Deadlock

WHEREHOUSE

-6

“To the monsters,” begun the Chambermaid, “We’re the monsters.” Said she of a reciting manner that so reflects those of her peers sat down before her and watching from the near corners of the theater, no less one of a lowly leveled stage nonetheless; as were they; sheltered beneath the grounds of the Wherehouse. The basement as one might call, though, in its name and upon its walls, titled itself the Green Room. Of a house amongst many other colors of bright and darker shades.

“Not true, Eleven.” read the Shepherd, right off the page of which he so holds in his hand of trembling shivers that so brings his entire body along to its cold, chilling frost of fearsome terror - of the light that so beams from the furthest window above them, watching it of the silhouettes that passed, glancing legs and a thin bar of what looked to be a spade. A shovel perhaps. He read on, stuttering, “I’m...”

And back to the window misting vapors, the Shepherd freezes. And gasps to the shock, “I don’t think I can do this.” he told his friends. They of the same mark he is. Wounds that never heal. And in its sense, it was of such damage they never called scars. For scars do heal, hiding nevertheless. The children can’t stop bleeding.

“What do you mean?” the Chambermaid asked.

“I mean..., I’m not sure if I want this part..., or if I want to be a part of this...”

“You can’t want, you don’t get to choose.” the Chambermaid said, her hands clasped to his shoulders, facing his eyes of perceivable doubts of which so questions fear amongst its other forms of grief. And she said to those eyes: “Our lives are on the door.”

“But it’s still our life.” he begged, and sweeping her slim slender fingers off, away from his cold arms, his skin bare and naked of sleeves as of the household’s wardrobes of black- leathered drapes. It was freezing and they knew it, from the unceasing snow that so invades their home through the cracks of their walls to the freezing dead of the Essex winter, they knew for certain. And prayed to last long.

The Chambermaid then shook her head, and pushed the script back to the Shepherd of which he so hands, patting it to his chest. Of warmth that slowly dies of its weakening lungs of forced breaths.

“Hell, if he doesn’t want the part, I can take over.” said the Seamstress. She, who among the audience, were of the play as well and so took part of it as one of its smaller casts; although, it was a small company altogether. And as of her alienated world, an individual was no less. Such as the Shepherd who so laughs as the blank space of the black floor, then looking back down on her with the kindest smile. Though she knew that was not the case. She knew many things. As well as the answer to which her chuckling friend so asks. “You want to die?”

And with clenching fists that so displays itself rightfully from the arms of the chair of which it lies, amongst other dreads of dust and the itch of cobwebs, she felt the urge to get up with the same face she now so bears of maddened intent. She only reached to craning her back and not an inch further when the Chambermaid snaps, “Enough.” She ordered, turning to both of them, and so faces the Shepherd last. “Clark,” she said, “This is your role. Would you rather have died the Captain or yourself?”

Upon silence like the rest of them in the dark, he nodded. And as the shepherd opened his mouth to the words of which he so decides to continue off their reciting script – there, was he severed by the Woodworker, he of an older, or so a rather senior-high age, so chuckles hidden in his corner at the seat between the bookshelves.

Caught, they turned, and what they saw was a different person instead, “Which Captain,” the Woodworker asked, “The one in the script or the one who wrote the script.”

“I said stop, everybody, enough!” yelled the Chambermaid to her company of friends that engaged for the Woodworker in such intents that so jumped range from the unbalancing scale of a maddened stare of eyes to a strangulation of claws. Such killing intents of will, nonetheless. “We’ve seen things.” she said, “Felt the pain they give. And it still hurts. We can end this now... or never.”

And once again to her words, they fall silent once more, upon the salient asylum of their heads quieted to the ground. “Then,” the Chambermaid said, to that of surrendering submittance, “We go back to the start.”

As the stage clears and the set swaps, from a land of towers of books to an empty platform of which so banishes into the unlit dark, the Seamstress then so swipes the curtains back to its close upon blocking the light from the rest of the Green Room. She who so sat below it. Though, in a setting’s sense, the light was the sun and the dark was the ship, at least one that is stranded in deep space, and if their performance were to be of an outdoor theater, and discarding one in a starless night, their sun would still be a sun no less. A fire. Only this time she’d have to stay close it. And try not to burn.

“We begin,” sang the Woodworker, his voice echoing in the hollow.

