*This is a horror short that I wrote for Anna Book Critter’s link-up party*

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The castle appeared on the horizon. Ancient brown and red bricks piled into turrets and long walls. Even from a mile down the ancient road, I could see the east wall that was causing all of the problems. Stones tumbled into a piled in the moat that surrounded the triangular castle. The triangle that the walls formed into wasn’t visible from our position on the ground. We could only see one two mile long wall, with the northeast corner crumbling, wreckage from a feudal uprising in the 14th century. It has never been repaired. As it was a smaller castle, and so remote, it had stood in decay and disrepair for centuries. Situated in the sprawling rural countryside of Wales, the castle had been largely forgotten. It wasn’t very big. It was a modest castle. There was nothing particularly noteworthy about it, other than the triangular layout and the fact that it was surrounded on all three sides by a moat that still thrummed with stagnant mosquito-laded water. Mostly though, it was just another of the hundreds of castles speckling the country of Wales, and like so many others, it had faded into obscurity. Until now.

“What do you think of it?” Angela asked, taking her eyes briefly from the crumbling old road to shoot me a sly smile. “You think you’ll be able to make do here?”

“As long as at least one wing is sealed from the elements, like they said. I don’t need a lot, but I’d rather sleep without fog rolling in from the moors and freezing me to death.”

“They said the west wing is almost entirely intact. The siege that destroyed the east wall was staved off before the rest of the castle was hit. Although, it’s still going to be quite drafty. Nobody has stayed in this building for hundreds of years.”

Not for the first time, I felt a flicker of apprehension. “The surveyor is sure the structure is stable?”

“I know you’re nervous, Tom. They said the west wing is fully stable. Wear a hard hat when you’re mapping out the east wing. Don’t enter any of the rooms that seem compromised.”

“They really couldn’t spring for two on-site architects?”

Angela clicked her tongue and shook her head. “Ridiculous, isn’t it? Like they don’t have enough money.”

The wealthy family that had set its sights on Vustwren Castle had plans to turn it into a luxury vacation site. They would give the true medieval experience to a very niche target market: wealthy dark history lovers. Their plans were to renovate the castle and create a site of live-action role-playing. Guests would be given a historical identity and then be invited to stay in the castle, wearing period clothes, eating period meals, the whole nine yards, and then there was the most exciting aspect of the LARP experience. Guests would be treated to everything that guests of Vustwren Castle had been treated to during the Middle Ages, including torture. Torture had been quite commonplace in medieval fortresses. The difference between other ancient fortifications and this one was that it hadn’t been for any sort of purpose. It had been for pure sadism. It had also all been committed by a serf. The story of the serf from Vustwren Castle was a very odd one. Nobody knew the full story. The accounts were scattered and strange. In the year 1255, somehow a serf had taken control of the castle. It wasn’t a case of mistaken identity. Everyone knew the man who had taken over was a serf. Yet, they had all bowed to his will. Even when that will included gruesome acts of torture. Now an American family, one that had made its wealth off of first a youtube channel and then an MTV reality show, had plans to offer this recreated experience to dark history tourists.

The castle grew larger and larger as the car rumbled forward. Angela parked the car about a quarter of a mile from the castle entrance.

“Better stop here,” Angela murmured. “The road isn’t too strong close to the castle. It’s marshy and a lot of the bricks are missing. There’s no one here to stop us, but they don’t want anyone driving directly up to the castle.”

“I’d imagine that ancient moat makes the surrounding soil quite soft.”

Angela shrugged and hopped out of the car. I followed her to the trunk and we retrieved my four modest pieces of luggage. “That moat is the reason nobody has been down to the dungeon yet,” Angela said. “Maybe wait until the first board site meeting to venture down there.”

I chuckled, throwing a large satchel over my shoulder as we walked over the squelching rancid earth towards the rickety drawbridge. It had been left in its down position by the family and the surveyor who had been out to inspect the site only a week earlier.

“The dungeon is supposed to be the crowning jewel of their enterprise,” I pointed out.

Rolling her eyes, Angela muttered, “Consensual torture. Who ever heard of such a thing? Those idiots deserve everything they get.”

“Brings a whole new meaning to ‘eat the rich.’”

She barked out a laugh and clapped a hand over her mouth. I squinted through the bright afternoon sunlight and caught her eyes. She was smiling, but the uneasiness in her expression was apparent.

“It will be okay, Ang. It’s just an empty building. I’m being paid a fuckton to come up with a renovation proposal and the dungeon is part of that.”

