stone a short story

Mon, Oct 31, 2011

This is another escapee from my creative writing course with the OU. I thought I’d publish it as it’s Halloween and if you’re in a bothy tonight with one of them smartphones and a trickle of internet squeezing through the walls, it is my pleasure to bring to your fireside some supernatural food for thought.

Stone

The intense cold of the night descended like a shroud from the darkening sky. The red line on the horizon marked the passing of another day while behind the mountain the pale glowing orb of the full moon washed the land in ethereal light. Everywhere was deep in snow and silence. A curlew called its lonely curfew from the shore of the loch. The outlines of distant mountains looked like ragged holes torn from the sky. As the moon rose opposite the dying sun it was time for him to rise. The boulder moved slightly. Its fissures and cracks widened to become gaps between limbs. Its rounded surface became his backbone and he lifted his granite head to the stars, only the brightest of which were visible. The rest wise not to show themselves this night of evil. He stood and slowly stretched to his full height, small rivers of snow running down his monolith form, extending his arms above his head, reaching for the moon which had crested the mountain’s summit. There was no wind. No sound other than the low grating of rock on rock. He lowered his arms and with a sound like a slab being moved from a grave, turned and looked down the mountain to the hut on the loch shore. A faint glow came from the window nearest him while the rest was in darkness. The faint smell of smoke reached his stone nostrils on the rising breeze. He began to move down the slope.

Arthur Borrow had been a wanderer most of his life. In his mid sixties now, he’d seen most of what the world had to offer and wasn’t impressed. For the last twenty or so years he’d moved around the country, sleeping rough or staying in the remote shelters the hill folk called bothies. Four stone walls and a roof. Two rooms, one habitable with a wooden floor and fireplace, the other dilapidated and used for storing firewood. Sometimes you could find the iron bedsteads and ornate bathtubs of the original inhabitants but mostly they were just full of rubble and wood. Upstairs was the length of both rooms, floored with enough space to sleep more than a few hill folk. Arthur reclined in front of a blazing fire in an ancient moth eaten armchair probably brought in by the estate along the land rover track which went as far as the loch. A good fifteen miles long, it was the only intrusion in the stark landscape. Built to bring paying guests for the fishing. As he sipped from the bottle of whisky he’d carried in the hairs on the back of his neck rose at the skrake of a heron out on the black loch. He shivered and threw another log on the fire. There was a storm brewing and the first snowflakes caressed the cracked window.

He moved closer towards the flickering light. His heavy limbs slow and crunching on the hard snow. He’d waited the last year on the hillside curled in rock, scorched by summer heat, blasted by winter storms. The immense beauty of the remote mountainous land lost on his sightless eyes. But tonight he was alive. He was the spirit that moved through stone, crossing lands through the medium of rock. Only through rock could he travel and as he could not cross water his journeys took him to the summits of the mountains where he avoided streams with the power to stop him. Every winter solstice when the night was longest he would come into being in the place he’d reached last. His only need the nourishment of warm blood. It would sustain him for the long night’s journey and his sleep until the deepest cold of winter woke him once more.

“Vampire of Fealar, eh?”, Arthur muttered to himself. He had finished reading a story in the bothy book, a battered old jotter left in these huts for passing travellers to write their names, or pass on local folk tales. This one told of an incident on the other side of the hill, about five miles away at the now ruined Fealar Lodge. Only a footpath went there, a good twenty miles from civilisation where two walkers had sheltered during a blizzard. The tale told of a wild night the two spent wide awake while intermittently loud scraping noises were heard at the bothy door. Every now and then the door bowed inwards and cracked a little but did not give and when it returned to its normal shape the scratching began again. Once during the storm they thought they saw a figure peering in through the window, its hideous features outlined in the light from the fire they kept burning through the night. “It looked like Nosferatu, eh?”. The whisky was having its effect on Arthur. His bravado overcoming his natural fear of the dark. He took another drink from the bottle, “Ah’d show a vampire so ah wid. Nae bother. Bite ma neck, eh? No chance pal” and with that he loaded up the fire as the wind began to moan round the chimney.

