The storm’s great violence all throughout the night having rained itself out, the new day dawned crisp and clear. And cold. A chill wind high in the treetops barrelled down the mountainside back toward town. Else Two eyed Chandler Two’s broad torso as it loped ahead of them up the overgrown trail. A Two and a Two. A deal possibly made with the devil…
They’d originally intended for Sparks One to be their guide, only to mistakenly make their request of Sparks Two, the twin – a cause, at first, of great mutual confusion. Shouldn’t have approached them from the back. And they shouldn’t cut their hair so similar. Sparks One, as it turned out, was of no mind to speak with Else Two. Their abandonment on the back stair at the Hall had not yet been forgotten, nor forgiven. The growing twins, home alone with both parents absent, busy with their civic duties, had anyway been charged with a greater responsibility – the greatest – minding the Sparks farmstead and their baking ovens. Odds on it would all be burnt to the ground by sundown.
Else Two felt the burden of a very great discomfort. Sparks Two as well as undoubtedly Sparks One, ‘Goody’ Goodman, little Gottfriedson One, and now Chandler Two. At this rate half the town would soon come to know of Else Two’s supposed secrets: their spoken of quest, if not what had of late become their true intent - not only to find but also to kill the Beast.
Were they certain even themselves about that? What was it that Father was always saying, about them having to do better, to be better…
Else Two caught up to Chandler Two at rest on a slight rise. Despite the low temperature both were sweaty from their exertions, with a fair bit of climbing yet to go. ‘Did you ask him, then?’ Else Two said, ‘Caleb?’
‘I did ask him then,’ said Chandler Two.
‘And what did he say?!’
In advance of this their trip to the edge of town Else Two had expressly requested Chandler Two question elder brother, Caleb: so that he in turn might share whatever he knew concerning the true nature of the Beast – ideally more than what Chandler Two had already so recently experienced and told of it. Else Two stressed to Chandler Two at length how important it would be for them to appear to be asking purely for their own sake, however they should choose to excuse that. And also to leave out any mention of Else Two’s part entirely. Their own investigations, clumsy interrogations of Lily Gottfried, Grant Two and… others, had likely drawn more than enough notice. Unwelcome attention. All of that hadn’t seemed too much to ask at the time, and Chandler Two appeared to take it all on very amicably. In their stride, one might say – in their long and loping stride.
Chandler Two shrugged by way of answer. That wasn’t enough, and Else Two let them know it. ‘He said,’ Chandler Two obliged, ‘he’d no idea what I was on about. That he’d never heard of any stupid Beast, let alone seen one, and that I was a useless curly ass hair.’
‘That was all?’ Else Two asked.
‘Seemed like enough,’ said Chandler Two. ‘He don’t care none. Why should I?’
‘You do though,’ Else Two said, ‘I know you do.’ On hearing that same proposal as Goodman One had made, to accompany them out of town to investigate, Chandler Two had readily volunteered. Probably Else Two should have asked them sooner, if not first off. Previous to this however, in all their lives, the pair of them had exchanged barely a few dozen words at most. Everybody by custom stayed so remote one from another – little to no intermediary between the distanced worlds of adult and child, of initiates and the uninitiated – even siblings, when it came down to it. Their own difference, of only a few years, had up until now been a chasm broad enough to drive a natural wedge between them. And yet here they both were, Else Two alongside Chandler Two, climbing the wide valley out of Woodsville. ‘Still an’ all,’ Else Two said,’ I’m glad you’re here. It was good of you to come.’ Chandler merely turned their head and looked Else Two over strangely.
‘Way I see it,’ Chandler Two said, resuming their course, ‘my Daddy’s in jail, an’ you’re the only one doesn’t tease me on it.’
Fair do’s… Maybe they weren’t such a big fat bully after all.
Beyond the current outskirts of the downsized town the odd couple made steady progress – threading their way through the Overgrown Gardens and past Grassy Avenues on into a quarter-mile or so stretch of the Empty Grand Houses: palatial-style homes long-derelict. Most, but not all, were by now burnt out. The literal backdrop to many an illicit tryst between the older kids. And some of the adults, too.
Chandler Two appeared to want to pause again but Else Two insisted they press on. Together they skirted again the edge of the lake bed, not quite so dry anymore, filled in some after the heavy rains and slow to drain. An even less natural feature came next: what Else Two had, since their last visit, dubbed The Valley of The Dead Cars. They worked their way around that too, eventually proceeding up and over the mountain top – bringing them somewhere new to Else Two, the lip of the entrance to an old mine shaft.
“Hellmouth.” Chandler Two didn’t seem too keen this time on lingering thereabouts – whether in superstitious fear of the gaping black orifice itself, or what may come up out of it. ‘A hole…’ they said, stuttering. A hole right through the Earth they called it in hushed and reverent tones. “Something from the old world.”
