Day 12
Today we visit with Tristan Vick as he shares his tale, Little Red Gauntlet.
Little Red Gauntlet
and
The Cult of the Wolf
(a steampunk fairytale)
PART ONE
The Day Silence Fell
Silence fell over the sleepy village of Mikan province as gently as
the falling snowflakes. Rusty tin-roofed
factories replete with towering smokestacks created jigsaw-like silhouettes
against the whitewashed horizon. The factory chimneys belched thick blurry smog
that rose high into the hazy afternoon sky—and the dark smoke resembled
terrible serpents slithering back toward the great abyss high beyond the
firmament.
Black crows spackled the steely sky while thick veins of
rusted piping, glazed with wintery rime, clung to the factory walls which
brimmed with single-paned frosted windows. Meanwhile, down below in the heart
of the quieted town, down along the white-blanketed streets veiled in virgin
snow, were the obscure indentations of fresh footprints. The footprints were
canine in nature, and made their way through the empty lanes and, as if set to
purpose, wound their way down into the heart of the market place.
On any ordinary day the market would be bustling with
the business of merchants, traders, and vendors, but today dark and sinister
things lurked about in the shadows cast by the looming smoke stacks, and with
the break of dawn, in that ritualistic crepuscular hour of the rising sun,
there screeched a most horrible cry.
The scream of a young girl being abducted by things too
terrible to mention called out, pleading for help, but was just as quickly
silenced, and echoes of that small, horror-filled voice faded into the frigid
air until not a sound remained, not a single indicator that the terrible
kidnapping ever took place, and the snowy village returned to its cold
indifference.
At this juncture it may be worth mentioning the point
for which the streets were emptied, the shutters secured, and the doors bolted.
You see, on this unhappy hour of a wretched week demarcating the start to an
relentless and blistering winter, the villages had hid themselves away at the
sound of the horns, the alarm which alerted man, woman, and child that the dark
ones had returned. With this frightful knowledge bearing down on the minds of
wearied people, every street was promptly abandoned, and not a soul stepped
foot outside the safety of their walls for fear of meeting a horrible fate at
the clawed hands of those hideous things that wreaked havoc on the vulnerable
village and prowled for innocent souls to gobble up.
Most of Mikan village in the Mikan province consisted of
the type of brick-and-block architecture one would expect of a well-worn
factory town. Mikan village was most noteworthy for its coal and its steam. The
coal was harvested to supply fuel for the furnaces which, in turn, supplied the
steam which turned the giant paddles that provided the power to the province
and beyond. Although no more than three thousand people lived in the quaint
village, Mikan generated much of the electricity required for nearly three full
provinces in the bamboo-varnished valleys of old Japan.
Mikan village rested snugly in the mountains of the
northwestern area of Honshu, in the prefecture of Shimane, and was tucked away
in the cradle of a narrow valley surrounded by black pines and ancient,
snow-capped mountains. The houses all huddled around the mammoth industrial
complexes, which ran right up to the mountain’s edge, in quaint clusters of
inglenook-impregnated dwellings. They formed a tightly-woven community
consisting of ceramic-tiled rooftop abodes set in calico, currently concealed
under a thin coating of freshly fallen snow.
Beneath that blistering cold snow seeped the petrifying
chill of fear, a fear born from the detested sounding of the horrible horns
signifying that the Cult of the Wolf had returned. The red-eyed beasts had
descended from the dark woods of the north, as swift and silent as shadows, and
promptly penetrated the walls of the unvigilant village.
Adults torn to shreds and the young and innocent
vanished—the legends of ancient evils were revealed to be real; the nightmares
of the townsfolk, like better dreams, came dreadfully true. Also true was the
fact that the seventh virgin had been taken in just as many weeks. As you might
suspect, the violated village’s pulse barely beats, the hearts of its people
practically stopped with fear, a forlorn wonderment as to what becomes their
missing sons and daughters.
The first of the girls had vanished at the edge of the
gloomy forest when she wandered off beyond the walls and safety of the village.
A woodsman returning with lumber spied her edging dangerously close to the dim
green of the tree line at the gloaming hour, but before he could call out to
her it was already too late. The shadows had slithered and stretched their way
out toward the girl and engulfed her, dragging her back into the woods—back
into the mouth of darkness stretched wide between looming pines, wherein
terrible things lurked—she shrieked an audible treble in terror-stoked
trembling.