We’d reached the drawbridge. Both of us stopped, neither of us seemed to be up for taking that first step onto flimsy wood. It was a recreation of the original drawbridge, of course. Wood didn’t hold up to the elements when left untended for centuries. It was the reason Europe wasn’t littered with wooden castles, even though they’d had been incredibly common at one point in time, particularly in very early motte and bailey constructions. In addition to replacing the drawbridge, I’d been told a number of the bedrooms in the west wing had been fitted with new panes of glass and hung with tapestries and curtains to keep out the chill of the night. One of the rooms, to the left of the rotund stairwell that led to the peak of the highest turret, had been prepared with a bed, fresh bedding, and a chamber pot. Somewhere out in the surrounding fields, there was a port-a-potty. I’d have to find that quickly, otherwise I’d be stuck using the castle’s original lavatories, which would of course still be functional. A castle of this time period would have a latrine that was nothing more than a wooden bench with a round hole cut into it. Likely it would be situated in one of the high towers. The refuse would drop down a long shaft and into…I stared at the murky rancid water of the stagnant moat. In the castle’s prime this place must have reeked. If I could avoid it, I’d rather not live in a castle surrounded by actual sewage. The fact this moat-sewage system had once been so commonplace was one of many historical facts that seemed so utterly bizarre I could hardly believe people had once lived in such a way.

I turned to Angie and motioned with a smirk. “Ladies, first?”

She chuckled. “Yeah, I don’t think so buddy.” She gave me a nudge in the shoulder.

I placed a foot down on the drawbridge and slowly let my weight settle onto it. It groaned, but seemed like it would hold. I brought my other foot down and with heart hammering, carried my two bags down the narrow wooden thoroughfare. Relief flooded me as I stepped down onto the stone slabs on the other side.

Angie was at my side a moment later. Her cheeks were red and she set my other two bags down right away, taking a moment to clutch her heart. “I was sure that thing was gonna break. Holy shit.”

“It probably wouldn’t be so bad if it did break,” I pointed out. “The water can’t be that deep.”

She screwed her face up and pointed to the brown water. It buzzed with all the parasitic life of water that doesn’t move. Still water. Dead water. “You want to go for a swim in that?”

“Good point.”

We made our way into the structure through a stone archway positioned in front of the drawbridge. Like so many castles, there was only one small main entrance; this made it easier to fend off an invading army. No more than half a dozen men could charge through this archway. From inside the bailey, the defending forces would fight them off six at a time. Much easier than when hundreds were descending on you from all directions. Sometimes the sieging army would attempt to circumvent this architectural defense by scaling the curtain walls that enclosed the bailey. They would simply bring their own hastily constructed drawbridges and cross the moat from the side or back. A common defensive maneuver when this was done was to use vats of boiling oil or, in a pinch, boiling water, and dump these scalding liquids down on the invaders from above. Then there were the narrow slits of windows that looked down on us nearly every stone tower. With windows this narrow, archers could shoot down at enemies, but it would be very difficult for someone from down on the ground to shoot an arrow into the window. My nervousness was abating now, giving way to excitement as I looked around at the decay of the past. Castles were so beautiful. A castle was where beauty met function. A castle was something both ornate and luxurious and yet designed with protection and defense in very single detail, from how wide the entrance was to the construction and positioning of the windows. It was…

“Breathtaking,” Angela breathed.

I tilted my head up and looked around. We stood in the bailey. Sunshine poured down on us and up above the sky was a crystalline blue.

Pointing to a tower positioned in the corner of the south wall and the west wall, Angela said, “That’s where we need to be. Your bedroom will be on the second floor at the end of the west wing, right before you get to that tower.”

“Is that the tower where-”

“Don’t!” Angela’s eyes widened and she raised a finger warningly. “You have to sleep right next to that thing. Don’t even think about what happened there.”

“Angie,” I laughed. “It’s like you’re afraid of ghosts.”

She moved my suitcase from one hand to the other and slung my backpack full of research papers over her shoulder and then took off for the opposite side of the bailey at a clipped pace. “And it’s like you aren’t freaked out at all to be left all alone at an infamous murder site. I swear the second I leave, you’re gonna be down in the dungeons snapping pictures of the bloodstains.”

I froze, just for a moment a chill brushed over my neck, like icy fingers caressing me. “Bloodstains?”

