Grim Tales for Gruesome People

Whispers

Here they come, these things, in jackboots and coats buttoned to the neck. Hammers pound against chisels, chipping away at stone. I'm not sure how long we've been at it; no one keeps time.

"Rak. Krang. Thrin. Stor," they chant, they march.

I don't know what it means. Still, I lift my hammer, drive it down, repeat.

Down here, it's always dark. Blackness, thick with a familiar stench that creeps down the back of my throat and makes me gag just when I think I've gotten used to the smell. Luminous, bile-like liquid leaks from narrow fissures, hissing and spitting from every fresh dent in the wall.

There's something deeper, say the others - surely odious and despicably horrid as to emit an odour as foul as this.

Someone strikes their chisel out of time: a dull clang, isolated in the silence that hangs between synchronised beats. He - the perpetrator - is soon dealt with, gagged and bagged in a hessian sack, carried away by these marching things.

I'd like to say I've been here a while, but a while is a measurement of time which no longer exists. When their ships shrouded the land in shadow. When the rain turned black like oil. When the dust clouds melted flesh. That's when they brought me here, but I can't say when that was. I eat the slop they serve when I'm starving. I sleep when I pass out.

It is said that they're searching for something. For with every chant, this something, deep within the earth, responds with a disorienting hum. I want to cover my ears. But I daren't miss a beat.

There's power here, that's for sure. I can feel it, seeping into my bones like a bitter winter chill, though there's no longer such a thing as the cold. Seasons are lost beneath the soil. Beneath my home, my wife, my children. Taken from me by these things that chant, have elongated heads and skeletal fingers; these beings, with shells of pale skin where faces should be.

Their chants seem to stir it, wake it from its slumber.

She said that she loved me, when she covered our children's faces with dirtied hands; when they dragged me away to help search for this power that they seek.

A tremor now, like the rumbling of an enormous stomach. The others say it means we're getting closer.

"Rak. Krang. Thrin. Stor," they chant, louder, "RAK! KRANG! THRIN! STOR!"

The belly of the world tightens, crumbling rock and soot and debris. Bile spurts out from cracks like sliced arteries, saturating me in that sickening stink.

That smell. For weeks they searched to uncover the source. At first, they thought maybe discharge of sewage in the local river, possibly a lack of rainfall to wash concentrated human waste through the treatment works. Some described it as 'rotting animal carcass'; some just couldn't seem to find the words. Clouds soon followed: black and billowing, not dissimilar to smoke from a petrochemical blaze. And behind the veil came triangular ships, defying all known principles of physics and whipping up storms of razor-sharp dust. They had arrived, these things that chant; that burrowed underground in mechanical worms, tore husbands from their wives and their children.

I said I'd come back for her, when I reached out a hand to caress her cheek. I said I'd find a way.

Quiet now, as hammers cease to strike. The others say they've found something, and huddle around a recently excavated doorway. Blinding light emanates from within, spilling out into dank tunnels, illuminating fresh passageways.

"Rak. Krang. Thrin. Stor," they chant, motioning for us to follow.

'Where are they taking us?' say the others. The reek is potent, causing some to vomit and curl into quivering, foetal slumps. There's radiance, brighter than the sun I struggle to remember, exposing etchings of indecipherable language and carvings of hideous beings. The floor shifts like crawling skin. Walls expel spatters of bile with the viscosity of spermatic fluid.

Resonant gasps soon fill my ears: hushed, consternated tones. The others say we're here, but I can't catch a glimpse for the crowd. Whispers soon rise to a crescendo of elated cries, astounded by what we've helped to uncover. They say that it's nothing, but everything; that it transcends governments, countries and continents, and the love for a wife or a child. They say they're glad to be a part of it, ecstatic to be blessed by its presence.

They say it's what we've been yearning for.

They say that it's beautiful.

Light is all there is now, enveloping me in clinical whiteness. I understand now why they brought me here. Why they tore me from my wife, my children. This is more important. This is what matters.

I take a deep breath and fill my lungs with that sickly-sweet stink.

My face melts, devouring eyes and nose and lips like tar. Fingers twist, revealing bones that groan and splinter as they extend. Organs no longer needed retreat back inside. I lace new boots and don the coat they give to me. I button it to the neck.

I chant: "Rak. Krang. Thrin. Stor."

END

Thank you for reading. I really appreciate your feedback, so please consider voting and commenting.