Wherein Cthonius Writes

     But Gretchen's mother was dead, and could not tell her daughter to ignore such silly superstition, let alone act them out. She had no father, and the other children would not listen to her talk of her mother's death; they believed it was a trick to lure them into her home. It had been several days and her mother's body still laid on the kitchen floor, the counter covered in herbs and fungi.

     Gretchen had watched her mother carefully cut the plants and idly snack upon a mushroom or two. It was after one such snacking that her mother fell over, and it was after many moments of crying and pleading to the dead body that Gretchen realized what happened. Her mother had warned her not to eat any plants without knowing what they were, lest she fall into a never ending sleep. Even though she had not yet fully comprehended the finality of death, Gretchen certainly comprehended sleep, and how much she hated when her mother decided it was her bed time.

     As the day went on Gretchen learned to avoid the kitchen and the smell that came from it. She also learned that she was very hungry, and that if she's not careful with what she ate she could find herself as wakeful as her mother. She tried to tell other people of what happened to her mother, and how hungry she was, but this only scared them away. She realized she would have to find food herself, but was at a loss as to what would be safe. The more she thought on the other children running away the clearer the answer became.

     She was always told she was a witch, and that's what they're supposed to do: eat children. She wasn't sure how she'd get a child to eat though, they'd never come along inside her house. She stared up at the sky, the yellow of the sun reminding her of the last meal she ate; fried eggs her mother had made her. Inspiration then struck her, if she couldn't get them into her house she'd just go into theirs, after all they'll all be in bed once it's night.

     As she waited she realized she'd need something to eat children with, and decided upon a knife. The same knife that was in her kitchen next to a rotting corpse, a fact that Gretchen had not forgotten. Nor was she likely to ever forget, so awful was the stench. She was lucky that the body still looked mostly human, but the smell of rotting flesh and voided bowels still hung in the air. Although she tried to hold her breath while in there she couldn't for long, and soon the stench clung not only to the air but also to her throat, a mocking preview of her meal to come. She grabbed the knife as quick as sh could and left, her eyes tearing from the rank odor.

     The wait itself went by quickly, and soon Gretchen found herself under a full moon outside. In front of her was a wooden door, lightly covered in vines. All she had to do was enter and find a child, but she became nervous. What if the door was locked? What if she was caught? What if it tasted bad? The pain in her stomach quickly pushed away those thoughts and and pushed the door. It was unlocked.

     She walked throughout the house, too small and light to make noise with her steps, until she found the child's bedroom. He was smiling in his sleep. Gretchen wondered how she'd feel if someone tried to eat her, if she never woke up because of that. She still couldn't truly wrap her mind around it, and instead focused on the fact that she was a witch and witches must eat children. She brought down the knife on the child, repeatedly and forcefully though the action held no malice. Soon the bed and Gretchen were a splattered mess, and she stopped the stabbing to instead cut. She took care to cut her food properly, as her mother taught her at the dinner table.

     But that would make for a considerably less interesting story, as he would've continued leading a rather dull life. So dull that there are no details that stand out enough to warrant telling here, save how boring it was. He had never taken control of his life, always followed the path of least resistance. Any exciting activity he did was at the suggestion of someone else, geared towards their tastes rather than his own. Not that it was their fault, he never made his tastes apparent, if he had any. If he did it was surely something bland, like filing paperwork or cleaning.

     The day he died this all changed. It is not unknown for head injuries to change people, and that is precisely what happened here. He decided to be more active in his goals, let nothing stop or control him. Starting with finishing his cleaning. He was so intent on this task that he tried mopping up the growing pool of blood, not realizing it was from his own head.

     A few days later his family and friends gathered for the funeral. His sister attempted to deliver a eulogy, but stopped halfway through telling an anecdote about Charles when she realized she didn't have one, a conclusion many of his loved ones came to when they tried to tell stories about his life. Thankfully they would soon find themselves with quite the tale.

     Having mulled it over for a few days, Charles Gaunt decided that he must clean his bathroom, and he'd be damned if he let something as small as death stop him. So, moments after his sister delivered her eulogy, he pushed open his coffin, climbed out, and asked if anyone could give him a ride home and perhaps pick up some cleaning fluid on the way there. No one replied. No one even moved. In any other situation there would be panic, people screaming and climbing over each other to run away, but this was a funeral and a corpse rising was no excuse to be impolite.

