by Byron Craft
Before I ran screaming from the sight pushing my way through the bedroom and downstairs at a breakneck speed, I managed one last look out the window. The yawning aperture located within the center of the hill had doubled in size and in that brief instant I observed a heavy thick cloud of vapor belch forth spewing a dark silhouetted thing upward. Less than a second had elapsed during the entire nightmarish spectacle, but it was long enough for me to make out a human outline, size and shape, sporting wings of enormous size. It traveled through space straight up and out of plain view.
When I reached the kitchen I stood there racked with fear and indecision. I suppressed any screaming long enough to notice the cutlery drawer hanging open and my entire dinner service for eight strewn across the linoleum. It had come back again, only to be disappointed. I hadn’t realized until that moment that I still clutched the ancient dagger in my right hand since I first picked it up off the floor.
All that remained as sane and logical for me to do was to get away and somehow find help. Still clutching the dagger, I grabbed the car keys off the nail in the back door casing and fled outdoors.
The car had been parked in the garage since my return from the village. I wasted no time in reaching it. There was no electricity within the old shed and an inky blackness almost impenetrable had me fumbling my way to the car door.
Our German compact was old and not all of its mechanical functions were in order. The courtesy lights would not operate when the door was opened. The total darkness made me even more anxious. While nervously attempting to locate the ignition key on the ring, a noxious odor diverted my attention. It was the smell of decaying animal flesh. Following the strong stench was the drip, drip, dripping of rain showering the front fenders except it wasn’t raining outside. There was thunder, of course, but no rain had fallen yet. And besides, the car was under cover.
Panic stricken, I fumbled with the keys and dropped them to the car floor. Quickly I scrambled on all fours like an animal in search of them. There was nothing to see. The night air was dominated by an occasional clap of thunder and the continual dripping. I felt lost; without sight or a friendly sound I could only rely upon my sense of touch. Within a short time I heard the puffing of heavy breathing. I swear my heart skipped a beat because I had the dreaded sensation that I wasn’t alone. I darted frantically back and forth across the car seat on my hands and knees slipping on the slick upholstery and slid headlong into the steering wheel raising a small welt on my forehead. I felt like a fool. The breathing I heard was my own. My heart felt as if it was in my stomach and through all the excitement I had failed to realize the simple source of light that lay at my fingertips. Feeling incredibly stupid, I sat up and turned on the headlights. The beams clearly lit the garage interior.
Briefly I sat there disgusted with myself for behaving so childishly and in the next second I was clutched in stark terror. An unbelievable and grotesque sight stood over the front fender leering down at me with rotted sockets for eyes. It was a man. He was clothed in the tattered remains of some kind of uniform. The unblemished portions of his flesh were a sickly hue while most of the exposed tissue was cankered and rotted with large cancerous boils. The right side of the man’s skull had been literally ripped away revealing a dark pulpy mass the surface of which was tainted with a heavy layer of white maggots. Small segments of the cranium kept breaking away from the decaying matter lightly showering the sheet metal skin of the sedan with the limbless larva resembling the sound of falling rain.
The corpse creature staggered forward several steps, and then flopped over the front fender. A chunk of dislodged brain matter rolled across the engine hood, leaving a fine trail of particles and came to rest against the windshield. The thing pulled itself up. I screamed.
There is blackness...a void in my memory. I recall running. I ran harder than I ever had in my life. For some insane reason, I went in the direction of the field. Towards that tumbleweed and root infested glade that terrified me.
Why did I choose that of all directions? In retrospect I don’t believe I can say that I ran in blind terror, because now, when I look back, I cannot for the life of me imagine why, no matter what state of mind I was in, I would have wandered into the woods. The road or even the house would seem like the logical place to flee for safety, all the same, I still don’t remember.
No matter how many times I call to mind the thing I saw while seated in the car, it is like trying to redeem from oblivion those sequences of events that must have taken place afterwards causing me to run into the woods. Unless, I did start out for the road, but I was stopped...stopped by something possibly even more horrifying than that rotting thing in my garage. Yes, maybe that was the answer. Whenever I think back on it for some reason I am struck with nervous anticipation at even the thought of that long dark driveway, the only access to the road.
It’s like a vague memory of a certain feeling or a vague notion of dread. Maybe it was something so terrible that my mind blotted it out. If it was that awful, then I shudder to imagine what it must have been for the path I chose led me toward other terrors. The darkness was impenetrable, like the garage. The mist had risen so high that it blotted out the stars. I ran in abandonment of anything that lay in my path. Thorns and bramble tore at my skin and clothing. The cold ripping fingers of the overgrowth across my flesh was made painless by my dazed state of mind. I collided with a large unseen object. Driven by the force of the contact I toppled over backwards. It was the gravestone of Heinrich Todesfall. The black piece of masonry had become invisible under the starless and moonless night sky.
My eyes gradually grew accustomed to the dark. I could make out the clock in the base of the monolith. The hour hand looked to be a little closer to twelve than I last recalled. I heard ticking. Something had started the clockworks. Possibly the earth tremors had been responsible for the audible tick, tick, ticking of its mechanism. A strong vibration could have set some part to moving within the clock. The clock’s ticking, mingled with the gentle breeze that played amongst the trees, was a terrifying effect.
