning then and walking away, an entourage of wives and flunkies followed in his wake.
The three days passed.  The flesh did not return to its original state, but neither did it fester.  Ansigar was once more pulled before the Chieftain, "It would seem to be inconclusive.  There must be therefore a further ordeal - one which will determine guilt or innocence without further argument.  Bind him!"
Ansigar was then bound by hand and by foot.  Two men picked him up bodily and took him to the river.  There, he was thrown in, as in those times water was considered the symbol of purity, so that if he was, as declared, guilty of his crimes, he would float.  If innocent, he would sink.  After an hour, Ansigar did not return to the surface, hence he was declared innocent, and life returned to normal, as the people rebuilt their stockpiles once more.

#

Auda was distracted from her work in the field by the slap sound of water-logged cloth, hitting heavily on the hardened ground.  The shadow was long and tall as it passed over her.  She shuddered and watched as the drip-drip dropped at her outstretched hands.  Water was replaced by blood, as she collapsed dead upon the ground.  The shadow moved on, drip-dripping its way into the Village.
On its passage, the shadow left in its wake a path of destruction.  Cunigund and Helewidis dropped like the beast of the forest, hunted and slaughtered.  Godascalc tried to fight back, but he was cut in half, left groaning - his mouth agape.  And the shadow moved on, drip-dripping its way.  By now, the alarm was sounded, and the men came from their homes, armed with spear and shield, as was their birth-rite.
A dripping finger pointed to the figure of the suddenly surprised Chieftain, Ekkehard, "Who is this that comes into my Village -"
"You." was all the shadow said.
"Gerbern!" called Ekkehard, his guard coming to his side, with spear thrust forward ready to attack, "Gerbern!  Who is this shadow -"  Then the rock fell in his mind, "It - can't be!"
The shadow walked out, still dripping, into the sun.  It was a man - of sorts.  He was sodden by the water that had buried him, and the liquid fizzed as it hit the ground, like it ate at anything living, just to spite it.  The face used to belong to a wanderer, a carouser, who had been accused of crimes he had not committed, put through a trial that was unnecessary, all to rid a place of a man they disliked, "I am your death." said the creature, as it spread its dark, water-filled wings, to encompass all.  It unfurled to its full height, nearly touching the sky.  Its face changed, becoming sharper, with wider mouth and long taloned claws where its hands should be.  The water transformed into blood, and the crimson droplets pounded loudly on the ground, a rhythm to match the ferocity by which the creature attacked - with rows upon rows of sharp teeth and the eyes burning holes into its victims.
And the village was no more, as the land died - the wildlife left to forage to survive, now that they had no one to tend them.
The creature, it wandered about the land, eventually coming to rest in the Old Tree of the Forest.  There it nested, until the wanderer came abroad once more.





OLD MONEY
Various Sources - Circa 1895-1907

The Old Order was surely dead, when it happened that the world was presented with the meagre handful of days that sat before the Celebration Day denoting the Birth of Our Lord.  In those days, the snow that lay heavily upon the ground would turn red with the blood of the innocent.  But that was not all, as it was certain that there was more to come.
And so the 20th of December would ever be a date to live in infamy - many would not see it coming, though those others would suspect they secretly held this opinion always.

#

Dear old Bearer was a good dog.  He did exactly what his master said, yet the beatings would come, every night, with the big stick, leaving matted hair and congealed blood upon its surface.  All Bearer wanted was love.  All he got was pain.
Yet - and despite all this, there were those brief moments of affection that filled Bearer's heart with joy, the kind of joy only a dog could feel.  He was wanted, and all he had to suffer was the odd whack on the back from a stick.
Of course Bearer knew no better.  His master, however, did - but he would never show it.  For Thaniel was a man of principle, and that principle extended to cruelty to others, with some occasional flashes of generosity to the kind that would provide for him.  He was a solipsistic man, with more than a modicum of business-led vanity to warm his craggy, pockmarked face.  He wasn't this way from a lost love, or a cruel Father and absent Mother.  No, Thaniel was just a bastard, through and through.
Thaniel was born into money, all the way from the Old Country, where his GrandFather was said to have spent many a day taking the bread from the needy.  Sure there was privilege, but there was also the curse - the old family curse of the creature, man-like, who would come one day for the son of the Father.
Both Thaniel's parents disappeared, as did his GrandFather some time ago.  The deaths of the Mantovaras became mystery, fell into intrigue and eventually ended as fear.  Thaniel himself knew it was nothing, but he had grown up with the mantle of faith that the curse was real, which was enough to have kept him awake as a child.
It was way back then that he learned to be cruel - sleep deprivation would make the sanest man mad, eventually.  Connect that with the fear, and Thaniel was destined to be the particularly sadistic man he was on this very cold, snow covered day.  And soon that day turned into night, where Thaniel would come to understand the meaning of pain - and of the family curse.
When young, Thaniel had always taken advantage of his position - the privilege that came with inbuilt wealth and the height of the pecking order it put him upon.  He used that money to buy beatings for his peers - he would steal women away from colleagues with the promise of riches, only to leave them penniless and destitute.  The snow ran red then too, as his cruelty knew no bounds.
Eventually those same people would work for him, in the Mills and the Workhouses, with barely a nod to health and safety.  His record of work-related deaths was higher than the average, but money took care of that problem too, be it bribes to the Inspectors, or a legal pay-off to the families of the deceased.  There was nothing Thaniel could not survive, escape from or pay his way out of somehow to someone.  He began to believe himself invincible, and practice did not seem to knock that confidence - not one iota.  If he wasn't so bilious, he would be as handsome as the Fallen Angel himself.
Mostly the public referred to him as the Demon of Delbury Parade - though never to his face, as it was even said that he paid for some similar minded people to disappear, by the knife, buried many leagues away - where no one would ever find them again.  So, when the knock came upon his door, what followed was remarkable.
The man who stood on the heavy stone doorstep was fairly young - out of youth, but not yet middle aged.  He held himself confidently, shrouded in what appeared to be a form-fitting dark cloak - and there was a playful, generous look to his features.  The eyes.  Oh the eyes!  They were like the pit of Hell, pooled into pupil and iris of both staring oculars.
"This is the residence of Thaniel Mantovara?" asked the man, in a tone of voice that compelled an answer.
Thaniel gave it, "Yes?  What of it?"
"I represent an interested party in some - thing - you are part of.  Some satisfaction is required, I am afraid, Thaniel."
"What?  Oh, talk to my Solicitor in the morning.  Now go away."  Thaniel made to close the door hard in this upstart's face, but the man merely held up a leather-gloved hand and Thaniel halted.
"It is you who must settle the debt, Thaniel.  You and you alone.  I have come many miles -"
"I don't care how far you've come!" interrupted Thaniel.
"I have come many miles to relay a story to you, and I will be heard, Thaniel.  Also you will listen.  Such is your fate, Thaniel.  And such is mine."
"I don't listen to the working class." dismissed Thaniel with a sweeping hand, though his veneer was visibly cracking.
"And yet you will listen to this.  May I come in?"  The man did not wait for a reply.  He pushed in and found a comfortable chair by the fire.  He neither removed his cloak nor his hat and gloves, while his smile continued close-lipped, as he recounted a tale to the mystified Thaniel, who found himself suddenly recumbent upon the floor, awaiting the hypnotic dissonance of the mellifluously mysterious man's oration.  The man stroked the head of Bearer, who settled into a peaceful sleep at the touch.

#

It was upon the approach, generations ago, to the date in question that Petr Mantovara, GrandFather of Thaniel, committed his sin.  But Petr's story did not start there.  It started a million miles away from where it sat that day.
See, Petr was certainly generous to a fault.  He was often called upon it, by his peers, who only wanted what they personally felt they deserved or were entitled to, without conscience interrupting their endeavours.  The one thing the rich and privileged abhorred more than anything else was a conscience.  Petr continued, however, unabated.  It was not their place to teach him how to live, he decided.
So he continued, generosity a word hard-wired into his being.  His peers hacked away at it, but it remained - as strong as the rock upon which he would sit, contemplating existence through the falling of the sun beyond the horizon.
One day while he sat upon that rock, he was greeted by a man who systematically set against that rock, smashing it metaphorically to pieces, and along with it the purity in nature that was Petr Mantovara.  One could say, in fact, it was murderous.
"Petr Mantovara?" asked the man, quite certain he was right, "We have a mutual interest, by which I mean we have an opportunity to deal.  How does this sit with you?"
This man was sure of himself, exuding a confidence obviously beyond his means.  But Petr was generous, and to a fault.  He gave his reply swiftly, and within a week they were business partners, in an import-export endeavour.  It was more accurate to say it was a business of promissory contracts though, as no actual commodity would move directly at the hands of Mantovara Keanley Enterprises, but the promise of what was to be shipped, by others.  It required minimal capital, had no central office to speak of, nor the need for warehouse space.  Both men became richer from it, and with this money, Petr continued his generosity of spirit.
Everything was fine, moving on relentlessly and picking up clients as it grew.  That was until the Inspectors were called in, mysteriously, to go over the accounts.  And what they found was a fabric of lies, of confidence trick upon deception upon mockery.  The numbers were absurd, and on top of it all, good Mr Keanley had disappeared.  There was nothing for it and Petr was convicted of fraud and sent to prison, where his nature was slowly and cruelly tarnished along with his reputation.
He desperately tried to hold onto his sunny nature, but the rich and opulent rarely got a fair slide in prison.  He was treated like an animal, kicked and cut - they turned a great man into one of them; a darkly cloaked molester of honesty, of truth and graciousness.
Eventually, when Petr left prison after those long six years, he returned to his home - his place amongst the privileged, though he be forever turned by his experience.
And they all laughed at him.  They threw him out of their Clubs, out of their Restaurants.  He was blacklisted, being a convict.
But this he could all take, as long as he had his home and his faith that things would return to their rightful place.  What he could not take were the truths that became evident, particularly by the drunken mutterings of a number of men who Petr used to call peers, if not on occasion friends.
What they talked of was deception and of lies, of controlling the fate of one like them.  It soon became evident to whom they were referring.  It was to Petr Mantovara himself.
What had they done?  Why were they so cheery about something so tragic?  And then a voice resounded like a death knell in his soul, a voice Petr recognised and cursed in the lonely six years worth of nights in his cell - the man who would be Mr Keanley.
"He lay in that cell for six years!" laughed one.
"I know!  And they say he would sit in his own effluence, crying into the night!"  This was followed by a cacophony of tumbling laughter and the occasional clink of wine bottle.
"And those men we sent to thrash him?  He has permanent scars, or so I am told!  Haha!  Oh, how I wish I had been there to see it?"
"And all because he wouldn't relax, put his feet up for a while!  Well, it's a lesson he won't soon forget!"
And right there it began in the cold, cold darkness.  Revenge.
The blood sat like posies upon the delicate snowdrifts, soaking through to the soil and cursing it for evermore.  Because of it, Petr could no longer remain in the Old Country, so vanished soon after the incident, knowing he could never return to where he had come from.  He boarded a ship to wherever it would take him, and eventually came ashore somewhere new.
He was still Petr Mantovara, just not the same one who had left the Old Country.  In this new place, he tried to rebuild his life, to marry and have children, and create a new reputation - but it would never be that easy.  Not after the Old Country.  Not after what he did to his tormentors.
He grew his hair and dyed his beard, took to wearing meagre clothes, while trying to provide for those in need, sometimes to the detriment of his own family.  No matter how much he tried, though, that generous, altruistic man was forever lost, replaced by a desperate and cruel one.
And soon came the day of retribution.  Upon a fundraising event Petr found himself a part of, he was noticed by some people at the rear of the hall.  They called and muttered to him in an old tongue, but Petr pretended not to notice.  That was until one of those insistent men grabbed him and lifted him bodily onto the wall.  Petr lost his breath and his back stung from the pressure.
"You are Petr Mantovara!  You killed those men, men I knew, who were innocent of all wrong-doing, yet you hacked them to death, like they were nothing but animals!"  The man spat into Petr's face.
A crowd was forming about them.  People were becoming confused and quickly the Police came to break it up, but not before one of the women spat a curse at Petr, in the language of his homeland, "I curse you and your kind that you may yet taste the bite of the gallinipper's teeth, and be brought down by its powerful claws, so that no sign or remnant of your accursed bloodline remain, nor your body be interred after death, to be taken by the creature as recompense for its and your actions!"
Those words resounded about the streets of the City for a goodly three days, until one night, Petr Mantovara of the Old Country disappeared.  Some say a large creature, with devil eyes, claimed him from the street he would walk upon daily.  Others claimed they saw the man being led away by another, darker clothed man.  Whatever the truth, his pregnant wife would never see him again.  Consequently, she died in childbirth - another bloody victim of Petr Mantovara - but not before bringing forth a son; that being Thaniel Senior.  Oh, but that one was a tale for another day.

