KNIGHT 

Upon such day in country fair,

T'was twenty years ago,

The bloody axe left virgin dead,

Her blood to stain the snow.

 

These words I read on a note, carefully written on a crumbled piece of paper in a corner of my closet, covered in dust and cobwebs. At least, t’was now my closet. For the longest time it belonged to my eccentric uncle, who had just recently passed from my care under the strangest conditions.

When half a decade ago the family decided to put him in my charge, his sanity was generally unquestioned, though his reason was often perceived as blurred by incidents of vanishing in the night and turning up in another city. Never would he tell of his sojourns or their motives, but would instead for several days after, remain alone, locked away in his house unreceptive of company.

Upon his arrival, he was a jovial fellow, with a merry laugh and a warm heart, when his head was clear. The love of drink overcame him once in a while, but never did it disturb his thoughts quite so much as those nights when the fogs rolled in through the city and his eyes widened to an unreasonable extent. A shuddering would overtake him, and suddenly his jovial mood would vanish, not a word would leave his lips.

A delicate sweat would find its way at his temple and his hands, normally strong and coarse, would take on the feeling of weak clamminess. Minutes of silence would pass, and he would respond to no word, and then without cause at all, would rise and stealthily make towards the door, all the while his eyes racing about the room. I would gently grapple with him and at first, always, he would beat me back with the most violent countenance, but upon realizing his captor’s identity, would cease his struggles, and instead shut his eyes and give himself up to my lead.

As time passed, his jovial ways gave rise, more, to the somber and moody, and at the slightest hint of rain, a depression would assault him from all sides. His mind would conjure up strange images he would paint or draw, when allowed, and mumbled about strange folk tales. Before his disappearance, he seemed to rebound sharply, back to humanity, and his psychologist showed cautious optimist about his condition.

Then one night he slipped away and vanished. I oft read books in my spare time and that particular night I was in quite another room from my uncle when the fogs rolled in. A particularly marvelous plot of which name I cannot remember at the moment, ensnared me so, that I must not have heard him leave through whichever exit he used. In any case, upon discovering his absence and the presence of the fogs, I set out to find him, if I could, and that night, saw him naught.

Upon arriving home that night, I assumed that the next morning an authority might return him to my custody as had been done before a time or two, however that morning he did not return, and my turmoil increased. The morning passed into afternoon and I contacted the authorities to notify them of the missing man, but as ‘eve came on, they found not a trace.

Days passed into weeks, and those into months, before they found his bones, scattered about a park in the most unusual manner. Little could they tell from those signs which marked the bones, beyond the fact that his life abruptly ended by the stroke of an axe, the kind of which had not been made for centuries.

The note, I read and reread, then dropped on my desk and let other papers overtop it and swallow it in their masses. To it I paid no mind again until the fateful day when, with the case of his death finally closed, the matters of estate arrived to me, packaged in a somber envelope. I was invited to inspect his own home, far from the town where I lived, that had been his home until his mental state had deteriorated.

Within the week, I took a train to the countryside where his manor stood, undisturbed, and untended for years. The key, which came with the letter, nearly snapped in the lock, the hinges of the bound door working against my every movement to budge them to action. Inside, the air held a somber gloominess, sadness that its owner had in so long, no once visited it.

Dead flowers stood in vases in some rooms, dust-covered ornaments in others. As I walked through the kitchen I recoiled in horror to find bones on the floor, near a cabinet, and with sorrow found it to be my uncle’s beloved cat. When moving him, all knew something had been forgotten in the house, something that needed to be taken with him. I dared not touch the bones, and the very sight of them moved my mind to sell the house, rather than keep it.

As I moved deeper into the building, I noticed faint rustlings, as though some window were open, though I knew this was not true, for I had seen it from outside. Over the three years my uncle had spent with me, not one robber penetrated within the compound, nor it seemed, would there have been good reason to. Beyond the occasional antique or two, the house was devoid of valuables.