Angela stopped in the center of the weed-choked bailey. An old stone well stood to her right. Vaguely I wondered if it still had water in it. “Tom, there might still be bones down there. Scratch that, there are almost definitely bones down there. Over four-hundred people were slowly…” She darted her eyer here and there, as if looking about for someone who might be offended. “Tortured to death,” she whispered. “And there’s never been any kind of historical excavation, renovation, or even preservation project. Even with the dark history aspect, this place is too remote and too small for anyone to give any fucks about it. So, look, at the end of the day, it’s your project, but if it was me staying all alone in this place, nobody around for miles, no electricity, no way to contact anyone…”

“Nice send off, Angie,” I chuckled.

She sighed. “You’re way more adventurous than me, but I think if you don’t put up some mental barriers about what happened here, you’re going to frighten yourself.”

“I’ll be fine. You’re the one who believes in ghosts. I only believe in rich assholes who don’t have enough excitement in life and the payout I’ll get once this job is done.”

“I think you should stay out of the dungeons,” Angie insisted.

“And I think it’s part of what I’m being paid for. Anything down there is nothing but bones. We’ve been to the Paris catacombs. How is that different?”

We’d reached the southwest corner of the bailey. Up above, the tower cast a shadow over us. The warmth of the day took on a sudden chilliness.

“You mean the guided tour we took with fifty other people at two in the afternoon after a bunch of mimosas with…what was the name of that guy you were dating?”

“Wilkenson? Was I still with him then?”

“Whatever guy you met during your internship at Canterbury. It was the Haitian guy.”

“Yeah, Wilkenson. I guess he was there. Made awful jokes the whole time.”

“That’s my point. Yes, we were surrounded by dead people, but there were a bunch of us and everyone was high-spirited and having a good time. You’ll be all alone out here. No cheesy tour guide or drunk boyfriend or baguettes and cheese afterwords.”

There was a dark square of a doorway carved into the stone in the west wall just beside the rotund cylinder of the tower that Angela had urged me not to think about. This time Angela entered first. Her vivid red curls momentarily stood out against the inky shadows, before her form was swallowed by the lichen-ridden monument. I hastened to catch up with her. Inside of the castle’s west wing, my pupils swelled, adjusting to the thick shadows. I squinted.

“Angie?”

“This way,” she called.

“Wait for me!” I shouted. “Why you in such a rush? You’re the one who is scared of ghosts.”

Her shadowed sihoette froze several paces ahead and she turned to stare at me through the darkness. She shot daggers with her eyes and raised a finger to her lips. I rolled my eyes.

With a hand on her hip, she said, “I’m just in a rush to get out of here.”

“Okay, don’t freak out. Help me get my bags upstairs and you can head back to the city.”

I’d known Angela since we were both wee baby undergrads, before either of us had decided to specialize in historical architecture. She could panic easily. And panicked Angela was not fun to deal with. I hadn’t realized how much the gory history of Vustwren would have her on edge.

We found the room that had been prepared as my bedroom quite easily. Up a crumbling stone staircase and down another dark stone passage, where the only light was fleeting wisps of sunlight that danced in through the arrow-slit windows. In the passageways, the windows were without glass and I found myself glad for the unseasonably warm weather. We’d had a very warm autumn. It was already the end of October, but the ever so prudent reality television moguls had decided that this project simply couldn’t wait until the spring. The plan was for me to stay on site and begin drawing up plans and making detailed notes of known issues throughout the fall. There was no way to heat this place, so they’d agreed that with the first snow, I’d leave for Prague where I had a separate project I would continue chipping away at until Spring.

I stood in the doorway of what was to be my bedchamber and nodded appreciatively. “It’s nice,” I remarked. “Nicer than I imagined.”

Angela poked a black loafer into the plush carpet, something very modern that looked like it had been bought at one of those chain discount stores like T.J. Maxx. It was fluffy and beige with a chevron pattern. It looked surreally out of place in the stone chamber. Looking around at the other more period-appropriate furnishings, I realized that the rug must have been an afterthought. Someone must have remembered at the ninth hour that stone floors could become very cold and a rug could be the difference between habitable and uninhabitable.

“Still can’t believe you’re going to live out here without any heat, electricity, running water…”

I shrugged. “I’ve been camping. They’re paying me enough to live with some discomfort for a month or so.”

Angela set my bags down on the high canopy bed. It was very authentic, set up high and ringed with curtains, to make it as warm as possible. Definitely the type of bed a lord or a lady would have used in the castle’s prime.

She looked over at the windows, larger than arrow slits here, as the tower jutted out in front of them from them, keeping them more heavily fortified than the windows that surrounded the bailey. “Let’s hope you don’t have too much discomfort.”

