Click to read Part 1 and Part 2 of the story.

When Pavel reached the house, he took the axe from behind the door and began to sharpen it. His mother looked up from the hearth, where she was cleaning out the ashes.

“What are you doing home? What’s wrong?”

Pavel looked at her, hesitated. “Wolves,” he said.

He stayed home all day, sharpening knives, watching, and fidgeting, until his behavior began to frighten his mother and he left. No one from the mayor’s manor came to summon him, which both relieved and worried him at the same time.

Night eventually came and Pavel and his mother sat silently in front of the fire—her with her mending and Pavel staring into the fire, the axe on his knees. He looked up to see her gazing at him.

“Do you think you will need that here? Do you think the wolves will come into the village—break into our house?”

“I—I’m not sure,” he said.

“It’s not wolves you’re worried about, is it?” she said.

There was a clattering outside, like wood falling off the pile. Pavel jumped, then went to the small window by the door. The moonlight was shining on their small path and garden but there was no movement.

At that moment, the chickens behind the house began to scream. Pavel had never heard them make such sound—did not know they could make such a horrible, rending shriek. He put his hand on the door handle but could not will himself to open it.

“Well, are you going?” his mother cried suddenly. “You got the axe. If wolves are at the chickens, you’d better go now or they’ll all be killed.”

Still, Pavel could not make himself open the door or explain why. He felt paralyzed. The chickens stopped abruptly and there was total silence for a space of several breaths. Just when he thought it was safe, there was a thump against the door. It came again. Someone, or something, was knocking with heavy, irregular strokes on the outside.

Thump . . . thump . . .

“Are you going to open it?” his mother asked. “Pavel, are you okay? What’s wrong? If it were wolves, they wouldn’t be knocking. Pavel, let the poor person in and out of the cold. Pavel?”

His hand was still resting on the door handle, but all he could think of was some way to barricade the door. Pull the beds across and push them against it. Block the window. Anything and everything to keep the evil outside. He looked up to see his mother next to him and before he could do anything, she pushed him aside and threw the door open.

A gust of frigid wind burst into the room, causing the fire to gutter. Pavel heard a rasping, croaking sound and then that hideous deformed face he had seen in the dungeon emerged into the light of the fireplace. His mother gasped and stepped back. The creature shuffled over the threshold.

Pavel stepped in front of his mother, brandishing the axe, but he was too transfixed with horror to strike. Now that he could see the monster in better light, he saw that it looked like a man, although one shriveled and twisted by some evil force. Its skin was yellow and thin and its eyes were bloodshot and roving. They latched onto his mother’s face and the mouth opened.

“Ah . . . An . . . Anca.” Pink spittle dribbled from its mouth as it expelled the word. Pavel’s mother was staring at the creature, her eyes growing wider and wider until she started to scream. She fell back on the floor, covering her face with her hands and screamed and screamed. Even when she fell into a coughing fit, she continued to writhe and tear at her hair.

“Mother!” Pavel ran to her side, trying to make her stop. He kept his eyes on the monster. It pulled itself a little closer.

“Pa . . . vel,” the monster rasped, staring at Pavel with its bulging eyes. And then, in a moment ghastly revelation, Pavel knew what the slavering ghoul in front of him was. It was his father.

It had been, at least. Now, one could hardly call it human. Pavel felt nothing but loathing for it and he wished he had the resolution to cut it in two with the axe. But he could not. Not now.

The monster that been his father saw the swaying of the axe in his hand and moved closer. “Kill . . . me,” it said. “The axe . . . will do nothing. In the high . . . tower there is . . . a dagger. Only it . . . can . . . kill me. I will . . . meet you . . . there.” It stopped and started to hack in short, sharp croaks. Pavel could barely look at it. “Kill me . . . son,” it said again and then, suddenly, it pulled itself around and was gone through the open door.

Pavel shut and locked the door. The fire had sunk low and the room was dark and icy. “Mother, sit up. Please,” he said, going to her and helping her up. All the strength seemed to have left her, but she got up, unresisting, and let him guide her to her chair by the fire. She picked up her mending and started to cry. The sobs came, stronger and stronger until they were shaking her thin body. The dam she had built triple-strong against the grief of her life had finally broken.

Pavel stayed by her until she finally quieted. He was putting more wood on the fire when she finally spoke. “You must do it, Pavel. You must kill him.”

“I don’t want to go near that thing again,” he said. “That is not my father. He died when I was a baby.”

