Eyes

Eyes

 

I caught the first sight of the Château as the carriage rounded a bend in the road, bringing me over the ridge to look down into the valley. On the near end of the valley was a typical picturesque Normandy village. On the far side was the Château, rising like a black island in the ocean of white hills. Between the village and the Château was a forest so thick I could barely make out the road running along the edge of it. We made good speed as we came down into the valley, but once we went beyond the village the road became bad. The frost had turned the cobblestone to ice, and branches hung low from the trees who scratched the carriage as it flew past. I could see but a few yards into the forest, but then the trees became so clustered together that seeing beyond that was impossible. There was nothing to see in the forest anyway, only black, rime covered trees and hoarfrost frozen shrubs. They had no leaves but the twigs and branches where knitted together so tightly that sunlight could not penetrate. I thought once that I glimpsed a strange object on the roadside as we passed the edge of the forest center. It looked like some sort of stone monument, or crude altar. It stuck me as exceedingly odd, and I was determined to ask the Baron about it when I arrived.

 

The carriage pulled up to the black stone Château after an hours driving from the monument. I paid the driver and he promptly sped off into the twilight, the sound of the wheels rattling remained even after he had disappeared into the fog. I walked up to the French doors and was lifting the wolf’s head knocker when the door suddenly swung open. There stood the Baron, grinning broadly. As usual, his tangled chestnut hair was matted and unkempt and his thin beard came to a sharp point beneath his chin. His eyes glittered oddly, as they always did. He was tall and wiry, with great ropey muscles that belied his light frame. The Baron was an excellent mimic and accomplished ventriloquist and using my own voice he welcomed me to his humble home. He was going to move my things to a room without windows, for he said these Norman winters were very bitter, but I dissuaded him. Cold or no cold, I had to have a window so I was given a room on the first floor, overlooking the forest below. The Baron must have had few visitors, for the room’s furniture was covered in dust clothes, and there was a general smell of decay that filled the entire house. The Baron left me to unpack, closing the dark mahogany door behind him. The furniture was ornate, but had the appearance of disuse that made them unpleasant to look at. Outside my window the rose bushes had grown tall. Their briars peeped out like arrow tips from under the blanket of snow that covered them.

 

Once I had finished unpacking I set out to find the Baron. The Château was immense and it seemed even bigger as I wandered through room after room, alone in the twilight. Several times I thought that I heard someone following me- but it was only the hollow echo of my own footsteps.

 

I came back to the same parlor on multiple occasions, and I eventual gave up and collapsed into one of the gigantic armchairs that orbited the massive fireplace. I leaned back in my chair and gazed up at the many trophies decorating the walls. The Baron must have been as great a hunter as I had heard, for there were a multitude of stag and roe heads mounted on plaques. Each one’s eyes looked unseeingly ahead, and each mouth was open in what might have been a silent scream of terror. Whether from my exhaustion or the fetid stench of the manor I began to fancy that they were looking at me.

 

Suddenly I heard something smash behind me.

Leaping from my chair I spun around and saw there a woman standing over a broken vase. She heard me and looked up and her face haunts me to this day. She had large dark eyes that reminded me of one of the fawn heads mounted on the wall. She had doe brown hair and almost colorless lips, which when she saw me she bit until bled came. Her face turned ashen grey, as one’s does from incredible fear or anger. She began shaking violently and she clenched her fists until the knuckles turned white. In a quivering voice she whispered,

“Leave.”

 

I bent to help pick up the pieces of the vase but she seized my shoulder, her long nails sinking into me.

 

“Leave!” She said again, her voice growing higher, “Leave now! Leave I tell you!”. Her voice was shaking so that I could barely understand her.

 

Suddenly looked over my shoulder and drew back.

I turned and saw that standing in the doorway was the Baron. His face was twisted from anger and he swiftly strode forward.

“To your room, Rachel!” His deep voice was harsh and commanding. Wordlessly she turned and fled into the depths of the house.

 

The Baron ran his long fingernails through his thick hair and stood there a moment in silence before controlling himself enough to speak normally.

“My apologies, monsieur. That unfortunate soul you saw there was my wife, Rachel. She is… not quite normal, you might say. I have the task of looking after her. She is usually confined to her room but she somehow managed to get out. I again must apologize. She has the queerest fits, and she can’t stand the sight of guests.” He stopped abruptly at the sight of me nursing my shoulder.

 

“Are you alright Monsieur? What has that wretch done?”

 

“It’s nothing.” I assured him, “It’s just a little blood.”

 

“Blood!?” The Baron almost leapt forward before composing himself.

“I apologize most sincerely, Monsieur, she is not responsible for her actions. I must suggest that you tend to that cut, though. Norman winters are not kind to such wounds.”