He reached the gable end of the bothy. The wind was beginning to roar and the blizzard was setting in for the night. His night, his time to live. He leaned forward and placed his cold stone hands on the wall and felt the faint heat of the chimney. He lowered his neck and touched his forehead to the mortared stone and with a low grinding noise slowly become one with the wall. The boulder he’d inhabited for the last year fell as small pieces of rubble as he merged with the bothy and became one with its four walls. Slowly his form spread throughout the building as if wrapping his arms round the structure, stretching after so long confined in the boulder he’d managed to reach before the sun had risen. He flowed round and round through the walls and the stone floor of the traveller’s room before concentrating his presence in the gable end where the fire was burning. The faint heat revived him enough to gather his strength for what must happen next.

Arthur thought he heard something. “Sounded like something moving in the chimney”, he said to himself. “Rubbish, man. It’s the wind” he muttered and helped himself to some more of the rough whisky, pulling his teeth back and grimacing as he swallowed a little too much for his liking this time. He shook his head like a dog, stood up a little shakily and staggered to the old table by the window. All he could see was his reflection in the glow from the fire and the blowing snow piling up on the ledge outside. “Going to be a wild night” he sighed. The logs were almost done and he’d have to crawl into his sleeping bag before the fire died and the ice crept through the cracks in the door. Then he heard the grating noise again. Like stones being dragged against each other and he turned round to see a form emerge from the wall next to the fireplace.

He pushed himself into his new form, causing blocks to crumble and fall from the wall and crash on the wooden floor. The sound of grinding and splintering as the wooden fireplace split and fell to the floor was deafening in the confined space and with one last push he was stone once more, standing the height of the ceiling and looking down on the terrified occupant. Arthur Borrow was rooted to the spot, his eyes wide as saucers and his face as white as a sheet. He’d dropped his whisky bottle which smashed on the shards of stone from the shattered wall, in front of which now stood a seven foot monster.

Arthur stumbled backwards as he fumbled for the door handle before pulling it open with such force that he almost fell headlong in front of the monster. He then ran along the corridor to the other room, the dank smell of the bare earth floor clinging in his nostrils. He stopped in front of the disused fireplace and turned to face the corridor. “What are you?” he stammered. “What do you want?”. He stumbled on a pile of broken bricks and fell backwards banging his head on the remains of the hearth and his vision began to swim as the creature dragged its heavy limbs towards the small doorway, blocking out the light from the dying fire next door. As the wind rose to a crescendo throwing clouds of dusty snow down the long dead chimney onto his head, Arthur’s last view of the monster was as it bent towards him, its black mouth opening revealing a row of razor sharp stone fangs like skeletons in a tomb. The odour of wet earth swept over him and as his head fell back the creature lowered its own head and feasted on the warm liquid torn from Arthur’s throat.

He drank long and loudly from the ripped throat, his strength growing with each draught. As the pulse slowed he snapped the neck and ripped back the wrinkled skin to expose more of the veins and drain the last of the blood from Arthur’s lifeless corpse. The act of entering the bothy had almost drained him. It had been difficult to break into the room as his form had spread throughout the four walls and he had to concentrate hard to focus his power on reaching his victim. Now he was sated and ready for the long night’s journey and as he stood erect he prepared to enter the walls again, though this time with enough strength to push through and choose a form more suitable for the journey. It would have been simpler to enter via the door but his sheer size prevented it, necessitating the transition from boulder to wall and the consequent draining of his reserves which had quietly kept him alive for the last year. Just as he was moving towards the gable end through which he’d entered it collapsed with a loud crash, unable to withstand the storm and he moved slowly back to where he had entered. Blowing snow was filling the room and the wind howled in from the black night. There was no need to find stone for the journey. The wall had given way enough to let him pass unhindered and he stepped out into the wild night. Something deep in his spirit made him turn to the north and begin the journey. He would travel across white wastes miles from any habitation, over the summit of the next mountain until the brightening eastern horizon would signal the end of his journey and he would become immovable stone once more.