“You must!” she said again. “I said good bye to your father a long time ago, and I cannot live now, knowing he is being tortured like that every moment of the day. You must kill him or I will never have peace. Do it for me, if not for him, son.”

Pavel nodded slowly. “I will go now,” he said.

(to be concluded tomorrow)

Click to read Part 1 of the story.

The frigid wind whipping through the tower door greeted Pavel as he reached ground level. He wanted nothing more than to run home and sit huddled by his fire but instead he crouched in dread in a protected corner until the three men of the Inner Circle reappeared, again wrapped in their rich cloaks.

“My lord, a messenger came here saying that your daughter is sick, to the point of death,” Pavel said.

The mayor looked at him hard, but then nodded. “Then let us hurry, boy,” was all he said. Pavel picked up the lantern and led the way back down to the town.

Pavel left the mayor at the door of the manor and went back to his small house. His mother was up when he returned. She looked up from her sewing, the weariness indelibly etched on her face. She never complained to him, but as Pavel had gotten older, he began to realize how hard the last fifteen years had been for his mother, the former daughter-in-law of a viscount and wife to the heir. Now, she was only a peasant woman and the least skillful of them all. When Pavel had been young, he had only thought about his own discomfort and yelled if the food she made was burned or tasteless. He would hide from the other children if his clothes were ill-mended. But she remained always like a lamb to the slaughter, though the execution stretched out over years of toil.

Pavel went and stood by the fire, still trying to process the horror he had seen in the dungeon of the castle. “The mayor’s daughter is on the edge of death,” he said after a moment. His mother’s hand went to her mouth but then dropped as she looked up hollowly at him.

“What will he do to us this time?” she asked plaintively. “When the crops were bad last year, he took a double share from our stores and when one of his cows broke its leg, he took our only one.”

“This is not our fault,” Pavel said.

“When has it ever been?” she asked. “He will kill us yet, even if it takes another fifteen years. He has a vendetta.”

“But why should he?” Pavel asked. “He killed my grandfather, but I was a baby and you were only his daughter-in-law. What could we have done to him?”

“I never told you,” she said softly, putting calloused hands over her face for a moment. “Perhaps I should have. My only crime was that I would not be his wife. I rejected his proposal and later married your father. I thought he had forgotten about it, until that night, when the people rebelled and he, their leader, took the title of mayor. A civil enough title, but he is as ruthless as any noble.”

She faced the fire, but continued to speak, slowly repeating to herself a litany of grief and injustice, dredged up for yet another bitter dose of recollection. Pavel went to bed before she had finished and her dreary murmuring cast ominous shadows over his dreams.

Pavel had just woken up the next morning when someone pounded on the door. He opened it to see their neighbor, Domnul Iorga.

“Warning,” Iorga said immediately. “Wolves are about, they say. The Cernea farm was attacked and six sheep were killed and mutilated. Also, one of the farmhands who was sleeping in the barn is dead. Carry a blade with you if you go out.”

“Thank you, I will,” Pavel said. “Have you heard any word on the mayor’s daughter?”

“Dead, they say. Last night,” Iorga said. He gave Pavel a meaningful look and crossed himself. “God be with you and yours.” He turned and went up the path to his house. Pavel looked back, but his mother was busy at the fire and had not heard. He would not tell her, at least not yet.

Pavil worked as a messenger for the mayor, as well as his duties as the midnight lantern carrier for the Inner Circle’s gatherings. He arrived at the mayor’s manor after breakfast and the guard Andrei informed him that he was summoned directly to the mayor’s study. “God be with you,” the man murmured after him.

“Is it true that Crina died in the night?” Pavel asked.

“So they say,” Andrei said. “Wadim was on night watch and said that the mayor came back after the first hour and then left again, carrying his daughter with him in a carriage. Wadim swears she was alive when they left, but an hour later, when they returned, she was covered with a sheet. I would have thought they’d go to Domnul Florea, the surgeon, but his assistant said no one came there all night.”

Pavel only nodded and hurried inside. All he could think of was the hideous monster he had seen in the dungeon of the castle, and how it had attacked Iosif. Was it possible the mayor had sacrificed his own daughter to that thing? There were rumors that the Inner Circle was involved in satanic rituals in the castle late at night. He had never believed them, but now a shock of fear ran through him as it occurred to him that what he had seen might have been the devil.

