It was just another sunny and refreshing spring Sunday morning until the inhabitants of Schwarzstein saw a horrifying yet majestic tower of heavy dark smoke descending down on the small country village. A sharp sour smell slowly swept across the valley and slipped into all of people's houses until they overcrowded the small main road and jostled eachother in a frantic search for its origin.
The frightened crowd was quickly split into two by a convoy of firetrucks and a lonely police car who all rushed into the hills above. You could barely see the hills hence the smoke had spread everywhere and engulfed the tiny village in its suffocating arms.
People, young and old looked at eachother in confusion before making a bold and rather foolish decision to chase after the convoy while coughing excessively.
The crowd had to depart from the main road and entered a local farmer's property. They soon came to a halt after they got on top of a small picturesque hill and suddenly stood in front of a fiery hell. It was a sight to behold. The firemen, tiny like insects compared to the hungry swirling inferno were emptying their tanks in a desperate attempt to subdue the blazing monstrosity.
It took three whole days to completely annihilate the burning tongues and who knows what would have happened if the weather hadn't blessed the villagers with a heavy rainstorm on the third day. It was when everybody rushed back to see what had left of what used to be the biggest sheep farm in the area.
Police tried to hold the people as far away as they could for them not to hinder the investigation. It was all to no avail. As soon as they turned their backs to a certain place some youngsters sneaked pass the line and observed the devastation with morbid curiosity. The roof of what used to be a beautiful country house was completely gone and nothing but charred walls remained. All furniture and interior had turned to piles of charcoal and ashes, which were all turned into strange clay-like mass by the rainstorm. It was a grim black world of its own and it almost seemed like the the shiny tears of melted glass that descended down from each of the window sills mourned the tragic fate of whoever got rendered homeless by the merciless gulping flames.
Just a day after the flames were extinguished a small car ventured into the mountains. It drove slowly, but in a nervous manner. It went up the curvy road, right through the sleepy Schwarzstein and disappeared into the morning mist. What followed was a scream of pure horror and despair that echoed through the endless valleys, but got swallowed by the dark forests and caves before reaching a compassionate ear. Cry after cry. Gasping. Agonising screeches, silenced by the careless nature around their source. Who would've thought a gentle loving mother of two, pregnant with her third child was capable of producing such vile noises that would send shivers down anybody's spine. She fell into muddy dirt, weeping while squeezing a piece of paper tightly in her hands. Those damned two sheets of paper in a plastic bag glued to the wooden fence were enough to turn her life upside down. Who would have thought that leaving her husband and the farm for five days to visit her demented aging mother with her kids could result in a ruined life. But it was not the farm she mourned, not the sheep, it was nothing like that. She lost something much more important in those flames, something indispensable, something much more dear to her... or rather someone.
She said nothing afterwards. She crawled back into the worm embrace of her car's seat, started the engine and drove back to the village in complete silence, her hands trembling as she held the steering wheel. The kids did not dare to ask what horrible thing she experienced and just motionlessly observed her pale expressionless face from the safety of the back seats. She seemed like a marble statue, smooth, shiny, the only thing that indicated she was alive were the tears slowly sliding down her cheeks.
The small car stopped right in front of the local police station and the woman's small hunched figure slowly stumbled inside.
What she handed over to the men of justice turned the entire case around. From the very beginning they thought that the fire was caused by an arsonist gone completely amok, until disproven by two damp sheets of wrinkled paper.
Ink smudged by moisture. Sharp chaotic letters. It took several hours for the investigators to read through the first paper and see what the owner of the isolated mountain property had to say:
This is a note I left for my wife Karin Bauer, in case you found this it means that she probably didn't.. and if that's the case I'd be glad if you could hand it over to her. My name is Herman Bauer. I'm a 43 year old farmer with two wonderful kids and my wife currently being pregnant with the third one. My life may seem perfect at first glance but that's sadly far from the truth. Karin, if you're reading this, I'm terribly sorry, but I had to go. I post a threat to you and all of our kids.. and I'd never forgive myself if anything happened to them. In order to assure your safety I urge you to sell the farm as soon as you can. Also, stay AWAY from sheep, don't let kids touch them! Please! This is my final wish, just leave this place behind before it's too late. I can explain. Actually.. don't even sell the farm, burn it, everything alive.. I hate to say it, but even our dog and all the sheep. PLEASE KARIN! TAKE ME SERIOUSLY!
