Short Weird Tales: Hunters

"Your guns won't kill it! They won't even slow it down..."

The old man's admonition was barely audible over the jeep’s rumbling engine and scattering scree beneath its wheels. His wrists were starting to bleed in his lap as he squirmed against the improvised handcuffs fashioned from fence-wire. He made no eye contact with the search party as he muttered, but the pair sat closest knew the invective was aimed at them.

"Think you've said enough for one day, old man." Billy glared at him, weighing the shotgun in his grip. Turning toward the driver without taking his eyes off their charge, he added "Any sign yet, Charlie?".

"No, just followin' the trail still" came the voice from the front. While the amorphous creature may have been difficult to spot travelling at this speed, its linear path of destruction was anything but. A line of disease, disintegration and destruction cut through the scrubland. This was at least the easiest part of their task.

The charred remains of another house passed by. The old Jones' place. No signs of life. What was left of the wooden panelling looked bubbled and rotten through, as if the building had been exposed to thousands of years of wear in an instant. The dwelling seemed to be frozen in one last cry as the remains of its supporting structure reached feebly for the clouds. The entirety of its contents - and inhabitants - were gone, either consumed or reduced to their constituent dust. The result was the same either way.

“There’s still time to tell us why you did it”, offered Zachary, the calmest and the oldest of the group, even being at least thirty years younger than the one they were failing to interrogate. Lines of consternation furrowed into Zachary’s face, but he spoke to the old man without reprisal or accusation.

“Did it?”, he responded incredulously, “You think this was my doin’? It was comin’ anyway, I just held the gate open! It would have found a way in, it’s not just me workin’ for the cause! You boys have got no idea what you’re dealin’ with…”

“Then why don’t you tell us?”. Billy leaned forward across the divide, raising his weapon slightly but not pointing it directly at the old man just yet. Even in this excitement, Billy knew that a bump or dip in the trail resulting in an accidental discharge could be disastrous if their captive were to be on its receiving end. Captive. That in itself was a joke.

The old timer’s eyes narrowed. “It’s here to clear a way for the others. The Old Ones. Soon be their time! You’ll see!”

From the very back of the truck, Wyatt joined in. “Why’d you call it up?”. A question so basic this late in the day was met with a snort of derision.

“I didn’t ‘call it up’, it was here all along! In the space between the spaces! I just opened the gate!”

Billy looked to Zachary. “Okay, can I shoot him?”

“Not yet, he might still be useful.”

The old man was becoming distracted and agitated now, his watery eyes seeming to focus on other places as he remonstrated with the hunters. “You won’t stop it! You can’t!!”

“That doesn’t sound useful. Let me know when you want me to shoot him”.

Wyatt again. “Maybe we can’t stop it, but maybe this can.” He held up a large book with both hands. Scabrous and ancient looking, a dark leathery binding etched and embossed with barely legible symbols struggled to contain thick, age-yellowed pages that seemed to hang at angles from its fragile grasp, bulging as if to suggest illicit additions secreted between.

The old man’s mood changed in an instant and he blanched as recognition of the tome registered on his face, the illusion of smug superiority shattered. “You don’t know how to use that book!” he blustered a little too quickly.

“Well then I guess you and your plan have got nothing to worry about! Let’s see…” Wyatt opened the volume casually at its middle, leafed through a few brittle pages and began to read aloud with an air of bemused interest. “Umph n'geena, brahuna hai...”

“No! STOP!” hollered the prisoner, unabashedly panicked now.

“…stoonto een ah g'tollah, g’facht ah n’geenah?” he continued quizzically, as if seeking confirmation from his companions. It came instead from the front-corner of the back of the jeep as the old man launched himself head-first past his closest captors and toward the reader of the words, an incoherent shriek of denial the only preemptive tell of the burst of energy.

Billy was quick enough to assist this velocity by ramming the butt of his shotgun square into the centre of the old man’s spine. Hands still bound, the howl ended as his face made first contact with the wooden floorboards.

After he was hauled efficiently back into his seat with neither grace nor compassion, Billy held the quarry in place with the business-end of the shotgun pressed into his chest, as Zachary fashioned a gag from a length of strapping hanging behind the driver’s seat.

“Well,” mused Wyatt, “it looks like that’s the passage, alright. And I’d say that’s all the help we’re going to get out of the old fool. We should lose him. He’ll be so desperate to stop us now, we won’t be able to trust a word that comes out of his mouth.”

“True,” agreed Zachary, “but we can sure use his reactions as a guide to how well we’re doing…”

The jeep began to slow down, noticeably. “Guys?” came Charlie’s voice from the front. “Guys, I think we’ve found it…”. The jeep stopped.