His eyes shone wildly. They were so much different from hers. His were slightly slitted and always filled with some unintelligible shine. Hers were large and empty, not unlike the eyes on one of the Baron’s trophies.

 

Dinner was a slight affair, as the Baron apologized to me later. He had to tend to his wife and was only able to stay for a few minutes. We dined on steak, which the Baron cooked himself as he kept no servants. The room was dark but even so I was sure that the Baron’s steaks were barely cooked, for they were still covered in blood.

 

The Baron was far from a neat eater and literally wolfed down his food with his bare hands. He apologized and said that he had to hurry, to keep and eye on his wife. I finished my meal in solitude and then wandered off into the house.

 

Earlier that day I was sure I had seen a library somewhere and was determined to find it now. But as I walked into the room where it had been, I found that instead I was in the same parlor where I had wandered earlier in the day. The long shadows on the wall hid the trophies from view and all I could see were there empty eyes shining in the dark. I walked through and tried another door but found it locked. I tried another but it was locked too. I made my way down a dusty hall, futilely trying each door.

 

I was nearing the end of the corridor, with only a few doors left to try. My mind was playing tricks on me, and I began to imagine I heard sounds from inside the rooms that suddenly fell silent as I walked past.

 

Finally after a long struggle, one swung open and in the doorway stood a massive monster with clawed paws, maliciously burning eyes, and a matted coat of lusterless hair. I reeled back, and slipped onto the floor.

The Baron, for that was who the apparition was, swiftly knelt down and helped me to my feet.

He apologized for frightening me so and guided me back to the parlor where he built a comforting fire.

I looked at his stony face in the firelight and remembered the odd monument I had seen in the forest. Upon asking him about it his dark eyes glittered wildly.

 

“It is a monument to what the villagers call the wolf-demon. They say that there lives in this valley a great beast, some say it is half-man half-wolf, others say a possessed wolf of unnatural proportions. The altar has stood there since pagan times, when the road lay through these hills. Travelers would pay a tribute of silver whenever they passed.

The silver always disappeared by sunset. Some said that thieves took it, and so they stopped paying the tribute.”

 

“What happened?”

 

The Baron licked his lips and smiled.

“This sleepy corner of the world has always been known for the strange things that happen. They say you can here a woman in the woods screaming before a storm comes, or see hundreds of crows flying in a straight line through across the sky, or that the dead crawl out of their graves and dance on All Hollows Eve. When the tribute was stopped, things began to happen. Farmers out late in the fields never returned home. People vanished from their beds in the dead of the night. Livestock and horses where found horribly mutilated, stripped of their hides and hung from trees. People said that the wolf-demon was taking his revenge so they starting paying again. When the silver was put at the altar, the strange happenings stopped. Eventually the road shifted and no one passed by the forest anymore but to this day the villagers will pay their silver due, though only the oldest still believe the legends.”

 

……………………………………………………………………………………………….

 

That night it began snowing again.

The room was frigid but the scene outside my window was hauntingly beautiful. Snow fell in flurries over an endless ocean of black trees. On both sides the dark mountains towered heavenward, sharp and white like the fangs of a beast. For a few moments the full moon peered from the clouds, swathing everything in bright silver light.

 

Suddenly, I heard something outside my door. I spun around and saw the handle was slowly and silently being turned. I thanked heaven I had locked the door.

 

“Who is that?”

 

The handle slowly began turning the opposite direction until it was as if it had never been touched. I waited in silence for so long I began wondering whether it had turned at all.

 

There was scratching outside my door, and a sound I did not at first recognize.

Bending down on my hands and knees, I cautiously put my ear to the door.

 

It was breathing- heavy breathing of some large animal. There was sniffing too, and then more scratching as a dog does when it wants to get in through a door. The hinges groaned ominously as if a great weight was being put against them. The door began to rattle as the desperate clawing continued. Then it stopped, and all that was left was the stillness of the dead of night.

 

I sat on the floor, trembling and bathed in cold sweat.

Something was out there.

 

Mustering my courage, I slowly unlocked the door, the rusted skeleton key making so much noise I was sure the entire valley would hear it. Bracing myself for whatever terror might be lurking outside, I flung open the door.

 

Nothing.

 

Nothing but the empty corridor filled with shadows cast by the wan moonlight. I locked the door again and collapsed into a chair, rubbing my eyes wearily. I turned back to the window and to my horror I saw a face looking in. The person’s face was pressed against the window, so I all could make out were the masses of hair and the eyes- huge soulless eyes.

 

And then I awoke.

 

It was still dark and I found myself pressed against the window. I must have seen my own reflection in the mirror and dreamed that someone was looking in, instead of me looking at my own distorted reflection.