When the village council questioned the weary woodsman
about what it was he saw, in his troubled testimony he recollected that the
repulsive creatures were a demonic blend of wolf and man. In the details of his
report he told of their fierce red eyes that glared menacingly in what little
light glinted from the narrow treetop crevices where traces of sky could be
discerned. After being dismissed from the proceedings, the woodsman sulked home
and gathered his family tight in his arms; bowing heads in silence, they waited
for the daily ritual to commence.
Like clockwork, the sounding of the first of three horns
rang forth. The ominous omen signaled the approaching nightfall and the
countdown till the great looming darkness swallowed up the last of the sun’s
sanguine rays. As always, it was inescapably followed by a hushed silence that
penetrated every part of that haunted hamlet. The second blast alerted all that
it was time to secure the doors and to be ready for anything. The townsfolk
prayed to their idols, their ancestors, and any who’d listen. Finally, amid the
rising howling, the last blast from the watchtower’s horn rang out and then, as
every window and door was securely bolted, the vaporous tendrils of shadow
crept out of the dark forest and up to the village gates.
It was a great and terrible darkness too, a hollow void of nothingness where courage withered and love
languished, and therein a lingered a menagerie
of horrors too unfathomable to
speak of. The darkness was
uncommonly unsettling, as those brave
vanguard watchmen reminded everyone in the town hall’s morning census. The census was the village’s wretched
ritual of making a daily record to account for those
fearsome souls who remained and those who had not lasted the languid hours of
listless night, but were, in nightmarish reification, untimely plucked from
this mortal coil.
Perched in their lookouts all along the watchtower, those
noble men, absent any vainglory, swore it was as if an ethereal portal to an
otherworldly realm of hellish nightmares had suddenly torn open. Out of the
broad swath carved in the stilled air of night, like the calm before the storm,
came forth all manner of terrors. Just as the last guard drew the shutters of
the last window closed, in the briefest of moments, through the closing crack,
as if catching something out of the corner of his eye, he spied a litany of
ungodly forms spill out from that awful abyss. Glowing red eyes. Crooked claws.
And teeth like razor blades.
Seven girls gone. All of them virgins. Each of them
frightfully taken from their homes, torn from their beds and families. But what
could anyone do?
Beset by evil, the village elders, little more than a
council of cowards, in their awful acumen agreed to appease their relentless
torturers’ appetites for virgin flesh. Thus was called forth a messenger, a
poor unwanted orphan boy, and he was sent as emissary into the black, pine-laden
forest to relay that disgraceful message. He never returned.
Thus, agreeing to meet the dreadful demands of the Cult
of the Wolf and offer up their virgin sons and daughters as sacrifices,
perchance to appease the adverse forces infesting the village, the townsfolk did
the only thing they could do: they braced themselves for a long hard winter.
PART TWO
The Cult of the Wolf
Pulling my red cloak over my head for warmth, I made
my way past the abandoned market place and down into the dark regions of the
lower levels of the coal furnaces which supplied power to us all. The furnaces
had been turned down low, allowing them to idle away until morning, when fresh
barrels of black carbon would be brought in to replenish the dwindling power
supply.
The lull in power caused tumult among the councils of
the surrounding provinces, worried that the shogunate
would grow displeased with the sudden diminished greatness of one unassuming
part of the empire. In an unprecedented swiftness of political action, measures
were taken to quickly rectify the regrettable situation.
Whereas traditional samurai were typically called in to
police the lands when bandits and robbers terrorized the townsfolk, there was
nothing much in the way of monster hunters. That is, apart from myself and a
handful of rogue ronin ready to accept any request if the remuneration was
right. The lucre of the law, as they called it, meant that the
wealthiest lords dictated the laws of the land, and enforced these laws with
the aid and services of hired scullions and servitors. Thus, might equaled
right.
Unlike the ronin, however, I was not obsessed with duty,
honor, and the pursuit of finding relief between the quivering thighs of
licentious prostitutes. No, I was much simpler. Foreign born, the daughter of a
Frenchman and a German woman, I did not come to Japan by choice, but was sent
here as a way to distance myself from them and the vanity of their society that
could not accept the parents of a cripple. So they traded me for retaining
their lofty reputation, saying it was for my own good, and that someday I’d
understand why they did what they did.
