He was leaning on the door with all of his weight, pushing as hard as he could while turning the lock mechanism. CLICK! Nervously, he peeked through the windowpane outside, it was gone. His breathing was slowing down, as he was taking deep breaths, trying to calm himself. He wasn’t sure what it was, although it looked like a small child — maybe six or seven years old — it wasn’t moving like one.
Typically at this hour, the lantern boys would’ve fired the lampposts outside; but considering the screaming and the unusual attacks of the past hour or so, he didn’t expect them to be wandering around in the streets. No signs of carriages for some time either. The streets were empty of people, except for a strange green mist that appeared upon sundown. And then, the screams had started.
They had spent most of the day preparing for a little evening of mingling and drinking with the high class people, sort-of-a-costumed-ball to celebrate Halloween. Laureanna had cooked dessert; biscuits with a jelly centre, a three-level vanilla-flavoured cake and several crudities for people who preferred salty snacks over sweets. The house still smelled like someone had cleaned the floor with vanilla. The party was planned around eight, giving its guests enough time to arrive shortly after dinner for dessert.
Yet, the mist had cancelled all their plans. He knew — though he would not let the thought finish — that the mist had not simply come. It had been opened, the way a door is opened, by a hand. His hand.
When the sun went down, a dark-greenish cloud of about two to three feet high spread across their street, like it was trying to swallow the entire town of Manchester, or the area where he lived. He’d seen a mist before. But nothing like the one that seemed to have a life of its own. Each particle of the cloud seeking expansion and spreading faster than one could yell “Look at the MIST!”.
Screams followed.
Faint at first and audibly coming from man, woman, kids. Then they grew closer to his house, as if someone was creating a wave of screams following the mist. Who was screaming? Why?
Something pale caught at the corner of his eye, low on the front door he had just bolted. He had left the candelabrum on the floor — yet the glow was its own. A shape stood gouged deep into the wood where no blade had touched it an hour ago: two crossed strokes ringed by linked circles, the cuts beaded with something black and wet that had no business shining in the dark, and shone anyway. His stomach dropped through the floor. He reached out, fingertips hovering an inch short of it — and the marks sank back into the grain like ink drawn into a blotter, gone, the wood smooth and ordinary again. He stood there, breathing, telling himself he had imagined it. He very nearly managed to believe it.
He picked up the candelabrum he had left on the floor and aimed it at the windowpane, trying to see if anything would show under the light. Nothing. Just the green creepy cloud, staring at him from its front yard.
“LAUREANNA!!??” He yelled out. His wife didn’t answer the call.
He needed to lock the windows upstairs…and the backdoor. The child might come back. Whatever this—thing— was, it could move, fast. It wouldn’t take long before it reached the second floor or the backyard.
BAM!
He spun on himself and glanced at the windowpane. Nothing again.
“LAUREANNA? WHERE ARE YOU?” He screamed a second time while looking at the stairs leading up to their second floor.
BAM!
He aimed his candelabrum towards the front door, still nothing. The candles were barely providing an aura of light in his vicinity, the rest of the house was pitch black. But then he remembered, when they worked in the kitchen, where the backdoor was, the echo from that room projected sounds all the way to the hallway and living room. While reading in the living room, sometimes he could hear Laureanna’s voice as she cooked.
BAAAAM!
The last hit on the door felt much louder, angrier. It wanted in.
He sped through the corridor towards the kitchen, and plunged at the door. Turned the lock.
“LAUREANNA, IF YOU CAN HEAR ME, SHUT THE WINDOWS, ALL OF THEM!” He screamed at the top of his lungs. Still no answers.
BAAAAM!
The house shook, like giant hands were punching at the house. The noise was definitely not coming from the backdoor. Or was it before? The kid could move.
The wooden floors on the second level creaked, someone was moving up there. Being careful not to move fast enough the candle flames would dry out, he paced towards the stairs.
“LAUREANNA, PLEASE, ANSWER ME!” He said once more as he jumped a few stairs at a time on his way up. He could smell a burning odour, like someone was burning hair. The deafening hits on the house doors had stopped for some time, this either meant they were in the house or moved on to a neighbour.
The second floor was quiet. But he could feel a breeze, more than usual. This meant most windows were wide open. A creaking sound came from their master bedroom.
“Laureanna?” He said as he paced once more towards their room.
Kuh-Kuh-Ku-Kuh…
A strange sound came from the room. Three figures were standing by the window. One was obviously his wife, dressed in a nightgown, completely still. He couldn’t see her face as the darkness painted everything but simple outlines of what was in the room. At her side were two smaller shapes, shadows of small children, like the one he had seen outside. They were also perfectly still, but were at either side of Laureanna, staring at her. Both windows were wide opened, more than usual, as if someone or something had willingly opened them wide.
