Red's CD Project Story 2: Part 20 – Homecoming

Note: I am not entirely satisfied with this part. It was a little tricky to write, but I think the effect is still fairly powerful. We passed 30,000 words with this part. That's 70 single-spaced pages in Word. Not too shabby.

Disc 1
Track 20: Dirty Dancehall – The Zutons

“Woken up again by a young girl’s shout”

Zuton Del Aram woke; startled from slumber by a scream that sounded too much like a voice he knew and loved. He jumped up from his second-floor bed and pressed his face against the glass of the window. Outside the sky was black and starless over the city of Stra, which was eerily quiet. While his days of frolicking out past dusk had long past, he knew that others in the city should still have been out. Whether it was heading to a tavern or walking off too much time already spent in the tavern, there should still have been folks out but there wasn’t. There hadn’t been any one out past dark for weeks. The streets in the outer ring were empty, but, as he knew very well, not still. Things lurked in the shadows that weren’t just rats plump from feeding on the waste from one inn or another. They were larger than that and the shadows seemed to cling to them. One night about a week ago, he was sure he saw red eyes staring back at him.

He scanned the street below that was lit up the fire of torches lining both sides. The torches were new. He was not the only one seeing things in the shadows. Achingly, he sought the source of the noise that had disturbed him, but saw nothing.

“Fool of fools,” he swore turning away from the window. “She’s not coming back.”

Beside the bed, a half bottle of brandy sat upon a table next to an empty glass. He filled the glass to the brim then shot it down in one burning gulp before refilling it. The bottle had been full earlier today. He swore again before bringing the glass back to his mouth. His wife would never have allowed him to drink so much, but she had been gone a very long time. Since she gave birth to their daughter, the strings of his heart pulled tight at the thought.

“Pappy!” The words came loud from outside, accompanied by a knock on his front door. That surprised him so that he spit the second gulp of brandy out, spraying it all over the wall and his bed. He dropped the glass and the bottle, they shattered hitting the wood floor, but he did not notice that even when a few of the longer shards cut into his bare feet.

His knees creaked, his back popped as he came as close as he could to a run for his door and then nearly broke his neck twice while trying to take the stairs two at a time. He was no boy, but he felt like one just then. To see her again, meant everything, and he didn’t want her outside in the dark any longer than necessary. There was a time when he would have left the door unlocked and she could have came in on her own, came up to him in his bed and greeted him with one of those great big hugs she used to give him when she was his little girl. In his heart, she was still his little girl no matter what any of others said about her. His daughter was different, but she was still his daughter. After all the time that she had been gone, he realized that more than ever. He was a fool to listen to anyone about her and feared that by his inaction that he had allowed something to be done to her.

“I’m coming!” His voice came out gruffer than he wanted. He preyed she did not run off thinking he was angry with her. He could not be angry with her, not now, not ever again.

Throwing back the wood brace across the door, he sensed being on the edge of delirium. It was a happy sensation, one that, at his age, he may never feel again. He fumbled to release the lock before turning the knob. A putrid, dead, smell hung in the air, but he forgot when he saw the great mane of red hair facing away from him. No one else had such a bright glowing flow of locks in Stra. Hell, he thought, he could travel the entire world and not see its equal.

“My Hatala,” he made no attempt at hiding the tears that streamed from his eyes. She spun, slow and graceful, the purple riding cape floated out behind her. Zuton flushed seeing the tight purple dress she wore, which accentuated her breasts and the paleness of her skin that was dotted with hundreds of tiny brown freckles. This was not the sort of attire he had raised her to ware. It was a problem, but not one of any consequence so long as she was home. Before she could speak, he was embracing her to make sure that she was indeed real. He was shocked to feel how cold her skin felt, how frail her body.

“Father,” she said with little hint of emotion.

“You’re freezing child, come in, come in,” he brushed her through the threshold with his arm. “I’ll start a fire directly to warm you’re blood.”

He closed the door behind her not bothering to lock it and lit a long match from the pile he kept by the door. He took that to several candles before guiding her to the den and the fireplace.

“My girl, I am blessed to see you again,” he bent over clearing a place for new kindling. There was a creak from out where they had come, but he didn’t think twice about it. It was a old house full of old memories that came out in moans and groans. Just like old men, he thought, and decided that the next day he’d write that down. He was one for jotting down notes and thoughts. He would write a great book of wisdom before his days came to an end. Perhaps the return of his daughter was the inspiration that he needed.

“Did you search me out,” she asked, her voice very low?

He blew on a spark from the match as the kindling began to snap, but the rest of his body tensed. He had not known what to do when the girl came up missing. She had a nasty reputation among some folk, the kind of folk that sometimes acted on suspicion. He had wanted to sound the alarm when she disappeared, but worried if he had that he may be the next to go missing.

“I looked all around the city and outside of it as well,” he said. “No one had seen you come or go. I did not know where you had gone. Then the other girls started to come up missing and no one wanted to hear about you.”

“They were glad to see me gone.” She smirked.