Footsteps occurred, of which creaked at their feet as well as and also heard from above. And the shadows that walked across its wooden planks of a scary floor, opposed to their ceiling of which none of them dared to sweep. There crawled spiders in them. And when it cleared from the children’s grounds, the Chambermaid so stands once again on the stage, entering it as the Seamstress so tilts the shade; and as a hint of light so shines upon her face and upon her cue, the fire was nigh of the cold, “I remember damage.” she said, “Then escape... then adrift, in a stranger’s galaxy for a long, long time.”

Though, the feeling was certain. It wasn’t saying, and nor was it reciting. It was truth. And she faced it. And facing them, she could not but seize the moment to use it as one for truth; to her solemn friends of sullen, attending eyes, facing them still, no less. “But I’m safe now. I found it again. Home.”

The violin struck, slow as it should be in every beginning, and so progresses into volume and speed as it ran, as well as they of hearts that beat along with it, elevating. And stepping forth, finally out of the shadows, whole of the light the Seamstress so unleashes; she of a saber in hand, approaches the last inch of the deck and where an actor so fully becomes one with the audience; where the very magic of one’s crafted universe so strikes soulful minds, and the world of thunder and fog was not one of limits no more. It became anything they wanted it to be.

It became Station Eleven.

And when darkness had finally ceased from the room of fear-shivering children, the Shepherd then steps up onto the stage, in the light as did they who sought for it truly. Children of flooded red bandages over permanent wounds that never restores back into skin, and so destroys them partly from under theirs of paling ice. Monsters, were they altogether.

“My memories... are the same as yours: they mean nothing.” The Shepherd said, “I feel this again for the first time.”

In his hand was a sword, and in his mind, bears the conclusion to thinking to himself that he really did. As said, he felt the strangeness amongst the sweetness of life on earth upon such occurrences that had well so originated from the wildfire of the burning forest not less than a month ago, hence his subordination to a stranger house of country mythos and lore of which had kept the tourists coming. But it was of the time of theirs stays that they realized it was true. The fire was their cause, and as were their scars.

The Chambermaid was not captain. And neither was the Shepherd of a character entitled as such. They had a captain. One to lead their traveling theater troop. A company as of their travels nonetheless. At least of their first that is set for the woodlands of their destination. Though, in folklores, no less those told by the senile elders of the county of Essex and no less wild folks of a wilder world, called the trees of their town ‘the Black Zone’. And within its fire one month ago, he burned.

And feeling it so for the first time as he thought about it, made the Shepherd shiver to his spine, as it reached whole for him to the collapse of his legs. But as all pain hurt, it hurt slow. And from upstairs was the beginning of pain that they had so sensed nigh, and from its creeping creaks of two sets of feet, or perhaps a being of four, it caused the children to look up at the end of the stairs, turning in a blink that was also their hearts that arose to it and so holds not to drop.

The children stared at the green door. One that is so of its darkest shade by the shadows that followed and so peered from its gaps. And there did it open to the steam of such stinking scents, and the girl who cried behind it; crying such tears that treaded across her face from her shed her eyes that were only half of what soaked her entire presence before their eyes that gazed unminding of her head, and her face that covered in wet purple hair.

“Charlotte...,” cried the Chambermaid, to the girl the girl they knew as named. But inside the walls of the strange Wherehouse, were the children of their own names been ruled specifically not to call themselves their birthrights and will only do so by the titles they bear, to whom she the crying Housekeeper, so closes her eyes before them in such sweating and shivering fear to the hollow carpeted footsteps that followed behind her. That of the strange old man himself. He who let them inside.

“Get ready,” the Fisherman said, above and looking over them in the light. “It’s a long way there.”

***

The black house was cleaner than the last time they’ve been out of the basement. And as counted, not by a clock but by the presence of the sun and the absence of moon in their timeless nights, they counted three days. And it was three days that the Housekeeper kept locked, trapped upstairs. And her bracing friends could see the experience through her crying. Hearing it so of the trembling mutters of ‘rats’, and ‘eyes’ and ‘dark’.

Every day was night.

And by the open door was the old man holding it to the children who so walked out to the snow in a line; and when it came to the Shepherd’s queue, he stops him by the grasp of his arm, pulling him out of the rest of the company’s way. He felt those fingers claw him to the bone.

