Cepsis the Devourer

[Spookhouse]

Cepsis the Devourer - Chapter 1

Over the hill comes two young and slender boys, running fast and bare-foot. They travel down the hill fast clinging to the slope as the grassy knoll turns into the dirty floor of Lockewood. With their feet hitting the ground hard, the boys shove at each other laughing. James, the brown haired boy, pushes the other into an old man who is trying desperately to get his buckets of water from the floor to the table. The buckets are pushed over with a hard nudge of the foot. Water splashes the floor as the old man tries to catch his balance on the table.

"My Water!" The old man shouts as he steadies himself on his table shaking one fist in the air. "When are you two gonna learn nobody wants ya two here! Especially you James!"

The two boys keep running till they get to an old womanﾒs fruit cart. They stop hard in front of her cart smiling devilishly. Michael, the blonde haired boy, runs behind the woman trying to distract her. But she has seen this trick one time too many and she immediately grabs at Jamesﾒ hand as he reaches for an apple off her cart.

"Youﾒre a monster James! Both of yous!" She shouts sternly to James as she holds his wrist tight and pulls him towards her slowly. James cant move, he is frozen in shock. His eyes turning wide. "Someone should slit your throat and get it over with." She smiles a gaped tooth grin, slowly reaching for a peeling knife stuck into an apple. Suddenly James is plucked from her grasp as Michael races past her grabbing Jamesﾒ arm. James is shaken from his frozen state as he turns and starts running fast with Michael again. "Iﾒll get you one day yous little bastards!" The boys hear the old woman scream in the distance as they put foot to the floor.

Michael and James run hard and fast till they hit the Waterfall, their favorite spot in the woods. They stop to rest panting and still laughing.

"That was the closes attempt on my life yet." James says smiling trying to catch his breath.

"I know." Michael laughs, "If it wasnﾒt for me being there she would have cut your throat for sure. Youﾒd think weﾒd be use to it by now."

"Yeah your right we should be. Your parents even hate us. Iﾒm surprised they even let us sleep in the barn." James blurts out while still chuckling. "They donﾒt feed us thatﾒs for sure. I wish we had gotten some of those apples Iﾒm starving" He sits down on a rock next to the Waterfall.

Michael smiles as he sits down on a rock across from him and hands him a shiny red apple from behind his back. "I snagged these when the old lady was trying to gut ya." He laughs as he reveals another one for himself.

"Wow, I didnﾒt even see you grabﾒem. But Iﾒm glad you did." James says as he snatches the apple and takes a big bite. Chewing it hungrily he says, "Ya know, I been thinking about leaving this place Michael. Nobody wants us here in Lockewood.

"Your right, but where would we go? This is everything I know. Iﾒd die out there in the world Iﾒm not cut out for it." Michael states openly through bites of his apple.

"I been thinking a lot about my father lately and I want go find him. I want to know who he is." James says staring off into the Waterfall as he continues eating away at his apple, bits flying from his mouth on occasion. "All we must do is head towards the Green Woods and I know I can find him."

Michael listens closely to James, understanding his friends need to see his father. He must want a to know a piece of who he is. Where he has come from. What is it made of. Michael thinks to himself. "Ok. Iﾒll go." Michael says. James looks over quickly, his mouth open with pieces of apple clinging to his lips. He looks to be in even more shock then when the old lady almost took his life. "Weﾒll leave tonight, weﾒll go back to the barn each pack a bag and weﾒll leave tonight. Your right there isnﾒt anything for us here. Nobody who wants us or loves us, we might as well make our own way."

That night the boys make their way to the exiting woods with packs on their backs. They kick rocks quietly as they look around for any other attempt on James life. As they get closer it becomes more clear to both of them that itﾒs now or never. Will they take this journey, this adventure, this leap into the world to make their own way. To help James find his father. The exit from Lockewood and entrance into the real and unknown gets closer with each step. Both thinking to themselves of the horror they could face out there. They were about to be on their own with help from no one else but each other. Their feet step over that invisible line of wooded area and small dent of Lockewood that was their home. And as they take that step they think to themselves, whatﾒs the worst that can happen?

The two boys walked all through the night. Foot over foot with excitement and anxiety about where this new life will take them. Step after step their feet take them farther from their home of Lockewood and closer to their own destinies. Stride after stride the boysﾒ legs carry them. For James they are carrying him to his father, the man he never knew. For Michael on the other hand, heﾒs just along for the ride and he canﾒt help but think of all the things that can go wrong. The two of them have never even been out of Lockewood. What do we think we are doing, can we really handle the wild ways of the world, Michael contemplates. But then again Lockewood wasnﾒt exactly the coziest of places. Besides Iﾒm here to help James find his father, I canﾒt just ba---

"Ya know my father is probably the king of his land." James blurts out interrupting Michaels train of thought. Michael nods quietly. "Maybe when we find him heﾒll make us princes and give us reign over our own land." James says with strong words and Michael nods silently. Walking together, steady with a strong sense of direction, as if they knew where they were going.

