He awoke with a start. He didn’t know whether it was from the cold rain bearing down on him, or the thunder that sounded as if lightning had struck right outside of his window. He laid there a few more seconds before it dawned on him, if he was in his bedroom how could the rain be falling on his head. His heart quickened as he realized he didn’t know where he was at or how he had got there. He jumped to his feet just in time for another flash of lightning and boom of thunder to reveal that he was standing in a forest of impossibly tall trees. “Ok,” he said to himself “this is all a dream. There is no way that you went to bed and woke up in some strange forest you’ve never been to.”
Looking around, Gabe took stock of his situation. The forest canopy was blocking out the sky above making it inky dark beneath the leaves. Nothing was moving around him and the rain was growing steadily harder and more intense as the lightning increased in frequency. “Well, the way things are going this is going to be a nightmare.” he thought. He cast about to try and determine where to go, when he heard someone in the distance. “Hello!” the frightened voice called, “Is anyone out here.” Gabe would know that worried nervous voice anywhere, but why would he be dreaming of him. Following the pitiful cries for help, Gabe found the person he was looking for standing in the middle of a clearing, in his superhero pajamas.
“Sinclair what are you doing in my dream?” Gabe asked.
“I could ask you the same thing.” He responded, a slight tremor in his voice. “However, if we are dreaming then why would we be dreaming that we each think that we are dreaming.”
“Or the better question would be, why would Gabe be dreaming that he is standing there in his boxer shorts next to his old high school friends?” Someone laughed from just out of sight, causing them both to jump a couple of feet into the air. With a girlish, if not mischievous giggle the owner of the voice stepped out from behind a tree. Gabe’s face flushed as he realized that his old friend Kat was right and he was there in front of them in a pair of boxer shorts, as that was his normal sleeping attire. She stopped and looked around at the tall dark trees while Gabe looked for a way to cover himself and asked the obvious question “Where are we?”
“Don’t look at me, last I knew I was in my dorm room” Sinclair replied.
“Yeah, I was in bed too.” Gabe said “But how could we all be here? We live in three different states. How could we end up in the same place?”
That was a good question and they all stood there for a while pondering it. They had basically grown up together in the same small Alabama town. They had been inseparable in school and had been there for each other the whole time. They had never thought that they would go their separate ways, but then life got in the way. When they graduated high school Sinclair had received a full ride scholarship to MIT, Kat had gone on an athletic scholarship to the University of Georgia, and Gabe, well he was working as an assistant manager at the local burger place to pay his way through an associate degree in culinary arts. Often, he felt like he was being left behind even though they all stayed in touch. There was something disheartening about knowing that all your friends are more successful than you.
Before any of them could make a decision on what to do a loud thud came from further in the woods. “What is that!” Kat cried in alarm as another thud sounded this time closer. Then another thud. To Gabe it sounded like the footfall of a gigantic beast. He began to look for a place to hide, but then a flash of lightning revealed that approaching them was a hut. Frozen in some combination of fear and disbelief they watched as the Hut approached on legs that appeared to belong on a giant chicken. It stomped its way straight towards them before freezing about twenty feet away. With a loud creaking groan that made the hut seem to protest from the hardship, it settled to the earth. If Gabe didn’t know better, he would have thought it made a little huff of contentment as it settled to the ground. Within seconds the hut looked like it had been there the entire time. Complete with a fence that appeared to be made of bones lashed together with ligaments and barb wire. With a long, loud creak they watched with varying states of trepidation as the front door inched its way open.
“I think it wants us to go in.” Sinclair whispered almost as if he was afraid the hut would hear him.
“Yeah, but why should we go into the creepy house?” Gabe responded. “Just because it wants us too.” Another crash of lightning and thunder made them all jump.
“At this point it might be safer in there than it is out here.” Kat said. Gabe noticed Kat was giving the hut a strange look almost as if it was triggering some kind of memory in her. After a short yet forceful argument in the steadily worsening rain, they decided to enter the hut. Gabe was shocked to find how surreal this experience was. “This has to be dream” he thought, “how else could all of this be happening?” A faint glow of a fire promised of warmth inside, but that was the only thing that felt inviting in this place. The warped, cracked, and silvered boards on the porch creaked under the weight of their hesitant footsteps and it felt as if they were being watched by hidden eyes. Small insects and spiders crawled out of the dead, withered plants hanging from pots that appeared to be made out of some material the color and texture of old bones. There was a rocking chair that looked as if it couldn’t hold the weight of the black cat laying in it, never mind a whole person. However, none of this was enough to overcome the appeal of a warm fire after spending so much time in the cold rain.
Once they entered the hut the experience got much worse. The building consisted of one large room that was larger than it should have been based on the outside walls of the hut. A cauldron sat in the back right corner bubbling on top of a large fire. The shelves behind it holding various herbs and powders. The other corner seemed to consist of a pile of dirty furs, possibly used as a bed, but it was hard to imagine who would sleep on such a roach infested mess. The room was filled with the foul odor of human excrement and a quick look around showed the culprit was a crusty old chamber pot on one side of the door. The other side of the door held a walking stick rack. The only fine pieces of furniture to grace the huts bare dirt floors was a long dining table and an overstuffed armchair. Sitting in this chair was the worst thing Gabe had seen so far.