“No,” the Fisherman said, “Not you.” and turning to the Housekeeper beside him, eyeing her for the never-ending tread of her tears, eyeing those eyes of red as well. The old

man then turns back to the Shepherd of a stopping heart to catching him freeze as so, and said; “You stay here.”

The last he’d seen of them and the last they’ve seen of him was when the door slammed to its unwilled close by the waving wind. He began to breathe properly. Sighing amongst those of the ghostly emptiness of the Wherehouse.

***

The last time the children have been outside was in the edge of fall. And seeing the winter’s product, they recalled just when it first began to snow; and when it started to freeze; as well burning the fireplace just one week ago - in its nights of which they awaken to the shrieks of the dying mules. Especially at night. Where the banshees would sing them back to sleep. Maybe even gently massage their heads.

The company trekked for about an hour until they so reached the snowed, rocking bridge that still so stands great over the frozen river of the white-covered woodlands. Though, in its name, was Black. But that was just its trees for the rest of their winter. And the children knew deep within them, that the general definition of darkness, no less its feeling, was more than just blindness. For there were sorts of things that could see in the dark. And the Fisherman sensed them within the breaking trees. Even some, he felt creep under their frozen bridge. “These are perilous waters,” he said, “Beware and be careful of them.”

As the children followed not far behind him but though still have kept their distance, they most gathered the closest by the be-warmed Housekeeper of the most worn layers of fur who so gulped to the chugging of her hot, steaming soup. The noises of her sips, along with the wind, rumbled through her stomach that sang the loudest. “There were rats up there.” she cried to her friends that rubbed her sickened, shaking back, mostly of dreading memory but they slowly weakened to new memories that she so finds from the present. That of her lost friends literally by her side. As was the Chambermaid who so feeds her the spoon, “Charlotte...” she said quietly, and as she did, the maid then so frequently glances for the Fisherman before them, as they walked the planks of the cold, creaking bridge.

“Rats!” the Keeper cried once more, this time louder, and it made the Fisherman slow its pace, and they sensed it in his loud thoughts that so actioned to the freezing snow, and the ropes of their support that he so pulls. And exhalation took over the Housekeeper’s voice, deep, high and low of breathing. Crying to her words that she so rips right off the page of her book of memory; right out of the chapter of her casted banishment to the dark Black Room upstairs. And crying turned into wailing. “Or at least that’s what I thought they were. What I saw they were...”

“Charlotte, you need to lower your voice.” hissed the Seamstress, “He might hear you.” And nodding, through the seeping sighs of her forced breath that so blows from her closed nose, she throws the finger behind the Fisherman’s back. And eats right back off the soup. Now less hot as of the tears that that rained upon it. Though, the paprika was still burned. “Just keep eating, okay? You’re back, and you’re with us.” so says the Chambermaid, “You’re alive.”

Sobbing, the Keeper then so eyes the bread in the bag, “Can I have that?” she asked, to the Seamstress who so holds it, “Sure.” she said warmly, handing it to her solely of their warmth.

***

At the end of the bridge were the woodland’s tribe that so stood awaiting them from behind their trees of which they had so came out of through the hiding dark of its canopies, shaded and shielded from the clouded light. Nevertheless, was the entire town in sunny darkness as well.

And as they caught them in sight, the Fisherman so turns forth his company, “Stop,” he ordered, and so hands each of them masks of animals, “Put these on.” and as he did so over his face, his was of a gator’s head.

The children then wore theirs of mostly reptilians and beastly entities, all predators. And the Fisherman eyed the Housekeeper of a panther’s face, and seeing her through her clenched eyes behind the mask. “They’re hidden,” said the Fisherman, he of a worn strap he so pulls to a tightened shut around his shoulder; the back pack was closer, and that of a quick second’s snap made them flinch for longer, “So, we need to be hidden. Our faces must not be seen and our names are not to be known.” and the cold man then turns to the Seamstress, “You,” he called, “You have a sister among them, do you not?”

“Twin sister,” the Seamstress answered, seeing upon such sights through the eyes of the snake’s head and so speaks through its open mouth, as well as its tongue that so peers through it, and along with its fangs. And the Fisherman so takes his steps closer to them and so tells their ears to the gathering of their hearing heads. “Now listen,” he said, “Don’t reveal yourselves.” and at last so stares upon the Seamstress deeply upon the cold wind’s sense of specificity, “They know her face. And if you say she’s been caught one month ago, then she’s still in her trial. They won’t let her out until two more days. She doesn’t know we’re coming.”