     Were he the old Charles, he would've similarly be concerned by proper etiquette, and apologized profusely while lying back down in his coffin. While he did feel the urge to do so, he was no longer that man, and interpreting the silence to his question as a crowd-wide No, he walked off in the direction he assumed, incorrectly, the exit to the cemetery was. After fifteen minutes of wandering he found himself back at his funeral, his loved ones still sitting in silence, and asked for directions. The rest of the crowd still stunned, one friend obliged, rationalizing to himself that this was all a hallucination caused by the drugs he took earlier in the morning, and the reality of it was some mourner or another asking for the way out.

     Against all odds, the trip back to his house was without incident. Upon leaving the cemetery he kept walking and looking at street signs until he found names he recognized. A few pedestrians avoided him here and there, but few if any realized he was dead. To most he was unsettling in ways they couldn't put a finger on, a result of him not blinking or breathing. To others they avoided him because he looked like he would push through anyone who got in his way without even realizing they were there, a detail confirmed by any who were too absorbed in their phones or similar and didn't see him coming.

     Upon reaching his home did a problem finally appear; his door was locked. This being a man who saw death as a minor inconvenience, a locked door was stretching the definition of what constituted a problem. He instead chose to use the nearby window, throwing his shoe through to break it. After climbing through he realized that despite constant cuts from the shattered glass, he wasn't bleeding. He found this useful for when he got back to cleaning, considering how messy the blood from last time was.

     A second realization hit when he looked around, his possessions were all gone. Other men would worry that they were robbed upon seeing that, but Charles was worried that everything was gone, chiefly his cleaning supplies. A worry that was correct, as his sister wanted the house sold as soon as possible, and made sure to empty it of every possible thing. She had even considered removing the toilet so she could hang it by a noose, blaming it for Charles's death, but it occurred to her that the toilet couldn't be killed in revenge, having never been alive in the first place. So she contented herself by clogging it with tissues she used up crying over her brother's death.

     Undaunted by the lack of proper cleaning supplies, Charles started cleaning the glass mess he just made by hand, picking up each piece and tossing it back out through the window. He worked meticulously, on his hands and knees so as to make sure he didn't miss the tiniest shard. After finishing to his satisfaction, he surveyed the rest of his house, making sure all rooms were in order and clean before he checked the bathroom. Much to his surprise, they were. His sister had the courtesy to clean up what little mess she made while moving everything out.

     Before he checked the bathroom, he remembered that he had nothing to clean with. Briefly he wondered if he was embalmed, and what kind of chemicals are used in that. If they could kill bacteria sufficiently enough to use as cleaning fluid, and, forgetting earlier with the window, wondered if he could cut himself and get any such fluids from his body to use. He then considered that they may have left his mop and bucket in the bathroom, and opened the door to check.

     What he saw was not a mop and bucket. Nor was it a half cleaned bathroom with blood on the floor. It was as he had intended it to be the day he died: spotless. There was nothing for him to do, despite coming back from the dead solely to clean this room. True, there was a clogged toilet, but he couldn't tell that at a glance. He sat down, unsure of what to do now that he was without purpose. The room appeared to spin, his thoughts and perceptions with it. He needed something to focus on, an anchor to reality, to sanity. If he didn't, he would sink into a depression, realizing how he wasted his life, and even upon coming back he had nothing, not even a simple goal. A horrible depression that could, ironically, lead to suicide. That is, if he didn't find a purpose, which he did.

     An urge, nagging at him for the past few hours. A voice that he recognized as his own. He knew what he had to do.

     It had been a few hours, but the crowd was still sitting in the cemetery in shock. Several had to use the restroom, but were unsure if it would still be impolite to get up and leave. As the sun was setting, they all saw a figure approach. Had they not already been in that state for the past few hours, they would've sat in stunned silence at the return of Charles Gaunt. He apologized to everyone for the long wait, and how impolite it was in the first place to get up and interrupt his funeral, how his mother raised him better than that, and then climbed back into his coffin, shutting it. Immediately, everyone continued the funeral service, acting as if nothing happened.

 Laura Renault couldn't shake the thought of the strange dream from her mind. She must have had it before it, if how familiar it felt was only indication, but between nothing in her dream journal similar and the vivid smell of the dream she knew it was different than just deja vu.

The nauseating smell of the tobacco still plagued her senses. It wasn't like the Camels and Marlboros she had to deal with working at the bar. No, this was much stronger, had to have been a cigar she figured. But even that didn't do the scent justice, she decided. It was more akin to an entire plantation of the stuff being set aflame, while she stood in the middle, perfect to get the full effect of the fumes. As close a description as she'll ever get, slight exaggeration aside.

