King Under Moor
written by: Ed McConnell
Up the moor they come like a breeze from out of the earth. The space below the great oak yawning in the midnight glow. Grass parting to reveal terrible faces. A horde of shrunken bodies no taller than saplings marching on to some inaudible chant. Waxy features reflecting dull in the moonlight. The smoke from the chimney ahead curls into satin blue, clouding the stars briefly, then drifts away.
On hind legs, Fido is at the window. The pane grimy from cooking and cracked a little. Ears to attention and droplets forming and falling from his black nose. Statue still, he stands guard for a third night, eyes fixed ahead, undeterred by the beatings. When they come, he will be here. He must know what they want. Of a sudden, the wheat in front of the house comes in like the tide, but then is still. Fido whimpers, teeth chattering, and then is a din of bays and barks as they burst forth. As quickly as they came, they go, turning and fleeing into the wheat, banished by Fido, and all is still again.
Crashing and roaring from above as the master is woken and is on the stairs and is in the room, grimacing through the gloom, bloated body lurching forward. Infuriated to silence, he comes and then stops and makes towards the heavy countertop, scarred and stained, and picks up the cleaver, bulky and reddened and chipped in places, and comes again. I told you, he finally says, words grinding like cogs in a mill, I said to shut up, I told you what would happen. Fido is whimpering again and then cries out as the cleaver crashes down, and then he is silent.
The rain comes in hissing sheets so that two steps ahead are a mystery. Groaning across the hills blows the wind. It is not until they are upon the house and nearing the door that Fido hears them. They are repeating a sound again and again, but in the howling night, it cannot be heard. He has a duty to his masters and to the tiny thing they brought home. The tiny thing that cried and suckled and slept but now hugs him and plays with him and squeaks his name. What’s left of his tail still wet with blood, he unleashes a volley of sharp barks and stares through the rain as they turn and flee, slipping over the greasy grass and away into the wheat. The footsteps come heavy, the shouting and swearing long and loud. The cleaver’s crash. Crying. Silence.
The clock against the wall says it is ten to midnight, but it is wrong, and it is actually eight minutes past. Fido is curled up in the dusty corner, crumbs for company, a bandage where his tail began now dried brown, and the one that caps the stump of his front leg dark red. He senses them before they are there and knows he should not, but cannot help himself. He is up at the window again, jumping up with difficulty, and he sees the first of them creep out, featureless in the dark.
Unsteady, the boy stands unable to reach the countertop. He wobbles to where Fido lies, hiding his head in the corner, nuzzling the grubby wall with eyes staring blankly. The boy pats his dog, but Fido does not respond. Father has told him Fido is getting old and keeps hurting himself. Now Fido has injured his other leg, and there is bright red on the white bandage. With the night they come again.
In great swollen hands, he carries what remains of Fido. Body flopping over his forearms, trailing dark red on the wet grass. He warned him, he told him to be quiet, sleep deprivation can do terrible things to a man, and the dog’s discipline was waning with age. He trudges on along the field boundary and towards the dirt track leading away from the cottage. He could hardly be blamed, ultimately, the hound was too old and was going senile, barking into the abyss all night, acting terrified whenever approached, he’d done him a favour, put him out of his misery, sickness is unkind to animals, the wife will understand, and so will the boy when he’s old enough. The early morning air beside the track swells with the stench of decay coming from what seems to be three black furry sticks two yards from where he stands. Stepping gingerly, he dumps the rest of Fido on top and bends down and wipes his bloody hands in the dewy grass and straightens up and looks one last time at his dog. He has done him a favour, he thinks, and turns and starts back towards the cottage.
The man who seems impossibly old wears a crown of thorns and sits on a throne of twisted willow. Bring me the boy, he says, cheeks sucking into his skull, each word a rattling whistle, I am in my twilight and he is your hope. They are massed around him like gargoyles, heads bent and kneeling. The beast is ours now, it must be done tonight. Fido watches from the corner. They found his body in bits, massed in a grisly pile beside a track skirting the wheat. They took him to their home and spent days and nights working, sewing skin, mending splintered bone. And all the while, a figure no taller than his shoulder stood cloaked in purple robes covered in moons and stars and spoke incantations while moving a crooked staff until Fido was able to move once more. Now the assembly rises and begins to chant, and in the cavernous space underneath the great oak, the word echoes and is finally heard. King. King. King.
With Fido in front, they stalk the moor, falling in step with him, one atop his back, wading through the wheat towards the ramshackle cottage, chanting all the while. The sky is a pristine sheet of stars with a cream yellow moon looming full in front of them. They walk on. Fido knows he is coming home, that he will soon be reunited with the boy. They clear the wheat and cross the patch of grass towards the front door, scrambling up the steps behind Fido. As he waits on the step, tail wagging in the night, they pass around him and pile into the door again and again until their stunted bodies of sinew and bone splinter the wood and then break a hole, and now they are through. By the time the master’s hulking silhouette appears at the top of the planked stairs, they are halfway up, and now they are upon him, and he has crashed down and is crying out, and they are clambering over him. A scream comes from the bedroom, a woman wailing not to take her baby, but it is too late, and they reappear, the boy barely bigger than they are, carried aloft down the stairs and towards the door. He is crying out too, but stops briefly, his face a frozen mask of confusion when he spots Fido, but then he is out of the house and across the grass and disappears into the wheat, and Fido turns and follows.
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