Twelve years have passed since I arrived in this
country, and still my past haunts me. When I was but a girl my right arm was mangled
during an awful accident. Luckily, however, just as I arrived to the mainland
there was news of a new hybrid technology—part clock-work, part compressed
steam—which gave rise to a wave of innovative mechanisms that nobody had seen
the likes of before. Mechanisms that finally allowed me to regain what I had
lost so long ago.
It’s no secret, I am a hunter. I've killed all manner of
rogues and villains, and unspeakable things, things from the darkest corners of
the land, things you only hear tell about in ancient myths and legend.
Upon receiving message from the daimyo himself, to rid
Mikan village of the daunting darkness which encroached upon the township from
all sides, and liberate its lamentable people from the hideous sufferings that
lurked in night’s shade, I accepted. Well, I accepted on the same terms and
conditions I always set before accepting any job—three months’ pay up front, a
paid meal a day in my establishment of choice, and no questions asked. Simple
rules don’t raise many questions, and so I was hired immediately.
I arrived in Mikan province two nights prior, and
swiftly set about interviewing the solemn and suffering victims of the horrible
evils that had befallen them.
And now … now I hunt.
Winding around a labyrinth of stone stairs and narrow
alleyways laden with little bald Buddhist statues strewn about an assortment of
shrines, I quickly passed the snowcapped memorials consisting of marble
remembrances and small watchful gods. Passing through what seemed to be an echo
of lives long past, I couldn't help but think that perhaps these tiny gods were
privy to the appalling horrors that had befallen the panic-stricken people of
Mikan village.
It began snowing in the hazy white of the afternoon sun,
and the chill seeped through my cloak and into my bones as I followed the fading
tracks of the latest victim down a narrow alleyway and around several more
bends and spiraling stone staircases before finally coming into a clearing. In
the middle of the clearing was a large pool of blood so thick that the deep
burgundy looked like a blackish-purple lake frozen in time. This marked the
place of the abhorrent abduction.
As I approached the burgundy blemish I saw an open gate
to the drain tunnels that channeled the moisture from the steam vapor and
condensations, as well as the excess rain during the wet months, out of the
city. Prying open the barred maintenance gate, I slipped in and made my way
down into the damp depths of the dreary drain until I found the mouth of an
intersecting channel.
Before deciding which direction to set purpose to, I
closed my eyes and listened. Echoing up the damp, dungeon-like walls, from the
depths of the cistern’s stomach, was an ominous chanting. That was where they
were gathering. But to what sinister purpose?
Reaching under my red cloak, I fetched a small
gas-powered lantern and flicked it on. It had a built-in flint so all I had to
do was twist the key and ignite the spark. I followed the sound of chanting
until I felt I could no longer keep my lamp lit, and so I snuffed the flame and
tucked it away, relying on only the faintest candle-lit luminosity to guide me
toward the origin of the ominous invocations.
Sneaking along the safety of shadows which the portly
piping provided, I found myself in the midst of two dozen black-robed cultists.
Peering through the spaces between the pipes, I could see an alter plastered
with an endless assortment of wax candles, enough to illuminate the central
figure, the poor wretched girl abducted three days prior.
With no place to hide and unable to go back the way I
came without arousing suspicion, I ducked under the partition of piping that
shielded me from sight and stepped boldly into the light. Walking toward the
alter where the young girl lay, tied down to a massive stone tablet, I could
see the fear written in her big brown eyes which darted back and forth at the
slightest movement or sound. She couldn't have been more than thirteen. Barely
old enough to have stolen her first kiss from a boy.
Dark eyes blotted out by the shadow of their hoods followed
me, a rubicund oddity, as I made my way up the steps to the alter and stopped
just before the frightened girl. Her mouth gagged, she looked up at me with a
blanched complexion downtrodden with despair; although I sensed she feared the
consequences of calling for help, her eyes spoke volumes, and pleaded for me to
free her from desolation.
“Don’t worry,” I said in a soothing tone of voice. “No
one will harm you this day. I promise.”
“And just who are you to dole out promises that you
cannot keep, not even in a thousand years?” intoned a feminine voice.
Manifesting from the opposite side of the alter was a
striking woman with raven-black hair, but with a sartorial minimalism that
didn’t do anything but highlight the naked curvature of her feminine form. Her
porcelain skin glistened from the warm steam filling the room, all but for the
pelt of a wolf draped over her shoulders, her only attire—more ceremonial in
nature than practical.
“I’m Ruby Perrault. And whom do I have the honor of
killing this day?” I asked, never breaking eye contact with the deranged woman
for a single instant.