Once more, I heard the rustling, and this time turned about, in case there should be some other animals that found roosting in this dead home. I found nothing and continued on in my inspection. At last I came to the old man’s favorite room. Completely green, door included, and still lively, despite the years of dust. I walked through and read the volumes on a small book cabinet and admired the craftsmanship of two divans that provided comfortable seating, when I noticed one out of place. 

A smaller couch in the corner stood at an odd angle to both corner and other furniture in the room. Carefully, lest it be damaged, I moved it aside to see the cause, and found it on the bottom of the wall, covered by the leg of the divan I’d moved. A little note, scrawled in red, with my uncle’s same neat handwriting read thus:

 

His movements are like shadows

Through halls both living and dead

No one can stop his coming

When he wants to take your head!

 

The note shook me through and through, and I leaped back, hardly caring to replace the couch as carefully as I had done before. And walked from the house as fast as my feet would carry me. On the train home, the sun peaked out and warmed my strangely chilled insides, but the words in red blazed before me nonetheless.

Two days from that time passed, during which I put out the matter of my uncle’s estate entirely, and went back to my own occupations of teaching and learning, as was fit at the time. And then on the night of the second day, the fogs rolled in. Inevitably, my uncle’s death relatively fresh in memory, I remembered how he would be strangely haunted by the night the fogs came, and a weird sensation overtook me. How could a man such as he, who had in youth been so fortunate and prosperous, fall to an illness, which devoured both his friends and mind? I sat reading a simple country tale this night, and put on quiet music in the background, everything at peace, until suddenly a slight rustle disturbed me from my reading.

At first, I took it for a bird that might have flown in from the open window and rose to shut it out, but upon following the sound, it led to my uncle’s room. No window stood open, and everything lay still and dark. Shudders ran through my spine as I contemplated the sounds. Quite obviously they were not simply my imagination, but their cause was completely a mystery. At least until I saw a flap of paper tucked ingeniously into an air duct.

The fair flowed again, and the paper rustled with the gentle breeze of the heat below coming into the room. I laughed at myself with ease, and drew the paper forth to read it beneath the lamp on a nearby table. This time blue ink on the page told me this:

 

O fear ye nights of fogginess

When nothing can you see

Lest seek you answers dangerous

At house of departee

 

Normally, it would have been bad enough as it was, however a second verse, below the first, in more jammed and pained writing read:

 

When rustles come from every corner

Fear, fear, fear!

Your doom lies in my knowledge,

He’s near, near, near!

 

The second phrase unnerved me beyond measure. As though the lights had gone out and the heat of the building left, everything dropped into gloom and darkness in one movement. My ears picked up every movement of the hairs on my head, every yowl of a cat further into the city, and the faint rustling somewhere in mine own apartment.

“Curses to you uncle! What do you know that I do not!,” I exclaimed with a deep sigh, and without another thought, fled my residence for a train to my uncle’s house. The night was even more powerful in the countryside than in the city, where at least the streetlights gave fair fight to the shadows of the night. Here, nothing stopped the darkness from invading every nook and cranny.

My uncle’s house rose terribly before me as I walked to it, the moon somewhere high above, and the fogs surrounding me entirely, giving me a fair chill to the bones. I walked into his house, and naturally, there was no sort of light available. The darkness totally solid, I struggled about my own pockets to produce a miniscule candle and matches with which to light it.

Again I examined the residence, though by night and by candlelight, everything seemed to dance and flicker of its own accord, growing demonic shadows out of the corner of my eye, and mocking me with their odd proportions, every time my breath neared the flame. My steps echoed through the old halls as I walked to the very center of the house, past the mysterious red writing on the bottom of the wall, and to a door to the under-stories of the building. A giant lock stood on the bolted door, metal-bound and braced at every corner. But the lock stood snapped, broken and twisted as though by powerful force. No other lock or brace had been moved, the door unscathed, besides the strongest lock in the center for which I inherited no key.

Dexterously, I managed to open every other device that held the door, and with a groaning, painful to behold, it swung inward to darkness below. Had I been in another room, the sound might have sounded like the moan of a dying soul, and its mournful utterance was echoed from somewhere behind me with at least one set of rustling.