#

"Well?  Are you changed by what I have told you?" asked the dark clothed man.  The fire crackled a punctuation to the silence that followed.  He had delivered his story, completing his obligation.
"Why tell me of a story I neither recognise nor care about?" insisted Thaniel Mantovara, trying sleepily to get to his feet.  It was as though he was floating in a dream of motion-sapping energy, every step harder than the last.
"It is your story, is it not?  I can tell you it doesn't belong to me." expressed the man.
"Riddles!  Just get out of my house!" insisted Thaniel.
"First I would ask you to look out yonder.  See what you deserve." gestured the man with long thin arm to the curtained window.
"What are you talking about?" asked Thaniel, now more confused than ever.
"Look out of the window, Thaniel.  You will understand."  Suddenly the man stood, his cloak tight about him, waking Bearer who had been resting at his feet.  He seemed taller, and his face more angular than before, like a deception had lifted or a façade exposed.  Thaniel looked as instructed out of the window - and immediately dropped to his knees.
This began the man laughing, a kind of chittering sound, "Now you see, Thaniel, that the story I gave you was nothing but a distraction.  See as the Police come in their numbers, following the definite bloody footprints to your door, along the way to witness the horror of a man of privilege and class, and the undefinable evil he can perpetrate.  Don't worry, Thaniel.  It will all be over soon."  And again came the chittering.
Bearer looked up at the man who had been so kind to him and licked his hand.  For him, love came in many different forms - but love was love and Bearer appreciated it.  With a flurry of darkness, the man vanished up into the flue and out of the chimney, just as the Police burst into the house, armed to the teeth.

#

Thaniel Mantovara, the last of the Old Country Mantovaras, was led from his home, now become a charnel house, back through his own bloody foot marks, through the swathes of thick red blood which melted away the thick resting snow all about the yard, to the awaiting Police Wagon.  It was like the very soil was cursed to bleed, from the decapitated folks once of the Mantovara household, and some innocent passers-by included just for good measure.
Somehow Thaniel himself was drenched in that same blood, and it soaked into his skin, deep into the pores, as though he had bathed in their blood, even as he slayed them.  Upon the thicker snow that still remained, were the words 'Happy Christmas!' written in blood and entrails.  He was nothing if not thorough, it would seem.
His subsequent trial was cut and dry.  Within months of continual mistreatment, beatings and all manner of cruelly concocted criminal curses of his fellow inmates, Thaniel Mantovara painfully climbed the steps to the gallows, coughing through internal bleeding, where he continued to cry and curse at the man - the creature that had caused this to happen.  Seconds before the hood went over his head, Thaniel was sure he spotted that same man, that tall man with wit and smile, of angular and sharp features, open his mouth just a little bit, to reveal the rows upon rows of sharp teeth - but any chance of recourse was surely too late.  The lever was pulled and Thaniel Mantovara experienced once and forever the longest drop.
So the curse had claimed yet another victim - and the world continued to turn.





BIG WHITE GHOST
Maraba, Central Africa - Circa 1894


**Extract from 'Sir Robert Nathan QC: A Life Of Hunting'**

On the Maraba National Park, the game was slim this particular season.  I don't know why, but something must have spooked them; drove them deeper into the more dangerous, and sadly off limits, parts of the land.
Ktusi, my guide, is concerned.  He says there is something abroad that is scaring away the game.  He calls it the Darkness of the Soil, a local legend of an evil blackness that creeps over the land, rotting the vegetation, slaying the animals in their sleep - even stealing children from their homes.  It’s all superstitious rubbish, of course, but every legend has a grain of truth to it.  A blight, perhaps?  Locusts?  Something like that, I would assume.
The nights are quiet, too quiet, when I would expect to hear the cacophonous rumble of a living ecosystem.  There is not even the rustle of a curious lion to break into the endless silence of the plains.  And yet - and yet I sense the eyes upon me; animalistic in intent.  I recognise the sensation, employing it myself on many a hunt in my time.  I don't know from what direction or name of creature the eyes stare at me, but I almost feel the tangible sense of hunger in that thing out there.  And it is dark; darkness of the first dawning day on the planet.  Only the tiniest pinpricks of light emanating from the stars above show I am neither blind nor buried.  But neither does it present proof of life.  Only my withered breath and the groans and moans of Ktusi as he turns in his sleep indicate I must, in some way exist.
The following day begins bright and hopeful, like most of the days in my expedition recently.  Hope turns quickly to despair as the land provides nothing but a few tiny creatures, not worth the bullets I would expend upon them.  There is a place Ktusi knows, but as he explains, it is dangerous, and he rarely takes white men there.  But he feels I am losing faith in him, so we decide to take a punt.
Along the way we are nearly trampled by a handful of rhino.  We avoid them easily, but there is a sense that even the curiosity of the two of us is not enough to throw them from their chosen path.  A little further on, a lion walks past us, his only accession to our presence a desperate growl.  This is becoming very peculiar - very peculiar indeed.  That night we hear the movement of animal-kind a distance away, travelling away from where we are headed.  And those eyes.  Those eyes continue to stare, and it is beginning to unnerve me.
I have looked into the eyes of criminals far and wide, from the psychotic maniac bent on blood to the scared man a victim of circumstance.  Not one of them froze my blood the way these eyes did.  It wanted something.  It wanted me.  Ktusi said he personally had never seen, heard nor sensed what I had, which just left me curious.  I wasn't going mad.  I know what I am feeling is real.  But what it is, of that I am unsure.
The place is called Rarana.  A natural watering ground for all kinds of game, prolific in its abundance of animals of all description, colour and kind.  We climbed the ridge to gain a vantage point by which to watch the movements of the animals below.  It was an erratic display of wild motion.  It was not normal.  Ktusi explained how the trails of the various species was not as it should be, that - metaphorically speaking - lamb would lie with lion.  Something was about, that was changing the animals nature.  Something that did not fit with the delicately balanced system of life.  Something foreign, alien; something that should not be.  I agreed with Ktusi - we must find out what it is and affect change for the better.  And all along the overriding feeling was that this is the end.  This is my final foray.  Ktusi feels it also, though he would not say it.  But I know.
There are no prints to track, no obvious signs of the source of the disturbance, other than the opposite movement of all living things - as living things bend toward the sun, so living things bend away from the Darkness of the Soil.
What surprises me most is the lack of the fabled darkness itself, as it isn't a physical darkness, rather an overwhelming feeling of abhorrence instead.  The night draws in subtly, without our notice, and we are forced to camp, though neither myself nor Ktusi can sleep a wink.
Instead we sit up, ears intently listening to the low hum, joined by the persistent hiss that emanates from the darkness of night.  Even the stars this night are too feared to shine.  I can see the whites of Ktusi's eyes barely, but it is the eyes that shine behind him, barely visible in the distance, that disturb me most, for they are almost human and hungry beyond description.  I think of telling Ktusi, but it is enough that one of us is scared.  No need make us both fearful of our lives.  Then the eyes disappear.  I hold my breath, for a long minute, until they appear again, this time over Ktusi's shoulder.
I want to gasp, I want to scream, though it is not in my nature, but such a shock should exude from even the mightiest of men.  I think Ktusi sees in my own eyes this sudden scare, and he too widens his eyes.  His breathing is rapid and modulating and he slowly turns his head.  We hear a strange sound, that I can only describe as a chittering - like the laughter of the wicked - that triggers the gasp of fear from Ktusi just as he is sprung into the air and out of sight.
I am left alone.  I forget to breathe.  I await my turn, for this creature to take me.  And I hear the crunch of bone - distinctly bone in its voluminous snap - and the continued chittering of the hidden creature still sounds.  For a long few minutes I wait, every breath I am certain is my last.  Every inhale burns my throat and chest, every exhale a juddering indication of my location.  My heart is pumping so fast and so loud I am sure the creature can hear it.  I sweat, large rivulets sit on my brow, as a slimy feeling of a bead runs down the length of my spine, triggering an involuntary shudder all over my suddenly tired muscles.  I realise how tense I have made myself, and feel each spurt of adrenaline running into my blood.  But all there remains is silence.  I literally have no concept of time, and I sit there until the sun comes up, still staring at the same point, where the memory of seeing Ktusi sucked into blackness is still indelibly imprinted on my mind, and will remain thus for the rest of my life, however long that is to be.  I look, not quite believing what I see.
I see nothing.
Not even blood.  There is nothing there, nothing to even indicate the great guide, the Father of three, Ktusi Malamai even existed, or was taken so horridly in the night.  I am frozen to the spot and it takes several hours before I force myself to stand, to begin to walk, away from the Darkness of the Soil, as sensibly all the other living things have chosen to do.  As the sun is cruelly taking both light and life from me, I notice I am beginning to tear up, an action purely out of my control.  I find a craggy rock slide and pull myself as deep into a crack as I can, hopefully too hidden for the creature to find me.
And with the darkness comes the sense of a predatory eye.  The irony is not lost on me, but that is little comfort as I wait there, wait to die - horribly, like Ktusi.  I hear the chittering, and it is getting closer.  It's like the creature is using the sound to detect my presence.  I fold deeper into the crack in the rock, if it is even possible to do, as the creature draws closer.  It is now inches from me, yet I cannot see it, make out its shape.  What I do know from what I sense is that it is a tall creature, perhaps reared on its back legs, bending over me, sniffing at the rock surface about me.  Then I see, and the eyes open.
It is like looking into Hell.  Never have I seen the like.  And it drips liquid upon me, from its great hight, that drip-drips onto my head, a sensation of slight warmth, just adding to the terror I feel.
Then it is gone, as quickly as it had arrived.
Silence falls about me.  I let out a jagged breath, partly as I now realise I have been holding it in my burning lungs too long, and partly as the relief I feel from the vanishing of the creature.
"Mashtroggah." I hear, suddenly in my ear, it is a word I will never forget.  I know not the meaning, but I don't need to.  It feels like hunger, like violence, like pain personified.  And it is coming from the rock above me.
The creature is there, perching on the rock right there.  I think I catch sight of a glint coming off the creature, but know I am mistaken, as it appears humanoid in nature, if a little angular.  It can't be.  Nothing like this exists, and I assume it must be a trick of the rising sun, thankfully lifting over the distant horizon.  I look up, but the creature is gone.  All that remains is an eye; a human eye.  One of Ktusi's.  I pocket it.  His family shall at least have something to bury.
During this new day, I double my efforts, until I end up in Ktusi's village.  I fall exhausted and end up in a delirious coma for the best part of a week.  While in that coma, I sense - I feel I am being watched still by that crazed creature, that it saunters around me while I sleep, awaiting it's opportunity to strike.  I feel it wants me conscious, aware of what is happening.  As I remain comatose, it must have become bored, because once I awoke, it was missing.
As I begin to recover, I make amends with Ktusi's widow and once I recover enough, I make my way home.  It seems I can never spend a night asleep without waking in a sweat at least once, seeing Ktusi's face, the shock in his eyes as he is dragged away by the creature.  It remains with me forever.

#

Footnote***Robert Nathan died five years later in mysterious circumstances, after taking a new expedition to Maraba National Park in search of the strange creature he first encountered in the summer of 1886.  No sign of him nor his party were ever seen of again.  