He straightened up not turning from the mantle place. There were old wooden figurines from a game he had as a child on top. One was of a bear and another a dragon. He lifted both thumbing the carving lines nervously.

“You have always put some people on edge, my daughter,” he said. “It is their problem, not yours.”

“And yours?” She hissed the last as an accusation.

He turned to her, the tears back in his eyes. The room was full of huge, heavy shadows, but all he saw was her in that damned purple dress, looking cold and scared.

“If you ever felt that way then I pray I am cast into the underworld,” he sobbed. She appeared taken aback for a moment by the statement. “I love you, my daughter.”

She did not speak for a long time and the distance between them seemed even greater than when she had been gone. He wanted to run to her, shake her free of whatever evils had ensnared her and welcome her properly home. He had to break the silence.

“Where have you been?” It was the question many parents asked of truant children. Few parents would have let her back in the house before knowing.

She stirred to life then, the color came to her cheeks and the green of her eyes glowed bright in the dark.

“I’ve been casting away the chains of this world,” she smiled for the first time.

“Hatala, don’t say such things,” He stepped closer, but stopped noticing that the shadows in his house were not empty. “What have you done?” He croaked in fear.

“What have I done, Pappy?” She let the cloak fall to the floor behind her. There were deep bruises up and down her arms. For the first time, he saw what looked like a burn mark under her eye. Sensing his eyes, she lowered one strap of her dress and then the other letting the whole thing fall to the floor. He gasped in revulsion and grief. She bore lash marks as if she’d been whipped from the top of her legs up past her breasts. There were dozens of marks of varying length and depth. How could she stand such pain?

“Hatala…” he could not form a thought without his voice and mind collapsing in grief.

“I’ve been doing what you taught me,” she smiled.

“What?” From the shadows emerged four figures robed in black. Behind them, he saw glimpses of other creatures that he was sure there was no adequate name. Hatala put her hand on the black robe of one of the figures.

“This one is rough with me sometimes,” she squirmed as if thinking about it. “Not soft and gentle and cruel like you.”

“I never laid a finger on you,” he spit the words out. It was the truth, but he knew these creatures had brainwashed her somehow.

He took a few steps back reaching behind his back for the poker.

“These two are brothers, I think,” she had walked over to the pair of robed fingers on the right. “They always go at me together. It’s quite something.”

“Stop this, stop this,” he started shaking his head violently. “Why are you saying these things?”

The smile never left her face as she came up to him, pressing her naked flesh up against him. He recoiled as her skin was like touching an open flame.

“Don’t you see, these are my Pappy’s now,” she said and kissed him full on the lips. He grabbed the poker, wrapping his fingers around the handle. Whatever this beast was, this was not his daughter. She had always had strength, and maybe something a little more than natural, but she had been kind and gentle and pure when he last saw her. He pushed her away. “Oh, come now, Zuton Del Aram, son of Ardst. Do you not want to play with your daughter one last time?”

“You are not my daughter?” he spewed out raising the poker. The look on her face never altered its expression as he tried to swing it at her. His strike never came close as a gloved hand stopped his arm. Another of the robed men came forward and grabbed his other arm. He was too slow, too old to be a match for the likes of these.

“Goodbye, Pappy,” Hatala came up to him and ran her hand along face. She met his eyes once, and his heart broke, seeing they were full of malice.

She turned then and took the two men she had named as brothers by the hand and started to lead them up the stairs to the bedrooms.

“Let me go,” he struggled against his captors, but they quelled that with two swift blows to the top of his head. His vision blurred, but not poorly enough that he could not see the shadows move again as two creatures came forth. One had fours arms and four legs and a torso that bulged and rippled. It had one eye in the center of its forehead, no nose to speak of and a mouth with the lips peeled back to show a row of razor sharp teeth. The other creature looked as if it may have been a dog once, but its face was closer to that of a man and it had long sharp nails coming out of its paws. He tried to scream, but nothing came out.

The creatures crept forward, enjoying the fear that was shooting through his mind. The two robed men gripped tighter as the two spawn of the dark approached Zuton’s legs. He kicked at them weekly before feeling the teeth sink in and the jaws clamp down just below each knee. Flesh tore away in wet smacks followed by bone in loud cracks. The robed men let go and he dropped to the floor on his back.

He could not force himself to look down, but he was sure that both his feet were gone. The pain burned, but he blocked it out. They had all been right about her, he thought. She is some kind of witch.

The robed men left his vision, but he saw them mount the stairs when he turned his head. Somewhere below his waist the creatures slowly fed up his legs. They were taking their time, not pulling away anything vital. From upstairs he heard Hatala start to wail. The repulsion from the sound of agony in her voice was nothing compared to the hints of satisfaction. It sickened him that his dear wife had forfeited her life to bare her.

It lasted till the dark sky night started to lighten. The creatures were past his waste before the cold started to reach his heart. How they managed to keep him from bleeding to death hours earlier, he did not know. Outside the sun hit the horizon, when the dog-like creature rose to his face. Red drool dangled from its chin, its eyes glowed red. It was the last thing that Zuton Del Aram saw, as his daughter’s cries of triumph trumpeted through the house.