章 6: The Barn and the Lady (Short)
The large barn towered before me. The entire clearing was surrounded with fence and makeshift tanktraps. Barbed wire was draped across every surface like curtains of iron, yet they were not what caused me hesitation.
The muffled squeals of some unseen monstrosity bellowed from within the fortress. I remember thinking, whatever was making the sounds had to be large beyond imagining. I managed to find a narrow entrance into the farm grounds, yet I saw no one as I entered. The decapitated heads of pigs were littered everywhere.
It was a slaughterhouse for the local village. I saw a bundle of severed wires upon the ground, leading from a small shack and into the massive barn from whence the squealing emanated. I instantly thought of the electrical wire I had just purchased from the strange man. I moved to investigate the shack. As the door creaked open, I heard a hushed voice singing softly, along with the grinding of flint across metal.
I noticed a large lever on the wall, but the lightbulb above it indicating sufficient power was off. I moved deeper into the shack and found a frail man sharpening a blade. He glanced up at me, and his face immediately twisted with rage. He told me to get the fuck out. I remained silent, unsure of what I should do.
He again threatened me. I turned, and spotted a note beside the switch that I had not seen before. It spoke of a sow, a common good of the people. The switch was used for feeding it. I decided then to help them, the villagers who had so far proved hostile. I took the electrical wire and reconnected the lines that ran to the barn. I am to this day uncertain of why I did it.
All I knew was that I did not want to become the Wolf.
I suppose a small part of me did not want to lose what little humanity I still possessed.
The following day, I made for the village of the Chicken Lady. The road that led to her was not difficult to find. The trees that stood guard over the ruined pavement was garbed in the flayed skin of pigs. I could not decide if the intention was that of warning or ritual.
I never found the stomach to ask. Somehow, I felt the question would be puzzling to the villagers. To them, something so macabre by conventional standards was now trivial and commonplace. It would be no more nonsensical to ask a hunter why he mounts the head of his kill on his wall.
As I entered the village clearing, the colorless clouds swirled above like a brush on a palette of white and gray. Everything: the trees, the houses, the sky...everything appeared rotted and sickly, a kill left to dry in the sun. I spotted a wrinkled woman beside a lazy stream, washing laundry on the bank. She looked up at me cheerfully. She said sweetly, more so to herself, that they were blessed.
The sow had been saved; its feeding mechanism had been repaired. I stopped beside her and asked as to the whereabouts of the Chicken Lady. She broke from her trance and indicated to a road beside the stream. It veered off from the main village. I turned back to her and nodded in thanks.
She smiled weakly, but her eyes spoke more to me than her expression. She feared me. I followed the path until a modest house formed from out of the trees. Chickens ran about at leisure, creating a stink of dung and wet feathers. I approached the door, and instantly, I heard a rhythmic pattern of forced breathing and gasps through the gossamer walls.
The door was ajar. I entered without knocking, and found a woman aged beyond description. She was stained with chicken feces from head to toe and wore a shawl around her scalp and cheeks. She was alarmed at my presence, but was not hostile. She held a rooster in her arms, stroking it as if it were a cat or small dog.
She spoke many words to me, but said little. I showed her a few of the items I had found during my travels in Darkwood, but the only thing she seemed interested in was a plastic chick. She said it belonged to her brother Janek, who had disappeared some time ago. I had scavenged the chick from the man in the Doctor's house.
May he rest in peace.
Then, a horrible racket began playing outside her window. She cursed loudly, exclaiming that some wretched lad was playing an instrument endlessly, driving her mad. I exited the house and saw the boy of whom she spoke of dive beneath an old tractor.
He seemed frightened of me, so I approached slowly. I could not see his face clearly in the shadow of the tractor, but it was obvious he was disfigured from the plague. He apologized profusely for his obnoxious playing, claiming that he was trying to impress the "Pretty Lady."
I knew he could not be referring to the Chicken Lady, so when I questioned him, he pointed to the window at the back of the house. It was where I heard the heavy breathing. I looked back to him. I felt an inexplicable urge to show him a photo of the Doctor that I had found. Sure enough, he knew the fucker. He then asked me for a favor. He said that if I would be so kind as to obtain for him the key to the Pretty Lady's room, he would arrange a meeting with the Doctor. He said to meet him at a collapsed silo near the village's entrance.
At last, I thought, a solution that did not involve that bastard Wolf.
I agreed to help him.
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