**This book was posthumously published by Fambry and Sons Publishing House in 1894.




AMRIA IS DONE
Botov, Romania - Circa 1912

There is a cult within the Romani people, which is seen as somewhat of anathema to the rest of the folk, so much so that it is never talked about within the aural tradition of their history and law.  That cult was first formed back in 1405, when the people were slaves in Wallachia.  And it contained a dangerous rite, or more accurately named a curse or amria.  This too had been passed down aurally, but in this case more specifically through the female line.  It was hidden and secret, lest they be banished from Romani society, contaminated and shunned.
It told of a creature that could be called forth to destroy, to remove the one cursed, to take away the problem.  But there was more to it than that, and if the caster had only known, maybe she would never have done it.
Maybe, but who's to know?

#

Drina Viorel had been a child bride, marrying too young to understand her role.  Her husband was a decade older than her, and when he took his marital rites, she really didn't understand what was going on.  That man, he died of being kicked in the head by a lame horse that had been pulling their Wagon, a mere five years into their marriage.  Drina was beyond suspicion, but there were those who said she followed a forgotten branch of shaktism, that required blood and sacrifice.  Drina was too young; she didn't understand what they accused her of, but there were remained those with supposition, and they gave her a wide berth when they could.  Yet she contained the romanipen, so was regarded as well as she could be.
Upon the drom the Wagon trundled as they neared the place known as Botov, where they would spend the summer - or some of it - in their daily pursuits.  And though her daughter Kizzy Viorel travelled with the Roma, they had been at variance for a while.  Not since the Sasanian King, Bahram V Gor, first ordered those luris to wander the world, did Drina feel so lost and alone.  But the heart wants what the heart wants and she knew eventually she would have to accept Kizzy's intended, Marko Ciprian.
For right now Drina felt compelled to assert her parental.  There were shades of Bogdan, her late husband, in that boy's eyes.  Drina would find it hard to trust any man for some time to come.  She tolerated those within the fold, as the mutual nature of the Romani people was essential to survival, even in these more modern times.  Persecution was only a despot away.
The phuv was hard, but Drina made the most of it, building a fire and collecting firewood on her own.  Kizzy would join her soon.  Kizzy had been travelling with the Ciprian's in their Wagon, but she still knew where her duty lay; with her Mother.  The kham made the jakh pani, and Drina took out the mol and manro, settling herself by the fire, taking in nature and the fresh air as it wafted gently over the camp.  Soon she would lose Kizzy to the Ciprians anyway, so she wanted to make the most of the time they still had together.
And then, all of a sudden, Kizzy came running into the camp, right into the protective arms of her Mother, "He's followed us, Ma!  He found us and he wants you -"
"What's that mark on your face?" asked Drina, wiping at a dark patch on Kizzy's cheek.
"He hit me." spoke Kizzy softly.  Kizzy could see the anger rise up on her Mother's face, her cheeks red and her breath short, "But it's alright.  It didn't hurt much."
"Not the point girl!  No man should ever lay a hand on -"
"You!  Gypsy thief!"  It was a large man, flushed of face and brandishing a stick, "I want my money back or -"
"We are Romani people, Mr Sorin, not -" tried Drina with an interruption.
"I don't care what you call yourselves!  You took money from me, and I want it back!"
"You paid for services, which I -"
"I paid you for a money doubling spell!  Instead you took my money and disappeared!  But now I've found you and -"
"Right.  So you found me.  What are you going to do about it?" threatened Drina suddenly.
"I'm going to get the Police here, and have you chained up, that's what!" blustered the big man.  Drina had been working hokkani boro on the khoni Vali Sorin, for a while.  It must have been the patrins that led him to their camp.  And Drina realised she couldn't call on any other Roma's assistance.  Hokkani boro had been outlawed by her extended family a while ago, and perpetration of the old practice was forbidden, on pain of a kris, which would surely end in expulsion.  Drina couldn't do that to her Daughter.  She could not deny her any happiness she might feel.  Drina would be fine on her own, but Kizzy would be lost without the Romani.  Drina would rather be a gadji than disappoint her Daughter.  Of course she had no choice.  Drina would perform that ancient rite that had been passed down to her through the female line.  No one had practised it in decades, but she was pretty sure she had it all.  First she needed to appease the khoni, then she would perform the amria.
Drina Viorel told the man that if he returned the following day, she would have his money for him, as it had been spread amongst the others, and it would take a while to collect it all back.  Though Vali Sorin was unconvinced, Drina assured him that if she did not have the money, or if she had skipped out of the camp, he could quite easily call the Police into the affair, as she could not get far on a Romani Wagon on these treacherous roads.  He accepted her word finally and left.  Drina held her Daughter close.
"What I do, I do for you, Kizzy." she said cryptically, then kissed Kizzy upon her soft flowing blonde head.  Drina then sent Kizzy back to the Ciprians, at least for the night, as Drina was worried that the khoni might not keep to his word, and bring a mob around to beat her.  Drina could keep herself safe, but Kizzy would be in danger, and she didn't want that.  Once it was over, Drina would collect Kizzy from the Ciprians.
"But - how will you pay him back?  We don't have that money any more?" insisted Kizzy.
"I have my ways, sweet one.  I still have a few tricks up my sleeve."
And Drina left it at that.  She made sure Kizzy had gone before she began the dark ritual, the one that called forth the creature, bringing with it destruction.  There were other weapons in her arsenal, but Drina knew that this one would succeed for certain.
Drina Viorel, a woman from a very long line of a very long tradition, began to recall and recite the rite of calling forth the creature, with darkness, fire, blood and sacrifice - in this case an unfortunate rabbit that had become ensnared in the trap Drina had set and was to be dinner.  As best she could, Drina said the words, sang the song, set the pieces in their correct order and waited.
What Drina wasn't to know, not for certain, or see for herself, was the eight foot creature, cloaked in blackness and sharp of feature, wander into the town, cutting and scything with the long razor claws through the citizens of that town, coming to the Inn where Vali Sorin had taken his supper in his room.  The creature created a commotion of blood as it cut to pieces the patrons of the Inn, screams so loud they could wake the dead - and eventually out came Vali from his room.  The chittering creature smiled its thousand toothed grin at him, before swallowing him whole, like a hungry snake.  Bones cracked and snapped inside the beast, before it had finished its tirade.  Then it turned and headed toward its calling place.  Toward Drina.

#

It was quiet; too quiet.  The birds had stopped calling and the animals within the wood had stopped scurrying, instead hiding from what came abroad.  And it stood, still dripping the blood of the innocent from its maw and claw, just on the outside of the camp Drina had set up earlier that day.
"You are the one who called me?"
"I am." said Drina, without turning round.
"You required me to spill blood, yet I know not why?"
"Do you need a reason?"
The creature chittered a laugh, "I suppose not."  Then it advanced, upon Drina.
She cried out, suddenly, "Why do you approach?  Did I not perform the rite?"
"You did.  But what the old witches did not teach you was the protection rite that goes with it.  Therefore I claim my caster for my satiation." the creature said, advancing on Drina Viorel.
So died the last in the aural line of the cultists of the gallinipper, while the kham was upon the drom and the blood poured like pani and mol.   Romano Zakono dictated she should be buried immediately, but unfortunately they could not find all parts of her.
And so Kizzy was alone after all, it seemed.  Even the Ciprians would not touch the Viorel family now.





THE FURTHEST REACH
Mesopotamia - Circa 50 BCE


**The Last Writings of Roman Historian Maracus**

It was an old Sage who told me this story, from an indefinable age passed, when civilisation was a mere concept - perhaps even before the beginning of the Glorious Roman Empire, of a time the Greeks were still surmising about the logic of the world.
It comes from a long dead City, called Bofat, Province unknown, of the legend of a creature, once rampant upon the darkest corners of the world, it seemed, before man forced its way across the land.
Descriptions of the creature are minimal, but the only details that remain of that creature was its size and its angular nature, its constant shrouding in black, slackened clothing, that encompasses it's supposed 8 pes in height.  It was the GrandFathers of those who wrote down the tale that tell of its appearance, how it swept in, like an abhoration across the land, climbing the great cliffs outside that City and disappearing into the vast system of caves that festooned the hillside.  And there it fell into legend, while those who had seen it began to believe they had dreamt it, and others died so that the memory would die with them.  It was known to all but the most brave, or stupid, that one did not go into those caves, for any reason.  The young obviously didn't believe in the creature, but respected the Elder’s wishes, to not venture into those caves, not on any pretence.
For decades that is how it sat, and slowly the legend fell away, left to the imaginations of a handful of maddened people about the City.  Bofat remained at peace.
That was until the Bandits arrived, and they were seven in number.
At first it was quiet, but slowly the Bandits attacked.  They stayed away from the City, but took to waylaying traders and the like, making their way about the desert-land.  They quickly became successful, and the leader of the Bandits, Aba, began to feel his treasure was becoming conspicuous, and that he needed a place to hoard it.  He took a cart, his treasure and himself up the old, old track, almost lost to time, that led all the way up the hillside, to the cliff with the caves.  He ventured inside, into the darkness beyond.
His eyes slowly became used to the low light, a sliver of sunlight coming through a tiny crack in the rock roof, and where it shone a tiny plant grew.  It was as good a place as any, so Aba chose this area as his place, and distributed the boxes of jewels and coins about the stone walled room.  He was sure to mark the cave upon his exit, but also cautious to prevent being overlooked doing so.
Over a series of weeks, Aba continued this practice, until the area within the cave was heaving with his ill-gotten gains.  Unsure whether he was hearing things, or sensing something that wasn't there, over the time the treasure grew, Aba began to feel he was being watched, that eyes were upon him and his treasure.  He would leave the caves every time, making sure it was merely his greed that fed his imagination.  He never saw another soul, but it remained a thought he could not let go of.
Then one day, while relaxing in the City, Aba caught noise of a rival of his, Benra, having information about, or suspecting that Aba was hiding a vast amount of treasure somewhere close.  It was too much for Aba.  Soon after he heard these words, he took to the hillside, carrying a weapon, set on hiding out in his cave, awaiting Benra, and destroying him utterly.
That night the moon was high, and it shone upon the path for Aba to walk up to his cave.  The stars were out, and remained out for the rest of the night.  But of Benra, there was no sign.  Not that night and not the next.  In fact for two weeks there was no sign of Benra.  But neither was there a sign of Aba.  He had simply disappeared.
Aba's Bandit friends, the other six, became dubious of their friend’s sudden disappearance, believing that perhaps he had just vanished, left them behind, and took his treasure with him.  He certainly had seemed jittery of late, and this had worried the six Bandits.  They searched the City.  No one had seen Aba since that first night.  The six searched the immediate area, and there was nothing, save the destroyed caravans they themselves had made.  All that remained, therefore, were the caves.  In the time they had made residence in the City, they had heard the broken legend of the caves, so apprehensiveness haunted them.  Yet greed quickly took over.  Greed, for these men, trumped everything.  So, under the cover of dusk, the six men took the path to the caves and cautiously ventured in.
Darkness took them first.  Raf, one of the men, lit a torch, which did very little but illuminate the area immediately about him.  He waved it round, trying to evaporate the clinging darkness from the area.  Further in they ventured, until they eventually came to that area of the caves Aba had chosen to hoard his treasure.  Faran, another of the men, upon seeing the gold glinting in the torchlight, dived into the treasure, sifting it through his hands.
"It's all here!" he exclaimed.
"So where is Aba?" asked Raf.  They continued searching, crossing the moonlit puddle that formed in the centre of the cave area.  Nothing, not even blood could be found.  Aba had truly disappeared.
"What do we do now?" asked Ejeb, another of the men.
"We take it!" said Juba, another one.
"What if he is still alive?" asked Yeq, concerned.  He had a nervous nature about him.
Mugef, the last man, lifted a handful of coin and stuffed it in his pouches, "Then he will come and claim it, from my cold, dead hands." expressed Mugef.  His eyes suddenly shifted to something coming into his field of vision.  It was perhaps another man, hiding within the caves.
Raf turned and addressed the air, "Aba?  Is that you?  Are you there -"  But Raf was swiftly cut off from finishing his sentence.  The torch dropped, and showed nothing but Raf's feet, several pes above the ground, shaking uncontrollably by some invisible force that held him up.  The other five men began to run, though they didn't get far.
Faran was picked up bodily, crushed until the air was taken from him, and thrust toward Ejeb, who was taken from his feet, trapped under the dead weight of Faran.  It was then that he saw the true horror before him.  A sharp face, perhaps of a diseased man barely within life, bore down on him.  From its sharp-toothed mouth, it dripped some liquid, which burned a little on Ejeb's face, but he was too scared, not of this world any more, once the creature bore down on him further.  The creature opened its jaw like a snake and clamped down on Ejeb's face.  If Ejeb were to scream, nothing remained of his face with which to make such a sound.  Then the creature turned on Juba.  With a chittering sound, the creature advanced.  It seemed like it was laughing at him.
"Please!" screamed Juba, "I will do anything you wish, just please don't kill me!"  The creature chittered again, swaying this way and that, watching Juba's face, eyeing his features and observing the tears as they ran down his cheeks.  A long forked-tongue slid between the sharp teeth, to lick at one of those tears.  Juba's breath was jagged, and he watched as the creature took that tear into its mouth and swallowed, a movement that shook the creatures entire body.  The dark, empty eyes then looked, slightly furrowed into Juba's, before slowly beginning to retreat.  Juba could let out a sigh, even though it be such a small gesture, for the creature was leaving him alive.
It wasn’t, however.  it was toying with Juba.  Its jaw opened and the creature first bit at Juba's nose, then, as Juba screamed for all he could manage, the creature took another bite, then another, just small enough to be effective, before the screams stopped and the creature chittered its laughter once more.
Yeq had seen enough.  He picked up the torch and began striking at the creature.  Splinters from the wood flew off in all directions and eventually the wood split and the torch became useless.  Unrelenting, Yeq picked up heavy gold objects and threw them at the creature.  And it did not flinch.  Instead, it turned.
"Die you rotten creature!  Return to whatever pit you came from!" yelled Yeq as he continued to throw objects at the creature.  Then Yeq heard a word, or a phrase, of a language he had never heard before, but the simple guttural delivery of it chilled his soul.
"Garrathadduutha."  The word danced off every surface of the cave, like the phrase of some ancient demon, or creature of a time before time, an oration that if spoken by a human, would tear at the throat, and cause pain just to utter it.  What it did for Yeq, in some strange way, prepared him for the fate that awaited him.
But it didn't come.  Instead, the creature turned from him and looked to the fleeing form of Mugef, who had become weighed down by the treasure he had collected about his person.  The creature rushed at him, lifting him high into the cave roof.  A sickening crunch sounded, only to be replaced seconds later by another crunching sound, this time from the creatures face, as it ate away at the greedy Mugef.  Yeq took his chance and ran.
Yeq, he kept running and running and running - until eventually he fell into a pool of water.  He could hear the advance of the creature, roaring in its hunt for him, so Yeq dived under the water, down deep, into the dark places of the pool.  He felt like he had been there for several minutes, and his lungs burned, desperate for air.  But Yeq remained, until he was sure the creature had passed.  Eventually, Yeq rose from the freezing water, clambered out and managed to find himself outside, just as the light was coming over the horizon.  Scared, cautious, Yeq made his way into the City, where there was a commotion.
While Yeq had hid and escaped, it seems the creature had come into the City, right into the square, where it stood so high, and slowly unfurled its covering.  Within, it held what remained of the five heads of Yeq's friends, which it dropped, before disappearing back into the cliffs, into its place within the caves.
To the City people it was clear.  It was a warning, not to disturb the creature's rest; not to venture into it's home, or it would venture into theirs and take of their kin.
Yeq became a believer on that day, of the legend of the creature, and took it upon himself, as the only survivor of that venture into the caves, to be the Warden of the Creature, and be the one who took the offerings of coin, jewels and fresh meat to appease it.
Thus it had remained to the day the Sage told me of this story.  Where the caves were, he would not tell me.  Perhaps it is better this way.  Perhaps some things are better left alone.
Some things should simply not be disturbed, no matter how curious one is.