 

It was the early morning, and a thick grey mist covered the forest so that only a few twisted limbs rose out of the argentine fog like the masts of ghost ships rising from the sea.

 

It was cold.

I rose from my position and dressed myself, intending to attempt to find the library again. I stepped out in the dark hallway, the damp and smell of rotting wood enveloping me. Slowly, I made my way down the long corridor, my heart beating like a drum. All the stories of goblins and specters that the Baron had told me of came flooding back to me. I could imagine that behind me doors were opening silently and terrible things were looking at me. Soon, my mind began playing tricks on me and I believed I could hear myself being followed, yet I dared not turn around for fear that something should be there.

 

And then I thought of Rachel.

What if she had escaped her room, as she had before? What if that was her who tried to get into my room? What if it was her who stared in through my window? What if she was silently following me now, with her huge empty eyes staring at me?

 

I mustered up my courage and spun about.

I saw eyes, dark and empty.

But they were only the eyes of a trophy mounted on the wall.

 

I needed to get out of the house, to clear my head. Somehow, I stumbled through the labyrinth and out the door.

 

The night air washed over me like a wave of cold water. The Château seemed even larger in the dark, like some primeval beast crouched upon the hill. At the other side of the valley, a single light twinkled softly where the village was.

 

I looked back at the Château, the huge doors opening like a yawning chasm. I could not go back in yet the freezing wind that whipped around me told me I must. By pure will I managed to begin walking back.

 

I thought about the demon-wolf, and wondered what truth there was in the story. Savages had probably worshiped it as a god in the old days, and when the Christian priests came they called it a devil. But why had the old pagans even made up the story? Could there have been some monster that lurked in the valley?

What if there still was?

 

I glanced over my shoulder at the full moon, its cratered face leering at me. Struck by and idea, I wandered over the place below my window, terrified that what I was looking for might be there.

 

It was.

 

Footprints before my window.

Someone had been there.

Then I remembered why the story of the demon-wolf sounded familiar.

It was the same kind of story as a were-wolf.

 

But there were no wolf prints near my window, none that I could see.

I almost laughed out loud.

Werewolves! I hadn’t believed in those since I was schoolboy!

It must have been Rachel- yes, those eyes on the face were the same as hers. What was she doing peering into my room?

A sudden lurch in my gut forced me to remember what she had said.

 

“Leave! Leave now!”

 

And then the truth hit me with sickening force.

She wasn’t trying to hurt me.

She was trying to warn me!

 

Something made me turn and look up at one of the windows.

She was there, her void, white face twisted in a silent scream.

But she was looking at something else! Something behind me!

 

I turned around and saw what I had feared to see.

Crouching in the snow was the Baron, or what had been the baron. The wild hair flowed everywhere, the animal eyes glinted, and the fanged maw was thrown to the sky in a piercing howl.

 

I ran, ran with all my might.

I did not know where I was going and dared not look back over my shoulder for an instant.

Slipping on a patch of ice, I fell and rolled down the hill into the forest, glimpsing the demon-wolf hot behind. Scrambling to my feet I ran into the woods, the low hanging branches clawing at my clothes and flesh.

No more snarling came from behind me, the monster was using all it’s breath for the chase.

Dashing through bramble and thicket it became clear that this was a race of endurance. I could not keep running forever and already the beast was closing fast.

Suddenly the trees gave way to clearing and I saw before me a frozen lake. I had no time to turn and even if did the wolf would have me.

Desperately, I put on a burst of speed and shot into the middle of the lake.

And there I fell, my energy spent.

I looked up and saw the creature coming at me, barely seeming to breathe.

And then, with only ten feet between us, it leapt.

In the moonlight I could see its primal frame covered in matted brown hair and the wet tongue sliding over razor teeth.

It landed right in front of me, so close I could see my bleeding face in its yellow eyes. But its enraged look suddenly turned into fear. The impact of the landing had broken the ice, and it fell, howling horribly, into the freezing black lake.

I sat there on the ice, turning it red with the blood oozing from my scratches. Finally, dawn came and I stood to my feet and limped back to the village.

The villagers were kind, if skeptical, though from the faces of one or two of the elders I saw that they believed me.

I left that very day and in ten years have never gone back to Normandy. Even so, many questions were left unanswered.

What ever happened to Rachel? Was she still locked away in the Château or had she escaped to forget her fears in some faraway land?

What were the other sounds I had heard in that accursed house?

Was it possible that there are more such monsters in the world?

Did somehow, someway the demon-wolf escape the lake?

 

No matter what the answers may be, I will always be haunted by sad, soulless eyes in the dark and shudder when a cold wind rattles my door in the night.

-Written by Drake Hunt

(meaning you can’t steal it)