The company then nodded at this, his order, and no less was it a plan. The Fisherman then turned back to their front to the closing bridge they walk through, greeted by the tribe of torches and candle sticks. Burning. They felt its heat loom their bodies of the cold, as pleasant as they might have felt it, it was not the first irregularity to come, and just so as they pass the platform of planks have realized that of the crows that circle the sky. “But they do.” said the Fisherman.

And meeting them through the borders that so divided their lands of no such clue nor hints of such dividend manners; the masked company was greeted by the Official who so stood forth before them who so approaches them in suits of grey, opposed to her tribe’s of red. All red. And she of her red suit, so sets her staff before the nearing Fisherman, stopping him from another step forward, and eyeing him so behind her mask, that of a ram’s skull. And a rose planted on one horn. “You’re late,” she said.

Replied by the Fisherman who so tells her “Time is insufficient.” and dropping the bag before her feet of which a fellow tribesman so picks up and scans through for an unblinking moment, in the way of them both and out the Official’s of whom the old man never took his eyes from. And with a click of a tongue, he raises his voice, “As is our business.” resumed he, “And as we know, one is crucial to the other.”

The official then nods, at the very blank space of the dead snow, considering his words that were of the tribe’s demands in the first place she so recalls. And remembering so of the fire and the captain that burned in it; one month ago, as the revolving of moons may call it; though as for the tribe; there is no before. And the Now, the present, was a sickness.

“I understand we have agreed to bid with you.” stated she, “Here. In the form of a ritual in exchange for a performance. But I must ask, why such an easy task for a difficult payment?” “Because it’s their performance.” the old Fisherman answered, “Your prophecy. Their

souls. To me, yours is just the same. Performances that are as bad as your rituals altogether.” “The seed or the fruit,” The official replied. And doing so, she stakes her staff onto the

ravel of the now, as it stood there, burning between and in front of their faces of sullen looks of angst, “It would appear that is us both.” she said, and in her pouch that looked to be of a

wildling’s fur, she so digs for what she pulls out. A cloth of red, sides shaded in black, and so tells she as it folded, that its color cannot be told from blood. “Hence, the cutting of a source...” “Of another source.” severed the Fisherman, “That’s us to you. If your tribe assists us

through..., if we succeed..., you Reds just might repopulate your forest.”

The chill in the air then transformed into a burning feeling of heat that so submerged through their suits of feathered layers, she eyed him as she walked right past where he so stood and approaches forth his company. Eyeing them so as she marches pass each of them in their line, and settles for the tallest one in the back. The Woodworker of a deer’s head. Opposed to hers of a ram’s. And seeing the Official in person they saw that this girl was just their age, or at least in their range of 15-17 years.

And she catches them so of eyes that pressed in the focus of their sockets o seeing her face underneath the mammal’s skull. They snap. Out of it where they look back at their front. The Official then comes back to the Woodworker, and taking his hand of a bleeding forearm, his sleeves wet and vague of red. And folding it across, she sees the bandage that was even redder, and so presses a finger against it to which the Woodworker so grunts to.

“Your curses are breaking.” she said. To them of raised eyebrows of which she so clears her throat to. And finds them still staring. “I say it of no pleasantries, you’re on the break of dying.”

“But we’ve heard from a friend of ours... that... your itty-bitty spell works.” said the Woodworker, no less did he speak of a casual sense upon a bargaining drawl, to her face of smiling lips peeking through the jaws of the animal’s skull. “She lives.” he said, “But we do not find scars vanish from her body.”

“And who might this friend of yours be?” the Official asked. To the boy who froze upon the sight of looking above her, at least of a second’s deep breath that so spoke more than he ever did through his mouth of a southern talk. “She’s nameless. At least to you.”

“Well..., a body is only a physical state.” so tells the Official, and turning for the rest of the company of questionable looks of fearful doubts, she said; “Of one’s existence.” to their turned heads of diverse hair that she so familiarizes herself with, especially the Seamstress of a tied red ’fro. “You may ask how she’s doing, and you may find her alive..., but I’ll tell you why that is: whoever this friend of yours may be, she’s alive because she touched the fire. With the very will to do so.” To his face, the Woodworker sees her eyes. Blue of a drowning ocean of which dejects such words that she so speaks through them and spits it in their ears of fiery woe. As was she of a tipping height that so finds the leveled Shepherd maddened by her stare, the both of them deadened nonetheless. Her face of a ram’s skull, to his face of a deer’s head. One alive, one dead.

