Song and Silence

“Schaunt!” Nick hit his head against the top bunk.

“Yes sir?” Nick replied, peering over to see his sergeant standing in the doorway, glaring. He began massaging the soon to be bump on his head.

“You’re needed by the captain for a mission. Get moving, pronto,” the sergeant huffed and marched off.

Nick groaned and fell into his pillow again. He had been a member of the North city guard for nearly a year and he still couldn’t seem to get on the right foot with Sergeant Holmes. Still, he hadn’t really given it his best shot either.

He rolled out of bed, put on his uniform, and headed to the captains office.

Nick opened the door to four other guards standing before Captain Yorik’s desk in attention. The captain looked up from the file.

“Ah, Private Nick Schaunt. Glad you could join us. Please come in.” His voice sounded genuinely happy to see him, but Nick knew from experience it was a façade.

The other guards shifted down to make room for him. He recognized three of them from other battalions in the north guard, but the fourth was unfamiliar.

Captain Yorik cleared his throat.

“I’ll get straight to the point. The neighboring village of Greenkeep has a guard shortage. Additionally, the captain of the town guard has gone missing. The acting captain, Sergeant Willow, has requested supplemental aide from Farwharph. Privates Tully, Vant, Rhand, and Schaunt. I have selected you four to go as this supplemental aide. You will be tasked with guarding the town and investigating the Captain’s disappearance. Going with you will be this gentleman,” he gestured to the fifth guard. “This young man is Sergeant Silas Ern.

“It’s a pleasure to work with you all,” Sergeant Ern said earnestly.

“Yes, quite,” replied Captain Yorik. “He is a temporary transplant from the East city guard. He comes highly regarded for his work ethic and responsibility, and will be leading your team for this mission. Does anyone have any questions?”

No one said a word. Everyone knew they didn’t really get a say in this, so it was better just to go with it.

“No? Good. Pack your things and head out. You’re wanted at Greenkeep as soon as possible. Sergeant Ern will be sending reports to me, so do your best out there! I know you’ll make me proud.”

His voice was jolly, but his eyes were lethal. None of them really had a choice anyway.

Making their way from Farwarph to Greenkeep, Nick learned more about his teammates.

There was Craig Tully, who was living out his childhood guard fantasy; Yasir Vant, a thief-turned-guard, mostly to keep himself out of jail; and Quinton Rhand, a nobles son whose father thought the guard would be a good way to keep him humble.

Then there was the leader, Silas Ern. A friendly Sergeant – a rare breed in Nick’s experience – who was the guard poster boy for proper work ethic and good behavior; which Nick found exhausting.

They reached the village of Greenkeep around midday. It was a quiet town, which was odd considering it’s size. It wasn’t particularly large, but Nick should have been able to hear the bustle of day to day activities. Yet, there was hardly a sound to be heard outside the village.

As they walked through, Nick realized that there wasn’t just a lack of guards in town – there were hardly any people either.

While scanning the mostly empty shops in the market, Nick locked eyes with a food stand owner chopping up what looked to be fresh fish. The man snorted and spit to the side. Nick continued on, ignoring the rudeness.

“Doesn’t this seem a little too quiet?” Nick asked.

“I suppose so,” replied Silas, “But that’s why we’re here!”

He wasn’t bubbly, but he was too upbeat for Nick to be comfortable.

“According to what the Captain told me, the town guards office should be right this waaAAY—” Silas half-yelped as he fell face first into the dirt. He got up quickly, his face turning a light shade of rose.

“Who puts a pipe in the middle of—” There was no pipe. He decided to turn his gaze to Nick and the others instead.

Sighing, he opened his mouth, clearly about to scold us, but stopped. His gaze fixed behind them.

The look in his eyes grew into pure terror. Nick turned around to see what he was gaping at, but there wasn’t anything weird that he could see. He turned back to Silas, but his face had become misty and blank.

Nick thought he heard someone singing, but he couldn’t be sure.

Silas snapped out of whatever trance he was in and stared at Nick a moment before regaining his wits.

“As I was saying we should be getting to Sergeant Willow. I’m sure he’s wondering where we are by now,” and he began walking toward the guard office.

The hair on the back of Nick’s neck stood up as they followed Silas. He turned around, but saw nothing. He scanned the area, and noticed the food stand was abandoned, a knife stuck into a cutting board filled with fish. He was pretty sure it had been empty when they got here, so he shrugged it off and continued inside.

Acting Captain Sergeant Willow was friendly enough, but the poor guy looked stressed out of his mind. He was overjoyed see his reinforcements walk in, and almost immediately began debriefing.

Willow explained that Captain Arges had gone to investigate a nearby cave days ago and never returned.

“He said some rabid animal had taken up residence there and he wanted to take care of it before it hurt any townsfolk. I don’t know why he went alone. The man is deaf. A great warrior and fierce leader, but deaf. He never should have tried to track an animal alone." A sad look fell over Sergeant Willow's Face. "He looked so shaken when he left too. I’m...really worried.”