He was ushered into the mayor’s study immediately. He bowed and stood in front of the narrow wooden desk with the ceremonial mace lying across the front.

The mayor had changed overnight. His hair and beard were uncombed and his face looked haggard and wolfish. His dark-rimmed eyes bored into Pavel as if he were trying to read his thoughts.

“Did you go down into the tower last night?” the mayor asked immediately.

He knows. He knows everything, Pavel thought, as a chill of terror went down his back. “I would never go into the tower, my lord,” he said.

“Liar!” The mayor’s fist crashed down on the desk. “Sergiu saw you go in.”

“No! He was gone before—” Pavel hesitated. “I mean, yes, I did open the door to see if you were coming, but then I shut it again. I did not go in, I swear.” He was desperate in his denial; not matter what guilt his soul might endure from lying, it was far better than admitting he had gone down into that dungeon now.

“A door in the dungeon that is always kept locked somehow became unlocked. Who could have unlocked it, but you?”

“I do not know, my lord, but I swear that I did not go into the tower,” Pavel said. He could feel the sweat trickling down his back and hoped his guilt did not show through onto his face.

The mayor gave a snarl, but then collapsed back into his chair, as if his strength had suddenly deserted him.

“Go,” he said, “but may calamity find you swiftly if you are lying.” Pavel fled.

“I’m glad to see you still in one piece,” Andrei said when he had reached the courtyard again. “Did you hear about the other fatality last night?”

“Yes, the Cernea family’s farmhand,” Pavel said. “Domnul Iorga told me. Wolves, he said.”

“I have not heard of that one,” Andrei said. “I mean Doamna Korzha. Her husband said they were getting ready for a bed when a monstrous face appeared in the window. Big green eyes and teeth like a wolf, they say. The old woman screamed and fell down dead, her fare suddenly paid in full for her journey to heaven. Her husband said it was a face like a devil. Hey, where are you going?”

Pavel had taken off running towards home. There was a monster loose in the region and it was his fault. He had to get home and keep that thing away from his mother.

(to be continued)

An unusual Saturday post! This is the first story in what I’ve decided to call Invitational Prompts. This is where I ask one person to give me several prompts they’d like to see made into a story. This set of prompts is provided by my good friend, Sharmishtha Basu. Go check out her stories and thoughtful posts here, here, here or here.

The prompts were: a vampire, a small town, an old castle, and a scary tone (more mystery and spook than gore)

Sincere apologies to Sharmishtha for taking so long to finish writing this.

The town of Nerakrist slept, but on the overlooking hill, four figures picked their way up the overgrown track to the moldering ruins of the castle. The lead figure, a boy, carried a lantern to light the way. The contrast in their clothes was striking: the boy shivered in the fierce wind that whipped through his patched rags, while the three men behind him wore rich furs and thick woolen cloaks. They were the leaders of the town: the mayor, the thane and the master of lands. The boy’s name was Pavel.

They reached the rotting gate of the old castle and Pavel held the light for the men to enter through a gap in the timbers. They walked straight to a low door in the right-hand gate tower and the mayor unlocked it. Then they stepped inside and closed it, leaving Pavel alone.

Pavel hated the castle, but as the servant of the mayor, he had to accompany the Inner Circle whenever they held their midnight meetings there. He huddled on the ground, hugging his thin jacket around him. The lantern burned feebly and the deep shadows of the barren courtyard outside the circle of light seemed to hold creatures just beyond his vision. The castle was surely haunted, if not with spirits then with dark history. He hated being there, not because he felt he did not belong, but because he was terrified that he did.

Fifteen years ago, Pavel’s grandfather had been the viscount in the castle. His mother never talked about it, so Pavel had only the rumors and gossip of the townsfolk to rely on. They said his grandfather was a monster, a sorcerer, a devil-worshipper who captured and tortured the peasants of the region. They said that the viscount even murdered his own son, Pavel’s father, in the highest tower of the castle, even as the revolting peasants were breaking through the gate. So they said, at least.

Pavel heard footsteps outside the gate and he stiffened. No one would be foolish enough to come to the castle at any time, let alone during one of the Inner Circle’s midnight meeting. Not unless something was seriously wrong.

“Hello? Is anyone there?” a fearful voice called.

“You can’t be here,” Pavel said, looking through the gate and holding the lantern up. It was Sergiu, one of the mayor’s house servants, looking cold and scared. “Go, quickly.”