‘It’s a mine,’ said Else Two.
‘You can keep it!’ said Chandler Two, abject.
‘No, it’s called a mine. They used to dig, take stuff out of it, special rocks or like that,’ Else Two patiently explained. ‘They took until there was none left. So they flooded it.’ This had all made a lot more sense when Father Else had told it. ‘That’s where all the lake water went,’ Else Two said. ‘Which was a huge goof.’
Just like you, Else Two was on the verge of saying, but thought better of it. The dry lake bed of the man-made lake – Else Two wasn’t quite sure how to explain, how any of that was possible either. How it could be. But, if true, then that could explain away why it should now have the stumps of rotten old trees rotting in it.
‘Why’d they go and do that?’ Chandler Two asked. ‘We could really use the fresh water,’ they reasoned.
‘I told you,’ Else Two said. ‘It was a mistake.’ Else Two wasn’t really certain. Like almost all of what they might generously call their know-how it had come to them second- or third-hand. ‘Or maybe it just flooded,’ they said. ‘I forget. Anyhow, my father says that did no one any good. Bad stuff got into the water table. Killed loadsa stuff. Loadsa the stuff that wasn’t dead or dying already.’
‘Water… table?’ Chandler Two struggled with the concept. And it looked like a losing battle.
Else Two shrugged. ‘So then they drained it again,’ they said. ‘The mine.’ For a time the two of them stared into the blackness of its unknowable depths, but Else Two could tell Chandler remained uncomfortable.
‘You can’t make a table out of water!’ Chandler Two suddenly asserted. ‘It’s too… gwooshy.’
“Gawooshy?!” Else Two repeated. ‘Like that’s even a word.’
‘So I know words that you don’t,’ Chandler Two fired back without missing a beat. ‘And I thought you were meant to be the smart one.’ And he’d be right. This, right here, was the very good reason why they should never bother speaking to one another. The looks of them aside didn’t much matter: Chandler Two’s head was entirely filled with rocks.
‘You ass.’
‘You’re the ass.’
How old were they meant to be again? It was like talking to a baby! Brain largely disengaged Else Two compiled their mental maps the while. For the possibility of any return trip – preferably undertaken solo. In case this here “ex-perdition” should falter like the last one had. BUT. And there it was. There always had to come a great big but. IF, this time, they were to succeed in their mission, at least in terms of making it to their ultimate destination, then, Else Two supposed, odds were probably not so great they’d even be coming back. Not in one piece.
Perhaps they should have warned Chandler Two about their true intent. Too late now.
From Hellmouth, the entrance or exit of the flooded mine, they arrived soon enough at The Land Fill, aka The Old Middens, Else Two previously hearing tell of this place’s existence only in parables and fables. It was, in actuality, way worse than anything they might have imagined. One ugly great heap made of a series of smaller mounds, their settlement's half-heartedly hidden away dump for untold decades of domestic and industrial waste – bone, excrement, spent shells etc. – out of mind since out of sight, every immortal trace of human occupancy probably set to outlast them all. Although disgusted, Else Two couldn’t help but marvel at the sheer scale of the enterprise. The Midden much closer to their own houses that they fed almost daily as just one of their chores paled by comparison.
Something large and potato-like was stabbing Else Two in the side. Chandler Two had grabbed them up into a hard and sweaty embrace. Pressing close, his body was hot. He smelled of socks. ‘You’re still so small,’ Chandler Two exhaled stale breath directly into Else Two’s ear. ‘You getting your hairs yet?’ they said.
‘Am I what?’ Else Two said.
Espying then the protuberance barely concealed within Chandler Two’s pants, Else Two slapped it smartly and took a step backward. ‘Oww-err!’ Chandler Two said, also retreating. Eyes bulging they dove forward, taking them both down.
Rolled in the stinking garbage, and sensing something of their potential predicament, Else Two protested. ‘Get OFF me, you mmfff!’
Chandler Two had clapped a dirty hand over their opened mouth. ‘Shhh!’ they said. ‘O.M.G!’ Else Two followed the direction of their intent stare to see where it was they directed. About fifty yards distant a human figure was strolling by. It looked indeed a lot like Old Man Gottfried. “O.M.G.” The guilty pair stayed low and quiet until he’d passed on well out of sight, and nor could they hear the slightest trace of his passage. Following a long minute or so of not sensing anything further, Chandler Two tossed Else Two aside. ‘This never happened?’ they said. They could only look at the ground. ‘It’ll be our secret, OK?’
Was that what they’d tried telling Candy Grant too? ‘Cos it hadn’t zactly worked out that way. Else Two had more smarts than to goad Chandler by saying anything like that out loud. What they did say was, ‘Scout’s honour,’ – another bamboozling phrase picked up from Father, and – ‘We aren’t promised, anyway.’ Else Two did their best to sound as reasonable as possible, given the compromising nature of their circumstances. ‘It’d be sinful.’