Her words sent frost through my veins.

Stop that, Tom. You’re letting Angie’s silly superstitions get to you.

I told myself this, but couldn’t help but keep on looking at that tower. I could almost see into the lowest window, situated only a story above my own chamber. Shrouded in shadows and a dark history. The tower where they found the noble family, tearing themselves apart. Pulling out their own teeth and cutting off their own fingers. Five of them. Mother, father, two sons and one daughter. All while that serf stood there. The room was splattered with blood and gore. One of the boys rolled in the gore, smearing himself in the blood of his parents and siblings. They said his eyes were pure white, completely rolled back in his head and the eldest sister rocked in a corner, all four of her limbs in a pile beside her. She rocked as the blood drained from her naked body. That was the story anyway. Probably exaggerated. Twisted and distorted over the years. Nothing that macabre could truly exist.

Although…a terrible little thought wriggled and wormed its way into the meat of my brain. Although, if it had happened, it had happened barely a stone’s throw from where I would sleep. Where I would sleep all alone, in the solitary mist of the European countryside.

***

After an hour of helping with the unpacking and helping me locate the stores of water and food locked in storage chests in the room across the hall, Angela left. I stood in the archway across from the drawbridge and watched the little blue rental car become smaller and smaller. It struck me that the smaller that blue dot became, the more alone I was. Nobody was around and now the sun was setting.

Finally, the car wasn’t visible at all. With the remote location and lack of forests, I could see for miles in any direction that I looked. All I could see were green fields, soft rolling hills that never swelled all that high, and here and there some boulders and scraggly trees. Now, in the twilight, the green grass took on a grey hue. Below, the moat bubbled. Bubbles? But what…? I shook my head as if in an attempt to shake myself back to my senses. Frogs or some other aquatic creature. Frogs made bubbles. I hadn’t been here alone for half a moment and already my imagination was running away with me.

I made my way back inside and plodded through the dark passageways to my chamber. The first thing I did once inside was light some candles and build a fire. The surveyor had insisted my chimney be cleared out, so that I’d have some form of heat. The fireplace was even big enough for me to cook easy melas, like eggs and fried sandwiches, although I wouldn’t have a running refrigerator for another week or so, when they’d be sending out a handyman to hook up an electric generator in one of the larger rooms off the bailey. For now, I had canned goods and other non-perishables and enough excitement and mystery to keep me sustained.

It took me a few tries to get the fire going, but once I did the room immediately felt warmer. I put the grate up in front of the flames and rose to my feet. Looking around the cozy interior, I was glad I’d decided to take this job. Nothing scary about this. It was a historical architectural job like any other.

A flicker of movement, a flash of cloak.

My blood froze. I turned to the window where I’d seen the briefest flash of color, something that my mind had immediately registered as a cloak. I was staring across the way into the window of the tower. There was nothing there. Only darkness. In the fleeting light of the late afternoon, I could barely make out the dust and wreckage that I’d viewed earlier. I stared, boring hard into every corner of the room, eyes straining. There was nothing. Nothing that I could see anyway. Only darkness. Only shadows. With shaking fingers, I grabbed ahold of the curtains and yanked them closed. I stood there for a long moment, staring at the beige linen. There was nothing in the adjoining tower. Nothing. It had been a long day. I was in an unfamiliar situation, and despite not believing in ghosts even a little, anybody would be on edge in a place like this. It was estimated that close to four-hundred bodies were buried in the surrounding fields. I shuddered, remembering the largest of the hills surrounding the old Roman road. A large hill that was too even, too circular, and with too flat a terrain in the area immediately around it. Nothing to be freaked out by. Nothing worse than a graveyard.

This didn’t feel like a graveyard though. This felt…evil.

Although that made sense because it was evil. What had happened, what the serf had done, and everyone else who had succumbed to the madness and invited nobility from all of their allied kingdoms only to put them on the rack-man, woman, and child alike-that had been evil. Pure and true evil. But that didn’t make this place evil. A place couldn’t be evil.

I did my best to ignore my growing apprehension, telling myself I would get used to this place before I knew it. I only had to keep my wits while I waited for the unfamiliar to bleed away into familiar.

I cooked myself a can of beef stew and corned beef hash over the open fire and paired this with crackers and a can of warm root beer. After eating my hasty dinner, I washed up as best I could, using the jugs of water and large bowl and washcloths I found in the corner next to the bed.

Then I changed into a pair of sweats and a t-shirt and pulled out my drawing pad and charcoals and sat crossed legged in front of the crackling fire to begin some preliminary sketches. I hadn’t yet had a chance to really explore the place, but I’d already had a few ideas.