And there was a growl in her gurgling throat of angered urges. “I know of such numbers of dreadful acts a human being can do to save its own life. But burning..., no less to dare to do so through the darkest pits of hell... Maybe she survived because she deserved to live.”

“Well, we can see about that.” the Woodworker said, smirking deadly to her deadened eyes that so finds him as so. Monsters, they were altogether. “We’re not going anywhere.”

- 7 Weeks After the Fire -

***

As of the case of being alone, as any person is of a shrinking life, so finds himself as upon the walls of a small black, wooden home. No less one that was once of a stranger’s residence weeks ago, and that was until, he arrival of the Shepherd and his friends, in the seek for help – bargaining as so in his front door of their town’s history and its lore. One, a myth; and the other,

not so much. As he had so witnessed from the fire, anything can lie. That and literally. Lie on the fire.

And it was until his stomach, of not just butterflies but also creatures of the same crawling class; bugs, and whatever beings of such size and legs; thin and trickling; rumbled, that he decided to finally get up from his sinking seat upon the soft, creaking cushions of the couch, to the fridge of which collected dust and dirt amongst the odors of charcoal and beetle- juice. Rumbling just as so within him.

The fridge, like any, was cold; and as of the matters of differences he had so spotted (with senses of which had him titled as the Shepherd - for of his ability to tell those of one class apart from another of a different one; and as well as it is so of the slightest differences that he himself can so detect them from a mere catch of sight. Hence, a Shepherd.), he finds nothing inside it.

Nothing upon its cold reach of the fullest freezing volume, and nothing inside the house of the same state. Nothing, but him; another irregularity, as he of such lone might call, but as for what one that another may find, no less he of a proud skill set that he so proudly blends with memorization; the Shepherd may also recall himself checking the very cooled box of leftover food and scourging insects moments before their leave.

Though, that were not the case anymore. No more as of the present.

And as of the case of him being alone in a stranger’s home for a long, long time; well, that were not the case either. And as of memorization and recalling such matters of knowledge, the Shepherd had forgotten what the house’s name was.

There was only a word, and it so bites him by the tip of his tongue. The word was ‘Where’.

***

Strange. Wondering so of his stare upon the empty fridge; and that was, until, he then so hears a loud bang from upstairs. And again, to find that it was not it. It was everywhere. Inside its walls that so voided him in its vast paints of black; and even upon the shine of light, it lit none of it and was still as such of its color. Maybe even darker. Regardless of the changes of shades. The house was dark altogether.

And again, a bang. All kinds of sounds that crept eerily into his ear, where it reached into his mind of glitching thoughts; mixed on fear, dread, and the collapse of his heart that was its turbulence of low-jumping-to-high beats. No less, it pounded his chest as good as a batter can do. And he’s known a lot of them. Though, this one of loud thuds around the house might be something a lot more.

It crawled all through the house.

Following the sounds, the Shepherd then creeps across its floors and so sneaks up the stairs that so emanates the same patterns of his simultaneous rush to the second story. And out from the tall ceiling above him, no less above all of the house, there dripped the melting drops of the ice spikes that they had so left frozen up and upon them. And as said, all things invaded the strange stranger’s strange home, as well as the spice of the air that, in nature’s instance, was impossible due to the shivering cold that so blends well with his own nature of dread, and in existing as so; it made him sneeze. As well as other sounds of loudness and shock that for sure dispersed the sounds that matched his of stepping thuds and creeping creaks.

And sensing it as so did the Shepherd run his rushing mania across the stairway, one of which that escalated high and had no railings. And maybe it was mania, maybe was growing insane, as he knew all his friends were and as well as the old Fisherman that already was.

And he remembered well of his lost friend, the Housekeeper. And his burnt friend, the Captain. As well as the figure he so finds standing in the long hallway of the second story. One that was tall. One that was big. One that so spoke of the same eeriness as the house. Because it was the house. Its shape and form of an unnamable existence. Smiling through the open, creaking door of the Black Room. The one with rats crawling upon its walls of fading paint. turning into something rather darker than it already was. And all the Shepherd could do is stare.

And freeze to its eye-widening charge towards him. All he could do is scream.