Ghouls
I awoke with a pounding heart and screaming in my ear. Sitting up in bed I stared into the darkness of my room. There were no sounds, no movements, not one discernible hint that anything in the world was wrong, but the fear that griped me made me choke. The fear of dread spread over me like a slowly filling bathtub. The feeling came up from the floor, passed over the bed, over my legs, up my stomach to my chest, filling the room with a sense of loss and death and a hopelessness that I have never felt before. When the sense of dread reached my nose, unable to contain myself any longer, I through my head back and screamed for my life. I screamed for my neighbors, I screamed for the passing of an entire world.
As the sun rose, the glint of light through the windows of the white washed brick house cut crystal rainbows through the air, shimmering as they flung themselves on little objects, corners, sifting dust. The house was quiet and still. The was no hint of the terror of the night. I opened my eyes and let the stillness of the world fill me, this void of a mind that was numb from a dreamless night. The quietness filled me, the rainbows of sunlight glided across the room imperceptibly slow, and I took that in as well. I felt the blanket’s softness on my toes, the soft weight of it on me. I smelled the coffee that was cooked in the kitchen, set on a timer before bed of course. I felt my heart beat and blood pulse through me, from my heart to my arms and cause the slight tension in my body. The feeling of warm light, soft blanket, cozy heart beat, made me feel at home and safe and peaceful.
Now that I was awake I looked towards my coffee cup from the night before, grabbed and walked steadily over the hardwood floors to the kitchen where the fresh coffee was waiting. The smell grew strong, my mouth watered, when I reached out towards the coffee pot I saw my reflection and the reflection of darkness, of terror, of fear behind me. I froze while I stared at the reality of the reflection behind me, hovering. I sidestepped and turned in one motion, but there was only the kitchen island looking towards the living room and the fireplace opposite the couch. The peace of the morning was not shattered, it was a shield. The light streaming through the window caught on the dust in the air, laid across the floor and the walls and flooded the entire room, every crevice was filled with it’s beauty and brightness, searching for a darkness to destroy.
Gathering the courage to turn back to my coffee, I caught a glimpse of something out the window. There in the scene of golden sunlight crashing down on a white dew field, strung with diamonds, four dark shapes flickered like black candles of evil intent. I did not freeze. I was not afraid. Awe struck me. These four dark, flickering objects, sparkled and shimmered, flitting like a wisp of smoke. They caught the light coming down and cast no shadow, but instead reflected the light in a cascading rainbow of dark purples, deep reds, and many violent colors that had not been named. Slowly the drifted closer to one-another. The slowness was painstaking and I had lost all interest in my coffee. From my safeness inside my house, I felt an exposure I could not explain, as though those things out in the field knew I was watching them. As the clock on the wall clicked the seconds by, minutes turned to hours, the shadows cast by the trees shortened, the dew burned off the field in lazy streams of steam, a cotton cloud formed above us and drifted off on it’s own path. Still, the four objects flitted and covered the ground with glittering light that I had never witnessed. They drifted so slowly towards one-another that the sun moved across the sky before they had met. All day long, I waited and watched, from breakfast to lunch to dinner, no matter what happened in the day I was the sentinel for a world about to change, and my duty was to watch and wait. The thought never crossed my mind to record them during the day. When they neared each other, I thought to record them, but surely they would disappear, surely some outside proxy would tell me I am insane, that my world was a lie. I forwent recording those ghastly images, too horrific to accept into this beautiful reality, but far too realistic to deny. I wanted them to be real. I wanted those dark figures that struggled against the universe to come together to exist, to see their climax of effort, and the resounding question in my mind to be answered, What is happening?
With a thunder clap and bright blue jets of lightning the wreaths joined, and disappeared. The grass bent in a wave spreading away from the point, trees swayed, the birds in the trees flew away. The sun was setting, and no trace of their existence was left behind but for a smoldering stain in the field where the four had come together after a long and grueling day.
I did not go to sleep that night. Instead I heated up my coffee, grabbed my computer, and curled up on the couch for a very long night ahead. After some time, I grew chilly and decided to start the fire. The comfort one receives from such an experience is difficult to come by in other ways. The fire in my fireplace crackled with a mix of oak and cherry wood. I never used it to heat the house, only for that solitary comfort when my mind delves into the flames and looses itself their within the flickering, ambient light.
Not much had happened while the sun had been up, but I could not shake the feeling that those things, whatever they were, had been attempting something, and that they had failed. The time and energy involved in what had happened, their existing, must have truly been immeasurable. When the explosion happened, I was thought perhaps their would be much destruction, maybe my windows would explode, but the radius around them had been limited in destruction. I would not be brave enough to venture over to inspect that location for some time, for perhaps their return would be the death of me.
