A Tale of Grey Man

Zero

The forest ended. I saw a dilapidated shack standing on the edge of a small clearing. The roof's tiles were broken, crushed, and shattered. Plaster on the walls was cracked and split. Great crevices and undulating fissures ran and pursued each other—interwoven, and collided, forming bizarre patterns, like if some insane artist painted it in the fit of epilepsy. Dim beams of the Moon slanted on the hut, but it seemed to me that they didn't illuminated it, but enveloped in the shroud of shadows and darkness. The windows and the oak door were shut closed, and there was no sign that people lived in this hovel.

I faltered for a moment: to come in, or to pass by? The rabbit I ate a day ago had already digested, and my body was demanding at least a bit of food. Maybe there was someone who would help me to get to a city, who would give me hot stew and a roof under which I could take a slumber—or maybe this hut was abandoned. It would be great to sleep on a bed again, to look not upon the indigo sky, livid moon, and twinkling stars, but upon the cozy, human-made wooden beams and girders.

What did I lose, after all?  Nothing.

I approached the house. It had a low fence around it; I vaulted it easily.

Around the house, there was a garden. It was unkempt, and there was nothing special about it; just grass. Surveying the garden, I saw a well; the stones from which it once was made were defeated and vandalised by verdurous and overgrown weeds.

I came to the door and rapped gently in the middle of the panel. No one answered; there was no movement at all. I rapped again, and that time it was a little louder than the previous. Nothing happened. I repeated the sequence a few times, and each time I knocked more strongly. Finally, I tried to pull the rusty latch, and the door yielded.

An aversion was growing in my stomach. I pulled harder, and the door swung open, showing me the interior of the shack. The room was dark, and only the moon lit the empty space of it—no light came from the boarded windows. The walls were moldy and tumble-down. Nothing was inside: a mantelpiece in the distant corner of the room, an empty andiron—only the dregs of ash inhabited the vastness of fireplace. The legs of an old table, they were strewn on the floor decaying, and the cobwebbed tabletop itself was propped up against the wall. Beside the left wall, there was a small countertop with a rusted tap, a corroded sink, and an ramshackle sideboard. Beside the right wall, there was a pair of rickety chairs, and the bed that was falling to pieces. The floor was full of dust. Everything was so dirty and muddy—it was difficult to breathe in such thick reek.

Cautiously I stepped in, and headed toward the sideboard. I had lost my stew and my bed, but I still had that last wild hope that I could find some sort of food there. I pulled the handles, and found nothing on the shelves except litter and soot.

I heard a loud creak, and had time only to turn around—the next moment, something heavy jumped on my chest and pushed me to the floor, right in the filth. Strong, sinewy hands snapped around my neck. It was a thin, scrawny, lantern-jawed man, his black eyes were sparkling madly, and his face was twisted with malevolence and exertion to suffocate me. I tried to reach for my knife, but I hadn't any access to it.

I kicked air and flailed my limbs, trying to loosen his grip. I lifted my hands and tried to clasped them around his neck, but he was stronger, and I felt that I just hadn't enough strength to throttle him before he strangled me. I moved my hands a bit higher, and found his bulging eyes,—and stuck my fingers deep into his eye-holes, ripped the sticky, bloody eyeballs out of their sockets. Blood splattered on my face, completely obscuring my sight, flooding my mouth with salt and iron. He yelled, but didn't lose his grip, only made it tighter. I threw the slimy balls away, and they flew through the room, rolling in the air with their long, bloody tails—like little comets.