In the dream it was late night, and she was walking down a dirt road, strangely unfamiliar considering how often her dreams were routed in reality and past experiences, especially concerning locales. Down the road was a wooden shack. Out front on the porch were too rocking chairs, both moving, only the left of which was occupied.

The man sitting looked nearly sixty at a guess, despite the lines and wrinkles in his face that suggested far higher. His short scraggly beard was as gray as the clouds above, both looking as if rain and thunder would fall from them any minute. That this was a dream, rain and thunder coming from a beard made perfect sense, somehow. His skin was dark brown much in the same way his beard was dark gray, which is to say, very. To Laura it seemed to simultaneously evoke both a bar of rich dark chocolate and a deep murky pool of mud. That neither of these things actually matched his skin was irrelevant to the dream-logic.

But the thing that really drew attention was the stub of a cigar hanging from his mouth. Tobacco slid from the sides of it, showing that not only was it hand rolled, but poorly at that. The smell of it was almost exactly like what she'd later compare it to, being in a tobacco field all set on fire. Almost. The difference being while it was certainly as strong a smell as that, it had mixed in a strange smell that could only be called, with any certainty, a spice.

She kept walking, until she came to a crossroads right past the house. Unsure of where to go she turned around, hoping to ask the man for directions. That she didn't even know where she wanted directions to never occurred to her. As she found her way back out front, the left chair was empty, the man having switched to the right one. “Why'd you move chairs?” she asking, in a tone as if it was something both their lives depended on.

“Hyeh hyeh!” came his throaty laugh. Though by the sound of it and how strong the cigar smelled, he could very well have been hacking out a lung and she'd be none the wiser. “Girl I been sittin' in this here seat all night. Open ya eyes a little more! Hyeh hyeh hyeh!”

She stood there, brow furrowed in thought, trying to wrap her mind around what she at the time thought was some great mystery, instead of an old man playing a prank, as she would rationalize it upon waking, something that occurred seconds later just as she thought she figured out the amused old man's secret.

-----------------------------

Papa Saturday's looked much like a stereotypical bar one would see in on tv, not by coincidence. Only thing that set it apart were the various voodoo totems and fetishes scattered and hung about. Laura never cared for them, thinking they mostly looked tacky, but rarely voiced her complaints. While the owner liked her and might even take a few down if asked, she knew that the tourists they helped foolishly draw was how they made enough to stay afloat. That they tipped more generously than locals also didn't hurt.

A more successful night than normal, but nowhere near busy, she was spacing out staring into the pin cushion of a voodoo doll on and empty table when a scrape followed by a loud thud snapped her out of it. Someone must have tripped over a chair.

A quick glance up confirmed it, with an added twist. Five men, three black, two white. Didn't surprise her too much, always a few assholes make say one word too many, and judging by how the two of them were being lead out of the door she could take a guess just which word set the other three off. She had to hand it to them, at least the larger group was smart enough not to make a scene inside, not even a threat yelled in anger. They were much bigger than the two white men, wouldn't be much of a fight. The white guys doubtlessly deserved it, but a look at the bigger three made it clear just how far they were willing to take it. Tourists beaten dead isn't something that does favors to a bar's reputation.

Well, she thought, at the least she won't have to worry about dozing off from boredom. With a smile on her face she reached under the bar...

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“Berry, I know you like to rile people up, but even you should have realized calling them that would end like this.” Hank spoke in the driest tone he could manage. For his comment Berry only looked at him and shrugged, smiling just as wide as he was fifteen minutes ago. Hank wanted to blame Berry's behavior on the beer, but knew him well enough by now to think differently.

At first they were joking around drinking. Maybe it was that some of their jokes were at the city's expense, maybe the guys sitting near them just didn't like tourists. Either way, once they made a snide comment about Berry being a tourist he knew it wouldn't end well. He couldn't have predicted how quickly it would've escalated though.

Most fights he's been in were immediate, someone gets pissed off and throws a punch. That they instead calmly 'guided' him and Berry outside was worrying. Worries that were increased upon seeing one guy pull out a knife. Not that he had time to focus on that, as a blow to the face knocked him to the ground. A grunt to his left gave away the Berry received similar treatment, treatment that continued for the next few minutes for the both of them.

“Wrong day little boy, wrong place.” The one with the knife spoke. Had Berry's head not been spinning he would've mused upon how cliche the words were. “Had enough you shit eatin' tourists for today, you the straw that broke the camel's back.” Berry snickered, recovered enough to note the continued cliches.