***Addendum - They found it, it would seem, or at least they believe they have found it.  114 Legion have come across a cave system and the remains of a City similar to the one described by the Sage.  I am to venture there tomorrow, to see for myself.  Surely it's just legend?




CITTA FANTASMA
Verudeccia, Italy - Circa 1520

There once sat a small isolated town, called Verudeccia - located somewhere between Siena and Florence - where the inhabitants had gone missing.  In fact, they had been missing for some time.
No one ventured out that way any more.  There was no need.  What Florence didn't have, Siena did, or some other City in the Tuscany Region.  Besides, it was the Renaissance; a time of rebirth, with the beautiful architecture of those previously mentioned cities - the art of the classical period, with its sculpture and oils - who needed to go anywhere else?
Yet, it seemed, one man did.  Orazio Bondesan was a merchant by trade, selling all kinds of wares to the more opulent members of those City states.  However, quite by chance, he was commissioned to collect a valuable piece of art from the famed collector Aristide Lagorio, who lived somewhere in the north east portion of the region.  Normally Orazio wouldn't run such errands.
It wasn't that it was beneath him.  It was that he didn't like to leave his family for long.  They lived practically hand to mouth, and this trip would take at least a week.  His wife Velia had insisted that he take the job, however, as the money he would gain from the venture would be enough to set him up in a shop - something small perhaps to start with - but he would finally be able to retire that poor horse, Leonardo, from the misery of the constant trek it suffered from pillar to post.  Not only that, poor uncle Fredo wouldn't have to demean himself any more on the begging streets of Florence.  It was an opportunity too good to miss.
Orazio left his family with Leonardo the horse tackled up.  The cart trundled over the rough ground as Orazio set his course, north east.
The weather soon became treacherous on the road out of the City.  Orazio was too far out to return now, so was forced to seek shelter somewhere else.  The rain had washed the dirt from a sign that showed the town of Verudeccia just a short way to the east, along an old, disused road, churned up in the downpour.
The road didn't get any less rough the closer to the town it got, but there was certainly shelter to be had there.  The entrance to the town was through an arched gateway, which led to a thin street.  The further in Orazio went, the wider the street became, until he found himself in the town square.
There was a thin medieval tower in the centre.  The whole town was very much in the idiom of the medieval, and just ahead was the Church of Santa Maria, a bold and strong twelfth century building, built to last, and a lasting statement to the town’s builders and their religious fervour.  Although Orazio had seen no one on his approach, he chose to stop outside the Inn, to see the storm out with a drink.  He let Leonardo the horse wander free for a while, let him find his own shelter.  He was an obedient animal, and wouldn't wander far from the cart.  Orazio dropped to the ground in front of the Inn and pushed the doors open.
He was greeted with silence, and not a person sat within that Inn, not even a bartender.  No one.  And there was an eeriness to that silence, as though it displayed a tone, of quiet desperation, fear and apprehension.  It made Orazio feel uncomfortable.  As the rain pounded the roofs outside, Orazio looked around for any signs of life.  But what he found - oh God, what he found.
About half way up the wall of one room in the Inn was a kind of carapace, stuck there, held by some kind of sickly green liquid.  The carapace had split in the centre, revealing a large hole, big enough to take a person if they squeezed up tightly.  It was of a dark, almost black colour, with a tinge of green, like the ooze that seeped from that hole.  The further Orazio ventured, the more carapaces he found.  The troubling thing was, they all looked fresh, broken perhaps within the last month or so.  But there were others he saw that looked much, much older.
Of the citizens of the town, Orazio could find nothing, despite the homes he took himself into.  No possessions had been taken, nothing looted, nothing removed in a hurry as though some disaster had occurred and they needed to make a quick escape.  Suddenly Orazio's hackles raised, as some kind of internal instinct told him he was being watched, stalked.  He considered taking the cart and fleeing as fast as he could, but there was no sign of Leonardo the horse, and he had become turned around in his search, so that the way out wasn't as obvious as it at first seemed.
The streets had a strange way of thinning then spreading, or starting wide and focusing in tightly.  It was disorienting, and although Orazio still sensed that observer, he looked about desperately for some landmark.  Then he saw the church steeple and made for it.  As he walked, then trotted, Orazio was sure he could hear an echo of his footfalls, growing to many, and all around.  He heard a sound like chittering, and that sound boomed about him dangerously.  Orazio was sure he was being hunted by someone or something, so picked up the pace.  As though to show the fruitless endeavour of running from the noises, the click-clack on the stone streets grew louder, until it drowned out any other sound in the environment.  The chittering grew louder and more tormenting, but Orazio could see the doors to the church just ahead, tantalisingly close.  Then the noises were right behind him, just over his shoulder, taunting him, showing him it would only take the outstretch of a hand to -
The doors were shut!  They were actually shut!  Orazio screamed and the chittering mimicked his desperation.  Suddenly there were sounds from the other side of the locked doors, of several voices in argument.  Orazio thumped on the door, knowing he would be taken any second by the creatures that haunted him, when the doors suddenly opened and Orazio was pulled inside.
"You've let them know where we are now!" shouted one male voice.  The doors were quickly and loudly slammed shut and someone slammed down the wooden bar, securing it closed.
"Oh don't be naive!" spoke another male voice, "They've always known where we are!"
There was then a cacophony of bangs on the door and strange angular shapes, like hundreds of strange shaped people were trying to get through the stained glass windows.  But the Church was secure enough, for now.
"What the -" began Orazio, shuffling on his behind to the artificial safety of the darkness within the shadows.
"Who are you?  Where did you come from?"  This man who spoke to Orazio was dishevelled, unshaven and unwashed.  As Orazio looked about him, there were a number of other people, equally squalid.  There were various furnishings strewn over the church, to make rudimentary living areas for these people.
"Orazio Bondesan.  A Merchant from -"
"Nice to meet you, Orazio.  I would prefer it to be under different circumstances, however." continued the man.  He appeared confident in himself and the way he conducted his activities, so he shone as the de-facto leader of this group.
"My name's Ermete Roncalli.  This other fellow here is Gallo Confortola, Berenice Pancrazio, Fina Gavino, Giada Baldovino, Edvige Rossella, and that one over there, his name is Timoteo Di Pasqua."  Orazio nodded to each in turn as they were introduced.  Orazio, however, wasted no time.
"What are those things out there?" he asked of Ermete.
"We - don't know.  At first we thought them crazed citizens, poisoned somehow, and driven mad by disease.  But Gallo here said he caught sight of one of them.  He said they were at least eight feet tall, angular of features and shrouded in the darkest of coverings, which hid the powerful muscles of some kind of evil beast within.  He said its teeth sat like thousands of needles in its mouth.  At first we were suspicious, but then Timoteo saw the same thing, and he hasn't been well ever since.  He rants, out of fear.  But I think as long as we remain here, we are safe.  We have to wait them out."
"Nonsense!" called out Gallo, a few paces away, tending to the supplies.  They were meagre, perhaps enough for two days.  Then they would need to come up with some kind of plan.  That, or die of starvation.  Though that be a morbid thought, it was preferable to what those creatures would surely do if they ventured outside.  No, those creatures were waiting, softening up their prey, before they chose their moment to strike.  Orazio was a man of action, so he spoke up too.
"I agree with Gallo.  You can't wait them out.  There are old ones of them, certainly, but I saw fresh new carapaces out there.   They are simply multiplying.  Soon, I believe, they'll be strong enough to break in."
"And what would you know, Merchant!"  It was the woman called Fina Gavino, "You've been here, what - five minutes?  And all of a sudden you know it all?!"
"Calm, Fina." tried Ermete, with a wavering hand.  Fina dropped into a sulk, but spoke no more.  She knew it was pointless, "Just relax.  There's nothing we can do for now."
"There has to be.  I have a family back in -" started Orazio.
"We all have family, you know." cut in Berenice.
"Then why aren't you trying anything you can to get back to them?" continued Orazio.
"It doesn't matter anyway," spoke up Timoteo from the background, "God has chosen this to be our last resting place.  He has decided we are to die here - for what reason I do not know."
"Pah," interrupted Gallo, “It's Italy itself that's to blame!  All the division we have to contend with, all the turmoil, the poor, the very poor and the rich?  It’s how they tread down the common man - force creatures like this upon us!"
Fina snorted, "You're a fool, Gallo.  The people of Italy have brought it upon themselves.  I worked hard for what I got.  These creatures are a product of a diseased society -"
"What are you talking about, with all this blame?" spoke up Berenice, “It's happened.  Things happen.  So, we are trapped here?  It was circumstance that brought us to this place."
"It was fate that brought us here." cut in Giada, "Luck, redemption, call it what you will.  None of us would have found this town if not for the fates to conspire in order to drive us here.  It was meant to be."
"Not true," said Edvige, the last to speak, "It was us, our curiosity, or our need.  It was something.  It was us, and that's the truth of it all."
"Well, I cannot accept any of your arguments," spoke up Orazio, "I have a life, though meagre and despondent at times, and I was very happy with my wife.  You know, she is to have a child?  I will not miss that, simply because I blame, and accept my lot.  No.  I will not - I cannot accept it!"
"Then what do you suggest?" asked Ermete.
"I don't know," admitted Orazio, "But I am going to find out."
Slowly and with meaning, Orazio wandered about the Church, looking for something, anything, that triggered his mind into a solution to the problem.  They couldn't go up, because there was nowhere to go, they couldn't go out the doors or windows, because they would be ripped apart in seconds.  There was only one other option.  Orazio found the entrance to the vaults under the old medieval church, presuming that, through persecution, some intelligent man of the past had created an alternate way out.
Within the hour, Orazio found a partially collapsed tunnel.  Where it led, he did not know.  All he knew was it wasn't here, in this tomb, where he would be waiting to die by the multitude of creatures that bayed for their blood.  Orazio elicited the help of the others with clearing the path.  They too had renewed vigour, finally believing that their salvation had arrived.  It took little over six hours to clear the tunnel and, after a little rest and food, they prepared to venture down, deep down into the tunnel.  It was late afternoon.
Orazio wasn't expecting it when some of the people refused to go through the tunnel, after they had time to reflect on the situation.  It was Timoteo, Berenice, Giada and Ermete who decided they were safer remaining within the Church walls.  Orazio tried desperately to persuade them, but they were adamant.  Ermete admitted to Orazio that he was staying behind to protect the others.  He believed in Orazio's plan, but the altruistic side of Ermete overtook him.  There may have been a little cowardice, or acceptance that was really the power behind his decision, but Orazio couldn't help that.  Orazio wasn't being selfish - he had a family that relied on him.  He had to get back to them, because for him apathy was murder.  So Gallo, Fina, Edvige and Orazio prepared to take that walk into the unknown.
There was a muffled silence to it, packed out with dirt on the walls that surrounded the escapees.  It wound trepidatiously in tight twists, and Orazio presumed it was by design to disorient and confuse the traveller as to their orientation within the town - a defence against an enemy who might have accidentally found this tunnel.  When it did come to an end, Orazio was surprised where it eventually came out.  It was the medieval tower in the town square - and unfortunately they were not alone.
"What do we do now?" asked Fina in forced whisper.  Beyond the door - the fragile, unlocked door - was a handful of the creatures that had given chase to Orazio earlier and surrounded the Church, hungrily.
"Oh God!  We should have stayed in the Church!" said Edvige, a little louder than Orazio would have liked.  Luckily none of the creatures had heard her.
"It's too late now, Edvige.  We are committed." stated Gallo.
"I have an idea." interrupted Orazio, "But I don't think you are going to like it."
Within ten minutes, they were prepared.  Orazio stripped of everything but the lightest clothes, with the others ready at the door with the plan.  Orazio was to be the distraction.  He would set off running, having been quite the sprinter in his youth, and lead the creatures away, so that the others could, when the coast was clear, take to their heels and get out of there.  It was a simple plan, but then all the best ones were.
"I would say good luck, but I think we all need a little faith right now." said Gallo, patting Orazio on the back.  Orazio nodded his thanks, and did the same to the other two.  Edvige and Fina looked quite worried for him, but he knew - he had faith he would see his wife again, so counted one, two, three, before nodding to Gallo, who thrust open the door and let Orazio out of the trap.
He was at full speed within two strides, and he kept running, even knowing that whatever was behind him was enough to spur him on, and that he could never look back, not ever.
Orazio was almost at the arched gateway when he heard the blood curdling screams behind him.  But he couldn't stop.  He couldn't go back.  He saw the road ahead of him and forgot everything other than the face of his wife Velia, spread out along the horizon - his finish line.  And he never stopped running.

