The Irish in the Snow (GTG)

Tancrède Bouglé

Description

A short piece for a gaming company set in a uchronic 19th century america. Here I tried to push the mystical aspect and the fear felt by immigrants in an unknown land. Tried to go for a lovecraftian/survival horror.

Informations

• Publié par: tanc_b
• Publié le: 20 décembre 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 27
• Licence : En savoir +
  Paternité, pas d'utilisation commerciale, partage des conditions initiales à l'identique
• Langue: English

Extrait

The snow had been falling for months now on the half dead trees, covering everything with a thick white coat like dust on a tomb, sending blue shades over the frozen trunks and smothering every sound. Deep into the woods, nothing could be heard but the flapping wings of a lonely crow, the crackling of a fire and the low chatter of the three men around it.

« Pess' me de bottles Mikey, eh'm fehling teh cold 'round ere. » said a thick mass of leather with an even thicker Irish accent. « We're almost ou', we shoul' have bough' som'more. » replied Mikey, a much younger voice whose last spark of brashness refused to die despite the freezing cold. -O' brought mor' f'om the boat. -Oh thot swee dehlight of the Donegal whiskey, at least we we'en' freezin' our arses. -Bot we hod nothin' to eat. -Yertalkin'nonsensePaddy,it'snotlekwehhav'mechmore'ere! -Dat's true dat's true. »

Mikey, the young one slowly unfolded his arm to check on the third man, an old white and grey beard covered by a hood. His tatooed hands felt cold to the young Irish. A crow came fromm the low white clouds and landed on the tree next to the first one, a short croak resonating for any seconds between the empty trees. « Is e' moven ? 'E ain't dead ? » The old beard had been sitting like that, not moving an inch under his brown cape. No fog was coing frm his rough lips, lost among the hair and the countless wrinkles that seemed to form the map to a forgotten land, forsaken in time unknown. Mikey could have sworn the old roots surrounding the elder in an intricate circle were not there before, as if they had just grown in the last hours but what did he know ? He was cold and hungry and these woods didn't feel right. « Shan't we woke 'im op o' someding ? » he asked again. Snow fell from a branch nearby in a dull thud. « Neh, ye know 'is kend, net liek us. Fo' all ye know 'e was a lad o' teh 'igh kings o ' someding. Don' worreh 'bout thet Mikey, 'e's mech better dreamin' then 'ere in teh cold... » A third and a fourth crow came to join the first ones. The old man mumbled something. Even though he didn't understand, Mikey didn't feel comfortable, these woods didn't feel right at all. « Wot did he say ? Yo kno' I don' understand his kind. » he said with a hint of defiant

shame. « Whet de I know, that bitey wend is chewen' meh hears, can berely 'ear yeh. Eh, damn shame yeh didn't learn the old ways. » A bitter wind had risen, throwing whirlwinds of snow in the frozen air. The young emigrant couldn't help but stare at them as they took shapes and disappeared immediately. « Eh should heve taught yeh teh ol' werds when yeh came to meh but yeh had spent teh mech time on teh roads. It's a damn shame for any son of Eir net teh know hes own language. » Paddy said bitterly. « Wasn' my fault my village wos borned. » he grumbled. « Eh know, Mikey, eh know, yeh know em not sayin' dat. » Paddy apologised.

Mikey knew he wasn't to blame : the English had come and burned his land, evicting his family when they wouldn't pay to stay in their village. The village's priest with his beard and his tatooed face had been sent off far away, the cairns destroyed and his people forced to give up the old ways. He knew the words back then but he had forgotten, his family killed when they wouldn't give up the old ways, the way of the rocks and the rivers, of the little people and the old gods.

Nothing remained, only the elders remembered the myths, covered by a christian faith and colported by the last preachers. They went by the forests and the lakes, by the hills and the valleys, speaking the old tales about forces greater and more powerful than the invaders.

« C'm'ere boy, 'm'ere. » He opened his arms to welcome his nephew and share the warmth. Reluctantly, Mikey stood and started walking past the fire when he shrieked in surprise and fear.

« Wet is it boy ? Wet did yeh see ? -I don' kno', I, I think I saw a face in the wind but that must hav' ben my mind. I don' kno'. -Better be careful den, these 'ere woods dun' feel reght teh meh either te be honest. Semthing chelling and it ain't teh wind. »

Paddy didn't want to admit it to Mikey but he had seen, he didn't know exactly what he had seen. Blue silhouettes walking between trees at night fall but there was no footsteps to track them. There were sounds haunting his dreams, nightmare coming again and again. Once when he was scooting for a place to spend the night he had seen bones in the snow

down from one of the biggest tree he'd ever seen, fresh bones, the meat starting to rot in a poodle of frozen blood. These weren't bones from animals, he had seen his share when he buried the corpses of everyone he knew, before he took that boat and came here. He recognised the bones and they didn't come from any animal God above allowed any good christian to hunt. He came back the morning and the bones were gone, a few tracks going around them and disappearing without going anywhere, anywhere but the tree. He came back to the back, didn't tell anyone about it and had barely slept since. More crows were coming, the branches heavy with them now. One started to croak. A second followed, then a third and a fourth. The old man became agitated. He opened his eyes and straightened up.