I reveled in the scratch of the charcoal over the white paper. This was my favorite moment: the moment when there was only one small line and all the rest of the page was blank, all that empty space was filled with possibilities. And because of the nature of my job, many of those lines became actual spaces, buildings and structures for people to inhabit, to experience. Being an architect meant drawing the world.

For a stretch of time, I fell into a hypnotic rhythm of drawing. If the east wall were reconstructed with larger windows, an event room could be included. Maybe if the bourgeois trash tv fucks realized they could make money hosting weddings, they’d give up on this ghoulish idea of letting people pay to be tortured in a real castle dungeon.

Before my eyes, the plans took shape. I coaxed the future of the castle from the paper. The only sounds in the chamber were the scratching of the charcoal and the crisp crackle and snap of the fire. It was difficult drawing by firelight. It certainly wasn’t what I was used to. My setup at my primary residence in Canterbury was a wide mahogany desk with a large overhead light and a sloped stand to rest my drawing pad on. Balancing the pad on my lap and straining through the shadows was certainly a different experience. Still, the future of the castle danced across the page. An event room, one with a long banquet table on a raised platform, maybe something more typical of the of the fifth century. If the owners would agree to play with historical accuracy a bit.

I drew in the detailing at the top of what would be the reconstructed curtain wall. I added a bit of ornamental fortifications that were true to the spirit of those that were still intact on the south and west walls. I stared at the paper, the lines, the hastily scratched approximations of measurements, the-

Darkness.

With the suddenness of a waking up from a cold sweat nightmare, inky black cascaded down, snuffing out all visibility. I sat there on the floor in front of the now quiet fireplace, blinking as my eyes adjusted to the dark.

My heart pounded. I set my pad and charcoal down with shaking hands. Dimly, it registered that my palms were slicked with sweat and a dampness had sprung up on the back of my neck. The fireplace and the two candelabras I’d lit had all gone out at once. How could that be? Fear shot through me and I darted to my feet. I spun around wildly. The room was absolutely dark. I could barely make out the faintest hints of the furniture. I stumbled forward. The matches should be on the end table by the door.

With each step, my panic rose. Shadows distorted in my straining eyes. Was that a flash of movement in the corner? I cried out and threw myself forward. My knee struck the trunk at the end of the bed. I hissed and staggered forward. Arms outstretched, I found the table. I felt around, knocking items out of the way. There was a clang as my keys hit the floor. The darkness crushed in on me. In my frenzy, I envisioned all sorts of phantoms and leering ghouls obscured in the blackness. My head swam. There they were! The box of long matches. I ripped it open and pulled out a thin wooden stem. I dragged it over the side of the box. Scratch! But there was no succeeding hiss of flame. Scratch! Still nothing. I pulled in a drag of breath. I took a moment to still my shaking fingers.

A whoosh of cold hair lapped at the back of my neck. Every muscle in my body tensed. Something was behind me. I felt it as surely as I’d ever felt anything. There was something terrible in this room with me. It was breathing on my neck.

“Oh god,” I whimpered.

And from the shadows came a whisper, so low I could scarcely make out the words. “He isn’t here.”

I screamed and spun around, shoving my back against the door. From the opposite side, there came a scratching, like some desperate, starved beast was clawing to get in.

My hands shook and I struggled to keep hold of the match box. I gave the match another swipe. Scratch! Only darkness. Scratch! And on the opposite side of the door, that animalistic crazed clawing continued. Scratch!

The flame burst into existence, cutting the darkness, revealing the terrors that waited.

My mind began to unmake itself. I know that it did. I felt the unraveling of senses. I felt my being shrink into itself. I couldn’t make sense of what I was looking at.

A man. A man with such eyes, such cold, calculating, malicious eyes. He grinned wickedly from scarcely a step away from me. He wore a plain woolen tunic. Greasy black hair was slicked back to his skull. His eyes were such a light blue they were like the eyes of a dead fish.

Holding the match out in front of me, as if that weak dancing flame could protect me from such a devil, I stood on shaking legs and wrestled with one possibility after another. He was a local lunatic. He was a college kid playing a prank. He was a henchman of those sick people who had bought this accursed place, here to give me a taste of dark history.