I don't know how much time I have left, but I'll give you a glimpse of what's going on, even if you don't understand it, just do as I say!
It all started when I was still a little kid, I think I was 5 or 4 years old, I was playing outside the house teasing our rooster with a straw, he was my best friend at the time, since there were no other kids to play with. It was midday and our dog went for a little stroll into the woods. He often wondered in there chasing after smaller mammals, so there was nothing out of ordinary.. till he returned. He walked much slower and when we wanted to put him on a leash for the night we saw there was blood mixed with his saliva slowly dripping from his mouth. My dad opened his mouth to see what had caused the bleeding.. and I witnessed a sight I will never forget. His tongue and pretty much all insides of his mouth were literally covered in tiny shallow cuts to the point that they completely changed its texture. His snout had also been cut, but not nearly as bad as his mouth. After that fateful day it took him several days of drooling with blood, dripping some weird yellow ooze and not eating anything before he passed away. His death was a huge shock for a child me and I cried like never before. I begged my parents to burry him properly - inside a coffin and to make him a tombstone.
A few years had passed and I think I was the only one who remembered this many details, solely because it was such a strong emotional burden. Now I was already 7, attending grade school... and that's when it happened again, this time it was my grandma's cat. The same kind of cuts, shallow, curvy and tight together, she even had some on her paws. Her fate was the same. She bled, dripped with that same yellow sticky ooze and died. We buried it right next to the dog's grave in a small wooden box, wrapped in cloth. Both of them rest near the woods now... or at least that's what I thought.
I would have eventually forgotten all of these strange occurrences if it wasn't for the sheep. I had to give them a trim yesterday to collect the wool and when I already shaved a few of them my trimmer struck against something hard. It happened a few times before I noticed that there was a strange creature clinging to the sheep. I tried to get it off and that's when I realised that it was like nothing seen before by a man. It was almost a foot in size and had ten or more crab like legs, yet it grew wool on its back. I didn't manage to see any eyes or antennae... just a large gaping mouth on its belly. However that is all besides the point, because when I grabbed it I cut myself on its wool. It burned like all hell and I threw the ting across the room. When I partly recovered from the unbearable pain i grabbed my chair and wanted to squash the creature with it, but to no avail. I hit it till the chair broke and the frightened being swiftly crawled outside together with a few others that simultaneously dropped from the confused sheep around me. I tried to follow them, but they scattered way to quickly.
Nothing seemed to have the power to stop my wound from dripping with that slimy and sticky yellow ooze. It started to burn my skin and not to mention how gross its stench is. It burns my insides whenever I inhale.
THERE IS NO CURE KARIN! YOU NEED TO KEEP THE KIDS AWAY!!
The next morning when I woke up I saw three of these horrid beings on the outer window sill cuddling eachother, picking their fur with those crabby legs and it seemed like they are waiting... I felt their anticipation, Karin, something was about to happen. I panicked and ran outside and I really couldn't tell why, but I wanted to dig up our late dog and cat from their graves. I barely remember anything but me digging through the cold morning soil with my bare hands till I reached the two wooden boxes. I violently opened them and discovered that there was nothing inside, not even a single bone! There were just some strange bite marks all over the box leading up to several fist sized holes. The cloths we wrapped those carcasses in both seemed like they were chewed several times by a cow... even though that'd be completely impossible and worst of all: they were covered in that same ooze. But unlike mine it appeared aged and dry.
THIS IS HOW I KNOW IT KARIN! WHEN I DIE I WILL TURN INTO A BUNCH OF HEDIOUS CREATURES!! My fever is getting worse and worse and I WILL NOT LET MORE OF THESE MONSTROSITIES LIVE!!!
Sheet two was deciphered with far greater ease, since all the letters were huge capitals, sometimes carved frantically into the paper with what seemed to have been a green permanent marker. It was much shorter than the first one... yet far more explanatory:
BY THE TIME YOU AND THE KIDS RETURN AND BY THE TIME YOU READ THIS THE FARM WILL BE NO MORE!!! I WILL BURN IT ALL, THE SHEEP, THE BOXES AND MYSELF.
I LOVE YOU AND THE KIDS, I AM DOING THIS FOR YOU!!
Comments (3)
See all