I spun about, my head beating towards my throat with frenzy, and a sweat standing powerfully on my brow, in search of the origin of the noise. Nothing appeared, nothing moved, and my candle flickered dangerously towards going out from the gentle breeze that issued from the gap the door made. It was as though the door was a mouth and the basement below breathed with a life of its very own, threatening to swallow me alive and never again set me free of its darkness.

Summoning what courage I had left, I timidly descended the stairs into the abyss, guarding my candle against going out, and all the while, my skin growing clammier. The walls here were no longer the clean, organized, and wallpapered walls that graced the rest of the building, but instead, roughly hewn stone, with crevices meant to hold something. Instantly, I could tell this building was not from this century, and its foundations as ancient as any of those that could be found in this part of the country.

As I descended, the wall smoothed out a bit, on the right and in frenzied script I read the message:

 

Oh fool you bloody little boy,

What are you doing here?

You’ve now released the demon dark

Forever more you’ll live in fear!

 

And in that instant, a puff of air, more powerful than any other, blew out my candle, but not before I saw just a few steps below me an ominous shadow emerging from the darkness below. A rustling came from every direction and the gentle breezes slid past me like spirits circling about my face and hands. With a cry, I rushed up the stairs and bound through the open door to the basement, the blood rushing in my every vein like thunderous falls.

I rushed from the cursed house and locked it tight behind me, for fear of the apparition that within it dwelt, and made my way back to the station where the train would at last lead me to my restful home. I made a point of laughing at the story to myself on the train and chatted merrily with a neighboring passenger, but deep within me my heart still stood at ready to beat with terror, my ears were still sharp for the sound of the hideous rustle that haunted my every moment.

But of course, the night gave me no rest. Every time my mind relaxed and came close to sleep, a sound of some kind would awake me and I would sit with the lights on, guarding my bed against an unwanted shadow, until fatigue once more overtook me and I no longer cared for what might be in the darkness.

My health declined and my superiors advised me to stay at home to regain my health, and so I did. And then the fogs rolled in and the rustles returned with redoubled force until I could no longer stand them. I stormed into my uncle’s room, which I had not touched since the night I’d read the latest verses of his terrible writing.

“What do you want? What is this spirit, which haunts my every moment? I am becoming like you! Is this what you want? You want my madness?” I slammed my fist against the wall, and from a nearby shelf, a pair of photos fluttered to the floor. I picked them up contemptuously and was ready to shred them in my hands, when I noticed the oddity in both. In the first, a group of people stood about a great chamber, and just barely in the picture stood a suit of armor of a dark knight.

Scanning the second picture, I instantly noticed that my uncle had, one by one, crossed off the faces of its occupants in red marks. His own held half a mark through it and tied to the back of the picture was the pencil he’d used for them. I glanced back at the second photo, and in horror realized that the dark knight, was the very same which I had imagined to have seen emerging from the shadows of the stairs I descended on the last night the fogs had rolled in.

I took the pencil from the back of the photo to complete my uncle’s mark, when I noticed another verse in elegant pen strokes on the back of the photo, beneath the pencil:

 

They all have died of curiosity

One by one they lost their mind

And now it’s your turn dearest friend

A warning: do not look behind!

 

I read the verse again, and still it made no sense, so I threw the photos back atop the shelf from whence they came and went to bed once more. The rustles, I thought, stopped that night and my health seemed to improve.

Just a couple days after, I returned to work and the winter purged the city of the fogs which haunted it during the warmer seasons. The holidays merry came and went, leaving a lingering feeling of emptiness and when spring rolled about, I felt everything had been dealt with. My uncle’s estate I sold to a rancher without so much as a second thought, and hoped never to deal with it again, though I kept the key to the front door as a terrible token of him.

And then one night in early spring, a cold fog came rolling upon the city and the whispers, the rustles in the corners of my mind crept back towards me as I prepared for my night’s slumber. As they grew, so did my fright and I dared not shut my eyes, but let them roam the darkness of the room about me. How long I lay there, I would not venture to fathom, but eventually in surrender, I rose and wandered to and fro about my apartments and found myself in my uncle’s room.