As time passed the dusty road they traveled became closely dense with tall twisting trees. Grass scattered among the dirty ground. Tree roots large and reaching from the ground, searching for nutrients as they run long and tangled. Scarring the ground as they knit themselves through the dirt and grass. These trees are thick and block out most of the sun, leaving the area cold and mostly shaded. What little light that shown through the break in leaves was slowly becoming more faint as the sun started to set. Before the sun is fully down behind the horizon the boys come to a small native shelter built within the trees. Parts of trees and mud and brush and dirt are packed around the trees, making a small dome. Giant trees at each end of the hut encompassed with dried mud and dirt. Dry dead leaves lay stuck inside the hard clay. Constructed on the front of the clay dome is a large wooden door made from giant twisted logs placed next to each other and bound with thick green vines.

"Lets stay here for the night, its perfect." says James, a smile growing over his face, "Its perfect." James runs to the front of the door leaving Michael a few feet behind him. He reaches his fingers around the edge of the door and tries to pull it open. "Gimme a hand will ya." James grunts out behind him to Michael. Michael smiles and laughs as he runs over quickly and reaches towards the door with his hands in an attempt to help his friend. But before Michaels fingers can reach the log door it swings open with a loud bang sending James and Michael down to the ground hard. In the doorway stands a large man, his hair long and black hanging passed his broad shoulders. His chest buff and muscular, his neck meaty and abundant. His large shoulders give way to twisted biceps and vein engorged forearms.

[Spookhouse]

“What can I do for you boys?” the abundant man says, staring down at the boys. His face is covered with festering boils oozing black coagulated blood. The base of the blisters is surrounded with rotting skin, peeling and flakey. Michael and James can only stare at the man, speechless and breathing heavy. “Well speak up.” he shouts, taking a step out the door.

“We were just looking for a place to stay, we thought it was abandoned…honest.” scampers James laying stunned on the ground next to Michael, eyes wide.

“Well as you boys can see this place is far from abandoned so if you don’t mind please be on your way.” Mountain states sternly, his eyes black staring from behind a face of festering, rotting skin. Pieces of skin falling from his face as he looks between the boys. Parts of his gum line revealed due to the degeneration of the chaffed rind that used to be skin.

“But sir, we’ll only be here for the night, and we would like to stay here.” James stutters, his heart throbbing in his chest. “We won’t be any trouble we promise.” The mans eyes dart between Michael and James. His eyes strong and stern even though his face was weak and rotting.

The bulky man drops his lips into a decaying smile and says, “Sure, why not. Get your things and come in.” He motions with his hand and turns walking into the clay house through the doorway. Michael and James slip each other a wide eyed glance and stand up. Dusting themselves off they follow the mans path through the doorway and into the mud hut.

As they enter the house they look around too find a log table, made just like the door, next to a small cooking fire. Over the fire hangs a metal pot with steam pouring out and a large spoon sitting a top the pot. The buff rotting man sits in a chair made from bones wrapped together tightly with more thick vines and next to this man tending the fire under the pot is a boy. A boy who is just a bit younger then Michael and James themselves. His hair also long and black, but he was not bulky or buff like the older man. No this boy was tall and slender, his muscles cut with definition. Nor was his skin rotting and falling off, no blisters among his body, only smooth skin. The boy eyes Michael and James with the same stern look the older man had given them outside as they laid in the dirt.

“My name is Mountain, and this is my son Hawk. Welcome to our home. Please have a seat, dinner will be ready soon.” Mountain says smiling and motioning towards two bone chairs sitting around the table. Hawk continues to eye the two as he stirs the spoon inside the metal pot. Mountain begins to cough violently and moves his hands to his face covering his mouth. He hacks and wheezes into his palms and when he removes them from his mouth they are covered in chunks of bloody bits and purple lung.

Hawk hurries to a corner next to the table and grabs a dirty red and black rag and handing it to his father he says, “Are you ok father?”. His voice strong and filled with concern.

“I’m fine boy.” rumbles Mountain through his coughing fit his hands holding the rag around his face. As he coughs the rotting boils crack and spill more coagulated black liquid down onto the rag. “Serve these boys some of that stew, it should be done by now.” , he says through the rag. Hawk nods and reaches for two clay bowls and fills them both with steaming brown slop. He slides them down the table to both Michael and James.

