Ch. 1 - The Bedtime Story

Chapter One: The Bedtime Story
“Mom, can you tell the story again?” my oldest, Elaine, requested as she and the other children came in from the kitchen to be inspected after their baths. This was our Friday night ritual.

“Do you children never tire of hearing that story?” I asked as I chuckled. “Of course I will tell it. I doubt that I’ll ever forget that momentous day.” As I settled into my rocking chair, I began to think back to that auspicious day 17 years ago.
I took a sip of my lemonade and began the story ...

I was headed at a fast clip towards the café/coffeehouse at the northern edge of the state college I was attending to meet my friends. Dark was settling in for the night when I realized that there was a full pale yellow moon that was hazy and had a reddish halo around it. Although this is a natural phenomenon that I had studied in Astronomy as a freshman, it was still too eerie for my likes. However, I figured that I was safe. It was 6:00 PM. The walkways were well lit and recently plowed after that morning’s heavy snowfall. And the ever-present security truck was within sight. Besides, even though I was a freshman, I had heard that they had never had a security problem on this campus. My friends were already sitting at “our” table in the back corner when I arrived a little spooked. I waved to them as I ordered my favorite, a cold vanilla latte and a grilled cheese, from Will who was the night café worker and a friend.

“Hey Elaine, how was the Calculus exam?” Ken asked me as I sat down

“It was horrible. She is the worst math teacher I’ve ever had. She can’t even add 2 + 2.” The gang chuckled as Will brought me my food and sat down with us. We all quickly settled into our routine of eating and talking.

Very quickly we began to talk of other things, like the football game the next day against out state college’s rival team. We had been talking for almost two hours when I noticed that the wall next to our table was not quite right. It seemed to be buckled. As an engineering major, that intrigued me because this building was over 100 years old. I was in the process of checking it out when the wall started to “move”. It appeared to be swirling counterclockwise and I called out to my friends. All of us decided to watch it and see what happened next. Looking back on that night, we probably should have gone and gotten the security person. In a couple of minutes, the swirling stopped and the blue brick wall moved backwards and to the side – almost like a pocket door. We walked a little closer to it and realized that there was a tunnel behind the wall. One of the guys, Will, who always worked the café on Friday nights, decided to grab a couple of knives from behind the counter and then closed the door and put up the “closed” sign. Chuck decided to lead the way because he had a lighter that we could use to light the way into the tunnel.

As we walked into the tunnel, Didi wondered aloud if this was a smart idea. I told her to “stop being such a chicken!” She didn’t say anything more and followed the rest of us inside. The tunnel was damp and smelled of mildew. It looked like it was a hundred years old. It had a gray flagstone floor, walls, and arched ceiling. It was only 2” higher than the top of Chuck’s head, which was somewhat problematic when we came to supports. He almost knocked himself in the head a couple of times. The rest of us laughed at him, but our laughs seemed to not echo at all in the tunnel. As we moved further into the tunnel I noticed some bones, bits and pieces of something black, and a thin layer of gray dust. There were no footprints other than the ones we were leaving.  We had walked about twenty minutes when I swear I heard a rat scratching! When I asked the others, nobody else had heard it. I looked around but didn’t see anything. Chuck’s lighter was the only light we had, but it seemed to be enough. It was almost as if the walls were magnifying the light. As we walked further down the tunnel, I heard the scratching sound again. This time it seemed much closer, like it was directly behind us.

Rob was the last one in line and when I turned to ask him if he had heard the scratching, I received the shock of my life, he wasn’t there! I turned back around to scream to the rest of the group and it seemed like the scream just died in my throat. Then I felt a bony hand on my shoulder and another one covered my mouth. I realized that I was in a lot of trouble and tried to wrestle away from the bony hands. I tried to back into my abductor to loosen its hold on me, but I wasn’t very successful. Instead, the maneuver I was taught in a self-defense class put me further away from my friends and further into the tight grip of those bony hands.
As I was dragged backwards away from the light and the others, I realized – a little too late – that whatever those bony hands were attached to had been making that scratching noise earlier. I also realized that my friends and the light were very far away from me. Just as I contemplating how to get out of whatever I was in, I began to feel woozy. I knew something was drastically wrong, but I couldn’t seem to keep my eyes open. At a moment like this, I shouldn’t be falling asleep.