“Oh!” she chortled, finding my words amusing. “Aren’t
you a spirited one? But I’m afraid the only one who will die this day will be
you, my dear. As for this poor wretch of a child, she’ll be drained of her life
force over a period of seven days and seven nights.”
Suddenly the black-cloaked figures surrounding us let
their robes slip to the ground and revealed that my most awful suspicions were
true: this assembly wasn’t made up of mortal men at all, but rather horrible
hybrids—part men and part beast. I was in the den of werewolves!
Eyeing me up and down, the woman’s thin lips spread into
a smile of sinister intent as she said, “Well, Ruby Perrault, I’m Volera, Queen
of the Cult of the Wolf. Welcome to our den. Won’t you be staying for dinner?”
Looking back down at the poor virgin trembling
uncontrollably upon the table, I asked somewhat sarcastically, “Must it be
virgin blood?”
“As a matter of fact, yes,” Queen Volera answered with a
widening grin, already pulling red lips across her unusually white teeth. “Only
the pure blood of a virgin is potent enough to allow the spell to work.”
“What kind of spell?”
“My, aren’t you a curious little thing? Let’s just say
it’s a spell to make me eternal, so that I may reign a thousand years as Queen
of the Wolves.” Summoning me with her finger, she said, “Come closer, my dear.”
Pulling down my hood, I looked straight at the
sorceress, self-proclaimed Queen of the Wolves, who before my very eyes began a
terrible transformation. Her narrow nose grew into a slender snout and her jowls
grew large canine teeth. Every pore on her silky smooth skin sprouted hair and
soon she was covered from head to toe in fur—her image completely transformed—as
she rose up on her hindquarters and snarled viciously.
The horrible howling of her loyal pack shook the pipes and carried its way up to the city
streets. I can only imagine the level of dread it must have caused the
townsfolk above, suffering such a nightmarish and dreadful din seeping into
their homes from deep from below.
But amid all the noise, they didn’t hear the winding of
gears and compressing of pistons occurring under my crimson cloak.
Extending her claws, Volera raised her inhuman hand high
above her vulpine form and growled, “Now you die, girl!”
“Not today, bitch,” I sneered, throwing back my cloak to
reveal the steam-powered mechanical-geared gauntlet that made up my right hand.
With startled eyes the bitch squealed, “What’s this
abomination?”
“I have to admit, I was a little taken aback when you
didn’t recognize my name.”
“Ruby Perrault. What of it?” the she-beast growled, her
eyes narrowing viciously as she circled me.
“You may know me better by my nickname ... Daughter of
the Wolf.”
“It can’t be!” the queen roared in mouth-frothing fury.
“I thought you were dead.”
Releasing my steam
gear gauntlet, the mechanical fist exploded forward with a menacing hiss,
and so fierce was the pressure that it took off the bitch’s head with a single
blow. Blood sprang forth from her open neck cavity as if it were the fountain
in the village square, and her headless body teetered to and fro before finally
collapsing at the foot of the alter.
Picking up Volera’s head, now transformed back into her
human from, I held it out for all the pack to see just as the steam
decompressed from my gauntlet, shooting out an exhaust of white mist behind me.
Tossing the head down the stairs, I clenched my
oversized robotic fist and fearlessly addressed the pack. “You have two
choices. Stay here and meet a similar fate, or tuck your tails between your
legs and head back into the forest and never return to this village again.”
After a moment of silence, the wolf-men bared their
teeth and worked themselves into a frenzy. It looked like it was about to turn
into a blood bath, but before anything could happen there was a snarl that
overcame all the rest. All the werewolves quickly parted, making a path which
led straight up to the alter, and kneeling down they chanted Vánagandr.
That was all, they just kept repeating that name, “Vánagandr, Vánagandr,
Vánagandr …”
From the gaping black mouth of the tunnel came the noise
of padded footsteps, and peering into the darkness I waited with bated breath
as the chanting intensified. “Vánagandr! Vánagandr! Vánagandr!”
Then I saw it. The Alpha.
PART THREE
Daughter of the Wolf
Into the den stepped forth the largest direwolf I have ever laid eyes
upon. His form was roughly the size of your average steed and his pelage was
blacker than the blackest night, all except for the minuscule
traces of silver peppered throughout his mane which marked his great age.