“Who are you?” I demanded. I heard the faltering weakness in my own words. “If the Ashertons put you up to this, I’m telling you I do not consent to whatever nonsense they have planned. I’m not one of the sick bastards who would pay to be terrified or tortured. I’m here to do a job-”

His grin fell and he took a step forward. From one of the darkened corners of the room, one too encased in shadows for my light to penetrate, I heard the heavy rattling of chains. There was a throaty moan, like the moan of the damned. Agony raked over a raw throat and expelled uselessly into the air. Not a cry for help, but a feeble and fading expression of defeated human suffering. Ice raced in my blood.

“W-What are you?” I whispered.

He took yet another step. I pressed back into the door. Briefly I considered tearing the door open and making a mad dash, but that terrible clawing continued. It sounded like the frenzy of a hellhound. He paused when he was directly in front of me. I could smell his terrible breath, like mildew and decay and maggot and bloating. He cupped my chin gently, almost tenderly, as a lover would. I hand’t realized I’d dropped the match until the flame died.

And he whispered into my ear. He whispered such abhorrent, evil things, aberrations against humanity and nature and life itself. I convulsed and barely registered the thump as my body hit the stones. He continued to whisper. Those damnable, madness-inducing whispers! I’d have to tear myself apart if he didn’t stop. Rip out my teeth, cut off my hands!

Cutmyselfapartcutmyselfapartteartearripripripthisbodyismadeforpainthisbodyismadetosplatterandspill

With a shout, I shot to a seated position and blinked in confusion at the blinding daylight. I put a hand to my chest. My heart beat so wildly that each pump was painful. I was laying on the floor in front of the fireplace. My drawing pad and charcoals were on the floor beside me. Had I fallen asleep here?

The fire had gone out, although the kindling smoked lightly and in the depths of grey ash and splinter, I could see the faint dying embers that still smoldered.

A nightmare? The whole thing had been a nightmare?

I swallowed and felt my dry throat stick to itself. I crawled over to the case of bottled water in the corner. For several long moments, all I could do was sit shaking and chugging water. When my thirst was sated, I put the bottle down and looked around the castle chamber.

There appeared to be nothing amiss. Bathed in the rays of the bright morning sun, the room looked friendly and innocuous. I looked from the still made canopy bed to the medieval-style tapestries covering the walls. Scenes of hunting and maidens frolicking.

I shook my head and internally chastised myself. It was a nightmare. Only a nightmare. Of course I’d had bad dreams. It was my first night alone in a dark history site. Angela had filled my mind with apparitions and nonsense with all her superstition. I’d let my imagination run away with me. That was all. A perfectly logical explanation.

After washing up and eating a quick breakfast of peanut butter on crackers, I was feeling fully settled again. This castle wasn’t a scary place in broad daylight. Perhaps, I’d go to sleep earlier tonight. Sitting up drawing, taking in every howl of wind through the dilapidated passages, that was bound to make a man jumpy.

By mid-day, I’d completely recovered from my nightmare. I spent the first half of the day walking the west wing. I made notes of the areas that were in extensive states of disrepair. I also marked down areas of potential interest: the spots where new additions and features could be added. One modern amenity that would have to be added was plumbing. I walked the west wing three times picking out the places that could potentially be fitted with plumbing.

When I’d finished walking the west wing, I decided it would be easiest to move on to the south wing. The east wing was half-crumbled and I’d have to dig my hard hat and sturdy boots out of my suitcase if I wanted to explore it. I would save that for another day. For today I would take my preliminary notes on the south wing and, if I had time, the dungeons.

An icy wind tore through the passage at the very moment I’d decided this. It raised every hair on the back of my neck. For a flicker of a moment, I was right back in the all-consuming terror of my nightmare. That horrible man with the dead eyes. The rattling of such heavy chains and that moaning that curdled my stomach so. Those words he whispered to me. I couldn’t remember exactly what he said. I only remembered what it had made me want to do. Somehow it had seemed like the only way to end those words was to…to hurt myself. To rip off my own body parts.

I clicked my tongue and scoffed at myself. I was sleeping across from the tower where the noble family had done exactly that. The ghoulish tale had wormed its way into my subconscious. I wasn’t going to be frightened out of doing my job. I would walk the south wing and then the dungeons, and of course, the tower.

With purpose, I ignored my sense of discomfort. The tower was what connected the west and south wings. It was right there. I had to do my walk through.

I didn’t even pause to steel myself before walking through the stone archway into the tower. I wouldn’t focus on that silly, primitive part of my brain that wanted to jump at shadows. It was an empty historic site in the beautiful countryside of Wales. In fact, that’s what I should do if I finished my walk through while it was still daylight hours; I should take a stroll through the surrounding meadows and see the-

Whatever I was mentally planning vanished, because I was suddenly so queasy that my knees buckled. The instant I stepped into the tower, my gut roiled and black spots popped in my vision. I took a breath to steady myself. A deep sense of dread pervaded through me. Something is coming something is coming tear your teeth out bleed bleed

“Stop!”