Upon turning on the lights, the key atop a table near me, lit up so brilliantly I had no choice but to pick it up and handle the cold metal. Beneath it the poem I’d read last, burned upwards at me and the tingling in my bones gathered. What could he mean by refraining from looking behind? Did he mean events? Or perhaps he meant I should not look for causes of things.

This I took as their message, and spun on my heel to storm from the room with key in hand to destroy it, when in the movement I caught a glimpse of something dark over my shoulder.

“Fear, fear, fear! Your doom lies in my knowledge! He’s near, near, near!” a voice whispered in my mind. I knew it of my imagination, yet it seemed almost realistic enough to come from beyond and I spun about a second time, to see better what hid behind my back.

“They all have died of curiosity!” the voice again recited from the poetry that so haunted me by this moment “You’ve now released the demon dark!” As I turned this second time for a few brief moments, I could vaguely see a figure turning with me. For a third time I spun around and yelled in horror, as over me stood the knight my uncle and his friends had long ago admired.

Deep, throaty, and chilling laughter poured from within his dark armor as he approached me, an axe raised overhead. On hands and knees, I scrambled back and begged him spare my life.

“Good knight! I have no quarrel with thee! Pray, return to the grave from whence you came, and take thy horrid devils that rustle in the night with you!”

“Foolish little boy, though old

You thought your uncle mad

But I inspired his terrible poetry

And ended his life so sad!

 

Just as I shall do with yours,

When the time is ripe

Will it be tonight? Tomorrow?

That from earth your life I’ll wipe!”

The axe he held above him swung downward and a rushing filled the room. Everything in my vision, besides the knight, rocked and rolled as on an ocean and I threw up my hands to brace against the assault, but it never came. When I opened my eyes again, he was gone and the world stood still.

Like a mouse just out of its hole, I ventured to stand on my own, and looked about the room, then glanced over my shoulder to see if the phantom was still there. My ears listened for the slightest disturbance other than that which my own limbs made. And I heard it. Somewhere in the night there was that terrible sound. As I turned about again, the knight stood before me for a second, then melted into the darkness of the corners.

For a month, the fogs rolled in every evening, and the knight would whisper in my ears his terrible poetry that would leave me shuddering and shivering in the most lighted corner of my house, my back against a wall, for I feared his every coming. Many times I fancied I heard him approaching at last, axe in hand, to bring about my demise, and every time cried out, though knew my time approaching.

Near end of that month, one morning, I heard a soft knock at my door. It had been several days since I was either strong or brave enough to leave my residence for anything, but little had I needed. The fear that inhabited my soul left little room for hunger or of any earthly want. The knocking roused me from my half-slumber and the whisperings that until that moment plagued me, left as in fear.

“Dear brother!” my beloved sister exclaimed as I opened the door, “You look like a man of another world! When is the last time you have eaten or slept? What have you done for so long to leave you in a condition so wasted away?”

“Will you take me away?” I asked, my voice hoarse as I’d not used it for days, and strained with fatigue. She smiled and ran a hander through my unruffled hair.

“Of course. I would not leave you alone like this, maybe I may even show you to a psychologist! Say, have you been writing poetry?” she asked. We stood now in my entrance hall and all the while she’d been locking about her. “Why did you decide to write it on the walls? There’s more than enough paper elsewhere!” she chuckled and knelt down to read it.

“No!” I said as loudly as my voice could permit and used what feeble strength I had to wrench her away from the writing. “Tell me, where is our uncle’s psychologist? The one who failed to cure him?”

“Well, I don’t exactly know!” she said, the smile sliding from her face a little. “After our uncle’s death he relinquished his license and secluded himself more. Remember how hard it was to get testimony from him? After that I did not keep track of his dealings.” I nodded and reclined back into the couch I’d occupied, my limbs no longer strong enough to hold me up.

