Possessed
by Amber Averay
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Day 1
Every town has its legends, and ours is no exception. But where once people were quite sanguine about it, we’re not so cavalier now. When it was animals being slaughtered, mutilated, drained of blood there was fear, but the Council shrugged and said, what else can you expect? These things happen.
But now 3 people have disappeared, and the Council have rallied the town. A group of men are going to hunt the creature. We leave at first light.
Day 2
There is a sense of euphoria among the men. An excitement that makes this one great adventure. The women packed us hampers of meats and breads and other victuals, and our first night at camp is celebrated with ale and roasted mutton.
Day 3
Pastor Bishop warns us not to take our purpose too lightly. It is acceptable to be proud of ourselves for protecting our people, but to celebrate and boast of greatness before the journey has really begun is a bad omen – it invites ill luck, which we can ill afford.
But we walked far today, with few stops. Only Master Hawksmith complained of blistered feet.
Day 4
It was suggested we start keeping a lookout at night when we’ve turned in. While the days pass with relatively little action, we appear to draw attention once the sun goes down. Perhaps it’s the firelight, or the scent of roasting meat, or the loud jovial voices spilling into the ether, but once the shadows gather something watches us.
Day 5
Master Jackman’s personal pack was missing when we awoke this morn. He is furious, bellowing like an irate bull, accusing everyone in turn of thieving from him. He won’t say what was in it, it is nobody’s business, but his rage is magnificent.
Also, Master Plankton, our first watchman, seems to have been rendered unconscious by an unseen assailant prior to the pack being taken.
Pastor Bishop is recommending cool heads and stout resolution. We will experience hardships, of that there is no doubt. We must simply keep to our plans.
Day 6
We are being followed. All our meat stores were snatched away in the night, not even a footprint left behind to identify the culprit. It could have been an animal, but there is no evidence to sustain that theory, though it seems the most logical. A new anger fills the party, a slow-burning indignation that promises vengeance on whoever/whatever skulks in our wake.
Day 7
Camp is in an uproar. Master Reynolds vanished before sunrise. He was our lookout. Nobody knows when he left, or how. The fear that he turned tail and fled for home at first opportunity is superseded only by the fear he did not leave willingly. Yet had he left of his own accord, why leave behind his personal pack?
Day 8
Unease spreads among the men like a contagion. Our food is strictly rationed to mere bites per man per day, and it is not enough. Not for the others. I do not suffer as much, for I am small and have never required much sustenance. I think the others – becoming sallow of face and hollow of eye from hunger and exhaustion – resent me for this.
Yet apparently we near some old mine shafts. With rain due to set in we might need to seek shelter in them, or risk catching our death of cold by exposure…but exposure to what, exactly?
Day 9
There is a quiet despair clouding the group. Master Reynolds’ bloodstained shirt was discovered draped over a branch at our campsite when we awoke this morning. It was rent with ragged holes and tears and fluttered as scraps in the wind. Unless the blood is not his, we believe him to be dead.
But before sundown we should reach the first mine shaft. It will be where we make camp if safe to do so.
I have a raging headache.
Day 10
Master Lowe is dead! He was slaughtered in the night as if he were livestock, his body drained of blood, great chunks of flesh expertly carved from bone. How did we not hear? Or see? Or smell? The reek of blood taints everything. The sight of it – already browning in the humid air – is everywhere, burned into our vision. We are too exposed, we need to find the mine shafts for cover. The man are starving, exhausted, emotionally battered.
Day 12
We found the shafts, but lost Pastor Bishop. His corpse was found strung between two trees, head, hands, and feet struck on pikes beneath the bleeding stumps. Whatever preys on us has intelligence, the smarts of a sick, twisted soul bent on destruction.
To try and elude it we have delved deep into one of the abandoned shafts, moving only by inadequate torchlight. Such measures are necessary, but coupled with the mounting strain and tensions my headache increases to the point I wish for someone to render me unconscious to free me from the pain.
Day 15
Master Sykes appears to have died of an apoplexy. Apparently I witnessed it, though I have no recollection. My dreams are haunted by imaginings of Master Lowe’s fate, Pastor Bishop’s death. In these nightmares I watch a shadowed figure swoop upon them in silence and set to carving with a knife before they can utter a sound.
I wake gasping for breath, heart hammering, body twitching.
The others think me touched in the head. All I can utter is that my head yet causes me aching grief.
Day 18
I am scared to sleep. Every time we collapse into unconsciousness something attacks our shrinking group. Utterly silent, ruthlessly efficient, it targets one of our group and despatches him with no little skill and great bloodshed. We awoke this morn – or afternoon, it is always dark down here – we were all of us drenched in tacky blood and Master Watson’s body discarded bare feet from us.
And my dreams are plagued by an evil I cannot comprehend. Did I awaken during an attack? Was I perhaps roused from slumber to witness something so heinous that it is imprinted upon my memory? For I am haunted by thoughts of my hands buried wrist-deep in Master Watson’s chest cavity, the blood squelching between my fingers, delightfully warm upon my cold skin.
I am sick. And sickened.
Day –
I have lost track of time. We all have – though I say ‘all’ I refer only to the four of us who remain. I fear what I dream is no dream. I imagined in sleep that I pulled Master Bergman limb from limb with my bare hands, and when I awoke the man was rendered into pieces and my hands covered in viscid blood. I still feel nothing but weariness, and a growing fear. I cannot be the beast, can I? I shall stay awake tonight, and hope I do not prove my fears true…
That Night
The others sleep. I am awake, if not alert. I feel heaviness seeping into my bones, the quill with which I scratch these words is weighted with despair and misery. I feel I am not in control of my body. It seeks to defy my instruction, to ignore my mental commands. I shudder to write this, but I seem to feel myself sinking into a darkness that grows to encompass me, and I could almost imagine I look through the eyes of another.
I cannot trust what I write now will remain true. My hand shakes as if fighting itself. Something comes for me – from within me. I will kill tonight, or be killed.
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