‘What? What the fuck, man!’ Chandler Two said. ‘Don’t… Don’t freak me with your crazy nonsense! You weirdo.’ Else Two, pretty sure it was Chandler Two started it, felt confused – more embarrassed than annoyed. Chandler Two hovered close, all a-quiver. Were they starting it again? ‘Mention any of this to anyone, ever,’ they hissed, ‘and I will rip out your lying tongue and feed it to you. Understand?’ Else Two nodded their complete and unutterable assent. Chandler Two broke off then to look around and about them. ‘Come on!’ they said. ‘We’re close, now.’
Their soft-padding tread scuffed the edge of a worn-out sign half-buried at their feet. Else Two and Chandler Two bent to examine it. Sweeping aside some of the loose earth uncovered a faded graphic – revealed strange round spots, brown, on a yellow background. A circle overall, tightly framed within a square, and divided so it seemed into six equal portions, coloured brightest in one slightly parted ‘slice’. Faded lettering at either extreme was still just about legible, but only at the top. It read ‘V-I-L-L-’, ‘VILLA’ –“VILLAGE”? Rust or something harsh and red so corroded the old notice’s lower portion that, whatever else might once have been read – along the bottom, below the colourful design – remained impossible to discern. Despite every parental precaution Else Two believed they, like all the other kids, had heard tell of this dreaded place.
The Circle Squared.
This was that same fearful site Goodman One had so roundly condemned, flatly refusing even the idea of ever coming back out to it. They should hope so. The arena was a most desperate and awful lonely spot, a desolate blot on the landscape worn bare of grass or most any other vegetation. Cursed-seeming.
Not any amount of noise here could ever hope to wake even the dead.
Chandler Two gestured for Else Two to drop, as they did, down on to their hands and knees: Else Two would most likely have refused if they hadn’t done so first. Chandler Two then crawled forward on all fours, ‘kneeling’ on his elbows as a goat would, through a small-ish gap within a chain-link fence partway folded back. Else Two did likewise, following on.
Shortly enough they walked again upright within the perimeter of a smaller open ground: an area perhaps no more than forty feet across, ringed almost entirely about with tall plywood boards. At the very centre glinted a large metal ring embedded deep in dun-coloured sand. The same powdery residue, if less discoloured, found everywhere underfoot. They had to step super-lightly so as not to leave any obvious tracks. Sticking close by the edges they followed the wide curve of this outer rim around. These boundary boards, held up by large wooden piles driven deep into the ground at regular intervals, appeared heavily scratched. Gliding gradually closer, breathless inspection revealed a dense criss-cross latticework, what looked like… ugh, those had to be marks made by human fingernails.
Else Two backed up. It only just now occurred to them, following their first ten minutes or so of being here, they could no longer hear any bird song. Nothing. And that was a very strange thing. Here they were miles out of town, in a clearing in the middle of dense forestry, and there was no bird song at all. No crickets either. Simply… Silence.
Spooky-weird. It seemed all too unearthly. And then there was that curious, forbidding smell. Not what leaked from the Land Fill. Nor their clothes, having been rolled in the garbage there. Something stronger. Something way worse. Death.
‘Hsst!’ Else Two, hand over mouth, put their other to Chandler Two’s sleeve. ‘There’s… something I’ve got to tell you,’ they whispered.
‘Now?’ said Chandler Two, similarly masked, but with their bandana.
‘Yes, now,’ Else Two said. ‘I’ve got to, to let you into a secret.’
Chandler Two eyed them quizzically. ‘Oh, that,’ they whispered back. ‘Candy told me ‘bout that, how you ambushed her in the woods. It’s OK, though. Candy and me are tight. I’m not jealous.’
‘No,’ insisted Else Two, halting where they stood. ‘I think we’re about to meet the Beast?’
‘We are if you’ll let us,’ Chandler Two said.
‘I have a big secret to tell you about it about the Beast.’ Else Two stuttered their words but stayed determined. ‘Me and the Beast,’ they said. ‘It’s important.’
‘Big whoop,’ Chandler Two said, shrugging them off. ‘Don’t care. Never did. I’ll be getting my name soon, then all the secrets, all the knowledge will be mine anyway. You’ll see.’ They crept on swiftly ahead. ‘Now quit dragging your heels and let’s get to it,’ they said.
