Memorabilia of the Horror & Other Tales of Terror

It was windy. The ground was covered in a white blanket of snow, and with the sun locked in the middle of the sky, its fires giving off a reddish, subdued light – just like dying embers – made quite the melancholy scene. Coughing audibly, I parked the car in front of the gate to Woodhenge. I then fished out my equipment, consisting mainly of a photovoltaic lamp – which charges its battery by capturing sunlight during day- , food and a shovel (for exploring purposes). The wind was roaring, and brittle flakes of ice were broken and scattered everywhere, blurring vision. I attempted to warm my hands by rubbing them vigorously, yet to no avail. I even considered turning back all the way home, yet I meant business; and business was to be done. The snow crunched beneath my feet as I trod over it, its sound like the peal of crushed bones. Unlatching the lock, I opened the gate and walked into the henge. Taking in the beauty of my surroundings, my eyes took in the symmetrical wooden pillars, the tall grass, the trees and the huge circle the wooden pillars made in the centre of the henge. I fished out my paper pad and started taking notes. And then I saw it. A mound that was noticeably higher than any surrounding terrain. It was in the very centre of the henge. Looking around me, I brought forth my shovel. I hauled dirt and threw it aside. I kept shoveling off dirt until I confirmed my suspicions. A skull grinned at me toothlessly. Its hair still stuck in grizzled patches to its temple, but was in such a state of decay that I averted my eyes in disgust. This special placement of this corpse meant only one thing: that it was part of a ritual. A nebulous, disgusting abomination of a ritual. Placing my notebook beside me, I crouched and squinted at the skull. The sun was dying behind the hills, its dying light giving off a weak, useless radiance. The cranium, which I handled with great care, was very petite and diminutive, as if belonging to a child. It was intact, that is except for the sawed-off edges that were worn off by time. The parietal and suture regions of the skull were shorter than normal, giving the facial features an apish, bestial quality, which confirms the theories in which ancestors had smaller brains with more limited capacities. There in the naked wilderness, with the freezing wind lashing at my face, a sense of total stuporous drowsiness; more sensual than physical, washed over my senses. It was like the mist in the air, dampening my senses and distorting reality. I buried the skull in its sepulcher, and standing up, went over to a naked fir tree, where I rested my head against the cold bark. Only a moment, I said, just to rest. The sun well nigh vanished, and the land, once silhouetted only in certain patches, became one seamless shadow again. I fumbled in the darkness for the lamp and turned it on. The illumination was feeble, yet capable enough of throwing shadows everywhere. I hugged the lamp for warmth … and slept. Whether that sleep was induced due to physical exertion (though I didn’t do much) or the numbing coldness I do not know, yet I have developed in my mind far more terrible explanations whose incomprehensible nature forbids me to tell. Nevertheless, be it sleep or incantations, I am ashamed of my siesta, and its occurrence was in the most critical time. I woke with blasphemous chants of the wind echoing in the henge. Still bleary from awakening, I beheld before me a misty landscape, where everything was swathed in a veil of pellucid translucency. The lamp was long since dead. I attempted to stand. Just as my feet were about to take my weight, some force crippled it and I fell on the ground again. My hands I no longer felt, and I am sure that had light been there, they would have looked blue and lifeless. Terror seized me in its merciless grasp, rendering me handicapped in both body and mind. The tempo of the chants increased, and with it the wind’s ferocity positively complied. And then out of the entombed earth they came. Ghostly apparitions, resembling humanoid figures clad in furs and padded leather. They shone with their own iridescence, yet that radiance did not extend to the surrounding objects beside them, thus still maintaining the clutch of the mist on the land. The phantasms floated in the air and commenced dancing in a weird manner, all the while flavoring their dance with words from another tongue in a language which bore a great resemblance to English, but which was more inclined towards German barbarity of pronunciation. All of the latter I watched with great perplexity and disbelief. Had I not been paralysed in fear, I would have uttered the most unmanly scream my parched throat could muster. Yet alas, I watched this grotesque theatrical show, the dirty ground my seat, the gnarled rough wood my cushion, and the cold dead lamp my popcorn bowl. I watched helplessly, as spineless as the denizens who see their countries wreaked into havoc but are powerless to interfere. The wind drowned whatever horrible spells the poltergeists uttered. They stood in a circle whose centre was occupied with a small child tied to the central wooden pillar in the henge. The child, be it a he or a she, (for it was indiscernible in the dark) was as naked as its birthday, that is except for a lousily-worn rag around its waist. It cried in vulnerability as the specters chanted maniacally around it. Finally, one of the figures, whose stature and build identified him as a male, strode forward and pulled a hood over his face. I caught a fleeting flash of metal, and gasped in horror as realization struck me. It was a sacrificial knife, rough at the edges and blunt. The hooded figure stood in front of the child. Crying loudly, he slit the youngster’s throat in one quick slash and filled a small wooden bowl with the gushing fountain of blood. The child quivered as his soul bled away with his blood one last time and ceased to move. The eidolons then added oil to the blood and lit the ghastly concoction ablaze. They left it at the feet of the young child, where the conflagration quickly engulfed his (or her) skin in flames. The figures stood motionless around, watching with interest, as if the scene before them was not the result of their actions. The sky rumbled loudly, as if some metaphysical deity was appeased by the massacre. The figures prayed…