Stopping halfway, it waited as I tentatively approached
it. I was amazed to see one, as it had long been held that creatures of this
kind had all but disappeared, hunted to extinction or else forced to hide away
in the depths of the rigid mountains and dark forests where humans were still
too intimidated to venture.
Standing before the massive beast’s muzzle, I looked
fearlessly into its obsidian eyes. I gazed into the darkness that ran for an
eternity inside Vánagandr’s horrible gaze, and in them I saw all the chaos and
suffering of the universe play out before me, and then I knew … they were the
very same eyes that haunted me in my youth.
“Next time we meet,” I said, standing nose to nose with
the wheezing beast, his vile breath flooding my nostrils, “I will take your
head like I took Volera’s.”
*Not if I eat you first, girl.*
Startled, I took a step back and tried to shake the strange
sense of being defiled. But it was no use; the menacing mental violation that
had taken place was measurably real. The wolf’s voice spoke straight into my
mind—as clear as day. The pious often claim to hear voice. Well, I heard one. Do
not ask me how, but it did it, and pure unadulterated dread filled my chest as
if I had just borne witness to the darkest kind of spell that could only be
conjured through an unmentionable black magic.
Clenching my gauntlet, the gears began to turn and the
pumps started to compress the hydraulic cylinders. “You can try,” I said
through gritted teeth.
*Resist me all you want, girl. Someday when you let your
guard down, I will spring forth from the shadows and make you my dinner.*
“And when you try, dog, I shall rip out your foul tongue
and strangle you to death with it.”
With a snarl that seamlessly slid into a deep rattling
growl, the direwolf bared his teeth and took a step toward me, letting me know
his dominance.
*You carry a most honorable name, and for this reason I
shall let you live this day, but I cannot forget your insults. The next time we
meet, I shall not hesitate to kill you, Daughter of the Wolf.*
Standing my ground, our faces came so close we could
feel each other’s hotness of breath. In that exact moment, the gears finished
winding to capacity, and the gauntlet’s pistons locking into place signaled
that I had one gauntlet-gear-punch reach to take the beast’s head off in a
single blow. Noticing the sound, however, the direwolf cautiously stepped back.
After a brief pause, the contemptible creature turned
and trotted back the way it had come. The werewolves all bowed their heads in
reverence, avoiding eye contact as their Alpha whisked by. Pausing at the dark
mouth of the tunnel, Vánagandr turned his head, ears perking up, and looked
back at me one last time—as if he were making record of my face.
I stared back at him in defiance of the dread he sought
to instill in me, and then watched as the loyal pack trailed after their unholy
master.
Quickly, I slid out a small dagger I kept tucked in my
boot, and began to sever the ropes which restrained the young beauty. I could
no longer conceal the trembling in my hand, and struggled to hold the blade
steady as the fear and adrenaline finally combined to overcome me. With a snap
I managed to cut through the last of the ropes and the frightened girl
scrambled up and embraced me firmly.
“Oh, thank the gods,” she sighed in relief. Looking down
at the red mechanical gauntlet which comprised the whole of my right forearm,
the young girl asked, “What happened to your arm?”
“It was taken from me … bitten off by a gray wolf when I
was only a child.”
Recoiling in alarm, she chewed
on her bottom lip and hesitantly said, “I’m sorry. I
didn’t mean to pry.”
Looking at her, I merely pulled my red hood back over my
head, and turned to leave. My mind still fixating on the direwolf, I felt a
dark intuition forming in the back of my mind. An ancient evil that had lain
dormant for centuries had awakened with a ravenous appetite and the desire to
consume the world. Vánagandr, Volera, and the Cult of the Wolf were all just a
prelude to an unfathomable plague of evils yet to come.
THE END
****
****
TRISTAN VICK GRADUATED FROM
MONTANA State University with degrees in English Literature and Asian
Cultural Studies. He speaks fluent Japanese and lives in Japan with his
wife and daughter. When he’s not commuting on the train or teaching
English, he spends his time reading, writing, blogging, and eating
sara-udon. He is the author of the popular zombie series Bitten: A
Resurrection Thriller, Bitten 2: Land of the Rising Dead, and the
upcoming Bitten 3: Kingdom of the Living Dead. He is editor of the
non-fiction collections Reason Against Blasphemy and Seasons of
Freethought, which collects together the freethought works of G.W. Foote
and Robert G. Ingersoll. You can learn more about the author or contact
him at: www.tristanvick.com<<BACK FORWARD>>
I love reading different renditions of "Little Red Riding Hood". Very nice.
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