Grady and the Shack

The dim light flitting by the holes in Grady’s shack had faded from grey to gloom. The threatening storm had swallowed the last of the sun's weak luminescence. A wind laced with malice and hemmed with destruction had torn the door off an hour ago. The walls rattled. The roof shook. Teeth of ice forced their way through the empty frame and gnawed at his nose and cheeks.

Grady bellowed down the stairs. His voice bounced off the dripping mud walls, echoed past the guttering torches, tumbled under the trickling waterfalls, and vanished into the place where light dared not go, “`is lordship `as a request t` make of ye Kineser!”

A long howling breath of air, both loud and noisome, answered Grady’s call. He staggered, covering both his nose and his one good ear. The other ear heard the words. They echoed inside his skull, bouncing off of one another in a fractured harmony. Grady only plucked seven words from the chorus, but each was more terrible than the storm. “The Kineser… answer… forgotten… kingdom…Weep… dead.”

Had the dead rats at Grady’s feet stood and spoken in unison he would not have been half as disturbed. Had their brown teeth and gaping jaws clattered to the floor in a moldering rain he might have been two thirds as disturbed—three quarters on a bad day.

And today was a bad day.

The sound was worse. It drifted through his nostrils and thick ruddy ears, perforating his being with despair. It was like watching a fresh pint soak the earth at the base of a cracked and weeping mug. It was the sound of wilted flowers. It was the scent of cloying rain.

Grady grasped for a weapon to defend him from the chthonic echoes. All he found was his spear. A stick tipped in iron held no sway over the eldritch. Grady’s legs trembled. His knees quivered. His nose wobbled. He didn’t even know what chthonic meant. Any word with that many consonants couldn’t be good.

“`ou are ye?” Grady whispered.

The voice from a world which did not exist—a world separate from his safe, sensible one—sighed its way up to unwelcoming ears. Torches fluttered unevenly, illogically, marking the voice’s passage. Some flames fluttered as they stepped aside. Others flared, high and green, leaving black stains on the ceiling. The rest guttered violently and were extinguished.

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“One left…behind…to remember.”

Grady considered running. He was much better at running than fighting. He’d be past the border and two doms over before the swiftest demons of fear made it halfway up that ridiculous stair. There were only five other guards in his lord’s tiny domain. They’d be too busy to look for him. He’d be safe.

There was nothing wrong with wanting to be safe, Grady reasoned. What good would he be against the unknown anyway? Last time he had to fight was when he’d earned his badge. That same badge had crumbed to rust years ago. Too many uneventful nights spent stood in the rain. Grady had liked those nights. They were peaceful.

Running, Grady had experience with running. Running after Lord Glove. Running from post to post. Running to fetch Grove Keeper Rezel to arrange a birth or funeral. Running to carry a basket of goods to old woman Aliza, who couldn’t leave the house anymore. Running to the pub for drinks with Matt. Running home from the pub to see his children, Matt and Sally.

“Fine, hI’ll stay,” Grady eased his grip on his spear, “hI’ll stay fer t` children. `an fer t` drinks Matt owes me.”

He looked down at his feet. They’d carried him several steps backwards out of the shack. Grady squared his shoulders and marched them to the precipice of the stairs, “hI’ll even stay fer t` h’one hI howe Matt!”

His voice rose, “Ye `ear me?! Yer supposed to remebrance something? hWhat are ye remebrancing `en, eh?!”

A great gale rumbled up the earthen steps, shaking the ground beneath his feet.

“…Kineser…bring…teach…lordship…seven weeks…Hurry”

Grady staggered back from the buffeting waves of putrefaction. There was a “Crack!” as a rat’s skull broke free of its mound and flew at Grady’s head. He ducked with a yelp and ran for the door. Another skull clipped his ear. Smoke and scattered screams pursued him. At this point his spear was an impediment, nothing more. He abandoned it, picking up speed.

A ponderous creek separated the shack from the rest of the dom. It was shallow, as creeks go, but it still managed to gape. Grady, who had never been a jumper, hurled himself at the opposite edge. One foot made it. The other slipped into freezing water. Grady toppled forward, banging his knee on the overgrown embankment. He crawled to his feet, breathing hard. A soft squelch began to accompany his panting. Above, the clouds had swirled to form a great grey eye. The eye began to weep cold and bitter tears. They splashed down on Grady, plastering his hair to his forehead and cheeks, blinding him. He wiped it free with a grassy hand, leaving strands of it in his hair and a streak of mud across his nose.

The shack continued to wail behind him. The trees joined in on the moaning, adding their own voices to the storm. If that wind held its own secret sighs, Grady did not hear them, did not listen, and did not care. Ahead, he could see the hall of his lord. The warm red light of its door was unwavering in the rain. Lord Glove would know what to do. He always did.