Reaching a slim gap at the arena’s far side, first Chandler Two, then Else Two, slid on through. A narrow, high-fenced corridor in between more tall boards to either side extended before them. Since it curved quite sharply, they were unable to see more than ten feet or so ahead at any point. A few paces further in and nor could they see any more than that behind. No longer saying a word and cautious in the extreme, they made their way ever so gingerly along. At the nethermost bounds they rounded a final corner to where the long log corridor opened out – presenting the approach to what appeared to be an old railway caboose. It sat minus the wheels that Else Two felt almost certain it should have, set up on blocks about as tall as they were, if not Chandler Two also. Else Two recognised what this thing was in images memorised from an old, very old, bedtime picture book: in the story, parts of a “choo-choo train”, on a “ray-L-way”, common long ago. The blocks beneath were made up of stacked “sleepers” – logs sawn square.
The second thing Else Two most noticed as they drew closer to the elevated carriage was the all-pervasive smell: the same smell as before but so very much stronger now – a hot, animal stench equal parts wet fur and staled urine.
Calm. Inhalation. Exhalation. Calm.
Belatedly Else Two realised not all of these sounds originated with them – not coming from their own tortured lungs, nor Chandler’s. They heard the heavier, steadier breathing of another. Inhalation. Pause. And then a long and slow exhalation. Thick, even. “Snzzz”. Sawing logs. Father would read that part of the same story to them over and over and oh good grief what’s that?!
Directly ahead, there it lay – collapsed on straw behind the thick metal rods of a barred cage, the sleeping Beast. Thick matted hair, leather, straps – exactly as previously described, pretty much, hard as that had been to credit at the time. Kept behind bars, they were safe from it, as it appeared safe from them. Else Two reached behind, into the depths of their knapsack, to gingerly unroll a bandage there, transferring a heavy object into the palm of their hand.
‘Lucky,’ Chandler Two hissed. ‘Old Motherfucker Gottfried. He just fed it.’
OMfuG! ‘Fed it what?’ Else Two asked. They craned to see.
‘You didn’t see the blood all on his hands?” Chandler Two said. Else Two flung themselves back and all but turned tail and ran. Chandler tittered, joking, the big. Fat. Jerk.
The high walls of the all-surrounding enclosure rendered this pitch round preternaturally dark, details within hard to make out. Faint, limning daylight gradually disclosed high mounds of fur and flesh, tapering up and up into deep shadow, ultimately to disappear into inky blackness beyond. Nervously, Else Two edged further forward again, until they could feel on the skin of their outstretched hand sheer body heat emanating from the recumbent Beast. A warm breeze too that was also its rumbling breath. Some fierce and gigantic kind of creature: yet what might otherwise pass for a face, near to the front, seemed too crumpled in on itself. All the same Else Two fancied they saw some evidence there – a glimpse of sharp and yellowed fangs. Feet braced, tightening grip on their concealed blade, they readied themselves…
Chandler Two, behind, chuckled again. A lit matchstick flew past Else Two’s left shoulder. It hit the bars of the cage, rebounding sparks almost into their face. Even as Else Two turned their head to object, Chandler Two, self-absorbed in their mischief, tutted, struck and made ready to toss another. Else Two’s combat stance relaxed. A sudden jolt and lurch of massive movement behind threatened to throw them both down to the ground. Shrieking, the startled Beast reared up and back, retreating within its too-small pen as far back as it could go – which wasn’t far.
Denied oxygen, the second lit match flickered and died out somewhere deep within the straw. Laughing, Chandler Two strode around to the left, before circuiting back around over on the right, teasing and taunting with another tiny flame, and then another. The beleaguered Beast attempted to shy away each time, only to be defeated by its own size – the range of its anxious rovings limited to the centre, consistent with the tightest circle of danger. Moaning horrifically, seeking sanctuary at the square cell’s furthest corners, it crammed itself deeper yet into the cage’s confines, desperately afraid as it tried in vain to avoid the menace leveled at it from beyond the bars.
Grabbing up a clod of wet earth Else Two launched it at Chandler Two. A sodden splash of stinking mud struck the wicked abuser smartly upside the head. Roaring disapproval Chandler Two turned to confront them, crimson murder boiling in their eyes. The Beast spied its chance and lunged. Seizing Chandler Two through the bars in its long arms, the weirdling creature hoisted them on high, biting into them – their tormentor transformed into a screaming, dangling rag doll. Acting more on impulse than with any rational thought Else Two commanded that the Beast drop its prize. And lo and behold, the behemoth instantly obeyed: or at least obliged.
Chandler Two flopped into the churned mud at Else Two’s feet. Else Two grabbed them up and stumbling on together they fled.
Recovering the far treeline they dared stop to take stock. Chandler Two’s coat completely torn through at the shoulder, they’d somehow escaped without the least flesh wound. In urgent pledges each assured the other that this whole misbegotten enterprise should forever remain their secret, never ever mentioned again. On a solemn promise, not a word, nary so much as a hint: not unless they dared risk the punishment of being brought back there again to answer for their many transgressions.
Not unless they wished for death. And worse, oblivion.