“I was sent by the mayor’s wife. His daughter Crina has taken a turn for the worse. She may die.”

“I will die if I go down there and disturb them at whatever they are doing,” Pavel said. “Wait here, if you want, or I will tell him as soon as they come back up.”

“What do you think he will do to you when he finds out his daughter died while he was away because you withheld the message?” Sergiu said.

Pavel looked towards the closed door. “It’s probably locked anyway,” he said, although without conviction. He tried the latch and door opened.

“Go! Tell him now,” Sergiu said. “He will not mind an interruption for this.” Both of them knew this was not true. Sergiu disappeared and Pavel heard his running footsteps disappear down the slope.

The mayor would be furious—it was inevitable at this point. All that remained was to determine which action would make him less angry. The Inner Circle had many meetings here, perhaps several a month, but the mayor only had one daughter and Crina was the world to him. Pavel stepped inside the door.

The inside of the tower was a barren, circular room with stairs going up and down. The Inner Circle’s cloaks hung on hooks along one side of the wall and tracks in the dust headed towards the descending stairs. There was a very faint odor of old decay that hung in the cold air.

Pavel started down the steps slowly, holding the lantern above him. The steps curved down to the right and then split, with steps going left and right. There were no tracks here and the air was totally still as if he were sealed in lead. After a moment’s hesitation, he took the left-hand stair.

It descended, straight and narrow for almost a hundred steps until Pavel reached two heavy wooden doors. One was locked, but the other was only barred with a heavy bolt slid across it. Pavel stopped and listened at the door. He should not have come. It had seemed the right thing to do, to warn the mayor about his daughter, but now that he was actually outside the chamber where the Inner Circle held their clandestine gatherings, he knew it was foolish. Any interruption for any reason would be punished harshly. But it was as if he were sliding downhill, with no way to stop. Pavel placed the lantern on the stairs and carefully slid the bolt back from the door.

The door did not squeak, which was strange for a ruin, but a blessing for him. As soon as the door had opened a crack, a vile stench of rot and death hit him and almost made him sick. The room beyond was dim, lit from somewhere far beyond. He could see black bars ahead in the gloom and voices talking.

“Please, please let me go! I’ll do anything you want. For God’s sake, think of my family.” The voice was thin and cracked from dehydration. Another voice spoke further off. It was fainter and Pavel took a few steps in to hear better.

“We are the executors of justice,” the second voice said. “The keepers of righteous violence. You do not want us to think of your family as well. You were brought here because of wrongdoing. It was you who were supposed to take care of Crina’s horse. When she was out riding, it threw a shoe and she had to walk back in the rain. It is because of you that she is gravely ill.”

Pavel moved forward and found the way blocked by a barred door, standing ajar. Through it, he could see a wide arena bordered with more dark cells. In the middle of the area knelt a man in ragged clothes, his face upturned in supplication. Fifteen feet above, three figures stood looking down from behind a breastwork of stone. They were robed in white and wore masks, but it was clear to Pavel who they were.

“Mercy!” the man cried. “I did my best. I could not have known that the horse would lose its shoe.”

“Nevertheless, the damage was done and because of your actions, my daughter may die,” one of the masked men said. He took off the mask and Pavel saw the mayor’s face contorted in hate. “There is only one thing you can do now, Iosif: die and ask God Almighty for mercy. You will get none on this earth.”

Iosif, Pavel thought with a shock. He recognized him now. Iosif, the mayor’s stableman had disappeared the night after Crina had gotten sick. They said that the wolves of the Dark Forest had gotten him as he was bringing a load of hay back to the barn. That was four days ago.

One of the other masked men, reached up and pulled a rope that was hanging from the ceiling. Across the arena, there was a click and a barred door opened. Iosif gave a moan of dread, as if he knew that the moment of judgment had come, although not its form.

Something moved in the darkness of the cell. It shuffled forward into the lamplight and Pavel saw with horror a blighted and hairless scalp, stretched thin and tight over a protuberant skull. The monster reached out a ghoulish hand towards Iosif, pulling itself forward with the other, as if it were not used to walking. Iosif turned and ran, stumbling into the gloom towards where Pavel was hiding. The creature paused for a moment, then leapt with claws outstretched onto the unfortunate man’s back. The last thing Pavel saw before he ran was the monster’s lips pulling back to reveal long, stained fangs. Pavel fled back into the hall and up the steps, not bothering to rebolt the door he had opened.

(to be continued)