A Tired Man's Dance

The heavy rain, patters against the foggy windows of an old cabin, as a tired man muttered and paced around in circles next to the fire place. It was ten to twelve and the light of the full moon shone through the gaps in the walls, like a curious boy looks into a lion's den. The thirteenth, it was a day that he dreaded every month, every unlucky Friday. He continued pacing slowly, clicking his fingers in a rhythmical pattern as he whispered a strange language only two types of people knew. The smell of cooking meat filled the empty, house with a warm, welcoming smell, but the clicking of the man's fingers and tapping of his feet, could distract anyone from the wonderous smell.

Outside a figure stood in the shadow of a large tree and watched the man from outside, preforming his little act. The figure watched and waited for its time to strike.

The pacing man, the medium whispered to himself, concentrating fully on his rhythm and words he had learnt from his grandfather. He started to hear the whispers, the familiar whispers that always turned up at this hour and if his rhythm when out of time of his mutters were interrupted, they came, closer, louder, angrier and more vicious. The monsters could make the ground shake, they could make one implode, they could turn a fully-grown man inside out, or make the scream of a woman transform into a waterfall of old maggots, that would dig and crawl through the skin.

Outside the figure continued to watch, it didn’t dare move, it felt the vibrations from the man's voice, ring through its ears and it felt weaker because of it. Any closer and it would just vanish. It watched the man through its cold ancient eyes, clicked loudly and then vanished.

Inside, the man stopped. He stood deadly still and listened. His hands began to shake, and he felt streams of sweat pour down the side of his face as he slowly looked around. He heard a creak come from his front door. It was heavy and slow and then there was a loud knock, knock, knock. The man nodded to himself and got to work quickly. As he started gathering his ingredients, he heard the door shake violently and the walls were beginning to shudder and creak as if they were being pushed in from the outside. He ran to the kitchen and grabbed a large dispenser of salt, a bottle of water from the spirit lake and lastly a small photo from above the fire place. He looked down at the 6 laughing faces and felt as cold sweat ran down his cheek.

He ran to the centre of the living room and ripped up the carpet, to where he found a large red circle. He quickly sat inside the drawing and brought out his things and laid them out in from of him. He snapped off the top of the salt dispenser and poured it over the circle, tracing th out-line. He then started a second circle of salt, pouring it just outside the first. He walls began to crumble and snap as he brought out the water. He dipped his thumb into the clear liquid and began tracing unseen lines all over his, body, arms and face and then began mumbling his strange language again. As if in reply the rattling of the door got much, much harder and after a few bangs, the door was ripped from the hinges, thrown off into the night, and then a thick fog of darkness flooded into the room within a few microseconds.

Silence.

The moon shined through the smashed, foggy glass of what used to be a window. And once heavy rain, softened as if showered through collapsed walls and onto a blood drenched carpet.

A dark figure walked through the dying flames of the destroyed cabin and walked up to the man whom was lying face down in a puddle of his own blood. The figure looked down on him with angry eyes as it tried to reach for him, but was stopped. It felt his transparent hand dissolve away as it went over the line of a salt circle. It pulled it's hand back, only to see the end of an arm, but without much effort he extended the darkness of his transparent body and formed it into another hand. After stretching, it circled around the man like a lion circles its prey, unable to touch him. The figure crouched down to the man's face level and looked through the circle and peered at a small picture, laying freely in the man's dead hand.

The figure peered a four small laughing faces and then at a woman, holding her enlarged stomach with care.

The figure looked at the man and then outside where five other figures stood. Four small sized figures. a couple with pale, worn dresses and the other two wore patchy pyjamas. Beside them stood a taller figure with a grey shirt and dark hair. The monster that stood near the dead man looked back over at the others and looked at their faces. They were stone grey and looked back with black ancient eyes. They gazed at the man on the floor than at the dark figure with a blank questioning gaze. But it just walked past them into the night, the smaller figures all skipped down the staircase after him. The last figure with the grey shirt and dark hair took one last look at the man on the floor and felt cold sweet drip down from both her eyes. She looked away, stepped down to the mossy grass and held her enlarged stomach with care as she followed the others into the darkness of the woods.

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