The wizened old woman rose from the chair of old joints long since wore out. Her long, thin hair had the consistency of cobwebs and hung from underneath a dusty moth-eaten bandana. Her face consisted of an implausibly long nose and a road map of wrinkles that were so deep they could collect rainwater. She stood around four and a half feet but that seemed to be more of a result of her incredibly hunched posture then her actual frame. Her dirty white dress was clearly made by hand many years ago, but how anyone could sew with such gnarled arthritic hands was impossible to fathom. As knotted and crooked as they were, somehow her fingers managed to be impossibly long with an extra set of joints. With dark, deep-set, bloodshot eyes she took stock of her visitors. She smiled revealing a mouth of full of iron teeth and said “Welcome to my home children. You must be cold, sit at the table and I will get you some soup.”
“With all due respect ma’am, I think we should be going.” Gabe said as he started backing towards the door.
“No, I must insist.” She replied taking another step towards the group.
“We don’t want to stay in your creepy house.” Kat retorted as Gabe and his friends turned back to the door to run away. They watched with horror as the door, with a loud creak, slammed itself in their faces. They turned back slowly, like they were turning back to face an aggressive animal, to find the old woman standing expectantly by the large table. She gestured to the seats with an almost honest look of concern on her face, but Gabe felt that there was something else in those eyes. Something alien and predatory.
“We would love to join you for dinner Mrs.…” Gabe said, falling into his reflexive politeness, but before he could finish his statement, she cut him off.
“Oh, you can just call me Grandmother.” She responded as she guided them to their seats. They watched as she moved slowly to the large cauldron in the kitchen area of the hut. It struck Gabe as quite odd, as he watched her move, that she managed to appear both frail and immensely powerful at the same time. She spooned bowls full of the steaming, viscous, grey liquid and sat them on a platter. Then with a flash of lightning the bowls appeared in front of them and she was in her seat at the head of the table. Judging by the way they all jumped, Gabe could tell that he wasn’t the only one that hadn’t seen her move. Gabe studied the soup for a while trying to decide what to do with it when she began to speak.
“Children, I’m afraid I called you here for a reason.” Her gaze was moving from person to person, making meaningful eye contact with each one of them. It seemed to Gabe that meeting her eyes was more like meeting the eyes of some great predator than that of another human. “There is something that I need to ask of you, but before we continue, might I see one of your hands.” The three of them sat there for a long while, looking at each other. Finally, seeing that neither of them were going to offer up their hands Gabe held his out. In the time it took him to blink, this Grandmother creature appeared next to him. With a gasp of fear, he attempted to yank his hand back, but quick as a snake her hand flashed out and grabbed him by the wrist. It felt more like he was being held by the hand of a cold stone statue rather than that of some old woman.
She turned his hand over so that it was palm up. Then still holding Gabe’s hand still, she traced the lines on his palm with one long and jagged nail, blood welling up in spots where the nail caught the skin. She let out a couple of grunts as if she was fascinated by what she saw. Then to Gabe’s growing distress she reached out with her impossibly long and sticky tongue and licked his hand. Her tongue wrapped around it like some cold bloated slug. Then he blinked again and she was back in her seat.
“It’s just as I thought.” she said. “You three are going to find yourselves lost in a faraway land full of danger.” With this she looked around the table again. “You will meet many friends and enemies along the way, but it will only be through your connection to each other that you will survive. To find your way home you must defeat a great evil that is soon to awaken in the land. A shadow from the past is rising and it is up to you to shine a light on it.” She delivered this information to them and then began to eat her soup, casually with little grunts of pleasure.
“Is that all you wanted to tell us?” Kat said with frustration. Gabe could tell that she was not happy and was getting irritated that this old woman was keeping her here against her will. Gabe had to admit if this was a dream, his mind was doing an awful good job of making Kat act realistically. The old woman seemed to bristle at this directness almost as if she wasn’t used to being questioned, but she didn’t seem to be too concerned by it. Gabe decided he needed to step in before Kat got herself into some trouble that she couldn’t get herself out of. He thought hard about what to do, but he could only think of one thing to try.
“Grandmother might we be excused from the table?” he asked in as deferential of a tone as possible, considering the situation.
“Politeness will get you everywhere. Yes, you may be excused” she said glaring meaningfully at Kat. She punctuated the statement with a wave of her hand and the Hut they were sitting in lurched back and forth as it stood back up on its massive chicken legs. Then with a hard tilt down it sent the three of them tumbling head over heels out the front door. All Gabe could hear before he hit the ground was the old woman’s cackling and the booming of thunder.
###
Gabe awoke to the sound of his alarm clock, gasping from fright, feeling like he had just fallen twenty or so feet for real. He took one blurry look at his clock and stared at it stupidly before jumping to his feet. “Crap, I’m late” he thought to himself as he rushed to get ready. He got a quick shower, brushed his teeth, decided to skip shaving to save time and got dressed in that haphazard way that only someone who is profoundly late for work can accomplish. He threw on a pair of jeans that were covered with paint spots from where he helped remodel the restaurant some months back. He grabbed that one work shirt that had a large grease stain on the front of it and he made sure to put on the cross his mother had given him. He never left the house without it and he wasn’t going to start now.
He snatched his phone off the charger as he was heading out the door. He paused just long enough to note that he had a message from both Kat and Sinclair on their group chat. He raced down the stairs of his apartment building and out the front door. He looked both ways, squinting against the blinding glare of the sun. He then took off across the road, not wanting to waste time going down a couple of blocks to the nearest cross walk. He heard someone laying on the horn and wondered what they were honking at. He looked in that direction and saw nothing, but the grill of a bus.