The boys eat greedily out of their bowls, the brown stew dripping out of the corner of their mouths. “You boys aren’t headed towards Daurot are you?” Mountain asks earnestly. Hawk looks toward his father swiftly, his brow lowered.

“Honestly sir, we haven’t thought that far ahead. And we really don’t know where we’re going.” James spits out , his mouth full of stew. Pieces of liquid and meat flying from his mouth and landing on the table. Hawk’s eyes staring towards them both, his brow still low, his face stern. Michael still slurping down the contents of his clay bowl, sitting quietly, letting James do the talking.

“Well let me be the first to tell you. Daurot is a bad place. The land is charred and fried from the fires that have blazed across it. Acres upon acres of people have been butchered, including my own wife.” Mountain says, holding the rag in one hand as he continues to speak. “A beast has ravaged the once beautiful land of Daurot. A beast so terrible that its hunger never dies, its appetite for death and carnage never fully ceases. And closer it comes this way, closer it travels, burning a path through every land it comes across. “

Hawks eyes switch between the two boys at the end of the table and his fathers words. Hawk remembers all too well the carnage that was bestowed upon them. He remembers the fires, the burning, the smoke rising over the hillside and clouding the sky. The smell of scorched human flesh, charred trees and melted grass. Hawks remembers how his mother cried and cried for help, how he could hear her through the smoke. He remembers following her cries for help through the smoke and finding her, laying on the ground . Her blackened arms reaching towards him, stretching for him, his arms reaching towards her roasted and bloodied body. Running towards her, arms outstretched, hoping to reach her in time. But as his feet carried him through the smoke to his scorched mother, she was dragged back into the smoke by a loud guttural grunt that stopped him dead in his tracks.

Mountain coughs into his rag a mess of blood and lung. “I want you boys to do me a favor.” he says. “I want you two to take Hawk here with you as you go find your father. He needs to avenge his mothers death and stop this beast from reaching the ends of the earth.” Mountain says through another coughing fit.

“With us?” James asks, his bowl empty and sitting in front of him.

“Yes, with you.” Mountain replies. “I would go myself but as you can see by the looks of me I’m not in the best condition. So my son will be the one to restore honor to our family. “

“If you don’t mind me askin`, what are you sufferin` from?” James asks as Michael finishes his bowl of stew and sets it in front of himself on the table, wiping his chin with the sleeve of his shirt. Hawk stands firm next to the table in silence still eyeing both boys.

“I’m not sure boys. See I was walking back from hunting in the Green Woods and as I came to a waterfall I spotted a flower. A flower I had never seen before.” Mountain says through his coughing and wheezing. “It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Its blue petals were infused with silver and purple lines zig -zagging down the inside. Its steam was long and purple with silver and blue veins running down its length. The petals lay twisted in the shape of a bright sun.” he states.

The boys listen carefully, their eyes stuck on Mountains eyes. His gaze holding their attention as he continues his story, “I reached over and I tried to pick the flower, to bring it back here. It was so awe-inspiring that I had to have it. But as I touched it, my fingers grew cold and my body felt sick. I collapsed on to the ground and started spitting up blood and flesh.” Michael and James sit with mouths and eyes wide open as they listen to Mountains tale. “By time I had gotten home my face was peeling and oozing with blood.”

Hawks eyes stay fixed upon Michael and James as he looks them over. There is no way the can keep up with me he thought to himself. These boys are puny and weak, they’ll need more then a dream and some to survive this journey. “But I think you boys best be off to bed, you’ll need your rest.” Mountain says as he stands up, rag still in hand. “You can sleep out here tonight, tomorrow though you’ll need to be off early, so make sure you sleep well.” And within a few blinks of an eye Mountain and Hawk had walked into another room leaving Michael and James to sleep.

Inside the other room Mountain looks to his son and ask him to sit on the ground. Hawk does and Mountain walks to a far wall and shuffles some things around . He returns shortly with a black rag concealing two hand made weapons. “These are the Tools of the Forest my son. They has belonged to our ancient people for centuries and were crafted by the last great druid.” Mountain conveys to Hawk. “It is your duty son to avenge your mother and stop this plague from consuming us all.”

Hawk jumps to his feet holding both the dagger and hatchet in either hand. He looks his father in the eyes and says, “Yes father, I will avenge mother, I will avenge our people, and I will stop this evil from spreading. It will no longer hold reign over our lives, over our land.”

Mountain smiles and says, “Very good my son, now rest. Tomorrow your journey beings.”