After some discussion it was decided the best course of action would be to go investigate the cave first.

As they finished up their business with Sergeant Willow, Nick’s stomach made an audible rumble. Everyone agreed food was in order before anything else.

They ordered sandwiches from a lone vendor in the market and sat next to a pear tree for shade while they ate.

A black squirrel leaped from another nearby tree and landed on a branch with the ripened fruit, which responded by shaking, but hanging tightly to its home on the branch. Nick chuckled and thought it was adorable. There weren’t many animals in the city, so it was nice to see some wildlife; even if it was just a squirrel.

It was probably hungry, Nick thought. He was about to tear off a piece of his sandwich when the squirrel froze.

It backed up on the branch and began chirping wildly, before leaping from the tree and sprinting off into a nearby alley.

“What d’ya reckon that was about?” remarked Yasir as he took a bite of his sandwich, “Squirrel crazies?” he waved his hands wildly as if to imitate a deranged squirrel.

Everyone chuckled.

After finishing up, they set off to the cave. It was a short trip into the surrounding forest, however, the closer they got, the quieter the woods became.

It set Nick on edge, but they had a job to do. They trudged forward into the yawning mouth of the entrance.

It was hard to tell how long they had been traversing the dark. Silas had lit a torch so they weren’t in total darkness, but it was still fairly confining. Nick had a sinking feeling, but couldn’t place why.

Eventually, the tunnel opened up into a larger space, too dark to see the other side. Silas began to lead them forward when everyone became very aware of a sound Nick swore hadn’t been there a second ago.

Crunching sounds echoed off the walls, broken occasionally by a sickeningly wet noise.

Then the smell hit. A putrid, rotten odor assaulted their senses, causing them to gag and cough involuntarily.

The crunching stopped. No growling, or claws against rock, or anything else followed. Just silence. Silas looked at Nick and the rest.

“P-Perhaps we should go back,” he whimpered.

He turned with his torch, only to be met by a large, pale white humanoid face.

It was as the size a small table, with hollow, sunken black eyes, its elongated face erupting into sharp and bloodied teeth. From its gaping mouth, a long black tongue draped down to the cave floor.

Before we could even react, it turned sideways and bit across Silas’ body, yanking him backwards into the dark, causing him to drop the torch to the ground.

The pure gut wrenching screams were awful as more wet crunching filled the air.

Three other heads appeared in the dim torch light, each as horrifying as the first. The others drew their guard-issued swords, and Nick unfroze and followed suit.

All at once, the heads struck.

Two grabbed Craig and Quentin before they could try anything. They yelled and screamed as they tried to stab the thing attempting to eat them alive.

Yasir had faster reflexes. He dodged and parried a strike against the head. Seeing it from the side, Nick noticed the monstrous face was attached to a long grey-scaled neck. He didn’t want to know where it connected to.

The head, shaking off the blow struck again, too quickly for Yasir to adjust. It pinned him to the wall as he blocked with his sword.

Nick reacted. He struck its neck, causing it to screech and swing, releasing Yasir and throwing Nick against the wall, where he hit his head hard. He saw spots and his hearing became muffled from the blow.

The head hissed and turned its attention to the person who stabbed it. Nick thought for sure this was the end. The head coiled back and struck towards him, but Yasir jumped in front just in time for its jaws to clamp around the upper half of Yasir’s body. His muffled screams joined the crunching and squelching as he was dragged into the dark.

Nick ran. He didn’t even bother going for the torch. He just ran. Dizzy, and running into several walls, he worked his way through the tunnels back to the surface.

As he exited the cave, he felt his hearing beginning to return. With it, he noticed the discordant harmony of singing coming from the cave behind him.

His stomach dropped as he was filled with a sense of dread and realization. He struggled to fight it. Clamping his hands to his ears, he ran towards town. What he found there, nearly made him vomit.

Destroyed houses, and other atrocities Nick didn’t want to think about covered the area. Yet people walked around as through it weren’t there. They looked at him, as he stared in abject horror with his hands over his ears, as if he was the crazy one. He made his way through the streets, observing the carnage to which he had previously been blind.

He let his hands fall from his ears slowly in disbelief. The singing was growing louder, and he didn’t want to fight the fuzziness that had been creeping at the edges of his mind. He didn't want to know the horrible truth behind the towns lack of guards and citizens. He didn’t want to see all of this.

He headed straight for the guards building. Sergeant Willow jumped to his feet when Nick entered the room.

“Are you okay? You look hurt. What happened? Were you able to deal with the animal?”

Nick stared at him, shell shocked.

“No, and we didn’t find your captain either. But, the others…” Nick mumbled, his head was getting fuzzier as the music grew louder.

“Captain?” Captain Willow gave Nick a confused look. “I’ve always been the captain at Greenkeep. And what others? You came here alone.”

Nick stared at him blankly as a shadow passed over the windows.

“I can’t remember.”