My run-in with the dark tombstone had brought me back to my senses. Withdrawing from it and the incessant ticking, I backed into a stout oak. I felt closed in. A profound sensation of choking claustrophobia overcame me. I scanned the dense thicket for a way home.
My eyes darted back and forth across the bordering brushwood. All about me lay the impression of impending doom. The dark twisted trees and tall grass that circled the glade gradually accorded an alien life force. The soft breeze made the movement of the scrub wood appear animated. The thick and powerfully shaped branches gave the impression of grotesque caricatures of human limbs that became mystically imbued with a spirit that was tenacious of life.
Glowing orbs, spherical masses of eyes emerged between the gaps in the thicket and became fixed on me.
I could make out vague shadowy forms moving amongst the dark patches of the evening gloom. Pairs of staring eyes moved excitedly back and forth while some moved singularly in unison with silhouetted shapes. There were labored movements followed by a shuffling and dragging.
I wanted to leave but froze in my tracks upon seeing several hideous corpse creatures emerge from the thicket into the clearing and stagger towards me. They converged upon me from all directions. I was in the center of a circle formed by their inward plodding.
One of the figures was the partially headless thing I had seen in the garage. This time I recognized his clothing. It was a German army uniform. Even through the heavy mist and darkness I could make out a badly soiled swastika below the right shoulder.
The others were almost naked or wore the meager tatters of different uniforms. They were void of most of their flesh while several of them had limbs reduced to mere stubs. One of the walking corpses was the body of a woman. She was entirely unclothed and her sex had been rendered repulsive by mutilation and decay. Her left side had been torn away leaving her with a worm eaten and rotted cavity where the other breast should have been.
The walking dead were clothed in the remnants of the American army, some German, while others I was unable to identify, all, except for the female, had the appearance of military leavings. All of them showed visual signs of mutilation about the mouth and jaw and most were caked with damp soil as well as the clotted residue of blood and mangled flesh.
I didn’t cry out, not even so much as a whimper. I was numbed by a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach. I was paralyzed. I observed one of the undead rise from an earthen grave and join the swelling multitude. Many small mounds and hummocks that disrupted the otherwise flat ground erupted from the inside out!
The group swelled to six or seven. They had completely encircled me. I wanted to cover my eyes and scream but was terrified of what I might see when I uncovered them again, if given the chance. Too frightened to close my eyes, in fear of what they might do to me if I took my eyes off them. I dropped my hands to my side ready to succumb to my fate and wept hysterically.
Their lumbering advance stopped about six feet from me. One of them spoke! It was a weak drawn out voice muffled as if being spoken through several layers of cloth. Still, I was able to make out the words.
“Help us,” it said. Simply, “Help us.”
It caught me totally off guard and I broke into a tirade of unrestrained laughter. They seemed dumbfounded. They each looked like someone who had failed to understand the punch line of a joke. I couldn’t help myself. Here I was amongst the greatest horrors imaginable frantically searching for a means of escape and one of them asks me for help!
A second figure hesitated briefly as if employing extreme caution then approached slowly taking a few steps forward voicing the same words.
Soon a third joined in. Another took up the words, then another until they were a chorus chanting, “Help us.”
Over and over they uttered the pitiful words. One especially misshapen thing that had been rendered mute by the absence of a lower jaw opened and closed its left hand in a clutching rhythm miming the others repetitive chant.
My back was still to the tree but they kept their distance. They uttered their prattle as if afraid to come any closer. A corpse creature somewhat less decomposed than the rest, the body of an American I believe, broke ranks and we came face to face. He rested the putrefied remains of his mummified hand on my bare arm. I shrank away from his touch, and he moved closer, looked at me with his dead eyes and mouthed the same words. The flesh on his face no longer resilient with the essence of life cracked and flaked into pieces from the jaw movements. His mouth was toothless and maggot ridden with a cold breath that reeked with the foul stench of decay.
Sickened I averted my attention in a downward glance to fight off the nausea that was overcoming me. Looking down I saw another mound of dirt next to my feet. At one end of the unopened grave a face was pushing up from out of the soil. With great effort, it too was mouthing the two words.
I pushed hard against the trunk of the tree and propelled myself at a good speed from the center of the encircling nightmares. I collided into one of them with a hollow sounding thud. The force of the collision drove the thing backward. It was the woman. I turned as I fled to see her body, a great pulpy mass, break apart and scatter amongst the brushwood. The sight was grotesque. It triggered a flash of childhood memory. I was no more than six or seven playing in the woods near my parent’s home when I had come across a large toadstool at least a foot in diameter. I playfully kicked the umbrella shaped fungi and watched it burst into bits and pieces. The woman’s body broke apart in the same manner. Her breast lay amid the briar. Her arms and legs still writhing with their supernatural life force were strewn about the tall grass. And her head...Oh God, her head! It was resting on its side in the dirt, the lips still moving, still laboriously forming those same two words, “Help us.”