“Honey?” He said, while slowly moving towards her. The others were silent and still.
He blinked for a fraction of a second, and a third child appeared in between his wife and him. Whatever these creatures were, they could outrun him easily. They had been torturing him and his wife for the past few minutes. Choosing not to do whatever else they could. The three remained still in their initial positions, but so was Laureanna. She hadn’t moved since he got there. The light of his candles wasn’t reaching anyone at this point, they were all still outlines of shadows in the dark.
“Laureanna, come to me, please!” He said. He had to see, reassure himself it was indeed his wife that was standing there.
He raised his candelabrum higher and slightly moved a few steps so the light could reach the first children-
A child—its head slightly slanted to the right side— had no eyeballs, just deep and black eye sockets, leaking with a black substance. Its mouth was stretched open, higher than physically possible for any human being. The same darkness in the mouth, devoid of teeth. Kuh-kuh-kuh-kuh…a faint sound was coming out of its mouth, and he could feel a silent scream violently aggressing his brain. Could feel it.
And beneath the rasp the sound bent itself into shapes — into words pressed directly against the inside of his skull, patient and almost kind: Come and collect your treat. Low on the child’s breastbone, where the nightshirt had torn, the same mark wept down its skin — two crossed strokes inside their rings of black.
Moving the light higher to his wife’s face, he saw her — it was her — fully dressed in her casual nightgown. All her features intact except for the face, like the child, her mouth opened wide and her eyes devoid of humanity. The same dark liquid coming out of every orifice, and her head leaning on her shoulder like the others. They had done this to her.
The mark was on her too, risen pale and wet at the hollow of her throat, as though it had been waiting under her skin all along.
The silent screams in his brain were getting stronger, making him dizzy, but now were including his own; after he had seen his wife. If he stayed any longer, could he look like them…like her. He didn’t want to find out.
He threw the candelabrum to the child in front and left in a hurry, racing down the stairs. From time to time he threw a glance back, making sure those things weren’t following him. Nothing. But it didn’t matter, they had shown they could be anywhere they wanted in an instant. It was simply a matter of time before they could get to him. They were toying with him, like children…of the dead.
But he didn’t care, the carriage was right in front of their mansion. He had to make it to the carriage. His coachman was nowhere to be seen since the mist had appeared but at the very least the horses were still there, attached to their harnesses. In a previous life he had driven a few carriages, so he might have a fighting chance, outrun the brats.
He came out of the house like a gazelle racing away from a predator, jumping down the frontyard steps, his night robe flying with the cold October breeze. And there it was, the carriage, ready for his escape plan. He glanced left, right and back as he raced towards the front of the carriage. There had been many screams in the neighbourhood for the past hour or so, he might not be the only victim of this horrific night. As he reached the green mist, which was about three feet high from the ground, he slowed down. Anything could be hidden in those three feet of evaporated water. It was everywhere outside.
He reached the carriage, unharmed, jumped on the front seat and snatched the harnesses. He glanced one more time at his house. No signs of the devilish children, or his wife. He glanced up at the windows of his study —which were on the second level facing the front of the house—and nothing showed up there either. Maybe he’d be able to escape this nightmare. And yet his eyes kept climbing back to the study window. The thing he had carried home and pried open was still up there in the dark — lid thrown back on its stand — and some cold, certain part of him understood what the rest of him would not: a door like that could not be shut from out here in the street. Not by a fast horse. Not by running. He knew it the way he knew his own name. He took up the reins anyway.
“GIDDIUP!” He yelled at the horses while whipping the harnesses, his breath throwing a little cloud. It was cold but he didn’t care. The horses got to a slow trot at first, but he wanted them faster so he hit the horses again with the harness, and they switched to galloping much faster. As he picked up speed, the air around him bathed him with a fresh yet freezing breeze. He could feel the buzzing from the screams slowly fading away. What exactly was happening to him? What if he had stayed? It seemed to explain his wife’s horrific transformation. Sadness had suddenly overrun him; he had left her behind. The icy breeze from the speed of the carriage was bringing down tears, mixed with his own emotions on his face. But it wasn’t over, or at least he thought, he was still racing through the mist. Which he believed was the cause of all this, as it had all started when the mist appeared. It had extended far into the city, no end in sight. He glanced back-
A child. In the middle of the street, where his carriage had raced past seconds ago, was standing where the carriage had just passed. He couldn’t see if it was one of those things. What else? No child would stay outside tonight.
