DL was a closet writer as far back as middle school, but she hid it behind degree work in science and design. She is mother to two rescued mutts, one runaway cat, a pile of fish, an ornery kid and an adolescent husband. She rises before the sun to find time to feed her habit.
You can find her online musings at Facebook
THE PRIEST HOLE
by
DL Ross
More ancient than the trees that died for its joists, the manor house had crouched on its stone haunches for centuries, dwarfing the village of Cairnhorn. Once upon a time its public rooms housed the town government, its beds, heads of state. History was made in its hallways. Now its history lay dormant, coffined between the pages of the volumes lining the library shelves. Desiccated bodies in a crypt, the books were forgotten, left to rot.
I grew careless, reckless.
Many years past, the town flourished while the manor house stagnated, its lack of joy palpable. The massacre had long ago turned to the stuff of folk tales and it had maintained its title as the seat of power, so the home’s condition perplexed the town’s residents. When people occupied its cavelike rooms, they commented quietly, in confused tones, that life within its thick, cold walls paled dramatically to the vibrant lives of the townsfolks over which its inhabitants governed- their births and loves, and especially deaths.
So hungry.
And so the creature knew that it must change, must withdraw. Must allow life to return if it were to survive. So it turned in on itself once again, became its own nightmare, lost itself in time and space. Decades passed- but what are years-long nightmares to a monster?
The beast awoke to scurrying footsteps overhead, the warm glow of people chittering beneath it. It stirred, giving its many appendages permission to spread and stretch. As the beast slowly emerged from its self-imposed coma, it listened and smiled gratefully. The manor hummed with activity, plump little bees flitting about, filling its rooms with life and heat. The beast sighed, its long torture finally over. It knew it mustn’t lose control, though it was so, so hungry.
Patient. Must be patient.
Night fell on the manor house. The darkness that seeped in through gently curtained windows joined that which lived permanently in the corners and under expansive dining tables and down poorly lit corridors. It crept up the walls, filling the rooms like a slow-rising tide, ready to drown those foolish enough to lie down in its drowsy waters.
The creature ate nothing that first night, though its many stomachs complained and its mouth salivated. It reacquainted itself with the secret passages, the spaces between floors and inside walls. The tips of its numerous tongues snaked across ancient wood and freezing stone and at one point, even dared caress the hem of a cotton quilt, still warm from use. Life had returned to the manor.
The blue light of the moon gave way to the firey oranges of a July sunrise and the monster retreated to its hideaway. Once again, the floorboards flexed under the weight of human activity, like muscles in a great beast. Wiring buzzed and pipes creaked and jumped, like veins and arteries, bringing life to its organs and appendages.
The anticipation was delicious. The monster spent days envisioning the feast to come, counted the bodies, tasted the blood. It got so carried away in its make-believe revelry that it let the last few inches of a tongue meander up through a crack in the floorboards. Like spiders, the more wriggly of its appendages could rearrange, shift their innards to fit through the narrowest of openings. To the monster’s vague relief, the only witness to its transgression was a bleary-eyed cabinet member, with a well-known habit of indulgence. He attributed the vision to a bad dream, one he was glad to abandon, and no one questioned it.
Daylight granted the monster still more time to debate how best to feed. In the past it had held out as long as possible, then all at once, in a rush of relief and gore, given in to temptation and slaughtered, en masse, the population of the manor house. Now it wondered if another, slower way, might bring more fruitful feasting.
I could pick off an errant maidservant, then delivery boy, then courtesan. They cannot be taken at once, or even nightly, but in a fortnight or even longer. I could easily indulge in several servants before anyone were to notice. The thing could even be done in the daylight, if I am careful.
The monster shuddered with excitement, knocking dust from nearby rafters and disturbing the insect corpses that littered the ground around it- victims of their own eight-legged nightmare.
Or I could remain in the familiar, in the blackness of night, and take a resident of the manor. But slowly, yes, ever so slowly. I could lie in the shadows of the bedroom, spread myself into the gray corners or rise from the floorboards to devour their dreams. Turn them to dark, delicious nightmares for tender little appetizers. The next night I could taste their desires, tease them out one by one. Next night, perhaps I will nip at toes or fingers so that I might taste their fear. I could draw out their torment, take their mind, bit by bit, until insanity lays hold.
The creature so loved the taste of madness.
Then again, a massacre of the innocent is always so… satisfying.
The pointed tips of slick blue tongues caressed rows of needle-sharp teeth and it remembered the piles of bodies, then offal, then bones. It drooled and sniffed the tepid air between the walls and remembered the sweet metallic smell of blood laced with terror.
So many delectable choices…
The creature licked its lips in anticipation and snuggled into its nest in the priest hole.
Perhaps I will stay here a while longer and consider which path I might choose. Of course, in turn, I may choose them all.
The monster grinned. It could wait. It had all the time in the world.