#

It must have been close to two weeks when Orazio finally woke.  Somewhere out there on the road he had collapsed from exhaustion.  He was broken and tired, left for dead, when a passing traveller found him face down in the fields, half dressed.  His hair had turned white and he was practically dead when he was found.
He was brought back to his home, where his wife tended to him, until he came around.  And he had the most tremendous story to tell.  The doctors listened, and nodded where appropriate, but they told Velia that Orazio must have suffered some trauma, as he was ranting about creatures trying to kill him, how they trapped him in that Church, how he ran away from them, escaped, but left behind the others - the doctors said he was delusional, and that with a little rest it would pass.
But it didn't.
They became convinced he was mad, or that his brain was irreversibly damaged, but in the end it was his body that simply gave up.
Orazio Bondesan never saw his newborn son, Pietro.  He died within a week of relaying his story of the abandoned town called Verudeccia - located somewhere between Siena and Florence - where the inhabitants had gone missing.  In fact, they had been missing for some time.





THE GRUESOME END
Chernota Cemetery, Omsk, Russia - Circa 1963

Death.  It is the Gruesome End.  And it comes to us all.
For Victor Fellovich it had come sooner that it should have.  And, in some ways, Vasiliy blamed himself.  He should have, though.  It was partly his fault.  And all Vasiliy wanted was forgiveness, from his best friend - for not being there when he needed a friend the most.  Vasiliy couldn't even bring himself to attend the funeral.  Many didn't forgive him for this.  But he was here now.  Better late than never, eh?
Vasiliy took out the black bread and small flask of vodka, which he put on the bench next to him.  He sensed there were other mourners about the graves, but his attention was on Victor's alone.  He looked at the tilled soil, broken apart by recent disturbance.  Vasiliy watched that dirt, hoping, just hoping that Victor's arm would come through it, show it was all a joke, that Victor was fine and they would laugh about it.  But it remained there, unmoved by nothing save the smallest gusts of wind toppling the very tip of the soil, it cascading down the sides like the sinking feeling in Vasiliy's heart as he realised his friend was actually, really, dead.
He broke a bit off the bread and placed it upon the soil, pouring a little of the vodka on it, watching as the liquid cut into the soft soil, taking a long swig and allowing the burning of his throat to be a small admonishment of his actions as a supposed friend to Victor.  Vasiliy's eyes began to well up and a tear threatened to roll down his cheek to the black coat he wore against the cold.
"Chilly, is it not?"
Vasiliy barely heard the voice that spoke to him, "Sorry, what?"
"I said it’s chilly?  I'm certainly glad I brought my big coat today.  May I sit?"  The old man gestured to a spare spot on the bench at which Vasiliy sat.
"If you want." shrugged Vasiliy.  He took another swig of the vodka.  Things were beginning to feel better now the alcohol had warmed his blood.  He was a little dizzy, but that helped with the pain in his head from the loss he couldn't help but feel.
"Mind if I take a tot?" asked the man.  Vasiliy handed him the flask and the man took a good swig himself from it, "Ah!  Warms the cockles, does it not?" smiled the old man.
"What?" said Vasiliy, still distracted, watching that soil, just hoping, waiting.
"A little bit of the old potato juice?  Does one the world of good!"
"If you say so." put in Vasiliy.
"You look sad?" said the old man, suddenly concerned.  Vasiliy turned to look at the man incredulously.
"What?!  Well, I'm sitting beside the grave of my best friend, who is dead!  How do you expect me to feel!?"
"No offence meant, lad.  Just concerned, is all."
"Well." replied Vasiliy, as dismissive as he could muster given the situation.
"You know, I remember the story of a man I once knew, who sat mourning at his best friends grave?  Want to hear it?"
"Do I have a choice?" said Vasiliy, still too sad to just up and leave this strange man, who laughed.
"Well, I should tell you that they call me many things - sometimes Nastoyatel - but mostly they call me Chelovek Starshe Vremeni.  Oh, but you can call me Chelovek.  It suits me, I think."  Chelovek nudged Vasiliy gently, but he was barely listening.  Sat next to the old man though, he had little choice but to hear.

#

It was a year or two after the October Revolution, and the country had changed somewhat.  Opportunities arose for the entrepreneurial, if shady dealings were your business.  See, there remained that subdivide of the rich and poor, despite the Communist intentions.  One such fellow was a Friend of mine.  Let's call him Josef.
Josef ran with and for the wrong people, and I could see it, yet I did nothing about it.  He would deal in drugs, in stolen goods - even guns.  There were many service weapons about at that time, so they weren't hard to come by.  Well, as it turned out, my friend Josef was all set to take a part in a big job, one that would potentially set him up in the glorious Mother Russia for the foreseeable future.  The bits and pieces of the parts to be played in this job are largely immaterial, suffice to say Josef truly worked for his cut, even if the work he did was shady to say the least.  I don't know, right or wrong, there is a moral code we all live by, and once that code is broken, so are the promises - so are the ties that bind.  As though it needs to be said, Josef, my friend, was stiffed out of his share.
At first he accepted it, trying to be the better man.  But it ate at him, over weeks, as he would venture about the City, learning he was being laughed at from all corners.  He was tricked, the poor man.  For honour, he wanted revenge, so he took a rifle from his collection and made for the man who had cruelly tricked him out of enough money to be safe and comfortable in the turbulent times of the early Soviet Union.  I could have stopped him, I really could.  But I didn't.  I foolishly let my friend walk into a nest of trouble.
So there Josef found himself, outside the block where this perpetrator lived.  Now I have to admit, all the facts are not at my hands, Soviet Russia being what it is and was.  What I do know is it fell into a shoot out with Soldiers, where my friend Josef was gunned down.  They say he fell with fifty-three bullet holes.  All I know is I lost a friend - a friend I could have saved.
You see, that man who sat at his friend's grave was me.  I felt regret, remorse for what I could have done but didn't.  See, I understand your plight; I understand why you sit here with regret and remorse -

#

"I'm not sure I said anything about either of those things." cut in Vasiliy.  The flask was almost empty and he really wished he had more.  A time like this deserved self pity, at least for Vasiliy.
Chelovek patted Vasiliy's arm compassionately and smiled, "Maybe if you tell me why you sit here, the pain may lessen?"
Vasiliy was unconvinced, but he did feel he needed to talk to someone.  Maybe a stranger would be the best candidate, "My name's Vasiliy.  Him down there is Victor, the one man I felt deserved it enough for me to call him my best friend.  Now he's dead, and -"
"Vasiliy.  Calm.  Just the facts, eh?" cut in the old man, a little abruptly.  The smile quickly returned, though, forgiving his outburst.

#

Well, Victor had lent this other guy money - quite a bit - and though he had promised to pay Victor back, when time came, the guy refused.  A bit like your friend, he sat around and slowly convinced himself this guy was laughing at him.  Victor had a short temper, once or twice he would even flare up at me.  But we had been friends for many years and I often dismissed his anger with a laugh.  This day, he was serious.  This day, he meant it.
We set off in his car, heading for the home of this guy.  Initially I thought he was just going to talk to the guy, rant at him, try and make him see the error of his ways, but it quickly turned deadly.  Victor took out his Father's old Service Revolver.  I was shocked.  Victor waved it around, saying it was loaded and he would kill the son of a bitch right on his own doorstep.  I tried to persuade Victor against doing this.  The argument got heated, and soon we were wrestling over the gun.  I tried to take it from him, and we were flying all over the road.  Suddenly the gun went off and it took out the windscreen.  It was then we saw the verge and the slope, as the car's wheels ran off the road and took us hurtling to the bottom, where we crashed into an icy river.  The car overturned and began to sink.  We grabbed at our belts, trying to free ourselves.  My lungs were burning and I desperately needed air.  I fought and fought, until I was eventually free.  But Victor was still trapped, the steering wheel holding him into the driver's seat.  I tugged once or twice at him, trying to pull him free.  He thrashed and pulled at me.  We were drowning!  Victor had gone into a panic and fists were flying.  I was dying and wanted just to breathe in!  We were dying!  And I - I left him!  Oh God!  I left him and saved myself!  Victor!  Oh, no, no, no!  What did I do?  I should have stopped him!  I could have stopped him and I didn't!  Then what did I do?  I left my best friend to die, to drown!  They said not to blame myself!  They said it was an accident!  But I knew!  I knew what I did!