Opening my eyes, some time later, they slowly adjusted to the dim grayish light. I tried to get up, but couldn’t because I was tied down. I could feel the cold and damp from the stone that I was laying on deep in my bones. I could also tell that something was across me. I discovered that I could move my hands a little and was able to touch the object lying across me. It felt metallic and I could feel both edges of it so I knew that it completely covered me. I decided to try and break the ropes binding my hands. I didn’t dare scream, I was too afraid that whatever the thing was would come back. I was working on loosening my ropes when I once again heard that scratching noise and it seemed to be drawing closer and closer. I was frantically trying to get the ropes undone when I heard the scratching sound very close to my head.

I suddenly felt four bony hands touch me and a chill ran up and down my spine. As I turned my head to my right to try to see what the thing was, I saw a thin crack of light appear in the far wall. But I wasn’t as concerned about that light as I was about the knife that suddenly appeared above my throat. I saw two more very pale white bony hands holding the knife. I quickly began to say the Shema when I realized that those hands were about to drive the knife through my throat. Yet, another event occurred at the same exact moment that would eventually be my salvation. The thin crack of light developed into a very large block of light. As the light burst into that very dark and cold place, I heard an extremely high-pitched screech come from the creatures with those bony white hands. I also heard them rapidly retreat away from the light and me. I finally found my voice and began to scream for help. An outline appeared in the doorway and I heard a man’s slightly accented deep, gruff, yet kind voice say “be calm, they are gone for now. I will get you out of here”.

That large block of light turned out to be an open hooded lantern which was thrust into the darkness of the chamber. As I was untied by the large man that had spoken to me, I saw Rob laying on a stone tablet next to me. He didn’t look good – his skin was gray and sallow. I asked the tall muscular man who was aiding me if he could also free my friend. He nodded and quickly went to Rob, touched his forehead, shook his head, untied him, and slung him over his shoulder. The man then turned to me and asked if I could walk. When I replied that I thought so, he took me firmly by the elbow as I tried to stand and guided me to the improvised door as I stumbled along beside him. He took Rob and I out of the chamber and guided me down the tunnel to a cave that opened on a high hill with lots of fresh air and sunshine.

“So you see children that was how your father and I met. He rescued me from the cold barrow wrights of Gloucharnoch. And that is also how your Uncle Rob and I came to live in this world instead of our own.”

“Mom,” Eliza – my youngest – asks, “What was the object laying across you?”

“Well, in the lantern light I could see it was a very large metal shield with a royal crest on it. I also realized that I had been laying on a stone funeral bier.”

My children exchange looks. My second youngest, Paul, hesitates and when Eliza prods him in the back with her foot, asks “Why did you fall asleep?”

Eliza quickly chimes in “What would have happened if dad hadn’t found you?” She surely is an inquisitive child and she’s only 8 years old.

“Well children barrow wrights have a natural ability to drain life from living beings, which they use to put their victims into a type of coma or deep sleep, so that the wrights can then take their unconscious victims to their barrows for ritual sacrifice. You see barrow wrights are undead who were once humans. They are restless because their deaths were not honored or were especially horrendous. They inhabit their barrows or death mounds until the possessions that were buried with them are strewn about in the daylight, which prevents them from inhabiting that barrow or any other. This forces them into the daylight, which kills them.”

Joe, the oldest boy, asks “Mom, how did you know it was a royal crest on the shield”

“Good question. I knew it was a heraldic crest because they existed in my own world still, but I didn’t find out until later when I was talking with Eli that I found out it was a royal crest of a human empire called Weyemuth that ceased to exist over 500 years ago.”

After a long moment of thought while the children digest this information, Elaine, my oldest girl, asks “mother, what happened to the others?”

“Elaine I wish I knew what happened to the others and speculating what happened is a story for another night. You all need to get to bed. It is very late and we have an early day tomorrow because we are going into town. Now, go on. … Joe and Elaine help the younger ones get into bed. Don’t forget to say your prayers and turn out the oil lamp.” Those two are the oldest and a set of twins. Rob and Ken are the other set of twins.

“Of course, Mother” Elaine and Joe respond as they herd the five younger children – Rob, Ken, Sarai, Paul, and Eliza – up the ladder into the loft where the children sleep. They all call good night to us as they climb. After they get up in the loft, I can hear each one whispering their prayers and then I hear the distinctive light step of Elaine get up and extinguish the oil lamp. Silence then reigns supreme in the house.