“What's that? A /laugh/? Boys, he thinks we joking. That we're a bunch a clowns. I'll tell you what's funny, listen. What's funny is how first I cut your tongue out. I watch you bleed for a little. Then I feed it to your friend over there. After that I think I might snap a few fingers of his to be safe.” He finished off the speech laughing with sadistic glee, the other two opting not to join in, more than content to stare daggers.

On the plus side, Berry thought, at least they wouldn't explicitly kill us. A thought swiftly interrupted by a loud bang coming from the direction of the bar. If the man with the knife wasn't standing over him, he'd notice the bartender pointing a shotgun into the air, the shot being obviously from her.

“Asshole, wake up, it's your turn. I hate driving.”

“Ugggghhh.”

“Wake up now or I swear to whichever god we're looking for I'll drive off the road and kill us both.” Not the likeliest possibility, the no-longer-sleeping man suspected as he tried to shake off the remnants of sleep, but with Hank one could never be certain.

“Pull over up there so we can switch seats.” The sleepy man groaned.

“For some reason I expected you to say pull over so you can take a piss.”

“Not a bad idea.”

When all was said and done, chiefly among them the aforementioned urination, they switched seats as planned. After taking a moment to light up a cigarette Hank turned to the once sleepy, now driving man. “Speaking of 'whichever god we're looking for' I think I got it figured out. We're going to New Orleans, right, Berry?”

“Yup.” 'Berry' replied in the most bitter manner a still half asleep man could manage, having never liked the nickname Hank gave him in place of Bernard.

“Well only religions I can think of down there that are big are Catholicism and Voodoo, and after that cardinal nearly got us run out of Boston I don't think we want to touch the Catholics.”

“Yes, as I so fondly recall.” The disdain in Berry's voice only seemed to grow at that.

“Well, so I figure we're investigating the Loa right?”

“Spot on.”

“They're the ones who possess people, got that skull man Baron Samedi, right?”

“Right again. You don't mind if we stop for breakfast next place we see do you, need myself a coffee and some food if you want me behind this wheel.”

“I see no reason not to.” Hank shrugged, blowing a slow stream of smoke out his window.

At that Berry's voice perked, cheerily saying “Good! Then you won't mind if we pay out of your wallet!”

Hank would've cursed had any one else said that, anyone who hadn't made and gone through with that claim several times over. He supposed it didn't matter in the end. Hell, he'd go into poverty if it meant finding what he was looking for, so what's a few bucks for breakfast in comparison?

“Great news!” Berry shouted enthusiastically, apparently no longer in need of caffeine. “Turns out we're closer to the city than we thought, guess instead of roadside you'll be treating me to something a little more Cajun.”

It starts with the drumbeat, like it always does. Thundering, feels like the ground is shaking with it. Those four loud beats repeating again and again, a call to the Hounds. A warning to us prey. My heartbeat starts going in rhythm with the drums, as I find myself on all fours running towards higher ground.

Then comes the howl, sounding like it was right in my ear. Good, I still have time. I keep running as my surrounding appears less like the forest of eternal Autumn I was so familiar with and more like a tropical jungle. Vines hanging above scrape against my head. They reach low but the treetops they hang from extend beyond my vision, covering any hope I had of using the moonlight to guide me. But I feel it in my blood, instincts instructing me forward through the ever-changing Forest, keeping me from dead ends and the Horned Man's traps...until the trees themselves stretch out and trip me up while I'm in full sprint, so that I fall sprawling into dirt and underbrush.

Before my mind even comprehends that I should get up, I hear the howl again, farther away, quickly vanishing into the distance. I don't have time to keep running, have to hide here and pray. I count my blessings that I landed in underbrush, hope it'll be enough to hide me. The howling is softer still, barely audible.

Until sharply interrupted by the trample of paws on the dirt nearby, and the sniffing of the Hounds as they search for prey. Wet sounds of their tongues slobbering saliva at the expected meal, or what I hope to be saliva. Then the rustling of plants close by. Too close, the very same plants I'm hiding under. Louder, the sniffing and slobbering, I can hear its heartbeat it's so close. No, that's mine, I only hope It can't hear it. Silence. I wait for the swift death, but nothing comes, nothing until the sound of paws running away from me, they must have found a more obvious prey. Good.

I start to stand up, looking forward to see its face. Still there, a lone Hound. Those crazed pure white eyes deep set in its face; the formerly just-as-white fur, now covered with dirt and blood. But what catches my attention first is the mouth. Lupine jaw jutting out, teeth barred in a twisted rictus grin covered in blood both dried and fresh, the fresh dripping down slowly onto its stained fur. It refused to make a move, just watching, judging how best to go about, wondering where to sink its teeth that would taste best.