Things of Legend

Chapter 01: Castellum

The map spread across the table showed two dozen locations circled in black, but a quarter of them were also marked with a red X over the top.

"I can't believe we haven't found one good haunting ground, not one!" Dixon complained. He shed his bright orange coat and hung it over a chair. "Halloween is tomorrow, and if we can't find at least one spooky place, this whole vacation will have been for nothing."

"I know," Chad agreed, unzipping his blue parka as the heat from the fireplace was starting to affect him too. "We've still got a few places left to check. They can't all be bogus. We'll find something."

The two boys looked enough alike with their matching dark hair and eyes to be brothers, although Dixon at nineteen was a year older than Chad. The inn where they were staying was fashioned from wood and had the rustic look of something made entirely by native craftsmen. Antlers were mounted to the walls for decoration between the flickering oil lamps. Soft rugs of muted colors had been placed around the room to soften footsteps and cushion the wood tables and chairs so as to not scratch the floor.

Seated near the fire was the only patron currently visible as the other guests of the inn had retired for the night. Dressed in homespun cloth the dark color of freshly tilled soil, the old man turned to look at the two visiting teenagers when he overheard their conversation.

"Excuse me," he said, rising from his place on the couch with difficulty. "Did I hear you right that you were looking for someplace haunted for Halloween?"

"Yes," Dixon confirmed. "Do you know of such a place?"

"As a matter of fact, I know the best place," the old man told them. He shuffled over to the table and placed the index finger of his wrinkled hand on the map. "This is Castellum. It's not marked on any map I know, but they have something you just wouldn't believe."

"What is it?" Dixon asked.

"Can't give away all the surprise," the old man replied with a sly grin.

"It's rather far," Chad noted while looking at the map. "Even if we start first thing in the morning, it will take us until evening just to get there. If it doesn't turn out to be anything good, we won't have time to go anywhere else."

"You two are Americans, right?" the old man asked. When Chad and Dixon nodded, he reached into his pocket and removed his wallet. Taking out two bills in United States currency of a thousand dollars each, he set them on the table in front of the teenagers. "I'll bet you this money that what I have to show you will stick with you the rest of your life. If I'm right, you give me back the money, but if you are not properly impressed, you get to keep the money. Do we have a bargain?"

"Sounds good to me," Dixon instantly agreed. "I'm always up for free money."

"I don't know," Chad said cautiously. It seemed too good to be true, and he knew how things of that nature turned out.

"Come on," Dixon insisted. "Don't be a wimp. We either find the greatest haunted place ever, or we leave a thousand dollars richer, each. Why are we still having this conversation? We're going."

"Splendid!" said the old man happily. "I'll see you there tomorrow night."

Turning away, he hobbled to the door and left the inn. Because his back was to Dixon and Chad, neither of them saw the red glow smoldering in the old man's eyes.

***

The dark green rental car slowed to a stop on the outskirts of Castellum. The collection of stone buildings with wood shingled rooves were clustered around a small chapel with a bell tower located in the center of the town. Most of the doors and windows were boarded up as if the town were either abandoned or expecting a terrible storm. Dirt roads created a spider web of packed earth between the buildings where years of foot traffic had compressed the soil, killing the grass and preventing anything from growing on the thoroughfare.

Chad and Dixon climbed out of the small car, stretching their tired muscles after having driven all day to arrive at their destination.

"It doesn't look like anyone expects visitors," Chad remarked.

"They're not even on the map, so why should they be rolling out the welcome mat for tourists?" Dixon asked in return.

"Fair point," Chad agreed. "I wonder when the old man will get here."

"Already here," said the old man from behind them, causing Chad and Dixon to spin around. "It's so good that you came. It's almost time."

"Time for what?" Chad inquired.

"For your tour of a haunted site," the old man answered as if it should've been obvious.

"I don't think I got your name," Chad said. He didn't know this man and had followed him into the middle of nowhere. Whether or not the haunted site was legitimate, he and Dixon were alone, and no one knew where they had gone. He brushed a hand across the back of his neck where the little hairs were leaving a prickly feeling on his skin.

"I could've sworn I told you," the old man said. "My name is Feldman, Malcolm Feldman. Come right this way."

"What's all this stuff?" Dixon asked, nodding toward carvings on fence posts and front doors of the town dwellings. The carvings were mostly geometric with overlapping triangles, circles, and graceful lines curving around and through them. Symbols neither Chad nor Dixon could identify had been placed around the carvings or at one or more of the cardinal points of the compass.

"Superstitions," Malcolm dismissed. "After all, it is Halloween."

At the end of the dirt street, where Malcolm was leading them, was a chapel. The building was small with a two story tall bell tower above the front doors. The stain glass windows showed flickering candles inside.

Malcolm stopped outside the wrought iron fence surrounding the chapel, breathing hard. He brushed his forehead with the back of his long sleeve and ran a hand through the wispy, white hair atop his head.

"I'm not as young as I used to be," Malcolm complained between gasps for air. He placed a hand on his back, stretching his muscles for a moment. "Be a friend to an old man and get something for me."

"What do you need?" Dixon asked.

"There is a hidden switch at the base of the altar," Malcolm explained while pointing a crooked finger toward the chapel. "Go down to the lower level, and you'll find a statue holding a stone. Being me the stone, and then I'll show you a haunting like no other."

"Come on," Dixon said as he nudged Chad in the shoulder.

As the two teenagers headed for the chapel, Malcolm smiled, all trace of exhaustion gone.

"Soon, my Master," Malcolm said a voice far deeper than his own. "Soon, you shall be free."