THE HOWL
Sometimes, when it blows hard, the wind drags the howl through the streets of Varloon.
It is a hoarse, mournful wail. Almost uninterrupted. Its intensity depends on the strength with which the wind invades the country. It lasts until it stops blowing. A bestial, angry howl, similar to the desperate whining of a hydrophobic dog about to die. Inhuman.
It arrives suddenly, in a whirlwind of dust and dead leaves. The cats arch their backs in fright and run for cover behind the garbage cans, pressing their bellies to the ground. The trees retract their foliage in horror. The hedges in the gardens shake. The facades of the houses seem to pale.
Often, it doesn't stay confined outside, wandering the dark streets. It shoulders the door, making the inhabitants wince. It invades the house. It moves through the corridors, drags itself along the stairs, desperately agitates in the rooms rubbing the furniture, wrapping the chandelier hanging from the ceiling, brushing the ears of those who are muffled at its intrusion. It lingers. It seems to ask for a listening ear, for hospitality, and at the same time to utter threats.
Then it recedes, fading away. To knock on other doors. To scare other people.
For most it is just a curious acoustic effect generated by who knows what. For others, slightly more informed, a vague, obscure legend. But in the last few years Varloon has undergone a massive turnover. Most of its original inhabitants have left, after years of imprisonment within the confines of the village, and have been replaced by people who know nothing about the place, except how surprisingly easy it is to find cheap housing there, no more than a quarter of an hour from York.
Few are left in Varloon of those who were born there and had seen their children come into the world there. Old folks, above all, who don't have enough of life left to hope to rebuild it somewhere else. And they know, and when the scream presses at their doors, and breaks into their dwellings, they wince, they shiver, they approach the fire to fight a sudden cold that cannot be beaten. They wait, trembling, for the wind to take it elsewhere.
Yes, they know. In their hearts, ancient nightmares accelerate their beats and make them lose their pulse. In their barred eyes, nefarious images and unspeakable horrors return to flow.
It's not ancient history, after all. They lived the terrible period of fear in which the village was lost elsewhere, and forced them within its borders in a grip of blood and terror. They waited, helpless and resigned, without knowing what. And they have finally witnessed the chilling epilogue with no other option but to hope, or despair, that they might survive.
If not in body, in soul, at least.
They know.
Yes, they know. And when the atrocious wailing takes refuge in their rooms, pitiful and yet unable to arouse pity, their gaze instinctively catapults to the window. It touches Habington Manor. Thoughts fall back into an amorphous, atavistic nightmare. In the mind's eye flashes the vision of someone who was a man and now is a larva, who was powerful and now can do nothing but suffer. Nothing, not even dying. Someone who lies in the dark dungeons of the ancient castle, in a narrow cell, closed by a massive iron door, which already hosted other horrors. Who, with his swollen body, covered with sores swarming with worms, struggles and writhes, for eternity, in the grip of atrocious spasms. The head severed from the neck, rolling on the dusty floor. The barred eyes, seeing nothing but its hideous remains. His mouth perpetually wide open to let out that infernal scream.
He screams, and screams, and more screams, an obsessed man aware only of his sufferings.
He blasphemes and prays.
He curses, and asks for mercy.