Staring into the light of the flames, I recognized the waspish flicker of light as a brighter version of those creatures. The flickering was the same as my fire here, but the shimmering was other worldly, as though the flames that made up the creatures were metallic and yet, also made of some material I’ve never dreamed of.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Snow flitted down on the window sill. A small robin flew up to the window and inquisitively gave a small tap. Upon noticing there was not an entrance it flew away. I stood there for a moment on the inside, looking out at my snow covered yard and the white world beyond. The snow began to fall heavier and a slight wind picked up. Do birds get cold? The poor little thing, I can imagine it huddled up in some wood hollow, fluffy and warm. Maybe they do not normally. The kettle was beginning to whistle more and more loudly. Turning around brought my attention to the fireplace where a shadow seemed to move. My heart jumped into my throat. Why would something be in my fireplace? What could it have been. I stood and stared, waiting for something to move, but there was nothing. Turning off the burner, I walked over to the fireplace with the kettle of boiling water poised as a weapon, but there was no intruder. I went back to the kitchen and poured the water for my tea. Filling the cup had that nice rustle of noise that comes when filling a tea cup. I stirred in some sugar and clinked my spoon on purpose to hear it clink. That shrill little bell, I summoned the taste of summer.
Oh how I longed for a summer day again, a full and sunny day full of bright blue skies and fluffy white clouds and green rustling trees. The golden fields covered in golden rod are my favorite. Today is the first full day of winter, but it has been cold for ages and ages now. The snow has been light all week, but the forecast on the news predicted heavier than usual snow.
After my tea, I put on my boots, grabbed my big coat and went out to the wood pile under the shed. Trudging through the snow, I made a path. It had been some time since I needed to get fire wood, but with the storm coming, extra wood in the house was always a nice way to stay warm on the cold cold nights. Momentarily I looked up, the sun was covered in a billion flickering rainbows and I was blinded by a trillion diamonds all around me. I decided to stand there for a moment to feel the frozen sun’s last kiss on my nose. “Farewell,” I whispered, as it faded behind the dark, heavy gray clouds. A freezing wind kicked up and I rushed to the shed to get out of the way. Midwinter had come slightly earlier than normal it seemed. In the protection of the shed I filled up my wheel barrel, more pine this time than I would have liked, but at least it wasn’t frozen.
When I turned toward the house my breath caught, someone was staring at me from under the tree beside my truck. He had a dark hat on and a thick jacket and tall boots. I could barely make him out, but there was no mistaking that someone was staring at me from under the tree.
I screamed at him, “Who are you and what are you doing here?!”
The stranger stood there, waiting, watching. Furious, I grabbed my ax I use for chopping the wood. In the freezing wind and blowing snow I made my way toward the tree and the stranger. The closer I got the more terrified I became, and the more angry I was.
“What on Earth do you think you are doing here at my house?!” I screamed again at the man, but the stranger did not move or say anything or hint at moving. He simply stared at me. When I reached the tree I swung my ax as hard as I could. I missed the man as he dodged the ax, grabbed at the handle and tried to punch me. The ax sank deep into the tree where I couldn’t easily get it out. My poor tree is all I could think. I loved this tree, and now I may have killed it. The man hit me so hard in the face that I fell to the ground. The white that I saw became red. He was on top of me for a moment and I need him in the groin, as he grabbed himself I sunk my teeth into his cheek, ripping out whatever had been there. The sudden taste of blood was vomit inducing and I threw up on him immediately.
Enraged, his face bleeding profusely, but unable to stand, the man tried to grab the ax from the tree, but I had struck the tree so hard that even he couldn’t remove the ax. Seeing that he was incapacitated, I attempted to get up, my eyes unable to focus. I grabbed the ax handle first, ignoring the sticking frost that froze my hand to handle, wrenched it from the tree and swung with all my might. I didn’t not hear him scream. I did not hear the thud of the ax smashing his face. It was much like splitting wood really, and with that I had killed a man. I could not look away from him, the ax protruding from his destroyed face, the foam and steam being blown away in the wind. I left him there for his body to freeze. I stumbled back to the shed and grabbed my wheel barrel. Making my way back to the house I stumbled and spilled the wood. I had to pile it back quickly as the storm was becoming ferocious, and threatened to freeze me outside with the man. Hurriedly, I piled the wood into the wheel barrel, dumped it all onto the porch and flung myself inside.
Leaning against the closed door, I slid into a seated position. I could not stop the tears nor the blood that was all over me, frozen in some places, oozing in others. I cried so hard I thought I would vomit again. I crawled over the floor to the bathroom, coughing and shaking, locked the bathroom door and drug myself up to the mirror to see the damage. My hair and blouse was covered in mud, wet from the snow, a large red and swollen mark on my face, was badly split open from his fist. There was his blood mixed with mine. I could not stop crying, that man’s life was gone, and perhaps my tree would die now. I loved that tree.
I screamed into the mirror, cursing him for what I did, cursing him for what he did to me. Why would he be here, why would he have come to my house, how did he come all this way, and from where. I did not recognize him, so he could not have been from town. Then, where did he come from?
As soon as I could stand without shaking and crying I went to unlock the door, but my hand froze to the doorknob. It was not cold in the house, but I could not take my hand away. I could not turn the lock, what if he was on the other side of the door, half his face hanging from the other half, handing me my ax…
How crazy! I turned the lock, wrenched open the door, stepped through into the hallway as fast and forcefully as I could, fully expecting him to be in the doorway without a face and holding out my ax as though I had forgotten it. But the room was warm, quiet, and my messy retreat into the house was fully visible. The rug was scattered, mud and melting snow everywhere, and some of the blood also lay splattered in the doorway. I looked out the door. There was nothing to see, except a blanket of white more solid than the ice sheets of 13,000 B.C.