I held my head in my hands and staggered backwards. I landed on my butt in the corridor outside the tower. I rubbed my forehead and breathed as my sudden nausea slowly subsided.

It must be my nerves. I was having a psychosomatic reaction. That was all. That was…all…My eyelids grew heavy. I fought to open them, but…no…under the dark, sickly waves of sleep I was pulled.

I am in a small room. They’ve brought us to the south tower. A man with lank black hair and a dull tunic flecked with specks of red stares back at me. I knew this man. I knew him. Before he changed.

He’s worked in the castle and the accompanying village of Father’s fiefdom all of his life. I remember him as a boy. He is scarcely two years older than my nineteen years.

Something has gone wrong with him. He’d gone down to the dungeons one day. When he was caught by Goody Mason he refused to say what he’d been doing down there. Then he took ill and started…taking over. So slowly he did it.

And now…now I don’t know what Father will let him do to us. The guards have us locked in. Father has been doing all of his bidding. Even inviting our allies and friends. Down to the dungeon they are taken.

I watch as the serf…Richard is his name…Richard puts a hand on my younger brother’s head. A flash of fear makes me whimper. He meets my eyes. He smirks terribly.

Then he nods at Father.

Father gets on his knees, pulls a knife from his robes.

“Father, don’t!”

And I’m sobbing, shaking, screaming.

My father slices the flesh from his face. Long ribbons of human meat. The pink of his flesh on one side and the red of his meaty pulp on the other. He doesn’t scream. He doesn’t make even a grunt of pain.

I hold myself and rock. I don’t hear Mother crying. Why isn’t she crying?

I know. I know why. And even though I know, I still look up. It’s an impulse I’m powerless to stop.

With her bare clawed hands, she rips her teeth from her mouth one by one. She places them on the window sill in a neat and tidy row.

I scream. I scream and scream and don’t stop until I see it.

The beast in the corner. It’s so large and awe-inspiring that it makes me want to weep, weep with something other than this fear.

It has the head of a sheep, the enormous front paws of a dog, and a distorted, spliced up lower form that is almost like a man. Like a bloated, sickly man. He is covered in pulsating raw wounds that drip with maggot and rot.

I know what I have to do now. Those sheep eyes communicate it all to me. Tell me. I will do it. I will do it.

Father passes me the knife. His face is a red, pulpy eyeless husk and it is beautiful. These bodies were made to splatter.

It takes a long time for the blade isn’t very sharp, but I remove my left hand. And then my teeth and the intense will to obey the glorious creature who watches us, I remove my right. Sawing, pressing, working and working.

When the final tendon snaps and the lump of meat hits the hay, a peace and happiness fills me.

Then, the spell is gone and with a shocking clarity, I realize what I’ve done. I see my bleeding stumps of arms, my faceless father. My mother on her knees sucking the cock of that hideous beast with the blood of her gums coating its cock and dripping down her neck…

The horror of it shakes me down to my very core.

I throw my head back and scream, “God have mercy on us! God help us! God have mercy! God have mercy!”

The scene faded to blackness, leaving only a pervasive dread behind.

***

I woke with a stiff back and neck to find that it was dark. Very dark. Somehow I’d slept deep into the night. I lifted my wrist and with no small degree of shock, noted that it was close to three-thirty in the morning.

Uneasiness rose. Uneasiness that could quickly turn to panic. That panic nipped at my heels, reminding me that I was all alone out here. No cell phone. No car. Nobody around for miles.

But wait! I remembered then, they had left something for me to contact the outside world in the case of emergencies. Was this an emergency?

That dream. That horrible nightmare of that girl and her family destroying themselves…It had felt so real. I had been her. I had felt everything that she did, every ounce of horror, revulsion, and dread. Her fear had been mine.

Yes, this was an emergency. Even if the emergency was only that I was losing my senses. I had to get out of here.

Somewhere in the distance, a footstep echoed. I tensed. It’s only a leak. It’s only the wind blowing debris down a passage.

I was intensely aware of how dark it was. Barely a sliver of weak cloud-shrouded moonlight cut its way through the arrow slits. I could make out a bit of the hallway around me, but shadows and shapes melded together. Don’t stare too hard, lest you imagine fiends.