Around three hundred yards in front of them, a huge translucent, colour-shifting… thing - defying mundane description of shape - shuddered, pulsed and tensed for what came next, somehow seeming to stare from a thousand non-existent eyes, as the trickling sound of urine hitting the jeep’s floor came from the old man.

“Game time…” whispered Wyatt.

---

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• Short stories © WorldOfBlackout.co.uk, all entries are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Y'know, mostly.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Short Weird Tales: Clerk

As the final, feeble rays of November daylight rasped their last against the window of my study, I resolved to close my ledger and take step of the surrounding town, for air which would at least be cooler, if not necessarily any more fresh. These are streets I feel I have always known, yet while I cannot remember the first time I walked them, I swear I only took residence here relatively recently.

My regular route took me along sparsely populated lanes and alleyways, and on the disused railway line under a rarely used footbridge, I came across what I came to term as The Old Man. Although I call him this, his actual age was indistinct. Lines did not mar his face, and yet such a toll of living had been collected as to evidently strip bare his very soul. The Old Man's attire, timeless yet undeniably old fashioned, was as worn as his aspect as he raised his head sharply, to make instant eye-contact.

He asked if I was enjoying my day. Or my time. I am unsure which as, while his meaning was clear, I find it impossible to recall verbatim the words he used. His manner was direct, short of being abrupt, but with none of the aggression any bystander may have predicted. While I bumbled around a response which would pass as polite whilst hoping to avoid further conversation, my eye was nonetheless drawn to what appeared to be a medal of some sort, pinned to the heavy, flowing rag he had fashioned around himself against the seeping cold of the damp trackway, hanging perfectly straight on a threadbare ribbon of dark, stained red.

This sigil showed a face, clearly a face, though of what species I could not say. Lacertian? Piscine? Satanic? Perhaps all or none of these? A cackling grimace, surrounded by hair, flame or even tentacles leered out at me, the dark recesses of its eye sockets seeming to yawn back as the evening now stretched away from me. Cast in yellow metal with a greenish tinge in the dim light, this could have been brass, bronze or even gold, the time-addled weathering of these filthy streets hiding its value in plain sight. Although the artefact's striking attraction to me was more than the financial potential of its material.

I must confess to having lost track of the discourse I initially wanted no part of, for midway through his rambling reply the man stopped dead, slack mouth turning up in a wide, knowing grin. He asked if I liked what I saw, if I recognised it, noting that even though he had distracted my attention, still my gaze was fixed upon this terrible, leering trophy. Quite lost for words, I could barely draw my eyes back to him, only flapping like a landed fish whose terminal gasps are punctuated by the overwhelming knowledge that it had been hauled from the waves by King Neptune himself. But why again, that automatic aquatic association?

The Old Man went on to tell me his last possession was token for his part in 'the fight of The Wall'. No such recent conflict leapt to my mind, although the name seemed draped in a faint familiarity, like the memory of a nightmare brought to the surface hours or even days after waking by some unconnected occurrence. He spoke vaguely of this confrontation as if it were some historical campaign, yet clearly with first-hand knowledge. Shapes, shadows and screams were conjured as he held my gaze, my own breath hanging on his every word.

When struggling to decide whether I should document this interaction once I had returned to my chambers, it was at this point I realised The Old Man was not in fact speaking in my language, although nor could I specifically identify his tongue. Most odd. I understood the story perfectly, yet my mind also seemed to be performing some instantaneous, subconscious translation upon it. His words seemed to flow through some manner of base human communication, almost as if buoyed by empathy or telepathy. And with this realisation his intent became clear. A flash-flood of memory ensued.

The Wall; an attempt to turn an entire kingdom into a fortress; an ancient emperor bearing terrible power from The Old Ones; his crafting of an invincible legion; a siege, a slaughter, invaders driven back; armies rewarded; an amulet to remind them of their victory over a life beyond imagining; not quite immortality, but far, far more time than any man can know what do with, as long as at least a single brick of that Wall remains in place; freedom, hope, grief, confusion, boredom, despair, resolve, and now opportunity. Finally, opportunity.

The wan smile of a man no longer speaking but preparing now to sleep, slumping contentedly back against the evening's damp brickwork as if it were the long-missed embrace of a parent. And the residual feeling of hideous metal pressed, burning into my hand. Mine, now. Mine, always. And all the time that goes with it. All of my time. For I served at The Wall, too. Of course I did. The accountant. The clerk. The quartermaster. It is not that I could not remember, only that I had forgotten I'd forgot.

In my chambers, I wrap the emblem in its ribbon and place it in the chest, under the boards. With the others.

All will be accounted for. In the end.

---

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• Short stories © WorldOfBlackout.co.uk, all entries are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Y'know, mostly.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.