#

Vasiliy was a wreck, in floods of tears, now kneeling upon the cold wet grass about his friend's grave.
Chelovek was relentless, "How does it make you feel, Vasiliy?  Do you regret?"
Vasiliy turned a tear-stained face to Chelovek, "Of course I regret!  How could you be so cruel -"
"Is that all?  Is that all you feel, Vasiliy?"
"Well, I - I -"
"Come on, Vasiliy!  Say it!  Say the words!"  There was a thunderous nature to the tone of the old man, and the air about him seemed to shiver.  Vasiliy could feel the word begging to be released, trapped at the back of his throat, scratching, punching its way through.
"Okay!  I feel remorse!  Damn it, I'm remorseful, alright?  You evil, piece of -"
But Vasiliy was cut short.  Even as the old man - the Chelovek Starshe Vremeni - laughed like a grave-robber, it happened.
Just on the periphery of Vasiliy's vision came at first the hand, then the arm, thrust out of the soft soil covering Victor's grave, reaching ever skyward.  The old man's laughter fell into memory as that arm pulled on the invisible rope tied to the clouds and extended to its full height, of eight foot at least.
But whatever it was that came out of that grave, it certainly wasn't Victor.  It grabbed the crouched Vasiliy, holding him up, as the dark cloak unfurled and the mouth opened wide, to show rows upon rows of sharp teeth.
And the creature chittered.
And ate.





THE FREAKY CIRCUS 
Benferry, New Jersey, USA - Circa 1956


**Interview with Mervin P. Dearsipe**

They considered us as a Flea-bag, fireball outfit; a mud circus.  We certainly wasn't no pickled punk show, I can tell you that.  But what happened back there in Benferry, in Jersey, I don't know - you might not believe me.  But I know what I saw, and you ain't gonna tell me otherwise.
So we had a few shills working the Horse Opera, 'cause it wasn't bringing in the natives - well, not enough.  It was a good show, sure enough, but you know, what with TV, we was rising on our uppers a bit.  A number of times Frettle, the Owner and Ringmaster, had me and others in the Red Wagon, trying to get fresh ideas out there.  I mean I was working hard as a beginning Joey, working as a roustabout when not in the Big One, so I was considered mostly a junior, but Frettle, he was a good man.  He listened to us lower types, you know?  Took a good idea as a good idea, no matter where it come from?
Well, we was told of a travelling troupe of players, eager to find a Show to belong to.  Most of us had never heard of them, but Dresgray, the Bull Trainer, he said he heard they got real good reviews and such.  So, good old Frettle, he put the word out to them to come meet us in Benferry, our next town.
They was a fine bunch, to be sure, but they kept themselves to themselves.  Happens alot with close troupes like theirs.  Never came out during the day, only at night, and only then fully clothed, dark cloaks hugging them, faces turned.  Still, if they brought in the natives, who cared?  As long as we didn't fold, then everything would be fine.  At least so we thought.
The troupe, they called themselves the Faldini's Flying Family, a mix of that rope stuff, webs and trapeze - some floor stuff too, though I never found out what.  They were planned to go on the next night.  For some reason they dukey run away from the rest of us, out by the donikers.  Never found this out either.  Suspicion was they was just fireballs, chancing their arm.  Whatever, 'cause the House was full that night.
I'm still not completely sure of what went on that night, but I can tell you what Willie Sinstrum, the old Joey, told me, from what he saw under the bleachers.  So take it for what it is, but I believed him, and he never not once changed his story, not even on the day he died.
So here it is.
The House was full, like I said, and there was a buzz in the air, like they were up for it.  We never went to Benferry before, but we were sure before all this, we would come again.  Maybe for a full season, we thought.  Well - anyway.  So Frettle, he announces the Faldini's into the Big Show, and off Frettle goes to his place up back, in the back yard.  He liked to smoke a few in between acts, see?  So the Faldini's, they begin their act - a bit of balancing here, a bit of the high wire there, then out come their people, out among the natives.
Of course, Willie had seen this trick before, the old distraction thing - focus on the performance, while the act go out stealing from the natives.  Except Willie, he sees no such stealing.  He's getting suspicious, about to go call Frettle, when suddenly this thing, Willie says, with sharp face and big teeth, drops in front of him, opening its big dark cloak, blocking out Willie's sight.
Of course Willie don't move.  He was no stupid man.  He watched as this creature sniffed the air, made some chittering sound - rose up eight feet it did.  When the creature moved, Willie looked out.  No Faldini's.  No natives.  Willie promised he wasn't drinking that night, and I'm sure he wasn't, 'cause he wasn't the only one to have seen them creatures.  They were seen scurrying out by the guys, out into the back yard, away into the night.
No one could say what they were, where they came from, and what happened to the Faldini's and the natives.  There was an investigation, but a known drunkard clown of rising years was apparently not a good witness.  But like I said, I know what I saw.  'Cause I seen one of them too.  It ran off past me that night, as I was pleasing a native girl behind the Office, but I was too involved to pay that much attention.  So I saw one of them, believe me or not.
It wasn't the only time that happened, neither.  Five years later I heard of another Circus that stopped at Benferry.  House was full, just like that night.  The performers and the natives disappeared that night too.  Just vanished into thin air, like a magic trick, or something.


**Extract From 'Carnivals and Circuses; The Mysterious Tales of the Early 20th Century Roadshows’ By F. B. Werst - All Rights Reserved**




IMPURE
Mallidina, Spain - Circa 1843

Tomas de Torquemada, the Spanish Dominican Friar, had set his Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition against the Crypto-Jews some fifteen years previously - the command to convert the Jews, Protestants and Muslims or force them to leave Spain.  If it had only been this way, and nothing else had occurred, this story would never have been told.
In Mallidina, a fair sized village, the Inquisition had rolled in, where Alfonso Cazador had set up office in the local Boarding House, owned by the Honesto Family, where he set about his Crown-sanctioned business unheeded.  A less than delightful backdrop it was to the drama that carried on elsewhere, because there remained the young man, Cristian Valiente, forever devoted to Amalia Verdad, his betrothed.
But there was a rival to his affections; Gaspar Audaz.  Gaspar was ruthless in his pursuit, being more affluent and a better catch, he would approach Señor Verdad, appeal to his better, greedier nature.  But nothing could break the couple's hold on each other.  Gaspar would try, but Cristian would always find his way back to Amalia eventually.  And she loved him for it, even if her family honour demanded the better match - in fact, her Father insisted upon it.  So would be the eternal struggle of love and duty, which blighted any time and any age of man.
There was something in motion, however, that nobody but Gaspar Audaz could see.  And it would come, soon, dropping Cristian Valiente's world into a sinkhole of despair and ultimate loss; from something he could not ever escape from - the inevitable darkness.
They came for Cristian then, early one morning.  They dragged him undressed through the village to full effect.  Those awake, like the Baker and the Delivery Boy, watched astounded as this gentle man they knew was pulled through the street near-naked, to the Boarding House, where sat Alfonso Cazador, ready and waiting for Cristian to arrive.  The Guards who had brought Cristian heavily through the Village thrust him upon a wooden seat in front of the Inquisitor.
"Cristian Valiente?" asked Cazador, reading from a piece of paper.
"Why am I here?" asked Cristian, still the reasonable one, in spite of his treatment up to now.
"I ask the questions.  You have been accused of -"
"What is this?" insisted Cristian, increasingly confused.
"You have been accused of wilful acts of blasphemy, sodomy and not to mention heresy, that you did on the twenty seventh of August, decry the name of Our Lord to several at witness, and did knowingly engage in oral copulation with the wife of a well known local Merchant.  Of all these crimes, heresy is the most abhorrent.  How do you plead?"
Cristian had simply stared incredulously at this man while he had reeled out a concoction of utter fabrication.  Cristian could not immediately find the words.  When he did, he denied the accusations quite strenuously.
Alfonso Cazador snorted at this, "You will confess, if it takes us all night!"
"Confess to that stream of utter filth and lies?  Never!" spat Cristian Valiente at his accuser.
"As you wish." smiled Cazador, indicating for the Guards to restrain Cristian while he went to his travelling trunk, opened it, and took out a roll of leather.  He unfurled it.  Inside were all manner of instruments of torture.  And so Cristian Valiente's torment began.
For a week, Cristian took all that Cazador could force upon him.  Cristian was refused visits from his beloved, even one from Gaspar Audaz.  Cristian was beaten until there was practically nothing left of him.  Eventually he gave Cazador what he wanted - a confession.  Within a short enough period of time, Cristian Valiente was removed from the Boarding House and taken to the Village Square, where a pyre had been built, awaiting the heretic.  People screamed his name as he was led there.  And almost all the calls were accusatory.  These people were simple folk, and availed themselves of the adage that there is never smoke without fire.  How they looked at Cristian, and admonished themselves for being taken in by the deceptive, sinful man they once called friend.  Amalia Verdad was kept away from the event by her Father, but it did not prevent her from crying for a month solid.  After that there were no tears, as none of them had extinguished the fire that set about Cristian's body and face, as he screamed in indeterminable pain at being burned alive.  Once it was over, the ashes were removed and buried at the crossroads outside of town.
And so, slowly, the Village of Mallidina went back to normal, only slightly marred by the events that became more and more distant as the months rolled by.  The further time spread from those events, the less the people remembered about the circumstances of what happened.  Even the Inquisitor had moved on.  So, in fact, did Amalia Verdad.
Duty bound, and having no alternative, she relented in the marriage to Gaspar Audaz.  He turned out to be quite a generous man, romantic in some ways, and slowly their lives turned where they grew, in some ways happy.  Fairly soon, even the ones who should have remembered Cristian, and held his memory close to their heart, forgot it all, putting it down to the folly of youth - a doomed love affair, and now set on the right path.  How it should be.  Practically, without noticing, ten years passed in Mallidina without incident.
Then he returned; the revenant.

