Callous (Part 10)
A draft novel in parts.
Note - This is the continuation of a vanity project. A novel written in parts, with minimal editing or fuss. If I like the end result I may gather up all the parts and rewrite them into something better. This is a learning process.
Some rougher language and sentences in this one, but I’m happy with where the narrative is going. The rewrite should be an enjoyable affair.
You can find parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 here.
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I have come to believe that mankind eternally hovers on the brinks of secret oceans of which it knows nothing. - Robert E. Howard.
Jonathan sprang out of bed early full of nerves and fear about what he must do, but it was also great for him to have a mission of sorts again. Somehow the idea of spending each day simply looking after the animals and surviving alone filled him with more dread than the feeding…. The wailing and scratching had returned through the night, this time with a sorrowful sort of wailing. It definitely was increasing in magnitude and frequency.
He sorted the animals quickly, then went to investigate the food situation. He poured over the journals (and Fred’s room), looking for guidelines on what to feed the animals. He found nothing.
In the end Jonathan decided on a few cans of beans, some old goat meat, some milk, and a big bucket of water. Next came deciding which hatch to use. Jonathan was absolutely terrified now, realizing that his desire for any sort of action at all had masked the actual horror of what he was about to attempt. The sun was still rising, and he thought he’d make his move at its zenith - the brightness seemingly a safeguard.
Jonathan had what he thought a novel idea to facilitate this. He brought two of the goats down towards the hatch set in the corner of their field and tied them to it. As lunchtime came around he tied various pieces of metal to the ropes, then placed food just out of the goat’s reach. The result was a proper ruckus, exactly as designed.
Jonathan ran to the hatch in the cabin, opening it as quickly yet quietly as possible. It swung open with a loud creak which terrified him. Jonathan peered down. It was a dark hole, with a small ladder, the floor only 6-8 feet away, it then headed off into total darkness in either direction. Jonathan could hear the dripping of water, and nothing else. He could still hear the goat noises outside, the tinkling of metal stirring memories of something that waved in the wind at home.
He threw in the goat-meat. At this point he realized he’d have to descend the ladder to place the milk, water, and beans down. He grabbed the bucket of milk and stepped down carefully and quietly.
He reached the bottom, assuming it’d be hard-packed dirt but surprised to discover it was something much firmer. He placed the milk down and was about to climb up to grab the beans and water but then heard rapid steps approaching in the dark. He also noticed the goat sounds had stopped. Jonathan flew up the ladder and slammed the hatch shut, locking it just as something slammed into the other side with wails and growls.
Jon sat for a few minutes pondering a better way to do this, then wondered about the still-silent goats. He went outside to check on them, and they were both seemingly asleep next to the hatch. Jonathan ran up to check them and realized with horror that they were both dead. Blood had seemingly come out of their mouths, ears and eyes, and they were both on their sides, with what to Jon looked like expressions of horror on their faces. Jon was going to bury them or burn them, then realized the meat was far too precious to waste, so he hung them up and decided he’d work out how to deal with them later.
The thought that somehow the creatures had got to the goats despite not escaping their ‘lair’ bothered Jon so much that he gave up doing anything else for the day. He looked yet again through Fred’s room and journals, looking for a hint of anything that might explain what happened. As he was pouring over the journal he visited the page again where Fred was discussing failing to feed the creatures for a week, the part of the journal in which 3 weeks were missing afterward. Jonathan had assumed before that nothing had been written for those weeks to then resume on the next page. This time he realized the pages had actually been ripped from the journal, then neatened up to appear otherwise. The record of those weeks had been removed. What could have happened?
As he sat in the main room of the cabin he heard the noises of something slammed against the hatch, it was metallic, and Jon assumed it was the milk bucket. He hoped they liked the milk and goat they’d been given. That night was different. Jon dreamed, but not like his normal nostalgic or adventurous dreams. This was different.
Red, everything was red. The sun itself seemed to be bleeding. It was like there was a filter over reality itself. Jon was at the cabin, he was walking outside. Two goats approached him, the two he’d tied up earlier. They were bleeding from their eyes, ears, and noses. One of them spoke.
”YOU NEED TO FEED THEM BETTER, YOU NEED TO FEED US BETTER, WE NEED YOUR THOUGHTS TOO”
The voice was distinctly goat-like and could have been amusing, but it was unmistakably also Fred’s voice.
The other goat spoke, in the same identical voice: ”You will give us everything you are. You will understand, you will be made to understand”
Both goats then charged at Jon, their blood-drenched mouths opening in an inhuman shriek. They had the same teeth as the creatures, They had the same white eyes. They charged.
Jon woke screaming into his pillow and gripping his hammer tightly. It had become a sort of ‘soother’ for his worries, and knowing it was in hand made him feel safer. It was still dark.
Jonathan walked around the property, just letting the night air cool his worries and panic. He heard nothing from the hatches, and assumed maybe the creatures had approved of his milk and goat. As he wandered over to where he’d hung up the two goats earlier, he noticed something strange. Both were swaying in a wind that wasn’t there, and as Jonathan approached he could see they looked different.
The goats were emaciated, completely drained. Jonathan looked around but there was no blood on the floor, nothing. The goats looked like they’d been practically mummified. They felt like leather to the touch, and one could see the bones through the skin. They were entirely desiccated, whole goat jerky. This somehow freaked Jon out more than the nightmare itself, and he quickly ran back to the cabin to lock himself in. On the way he saw the two remaining goats, and decided to bring them into the cabin with him.
The rest of the night went by without issue, and Jonathan woke to the noises of the goats very early. They’d made a revolting mess of the cabin, but Jon didn’t care. It was good to wake up with company near. As Jon prepared breakfast though he began to choke and splutter, he dropped his bowl and screamed in horror. The milk bucket he’d placed down the hatch was sitting neatly at the front door of the cabin by the hatch. It had to be the same one.
Jonathan told himself it was surely some mix up on his part, some sort of confusion, but another part of him knew that was the only metal bucket he had, and knew that it should be down the hatch.
At this point Jon realized these creatures must be escaping at night, but why did they not attack him? Why did they return to their lair? How were they doing this? As Jon pondered this and investigated the cabin he noticed dirty footprints, his own, moving from the hatch to the front door and back again. These prints were not the prints of yesterday, but they were his. Again Jon told himself these must be from the feeding expedition the day earlier, and he must be losing his mind a little from the stress and worry. He went about his day, trying to think up a plan for the next feeding.
Worries about water and food supplies had vanished now in his consistent sense of dread. Even his former loneliness seemed like a naive concern of the past. His only focus now was how to make these things happy. Somehow they seemed to be able to affect things on the surface when they weren’t pleased. Jonathan just wanted it all to stop. He contemplated simply leaving, but that letter from Fred’s father kept him still. He spent the whole day pondering possibilities and decided eventually to move to Fred’s room. This meaningless shift in living circumstances proved to be quite the useful distraction, as Jon didn’t want to use Fred’s bed, so spent the majority of the day emptying the entire room out and replacing it with the couch-bed he’d been using for months.
As Jon finished up and relaxed in the room he felt pleased to be away from the hatch in the center of the cabin, but there was a niggling thought in the back of his mind that something was not quite right. There was the idea that he simply couldn’t remember something, like that feeling you get when you nearly have a grip on an idea but cannot articulate it properly. There was something he was missing about all this, he just couldn’t work out what it was yet. It almost felt as if his own internal monologue was hiding something from him, though this seemed so absurd that Jon quickly dismissed the idea as something brought on by stress and worry.
Jonathan sat back, resuming his reading, preparing for another night and hoping against hope that he’d get to enjoy a dreamless sleep.