« Na préacháin. »

« Wot did he say ? » 

« Ní dhéanann na préacháin ag iarraidh orainn anseo ! » blue piercing eyes going from left to right but going beyond, beyond the trees and beyond reality, his deep voice like a earthquake in the morning, shaking the mist from millenial trees but still barel overcoming the infernal croaking of the murder of crows flying above.

« Eh don' understand wot he says ! Wot's going on ? » screamed Mikey.

« Fader, whet's going on ? » asked Paddy equally agitated.

The old beard turned his face deformed by age and a rumbling voice resonated in Mikey's mind.

« Run. »

And they fled, running and tripping in the snow as the crows flew away after them, cackling and croaking again and again, driving them to madness and conjuring unreal images in their mind as the snow was taking shapes, more and more precise at each minute, burning eyes and fiery mouths appearing for a second and being blown away in a loud whisper.

The crows started picking at them, biting whatever skin was discovered as they kept on running, led by the old beard, barely hesitating as to the direction to take.

The croaking, again and again.

CROAK CROAK

The shapes whirling around them like reflection on a molten metal in the freezing air of the forest.

CROAK CROAK

Mikey tripped on a hidden root, falling face first in the snow. Paddy stopped as the crows gathered around them, forming a black cloud of beeks, wings and blood dripping from their feathers, covering the white snow in a fog of red, croaking and biting again and again.

« We are not far. » boomed the voice aagain, urging him to get up.

« I can't ! » he yelled, pinned down by the crows, Paddy trying to help him, shielding him.

CROAK CROAK

Whispers filling their hears, bringing words of despair and cold, words they couldn't possibly understand but whose meaning was oh so clear.

« Ye can get up ! Eh won let us die en 'ere son ! » '

Mikey managed to free his foot tangled in the root and they started running again, running until they reached a clearing. The crows stayed at the edge of the forest, leaving an eerie sense of calm beyond the trail of blood they left.

The shapes in the snow got on the branches, surrounding them but not advancing past the edge. They seemed like men, overly skinny and with weird long arms.

Catching his breath, Mikey turned to the center of the clearing. There was one of the

biggest tree he'd seen, a massive oak tree in the middle of the pine forest, strong and green despite the biting cold. Its roots the size of a grown man each, many knots and twists the size of a head.

There was no snow under the green branches and it was even warm, as if it took energy from the center of the earth, from the heart of the land.

« It looks like one of dee trees back home. » whispered the young Irish, astonished by the incredible sight.

The old man was kneeling in front of it, one hand on the powerful trunk.

« Fader, is thet whet eh' think et is ? » asked Paddy.

He nodded.

« Thet son is a very eld tree, breght 'ere by old kings and druids. This, son, is the mark of the Eir.

The wrinkled tatoos on the old beard's hand seemed to glow, the taterred blue taking the color of its eyes. One by one, the crows seemed to stop croaking.

« Are we safe no' ? -Seems liek et'. 'E has powers thes one, mightey powers. Might keep 'em at bay fer a while. »

And so it seemed. They bathed in the calmness of the place, warm like a new Spring. Mikey swore he could even hear birds but that may only have been wishful thinking.

It was so peaceful.

Until Paddy screamed in terror before finishing in a gargling. Mikey turned quickly, to see him on the floor, a second mouth opened on his neck, putting flowers of blood on the warm ground. A native, fire in his eyes looked at Mikey with the smile of a predator and rushed to him. Surprised, he tried to walk backwards and fell again.

More flowers on the ground.

The old beard went out of his trance as the native was running, weapon in hand before being stopped abruptly by roots growing around his legs, strangling them. The shapes started advancing again from the edge of the forest and the first snowflakes fell on the ground.

His tatoos glowed bright for a second, pushing the shapes back as the warrior's neck snapped like a dry branch.

The tree opened its trunk and the old beard fled to it, sitting in its warm embrace, his blue eyes the color of the skies of Ireland scanning the clearing.

Suddenly he started to feel uncomfortable. Around him, the trunk started to tighten and tighten.

« That's impossible! » he thought but a few seconds later he was trapped.

A native came before him, a crown of feathers around his head.

« You impudent, do you think you can kill me like that ? I have lived for thousand of years, I have planted countless trees and I have seen kings rise and fall, empires disappear into dust when I was walking by the roads and the rivers. I have seen lakes dry and mountains crumble as I was keeping the fire of the gods warm and you think you can get me like... »

He was crushed by the tree he thought would protect him before he could finish. The tree withered and the grass froze.

The native took a knife and cut his beard, throwing it on the ground and stomping it.

« You don't understand you fool. This is our land, and we're taking it back ! »