#

Amalia was sad, because Gaspar, her husband, had been called away.  One of his Uncles had died, and it was left to him to sort out the estate.  Gaspar didn't particularly remember much about Uncle Fidel, but duty was duty, and he packed to leave.  Amalia waved him tearily away and returned to the porch of their house, on the outskirts of Mallidina, as the carriage took her husband away - the first time they had been parted in those ten years of marriage.  
It was a commendable thing about the couple, that they were inseparable and very much in love.  But as Amalia watched him go, she thought she saw someone else watching her from the line of trees to the west.  The eyes that watched her, she soon realised, were of some kind of animal, so she better close up the house, just in case it was dangerous.  There were many bears just on the foothills, but they never came to the Village.  Perhaps this was a rogue one, chancing its arm at a new food source.  Whatever it was, though, it felt menacing - deeply menacing, like it desired her, for food, presumably.
Gaspar was, however, on his trip to the great Audaz Homestead, in the north.  There was much commotion upon his approach, and one of his Cousins came out on horse to greet the carriage, "Gaspar!  We tried to reach you during the journey.  Uncle Radolfo and Aunt Freda were taken in the night.  Come!"  The rider gestured for Gaspar to follow in the carriage.  Once alighted, Gaspar followed his Cousin into the barn, "It was here, I swear it was!  Six, seven, maybe eight foot it towered!  I saw it run in here, then, even as I followed, it disappeared!  Into thin air!  That's impossible, isn't it?"
"You were perhaps struck with grief?" suggested Gaspar.
"I know what I saw!  Even you!?  Even you don't believe me!?"
"Samuel, it's not that I don't -"
"Forget it!  I know what I saw!" said Samuel, throwing his hands up and exiting the barn, making for the house.  Gaspar followed.
Once at the house, Gaspar was greeted by other members of his extended family; Cousins, Second Cousins, Aunts and Uncles - it seemed the whole family had come to grieve over old Uncle Fidel.  They explained about the other disappearances, how Samuel's rantings had a modicum of truth to them.  They were in the midst of setting up a hunting party, to hunt down the beast, to which they were all in accordance - it had been a bear of some sort, come from the south.  They had found odd tracks from that direction, and though they weren't exactly the same as a bears, it was enough of a logical assumption.  So Gaspar took up a spare gun and joined in with his family.  They broke into three groups of four and set out into the chilly afternoon to hunt the creature back to its cave.
Gaspar found himself in a group with Samuel, a Second Cousin called Rodrigo, and Rodrigo's Father, Hector.  They searched to the east, with little to no luck.  Eventually they stopped for a rest, built a small fire and sat about it, warming themselves as the sun was falling behind the trees and hills.
"You know, it is good to see you, Gaspar, even if it has to be in these terrible circumstances." expressed Hector, pouring from a pot some coffee.
"I know, Uncle.  I thought I was only coming back to help bury poor Fidel."  Gaspar took the tin mug from Hector and sipped the hot liquid.
"Oh, Gaspar!  You should have seen him!  His face was frozen in fright, even as his chest was ripped apart by that vile beast!  I think it was scared off, because it did not finish the job.  Fidel was a good man.  He didn't deserve what that animal did to him.  Still, it must have been quick -"  Hector was cut short as they all heard it.  A scream, that tore through the trees, which grabbed the soul and shook it.  Gaspar got to his feet.
"What was that?!" asked Samuel, astounded.
"It may be nothing.  It was perhaps -" began Hector.  He was again cut short by another scream.  Then another, and another.  Each was slightly different in pitch.
“It's one of the other groups!" shouted Gaspar, as he began to run in the direction of those blood curdling screams.  Hector quickly followed, as did the other two, Samuel bringing up the rear.
Within a minute or two, Gaspar's group reached the clearing where the screaming had come from.  There was alot of blood, but no sign of the other group, "Where are they?" asked Samuel.
"I - don't know." expressed Gaspar.  He walked over to the blood, "It's not human.  Oh God!  What's happened?"  There was a rustle behind Gaspar, and as he turned to see what it was, he caught a glimpse as Samuel was dragged away without a sound.  Seconds later, his head came rolling between Gaspar's feet.  He naturally jumped back at the shock.  Samuel's mouth was open nearly as wide as his eyes.  There was a witnessed horror behind those dead organs.  Hector grabbed his son and began turning on the spot, looking about him for a sign of the creature that would do this.  Gaspar then spotted something beyond Hector and his son, in the trees - a misshapen shadow.  It was at least eight foot high, and had the most disturbing eyes of any creature Gaspar had ever seen, in person and in myth.  The eyes were hungry, but not for blood, nor food, nor - particularly - sport.  There was a distinct emotion attached to those eyes; hatred, revenge and desperation.
Gaspar began to run, even as the creature swooped Hector and his son into its dark black wings.  Rodrigo, Hector's son, came flying past Gaspar, hitting a tree with a terrible, painful crunch.  Hector's scream could be heard, though it was shortened by a snap of jaws upon his throat.  And all Gaspar could hear were the gathering, speeding footfalls of the creature as it chased him down.
Gaspar broke through the covering of trees.  He could see the Homestead, which had once seemed so close, now felt like it was a thousand miles away.  One foot automatically followed the other as Gaspar ran for the house, his mind working at capacity, unable to calculate the logic of what he saw and what was going to happen to him now.  But as he approached the house, he could see a scene it must have been impossible to comprehend.
Blood swilled in pools about the courtyard, thick and dark like it had been thrown quickly from the body.  That wasn't all.  Windows had been smashed, with massively cut bodies thrust through them, as though they had been carelessly discarded by a maddened beast filled with rage.  Body parts had been thrown through similarly destroyed doors.  Gaspar looked behind him, to see if the beast that had been chasing him down approached.  There was no sign.
Gaspar ran inside the house and tried to seal the doors and windows.  He eventually found himself in a second floor bedroom.  Inside was Aunt Maria.  She was desperately trying to hold her insides in, despite the massive cut that extended from groin to chest.  Gaspar ran to her aid, but was dumbfounded as to what he could achieve.
"Gaspar!  You have to leave!  Now!  It will come back for you!" she spluttered the words barely comprehendingly.
"What did this?" asked Gaspar.
"It was a creature that appeared as a man.  He came to the door, and he asked for you."
"A man?  Did he give his name?"
"Yes.  He said he was Cristian Valiente, and that you owed him.  Am I dying, Gaspar?"
But Gaspar didn't answer.  He got to his feet and ran down the stairs, finding the first horse he could saddle and set off, heading south.  If it was Cristian, he would surely be after Amalia.  Gaspar pleaded to everything most holy, "Please let me make it in time!"

#

Gaspar rode the night, pushing the horse to its death in his efforts.  He ran the rest of the way back to his home on the outskirts of Mallidina, where, upon approach, he saw the door to the house had been ripped off its hinges.  Gaspar ran inside, breathless, picking up a walking stick as he did, which he waved before him.  But Amalia was not there.  Was he too late?  Had Cristian returned to claim his love?  Was she dead?  Oh God!  Don't let her be dead!?
"Gaspar, my old, old friend." spoke a voice full of the dirt of the grave.  Gaspar turned to see the face of this thing.
"It is you, Cristian!  And you don't look any older than you did -"
"When I was burned alive?  Funny how that happened, isn't it, Gaspar?  Tortured for a week.  Tormented for months.  Burned alive.  You have no concept of the pain and suffering I have had to endure, while you and Amalia lived like perfect lovers, even as my ashes grew cold!"
"Where is she?!" insisted Gaspar.
Cristian laughed, which sounded more like the chuckles of a chittering beast, "Don't you know?  Shouldn't you know where your perfect wife is?"
"If you've killed her -"
"Then you will do what?  You saw how I systematically destroyed every member of your family?  Mothers, Fathers, Uncles, Aunts, Sons and Daughters?  I spared no one, not even the family hound, nor the cat that perched upon the fence.  I left you a horse so that you could come home, meet our retribution where it all started."
"What do you hope to accomplish from all this, Cristian?" asked Gaspar, getting more and more desperate.
"Accomplish?  Revenge, of course!  I am the revenant, Gaspar!  I am the avenging spirit!"
"But Amalia -"
"I plan to eat her, slowly, while you watch, Gaspar.  Then I will break every bone in your body before I snap those limbs from you, and finally drink your blood as you slowly die.  It is no less than you deserve."
"But - may I make a bargain?"
The beast chittered, "A bargain?  You have nothing to bargain with!"
"Take my body and soul, just as you say, but if you have any compassion remaining for Amalia, please, I beg you, don't kill her?  She loved you, I know, and I stole her from you, but we made a life, and a good one.  With you, she would have never been fully happy."
"We shall never know, Gaspar, because you made me a heretic, an impure soul, just for your lust."
"I know!  I admit that, and yes, I deserve to die horribly and slowly, but not her?  Not Amalia?  She did nothing but follow her Father's wish!  You cannot condemn her for fulfilling her duty?"
"Your words have merit, though they thrust from the mouth of a sewer."
"Please?" asked Gaspar, all his faith pinning on how truthful his plea was.
"What's this?  Cristian?  Is that you?"  It seemed Amalia had been out and returned home, following an errand, "How can it be you?  You burned?"
"Amalia!  Run!  Go!  It is no longer Cristian!  It is something else, using the face of one you once knew!"
"But -" Amalia was frozen to the spot.
Cristian first looked to Amalia, then to Gaspar, then back to Amalia, before he spoke, quite clearly, "That is where you are wrong, Gaspar.  I am both the creature and Cristian.  And I am a man of my word."  Cristian took one last longing look at Amalia, before his incredibly impossible mouth opened and began to tear at Gaspar, breaking his bones, taking his limbs and drinking his blood.
And all through it, Amalia stood by the broken door, horror clutched to her features as she watched the dismantling of Gaspar Audaz, right before her eyes.  Once the beast was finished, Cristian stood and walked out the door, not before pausing and looking into Amalia's eyes.  He saw horror, certainly, but he also saw loss, pain, suffering - and Amalia looked back into Cristian's eyes.
All she saw was blackness.
And Cristian Valiente disappeared into the ether.





THE CURSE OF KALI 
Near Sonhat, Chhattisgarh, India - Circa 1887


My dear Nephew!I write this letter to you on a sunny day in August of 1887, as the beautiful and colourful flowers have come out to greet me in my garden, from my vantage point on my porchway where I sit and write this to you.I remember upon my last trip to England that you remarked about perhaps one day coming out to India, to partake of the sights and sounds?  How fare your adventures in the distant parts of Africa?  I remember your Mother once saying to me, "Reggie, my son is taking too much after you.  Off adventuring here and there, and without a by your leave, if you can believe that?"  I told her, I said, "Marigold?  He is a Thomas, and we Thomas's like to stretch our legs!"  Well, you yourself know the outcome of that!Now to the matter at hand.  I have a proposition for you, if you are willing to hear it?  I have a business partner, called Tony Medfore as you know.  He has heard tell of this undiscovered area, supposedly an ancient holy sight, called Jagah.  You will not have heard of it, so there is no use you looking it up!  The locals have warned him off it, but it sounds too intriguing not to set about exploring the area.  Who knows, there could be treasure abundant, just waiting for someone to rediscover it!  Now to the offer; I am advancing in years, into my seventy first year, if you can believe that!  I cannot venture any more with the spirit I once had, of a man say of your age.  So what I suggest is that you come out here, come and see your old Uncle, and have an adventure while your here!  How does that sound?  The full details I will relay to you once you arrive.I await your reply avidly!

#

Alistair Thomas Esquire alighted the carriage as it pulled up outside his Uncle's palatial home.  The heat was near unbearable, more intense than it had been in Africa, but of course there the population wasn't as dense and the buildings didn't crowd as much, stifling the air and mingling with the strong spices that permeated everything upon the roads, the boats, the carriages - even the clothes and skin of the citizens.
"I am here to see my Uncle.  Is he in?" enquired Alistair, to the first man he came to.  The man didn't speak any English, and the smattering of Urdu and Hindi Alistair had learned on the boat to India was barely enough to have seen him travel to this point.  Alistair simply thanked the man and walked up to the house regardless.  It was getting late and Alistair didn't much want to explore the possibility of Hotel-hunting at this late hour.  Alistair simply entered the house and found the first soft spot to sleep upon.  The servants just left him to it.
He was gently awoken the next day, around eight, by a lady who was gently tapping his arm, "Breakfast?" she expressed once Alistair had opened his eyes.  He thanked her gratefully and followed her to the porch of the house, where was laid out tureens full of the fare of Traditional English Breakfasts.  While Alistair tucked into the luscious food, a middle aged Indian man sat next to him at the table that looked out across the garden, to the self-same flowers his Uncle had mentioned in the letter.  The man introduced himself.
"My name is Mahesh Bharata.  I assist your Uncle.  Oh, he prefers not to refer to us as servants," explained Mahesh at the puzzled look on Alistair's face, "He calls us employees, or assistants.  But now for the reason of interrupting the breaking of your fast.  Your Uncle is not here.  He has left, seeking out this place he should not go to."
"Should not?" asked Alistair.
"I told him of the cursed land, but he insisted.  There are ancient stories of that place, which cause even one such as I to dare not speak its name out loud.  There are creatures believed to be there, that tear, cut, bite and sting.  No one ever returns from there.  Never.  They say the creatures are eight feet tall, with rows of sharp teeth, bathed in darkness, and born of the same.  Regardless, he insisted he had to go.  I believe that is where he is now.  He left this note for you, in fact."  Mahesh took an immaculately folded note from his pocket and handed it to Alistair, "So now I will leave you to your meal."  Mahesh Bharata then stood and bowed to Alistair before leaving to return to the interior of the house.
Alistair unfolded the note.  It was in his Uncle's usual scrawl, "I'm sorry, I could not wait.  Too much to do, too much to see.  I will wait at the outskirts of Jagah for as long as I am able.  Hope to see you there - Reginald Thomas."

