The Man Without Age

There is a man, some say, who never grows old and who was never young.

He lives all alone at the end of a road that no path can lead to or no carriage will go. And nothing planted within that land grows except that which hosts poison and thorn.

There is a man that can only be seen in shadows, who takes on all the forms of the night. It is thought that he can steal your soul and bend you to his will. For, there is a man in Terra who is not a man at all.

He is thought to exist only in superstitions, but I’ve seen him in the flesh.

I had seen him about the shadows and other voids of light in the fleeting hours of the night. I had taken on returning home by foot as no carriage ran and no decent folk would be out at that time, save for me. Though I was in no condition that would merit one to regard me as such, my purpose for being out among the shadows and voids of such a night remains a mystery. Even to me. Regardless, this is not an attempt to rationalize my nocturnal wanderings. It is, however, a testimony to my deductions of who this man really is. Should you choose to believe me.

The storyteller poured another shot of whiskey and gauged his audience: Three men sitting at the table around him.

At first I thought that what I saw was but an illusion, something created in my mind by a prolonged episode of insomnia. You see I don’t sleep like other men do. I never have. Like a soldier at war, I always sleep with one eye open in a paranoid, watchful state, as if to be ready for my enemy to descend upon me at any given moment. And so it was with that same watchful eye I observed a hideous act of depravity. This thing, which moved among the shadows at the home down that road was but of little more substance and form than the shadows that concealed him. He resembled that of a circus oddity, a carnival freak. He had an immense growth, which protruded from his neck and collected in a massive bulge upon his back. In frightful response I clothed myself in nearby shadows not unlike the ones he moved amongst. And from the safety of my refuge, I observed this being in all his blasphemous form grunt and groan in protest of the weight of his affliction. But as he crossed lit pathways between shadows I realized that what I initially perceived as a growth of immense hideousness was actually a woven sack swollen with something as of yet unidentifiable. Fixated on it, my imagination calculated all sorts of possible explanations for what inside that sack would be of interest to one of such a frightening repute. And in that observation I saw something that caused me to gasp in surprise and nearly give my location away.

Something in that sack moved!

Could it be? Was there something indeed alive in there? Was it man? Beast? Woman? I had heard of such legends of horrifying men and beasts stealing virgins in the night or children from right under their mother’s nose for some ungodly pagan sacrifice. Such monstrosities I’d always thought to be fiction now seemed to be fact as I had not only observed the contents of the sack move, but also be thrown down onto the cold, cracked earth by its captor.

Again my horror was realized and my fears reaffirmed as he proceeded to pick up what I believed to be a spade and began to break the earth with it. The sound seemed so loud as he tore into the soil that I swear the Devil himself could’ve heard it from the very depths of hell and come up to assist him. But the Devil couldn’t have dug faster, as before I knew it the hole was dug and, with another thud that woven sack disappeared from sight within it. I then observed that thing fill up the hole, much slower than he had created it, and compact the freshly disturbed earth with the flat of his spade.

It seemed like hours before I emerged that I vacated the scene of the unbelievable atrocity that I had witnessed. I had to be sure he had retired within his dwelling. Lest I serve to fill any other holes he had made ready.

The storyteller then motioned for another shot and asked for the bottle itself accompanied by a shot glass for each member of his audience. He poured each of them one, as any accommodating host would.

They listened intently to a story they knew not the conclusion of. For, any gossip, especially of the person at hand, was always of great interest to any man or woman of Terra.

The next two evenings I devoted to learning this creature’s patterns. I noted the time he left and the time he returned. It was almost too convenient that he was a beast of strict routine, just as superstitions and rumors of Terra had said. On the third evening I made it my duty to swallow my fears. I brought with me a spade and lantern, which I concealed within my cloak as I awaited his departure. He came out in his usual manner, exiting the front door and walking as if floating down through the dense brambles of a path he had no doubt cut by its own tread. When I was sure he was fully away, I quickly approached the spot where I was certain to find what he had concealed not a week before. I started digging. With every spade-load of dirt my heart beat faster and my grip grew weaker. The approaching gruesome discovery my eyes were coming ever closer to envision what took over my imagination and pushed my fears to heights they had yet to comprehend. What I was sure was a shallow grave was now growing ever deeper and darker as the dusk transcended into darkness, commanding the use of my lantern. And as the night settled in, the hole, which now approached a good three feet, seemed to yawn as the light of the lantern danced and flickered in response to a growing breeze. A great mouth, as if agape in a horrifying grimace, waited to swallow me if I were to lose my balance and fall in. But I didn’t. Instead, I dug for but an hour and two feet more. In being sure I had surpassed anything that had been buried there, I decided to surrender and conceal any evidence of my trespass. Frustrated with the possibility that my calculations had me digging in the wrong place, I went home and reformulated just what my next method of action might be. I decided that there was but one thing I could do.