I wasted no time in putting a great deal of distance between myself and the walking dead. The pace in which I ran compared to their heavy plodding movements must have put them a good way behind.
I paused at the edge of the wood next to a cluster of slash pines and drew the night air deep into my lungs swallowing several times. The taste of nausea was still lingering in my throat and I felt dizzy from the long sprint. I could make out the rear of our home through the fog. The persistent mist stirred like an eddy and between its ebb and flow, I caught short but clear glimpses of the schloss. A light had shown brightly from the kitchen and parlor windows. It didn’t look as menacing as it did just a short while ago and by then I felt it was my best sanctuary until Faren’s return.
I contemplated the eerie mist, the wallpaper that assumed its own evil visage, the knife that had remained in my hand all that time and the spirit that was after it.
In all the time that I was plagued by those undead creatures of the night I never once thought of using the dagger for protection. As grotesque as they were I found it in my heart to pity them. Besides their appearance, they did nothing to harm me. I was sympathetic towards them. The terrible fate that God for some unknown reason saw fit to bestow upon them was unthinkable. They were human at one time. All they did was fight in a war a generation ago. They were doing what they were told to do. Doing what they believed was right. Sometime, almost forty years ago a soldier fell here, many soldiers fell. Some from a bullet, some by mortar fire and many by God knows what other machines manufactured to inflict wholesale death. The evening air was tranquil once again. The wind had died down. There was not even a faint rumbling in the hills and the brushwood was still and quiet. My pursuers must have given up. I could no longer hear their lumbering movements.
I made for the house. I was a bit more courageous by then and the warm glow of the windows seemed to encourage my return.
I could lock the old schloss up tight and bide my time keeping a lookout until Faren came home. Moreover, I wasn’t quite up to another trip to the garage and the thought of marching down that dark lonely private drive to the open road was still terrifying. It likewise was still an unrecognizable fear, but a fear none-the-less, even if I could not put it to words or understand its source.
I ventured towards more open ground in the direction of the schloss. In what seemed like only a few seconds I heard a flapping coming from above. At first it was a good distance off, yet in only seconds it grew in volume sounding like the beating of large leathery wings. A loud thud resounded followed by rustling among the bushes. Something massive had landed nearby. From somewhere within the brushwood came a low growl. It was a forced throaty gurgle resembling a vicious animal snarl.
I made for the house in a wild frenzy. The growl, the leather flapping of wings, sent an unearthly chill up my spine. They were frightfully familiar to me. As a child who is afraid of a vague nightmare, I ran from the sounds in blind panic.
Sprinting up the back steps I pulled frantically on the doorknob. The old door rattled and shook in its antique frame but it didn’t budge. The latch remained fast. The sounds of the growling thing grew louder. I tugged and pulled at the latch but to no avail. Then briefly overcoming the panic long enough to come to my senses, I remembered locking it on my way to the garage and the keys were still laying there, somewhere in the car where I had dropped them.
I imagined the hot breath of my unknown pursuer on the nape of my neck. Hoping and praying that the front door was unlocked I made a mad dash around to the front entrance. I bounded the porch steps in two strides and to my delight after momentarily fumbling with the latch, the door opened and I spun around into the peaceful security of the parlor.
I hastily bolted the door and wasted no time in securing all the windows. I even tested the bolt on the cellar door. When that was completed, I went about lighting every candle and lamp I could lay my hands on. There were only three sources of electrical illumination within the old chateau and they were relegated to one electric light in the kitchen, one in the parlor and the third upon our bed table.
Despite having only a couple working electrical outlets in the house, I was sti
ll able to brightly illuminate most of the rooms.
You can imagine my fear and apprehension when the telephone went dead. I had made one call before the line went blank, thank goodness. I got through to Fort Blish once again only to learn that Faren had left sometime before in a taxi. Next, I attempted to make another call to the local police for help, the line suddenly became silent and I was unable to raise the operator.
About a quarter of an hour had past when the phone rang. I was sitting in the parlor when it happened and jumped out of my seat. I snatched the receiver from its cradle. Nervous, hopeful, I wished it to be my husband. It was silent as a tomb on the other end. I raised my voice and hollered into the receiver but got no answer. I was about to hang-up when I detected a queer noise on the line. At first it sounded like a slight gurgle or the bubbling of liquid, a deep resonate, watery reply. The voice was foreign but the accent did not resemble any tongue that I was familiar with. It sounded as if the person on the other end of the line was having great difficulty with human speech. The pattern of speech was abbreviated and the continual gurgling made it extremely difficult to understand. I asked whoever it was to speak up. There was a long pause and then in the same voice, and with audible signs of great effort it said, “Is this the woman of Todesfall?” I slammed the receiver down and stood trembling.
Downing another of the small yellow pills the Doctor had given me, I noticed that I had only one remaining. I was numbed more by the events of the evening than the drug itself. Calmly I obtained my diary from the lower drawer of the writing desk and leafed through its blank pages. It was a Christmas gift that I had tucked away with all good intentions but never got around to using. I was confident that my obituary would be as valueless as this unattended record.
Starting at the first page and ignoring the printed dates, I proceeded to tell my story in episodic detail.