#

Alistair Thomas wasted no time.  He was already packed for adventure, and with a little finesse, hired three men to show him the way - the best guides money could buy.  Akash, Gopala and Kailash were well used to dealing with Westerners and so the beginning of the adventure was smooth sailing.
The transport took them to the edge of the jungle, by way of the roads and rivers.  They travelled the large plain, known as the rice-bowl of India - named after the numerous rice fields of the District.  To the east, the Mahanadi River flowed.  To the north, the land rose, merging with the Chota Nagpur Plateau that extended further to the north east across Jharkhand state.  To the north west lay the Maikal Hills and to the south was the dense forests, not to mention the Deccan Plateau.
"We approach the jungle." expressed Akash Damodar, as they trekked the non-deciduous vegetation of greenery, hacking their way further into the interior of the forest, with the aid of a machete.
"We camp here tonight, then," said Alistair, taking his pack from his back and beginning to clear the ground, "First light tomorrow, we find my Uncle's trail."  The three others followed suit with Alistair, themselves divesting of their burdens and prepared the camp.
They had been in the jungle proper for less than a half dozen miles before Alistair began to notice these unusual straw doll type contraptions, made crudely from fallen wood and scrap cloth.  The thing it represented looked long, with long limbs and an almost insect like body.  It piqued Alistair's curiosity.
"They are made by the Panjapantha.  They are a warning." explained Akash, turning to answer Alistair's question.
"Panjapantha?" asked Alistair.
"I take it you know of the Curse of Kali?" began Akash.
Alistair nodded, "An assistant of my Uncle informed me of it, yes.  But I did not know the name of the cult."
"Oh, they are no cult, my friend.  They protect the people from the creatures.  They are Guardians, Protectors."
"Yet we continue toward Jagah.  Superstition holds no fear for me."
Akash smiled and slapped Alistair on the back, "That is fortunate then." he chuckled.
They pushed on, deeper within the large leaves and tall trees, providing a canopy cover so that not one ray of sunlight could shine through, yet the moisture was thick in the air as the humidity took the precious water from Alistair's body.
The group stopped for a few minutes while Alistair walked a little away from the other three, to fill his canteen once again from the trickling stream.  He was really beginning to miss the dry heat of Africa right at that moment, when something rustled the bushes in front of Alistair.  He froze naturally and watched carefully as a tiger sauntered out of the thick green bush.  It didn't notice at first the human crouched by its watering spot.
Alistair couldn't move.
The six to seven foot animal slapped its big heavy paws upon the water playfully, lowering its head to sip of the water.  Then it noticed Alistair.  The head rose angrily and the jaws snapped at him as he fell backwards, while the large dangerous paw having its claws extended, swiped at the vanished head of Alistair.  Alistair knew that it would only take one bite, one swipe of those claws to kill him.  Fear, that compelled him to run away and made his pulse rise, tensed his muscles and pumped the adrenaline about his system to make his eyes open wider than his voiceless mouth could in that instant.  Alistair simply waited for the mortal strike to come.
But just at that moment, Akash, Kailash and Gopala broke through a nearby bush, yelling and waving sticks about their head.  It surprised the tiger, which snarled and ran away, until it could work out what was attacking it.
Akash reached a hand out to help Alistair to his feet, "Thank you.  If you hadn't come at that moment, I might have been dead."
Akash smiled, "Then look upon us as your saviours."  Alistair patted the man warmly on the shoulder and the group moved on - Alistair now slightly on edge - further into the jungle.  The further they ventured, the more often they saw those odd little stick and material dolls.  Those cultists certainly wanted to make their point very clear - you are not welcome.  But the jungle's hospitality was about to be tested.
It was nearing dusk and the paths in the forest would be hidden, even for the greatest of guides.  Fortunately, the group came upon a village, built into a clearing.  The stars were beginning to shine and the canopy of the sky took on the form of a beautifully painted canvas.
Upon entering the village, a number of men, dressed in little more than cloth, came to them and began some kind of diatribe, none of which Alistair understood.  Even with his basic understanding of the language, the thousands of dialects would be too difficult to traverse.  Thankfully, Akash understood and translated for Alistair.
"He asks if you are related to the White Man who came through the village less than a week ago." explained Akash.
"Tell him I am, and that it is this man I seek."
"He says that you would do best to forget the White Man and return to your White Lands." shrugged Akash.
"Please tell him that I appreciate his guidance, but I have to push on and find my Uncle.  Ask him if we can perhaps avail of his hospitality for the night, after which we will leave his village alone." said Alistair.
"He says that you can stay for one night only, but after then you must leave and never come back.  He says some of the villagers are worried by the appearance of these Ghosts and that it would mean bad luck.  He said he could not vouch for everyone in the village."
"Tell him thank you, and that his hospitality is much appreciated."  The man then led the four of them to a hut just on the edge of the village.  He told them that the previous occupant was cursed and so was his home, but seeing as Alistair was a Ghost, he shouldn't worry too much about it.  Alistair was just thankful to have somewhere relatively safe to sleep for the night.  That was good enough right now.
When morning had broken, Alistair, as an early riser, came out of the hut door to stretch and take in the morning sun.  Already he was being watched.  Some of the villagers passed, mostly whispering behind their hands curiously at the Ghost in their midst.  Two children stood on the rough dirt track, staring at Alistair as he squinted in the sharpness of the sunlight.
"Panjapantha?" asked Alistair of the children.  They looked to each other, then ran off screaming.  Alistair shrugged, "It's only a word?" he remarked to himself.  Fairly soon after, the three guides were ready and it was time to set off.  As the group walked through the village, they became flanked by more and more of those villagers, until it seemed the whole place had come to see them off.  But the look on the faces showed a stern visage, a look that said they were glad to see the back of these strangers and the White Man Ghost.  They came as far as the edge of the village and no further.  Alistair and the other three men disappeared into the jungle then, moving closer to their target.
The trees were becoming thicker and closer together.  If their roots did not need to spread out so much for sustenance, then those trees might very well touch, creating an impenetrable barrier to the rest of the jungle.  As it was, the thick green bushes tried their best.  But eventually those large leaf coverings revealed something of the greater Indian History; that of Religion.
The ruins of a carefully and precisely built temple sat entangled in the greenery that reclaimed its land from the stone slabs, as all life eventually would.  The walls were strong, where they hadn't been smashed over decades by the ever growing root, and the walls showed reliefs of the worship of some God or other, wrapped all round the building.
Akash nodded, "It is always the same.  People form beliefs about some higher being, or the idea that there is spirit in the animal that is divine in some way.  This, like hundreds of other religions have died out, some centuries ago; some even longer.  There are dozens of such temples in similar destruction about this forest." he explained.
Alistair listened, but became distracted by something he spotted near the broken entrance, "Wait!  What's this?”   There were signs of a camp, at least a day or two old.  Some pots and pans had been left, and a flask that at one time contained Brandy had the initials RT punched into the silver.  Alistair recognised it.  His Mother had gifted it to his Uncle one Christmas.  Alistair pocketed it, "Good!  We are on the right path, then!" expressed Alistair to the world at large.  The group pushed on deeper inside the jungle.  After some time, Akash came up to Alistair and whispered in his ear.
"We are being followed - don't look round!"
"How do you know?" asked Alistair, keeping his head facing forward.
"I sensed them.  I don't know who they are, but I know they are matching speed with us and keeping to the bushes."  Alistair could do no more than nod and continue on.  Alistair thought he could sense them also now, but suspected that was more likely the feeling of anticipation that raised the hackles on the back of the neck.  When they set up camp that night, all about them they could hear whoops and rustling, shouts and noises made to appear supernatural - as unearthly sounds.  Alistair himself fell into a fitful sleep where he dreamed of tigers with dark markings and eight foot men with spears.
Alistair was still tired when morning came.  The noises had gone, and it seemed so had the people following them.  They struck camp and pushed on.
Going was variable.  Sometimes the ground was hard, sometimes soft and slippery.  Often the bushes and trees would be thick, other times large holes appeared in the tree canopy and the sun fought to heat the ground.  Within half the day they had covered more surface than they had managed in the previous two days, until they suddenly came to an opening in the trees in front of them.  There dropped a valley, where within another few hours walking, a temple struck out skyward from the thick green covering below.
"That is Jagah." informed Akash, pointing at the temple.  The other two guides crossed themselves in some kind of sign for protection.  A little further down, the path flanked on both sides with those dolls, they came to a camp, where bits and pieces of equipment stood around where they had been left, along with the tents and packs abandoned.  Alistair looked around the camp until he found his Uncle's tent.  Inside there was what looked like a patch of dried blood on the floor, next to a journal.  Alistair picked it up and read the last entry, "Going tomorrow into the deepest part of the jungle, that place the locals call Jagah.  The wallahs will not follow, but I have every confidence I am right."  It was dated the day before.  So, he was here!  But what of the blood?  Alistair thought to himself that it would be more sensible to be cautious at this point.  He informed the other three that they would stay here, rest, and when the sun broke, their path would be in search of Uncle Reggie.
But Alistair couldn't sleep, not a wink.  He kept looking at the blood stain and speculated over what had happened.  He sat by the burning fire, listening to the three guides comfortably snore the night away.  As soon as the sun rose, Alistair instructed the others to only take the absolute minimum with them as they ventured down the valley to the temple of Jagah.
They trod cautiously down the track, which was criss-crossed with exposed roots of the non-deciduous trees that lined the walkway.  At one point, they came to a flimsy rope bridge, built over the fast flowing river a hundred feet below.  The bridge creaked and swung with each careful stride, but the four of them managed to safely traverse it.  Once on the other side, the path became more affirmative - man-made and certain to lead to somewhere; a place destined for man's feet.
There was an eerie quiet all about, like nature avoided this place.  The only sounds were the crack of wood, and some odd chittering sound.  Alistair put it down to wind running through the trees and forcing one branch to rub against another; but there was no wind to speak of.  The air was as still as the sounds of nature were absent.  It must have been Alistair's unnatural curiosity that led him on, when any sane man would have fled.  The bushes began to rustle a little the deeper the group ventured in.  Fairly soon, Alistair spotted the stone temple of Jagah, poking off-white out of the ever encompassing green.  This just spurred him on, pushed him onward to discovery.  And then they turned a corner.
Ahead was a stripped tree trunk.  It was bereft of all bark, cut at the three quarter point.  But it wasn't that which gripped Alistair's attention.  It was the remains of a human being tied to that tree still, surrounded by offerings of food, jewellery, gold and statues.  It was the dried blood splattered all about that really chilled the soul.
Alistair was staring at the body.  Something familiar about it rang a loud bell in his mind, "That body - I know him!  It's Uncle Reggie!  Oh my God!  What -"  But Alistair Thomas was cut short by the strike to the back of his head, delivered by Akash.  Once Alistair's unconscious body fell to the jungle floor, Gopala and Kailash helped Akash move the body to the trunk.

#

The sun was dying behind the horizon as Alistair Thomas shook himself awake.  He tried to stand, but found he had been bound to the trunk where he had seen his Uncle's remains.  In fact, what did remain of Uncle Reggie was flopped on the ground before Alistair.  The cold, dead, scared eyes of Reginald Thomas looked back at him.  Then came the chittering noise.  It was one sound alone to start with, quickly joined by a chatter of chittering, until there was a chorus of noise.
And it was coming from all around.
Everywhere about the clearing, there was the sound of rustling in the bushes, until eventually a tall black shape broke through in front of Alistair.  It was eight foot in height, with sharp angular features.  The eyes bore the weight of Hell within them and the creature crept slowly toward Alistair, who could do nothing but whimper.  Then the creature was joined by another, then another and then another - then they came out of their hiding places, dozens and dozens of them, all sniffing the air at the food before them, chittering their desire to feed.
There must be a nest of these things.  This must be what they meant by the Curse of Kali.
Alistair Thomas had finally made his discovery, even while the creatures advanced as one, mouths open showing rows and rows of razor sharp teeth.

#

The streets were busy on this day.  The little huts where the local guides waited for employment sat open.  In front of one in particular, stood an Englishman, green as the leaves about him, "I've heard tell of this place called Jagah, from a friend of mine - called Alistair Thomas?  He told me to come to India.  Said there would be a great adventure in it?" spoke Robert Hanford, a clerk in an Insurance Office with visions of adventure and grandeur, to the three Indian guides before him.
The one named Akash smiled.  Gopala and Kailash, the other two, took Robert's bags, "Come with us, Mr Hanford!  We will guide you through the forests, to find your friend - Alistair Thomas, was it?"
Akash Damodar grinned, hiding the claw in his palm that was the symbol of his Religion.

END

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