He snapped the harnesses again, ordering the horses to push themselves past their comfort zones. The carriage would hold the extra speed and hopefully not skid to the side. He glanced back again, the child was gone. His mouth went dry, it was one of them. He couldn’t push the horses further, they were already past what their muscled legs could give. It’d be a matter of time before they would appear by his side, and do the horrible things they had done to his wife, or to his neighbours. But what exactly had they done to them? To convey such screams in the night, to make his wife look like an empty corpse stretched to its physical limits on her face? He honestly didn’t want to find out. He snapped the harnesses again, along with a loud “GIDDIUP!” again. They didn’t speed up, he could hear their loud breathing mixed with the hooves landing with recurring thumps on the ground.
He glanced once more behind him.
No child on the road. However a flapping of wood on wood was coming from the side of the carriage. He looked down, the side-door was flapping against the carriage. Was it opened before? He’d rushed from the house to the seat without checking anything, it might’ve been latched…or maybe not. But now anything could be inside the carriage.
Get out of the mist now! His brain was chanting as he swivelled up front to check if there was an end in sight. A tight 90 degree curve was ahead. At this speed he might not be able to make it.
The buzzing in his head was back. One or many of these children from the depths of hell was close, probably in the carriage. If I crashed the carriage, he thought. He had an opportunity, the curve ahead was fast approaching and obviously, no way he would make it. The horses knew it, as he had to fight against them with a constant slapping of the harnesses against their will to slow down.
Soon he might not be able to resist their will. The buzzing had become a burning sensation in his head, icy pain shooting through his eyes. It felt like the membrane of his brain was being shaken and pushed against his skull, bad headaches times a thousand. His thoughts were beginning to wander, completely disrupting his understanding of what was real and flashes of pitch darkness. He was losing all senses of reality.
He caught a glimpse of reality once more, the curve was seconds away. Unless the horses decided to slow down by themselves, the house in the corner of the curve would become one with the carriage momentarily.
A knife, or so he thought, went through his left side of his head. He opened his mouth to yell from the pain he felt and touched where the pain came from but nothing was there-
And then the carriage exploded!
In a matter of seconds, the carriage was thrown in the air. The horses tried to make the curve but the weight of their tow pulled them sideways and felt like a giant hand had crushed the carriage and its passenger into the house in the corner. Pieces of wood flew everywhere. A horse managed to free himself from the ordeal and left in panic. The other one was crushed below the pile of splintered wood.
He was in pain, almost every fibre of his body shot stings or warmth from bleeding. The buzzing in his skull had faded, but now was replaced with sharp stings all over his body. Having regained some control over his mental abilities, he realized a piece of wood had gone through his left thigh. Walking out of that one would be a struggle. He had flown a few feet away from the carriage flipping a couple of times, and landed on the piece of wood which had been both his saving grace and the instigator of the impalement, a couple of feet above the mist. Gathering some of his strength to take a glimpse of his surroundings he saw no child close by, and-
About a dozen feet away, the mist was dissipating. There was an end to this nightmare. Before something else got a hold of him or did terrible things to his brain, he had to make it out. Had to.
Against all reason—the pain in his body wouldn’t allow him to move—he decided to get off the plank to limp his way towards the end of the mist. As he glanced back, no child appeared. His brain was free of their control it seemed. Must—make— it—out!
He slowly limped his way, and as he did, the buzzing was on his way back too. Must make it!
He looked back, by the wreckage he just came from, the outline of a child stood in the dark. Despite his remaining leg burning from all the cuts he had experienced, he sped up and could smell his freedom a few feet away. His senses were starting to blur from the mental hold the devil creature behind him was exercising. Just a few feet.
As a last-ditch effort, he threw all his power on his leg and last remaining control of his body-
And dropped just outside the mist. I made it!
And in the same breath, absurdly, a face surfaced through the pain: his daughter’s, asleep three days’ ride north at her grandmother’s, safe, knowing none of this. The line would go on. Whatever the mist took of him here, it would not have her. Not tonight.
As he caught his breath, he looked up, the child was gone. He was free. Out of the mist.
He suddenly felt a sharp burning pain across all his skin, like someone had dropped lamppost fuel across the entire surface of his skin and lighted it with a match. As he looked at his hands, he could see his own skin melting away and being ripped by something, revealing the organs underneath. What he saw, he could feel it everywhere. The pain was so excruciating he could barely bring himself to scream—his tongue was melting too—along with every organ inside his body. His entire body, was slowly leaking into a mixed puddle of colour, like someone had painted the ground with red, brown and every possible colours of his organs.
With only some of his bones left—his muscles and tendons now liquified—he fell on the ground with one last gasp.
A few feet away from him, inside of the mist, stood the shadow of a child.
It…did not come closer. It…had no need to.
The rasp drifted out over the wet ruin of him, unhurried, almost fond — Come and collect your treat — and where his blood pooled and steamed in the cold, the black began, very faintly, to draw itself into two crossed strokes inside their rings.
The mark, waiting. Patient as the thing that made it.