The ham radio. It ran on lithium batteries. I would be able to contact the outside world if I could find it. Where had they said it would be? That’s right! The old medieval kitchen. At the end of the south wing…opposite the entrance to the dungeons…

Another footstep echoed. This time sounding closer. Much closer.

There was no time! No time! I ripped myself from the floor and sprinted. Not allowing myself time to think, I sprinted into the tower. It was the only way. I’d run straight through.

My knees buckled. I wretched, the nausea and dread was so great. A snicker floated on the air. Terror raced in my heart and from deep in the shadows, eyes glistened.

“No! Nononono…” My words trailed off, becoming nothing more than a moan.

Rounded black horns, beady black eyes, those enormous paws.

It took a step.

I was entranced, frozen, feet like lead to the spot. The monstrosity came closer.

“No!”

With that final bellow, I wrenched myself from the trance and sprinted on. Through the opposite side of the tower and out into the south wing.

I ran. Arms pumping, dread consuming me, I ran.

I scarcely allowed myself to turn to look, but in the darkened doorways along the corridor, faces appeared. I didn’t look. I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. But something instinctual caught details in the blurry periphery of my flight and told me these faces were disfigured, destroyed.

I ran until I reached the large open doorway of the old medieval kitchen.

The dungeons are so close. The door is right behind you. Only across the hall.

I flailed about in the shadows, ran crazed into every corner. I had to find it. Had to…But would anyone even get here in time? No. This was my only chance. I had to alert the outside world that something was coming for me. Whether it was something supernatural or my own crazed imagination, I needed someone to know.

There it was! On a modern plastic folding table in a dusty corner, there was a ham radio.

I latched onto it like a drowning man throws himself upon a life preserver. I hit buttons and dials. Damnit, why hadn’t I learned how to use this thing?!

Static. A thin thread of hope. I screamed into the receiver. “Hello? Hello! Someone! I’m at Vustwren Castle! I fear I’ll be dead by morning!”

A voice. A whisper. I couldn’t make out what it was saying. I strained.

“Do you hear me? Please send help! My name is Thomas Church. I’m going to run out of the castle. Send someone to find me! I can’t stay here with it!”

That whisper. It was so low. So faint.

I put my ear right up to the receiver. Static assaulted me. It fizzed and popped and obscured, but finally I heard it.

“ Behind you.”

A sense of unrealness descended on me. A sense that I was no longer myself and no longer inside of this body and that I would watch whatever happened next as if it were all being done to someone else. I was afraid as one is in a nightmare. The terror was real, even as everything else felt so wholly detached from any reality a human being might inhabit.

Slowly, I turned. There was no one. Nothing. The empty room. The empty corridor beyond the chipped and aged stone archway. The…

My eyes widened and something like acceptance birthed itself.

The door to the dungeon. It swung on creaking hinges. That slab of stone that was the only intact door in the place.

Shadows unfurled like smoke from that dark cavern. They rolled towards me. I didn’t fight, as they slithered up around my wrists and took hold of my ankles.

Things will be done to me,’ I thought in an absent sort of detached way. ‘Things that will be easier to live through if I do not think about it.’

The shadows dragged me down the stone steps and up above the stone slab slammed shut. The bang of stone on stone pulled on screaming hinges echoed. Distantly a drop of water struck stone. A giggle. Then the rattling of chains.

I hit the dungeon floor with a thud and a for a moment, there was only the water dripping.

A scratch and a hiss and a flame roared to life. I found myself looking up into the icy dead eyes of Mrs. Asherton. Somehow, it was as though I’d expected to see her.

She thrust a contract into my hands. “Sign this.”

Numbness crept over me. “This is your consensual torture contract.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes.”

Fight this! Don’t sign it! Stand up and fight!

But from the darkness, horns and beady yes glittered, and I was awe-struck.

I signed my name on the line.

And over the course of the rest of the night, it was only in brief flashes of terrible lucidity that I realized what I was doing to myself. That I was so disturbed at the damage I’d done to my body I thought I might die of shock.

Each time that I thought this, Mrs. Asherton only chuckled and said, “You won’t die. Dying would be too easy.”

I didn’t die that night. I didn’t die.

People think dying is what we should fear. Suffering is what should be feared. It is so much worse to suffer than it is to die.

And with no eyes, teeth, limbs, or ability to move or care for myself, I have so much more suffering to do.

Death is a sweet release. I want to die. I want that.

I don’t want to suffer. God have mercy! God save me from my suffering…

I don’t want to live. I don’t want to suffer.