“And what would that be?” A member of the storyteller’s audience raised an eyebrow.

“To wait. Wait to see what else he would bury,” the storyteller spoke as he leaned in towards the intrigued men.

And that’s just what I did. I settled at my station at approximately the time he was scheduled to return. Every night I sat and watched him arrive with nothing upon his back but his cloak. That is, until that day I had first observed that ghastly burial come around in a new week. You see, in my insomnia I also have random onsets of sleep much like one suffering from narcolepsy. I never fully fall asleep, but I also have no control of when this sleep comes. Though I have devised many methods to stay awake in times where my awareness is needed, I had neglected to realize or acknowledge them as of late. Thus, I had fallen asleep at my post and awakened only in response to the scraping of a spade upon the earth. The thing was back and I had missed his approach. I hadn’t seen what he had rested upon his back; if he indeed had anything on his back like the time before. Therefore, I could only assume he had. But since I had been in a deep state of slumber, I did not know for sure. There was only one thing I could do. I had to dig up that hole and find out what exactly was down there.

The storyteller stopped to sip his whiskey.

“Well,” one of the men interrupted, “what was down there?”

“Well, it was dark and I had to dig with my hands.” The storyteller went on.

Since the dirt was fresh and darker in color, it was easy to spot. So I dug and dug with my hands until they were black as the night that concealed me. The earth was terribly cold, even for the brisk autumn night. It was as cold as fresh clay – or worse. I dug but minutes more before my hand struck something not native to the soil that lay at my feet. It felt course, just like the woven sack that I had unsuccessfully searched for but a few nights before. I prodded around in that hole with blackened fingers, yet, I could see nothing but a foot in front of me and still nothing short of an inch within that yawning mouth of open dirt. Now, only textures of what I stroked and prodded painted pictures of that which lay in front of me. I was certain that what I currently felt was indeed that same woven sack that I had seen thrown into another hole before. Then, as I nearly completed my analysis of the mass I had exposed, I came upon something frayed. A hole in the sack!

As I established its perimeter, I slowly placed my fingers on what lay inside. It was soft and smooth and seemed to stretch as I poked and ran my fingers along this curious surface. Then, I felt something small and round attached to the soft, smooth matter that lay inside the sack. My fingers wrapped around it. As my mind began to decipher what I had just came upon, I could hear my breathing grow strong and loud.

For a moment I held my breath. I then realized that it wasn’t all me. Someone else was breathing. Somebody else was there! And in a desperation befitting a madman, I ran as if I was being chased by something manifested in my worst nightmares and, in that process, I tore from that thing inside the sack what had been attached to it.

“Wha-what did you tear from what was inside that sack?” All three men now leaned in toward the storyteller.

“This,” the storyteller replied.

Their eyes grew wide as saucers, watching obsessively as the storyteller took from his pocket something that horrified them all equally.

There lay atop of the table a broken pearl necklace. The three just stared at it, considering for that moment that all the rumors and superstitions surrounding this thing, this monster that lives where no path leads to and no carriage will go might be true. Could it also be that every strange and otherworldly event in the village of Terra might be attributed to this thing? For the night itself has been said to occasionally take those unfortunate enough to be out amongst the darkest of it, seemingly swallowed, soul and all, by shadows where no light of moon nor flame of lantern can be cast. And as the men considered this they turned their sights upwards to where the storyteller sat. But he was gone; vanished, without stirring up even the slightest of sounds.

It was this story alone, aided by the very evidence donated to the authorities by the three men that stirred up such a rage amongst the residents of Terra. So much so that the whole village gathered by light of day to awaken and condemn this monster while it slept. With courage and scorn, those hungry for vengeance and thirsty for justice broke the boundaries drawn by a century of superstitions and descended upon the house where no path leads to and no carriage goes. Gnashing teeth and steel, they tore through the door and into that monolith to evil. But by flame of torch and lantern and light of day there revealed an empty dwelling. Every chamber within housed but a century of dust and weathered pine. And in all that time, little more had lived there but insects and ghosts.

Fearing some overlooked nook, passage, or chamber in which the monster slumbered, the villagers decided to burn the house to the ground. And as it burned, they all surrounded it until it belted and broke under its own weight.

But in the embers they found not a charred frame of man or beast. And in the ground they found little more than ribbons of what one could only guess would belong to that of the woven sacks the storyteller had told the three men he saw. For there were no strands of pearl or remains, as they had feared, found within the earth that surrounded the house.

And since the day three men sat with the stranger to hear such a story of terror and mystery, the storyteller has not since been seen again in the village of Terra. And neither has, for that matter, the man without age.

END