“Take me with you” I said again, and with that the matter was settled. Together we left for her home and there the rustles seemed to stop…for a while. But I noticed the fogs, too, refused to arrive on their scheduled times in the evening as they’d done before, and so my fear grew again. Sure enough, when the fogs returned, even with company about me, the whispers, the flutters, the rustles, came echoing back. Every moment, I could feel the knight heavy on my back and shadow, ready to strike.

Sometimes I would begin to wander, though I knew not exactly why. Perhaps it was to get away from the terrible phantom that haunted my step. I knew I could not get away from him in such a way, but my mind no longer took reason when faced with the dark menace I could not see, nor defend against. When I approached the door, my dear sister, or one among her progeny would stay my trembling hands, and lead me back to my own cozy chair.

Then one night, no one remained around me to guard against the knight. My sister was two floors up, borrowing something or another from a neighbor, her children with friends about the neighborhood, and I alone in the great room.

“Long have I waited this day,

But your freedom you’ve not won!

And now your time has come!

But one thing remains undone”

“I’ll not flee you, fake shadow of my mind! You’re but a figment of my imagination! Leave me! Flee! I do not need you any longer!” A tap came at my shoulder and I turned about. The knight, in full armor, stood silent before me now, a dull luster coming from his armor.

Without a second thought I fled through the door, locking it on my way out, and ran as fast as my feet would carry me, to the train station. I boarded the first cart I could get into, clutching the key to my uncle’s house in palm as I had done since leaving my apartment. The train stopped near enough his home, but in my weakened nature, by the time I reached it, I was out of breath and strength.

“You cannot escape from me!

Your every step I watch

Every intention that you have

I’ll with my laughter mock!” Came the nights voice from behind me. Very real now were his steps, just inches behind mind, and I lunged ahead. My uncle’s house, condemned and abandoned, reared up above me, and I landed on its porch with a powerful thud. I jammed the key into the lock, desperately trying to turn it. A first attempt yielded no results, and with a second the key snapped.

For a few moments it rang clear in my mind and in the air. It reverberated as though with a life of its own, and I sagged against the paneled wood in horror and despair. Sweat marred my every surface, and without reprieve did my temple beat. It echoed the steps that approached behind.

“Leave me!” I cried and climbed over the railing of the porch to the woods that stood behind the home. But with every stronger and farther step that I took, the sound of the phantom’s steps drew closer. At last, from exhaustion I dropped to my knees, leaning against the moldy leaves of the forest floor. A cool drift of wind brought my attention above me and I gasped.

About the little valley where I fell floated quiet spirits, barely illumined by the moon between the trees. Every one of the people I’d seen in my uncle’s crossed out photo were here, all their expression glum as they gathered. And there was he! My uncle himself, chatting in his ghostly manner with the psychologist.

“Oh uncle!” cried I “Save me from this knight! Same me from his hounding! But he only looked down on me in his sad way as the phantoms gathered in a circle about me. I tried to make my way through their midst, but my every attempt was rebuked by them. To cross through one of their ghostly bodies was to pass through air colder than the heart of winter in some land where summer never comes.

“It is your time!” cried the knight. I turned round about as he raised his axe above him. The moonlight did not pass through its blade as it did through the spirits of the dead that surrounded me, but instead glinted off its sharp end, ready to cleave me apart.

“Brother! Are you out there?” my sisters voice echoed from far away. The whole scene vanished in fleeting shadows as the light of her lantern reached my eyes from far away. The rustles of the fleeing spirits vanished into the night as she came closer. “Why are you out here! Return home!”

“Thank you dearest sibling!” I cried and came to her warm grasp.

“Somehow I knew I might find you where our uncle died. I dare not ask to know what you were doing, but please do not do it again!”

“You know I cannot avoid it!” I said to her, and upon our return home I was put to bed, in peace. At least it would have been if the knight did not whisper in my ear “Oh frightened one, your time will come! And so shall it also to every soul who reads your tale! Every one who has read thine tale and read your uncle’s poems are doomed. But first, I’ll deal with you.”

And so I passed, just as my uncle passed, just as you shall pass from this world, our circle in that forest, every growing as more spirits add to the ranks of those before them. Until this story is found no more, until the poems are left unread, forever will they slay the innocent. And you among them.