I Remember, Once...

IV.

Somehow, I made the short distance, from the treeline to the narrow porch, without being detected. Whatever activity was going on inside, must have hidden my approach. I opted to use the three steps, near the door, rather than trying to climb over the short wooden railing. This seemed to be a much safer, quieter way, to get to a window or the door. Cautiously, I edged towards the nearest window. I slowly peered in, from a bottom corner. There were lanterns on either side of this small room, casting enough light to see within clearly. There was nothing of particular interest, in the room. An old chest of drawers, with an assortment of trinkets and an old sepia, resting atop of it. It depicted an old lady, wearing a simple dark-colored dress, that made her look almost Amish, with two young boys. One looked about eight, the other, was maybe, barely in his teens. Both were dressed in the same manner. Dark trousers, dark jackets, that looked like a workman’s coat, and round collared shirts, that were buttoned all the way to the collar. They did not seem to be dressed as a local would have. They seemed quite out of place, given the locale. Slowly, I edged my way along the porch, towards the other window. 

I was grateful that, despite the aged appearance of the planking, they were well-fitted and not at all loose. What I saw through that second window, surprised and horrified me. Two of my missing colleagues were sat at a table, eating what looked like a great feast. Except that everything on the table was a dessert, of some kind. There were cakes, sweet puddings, all manner of glazed fruits and bowls of trifles and things that I didn’t recognize. They were gorging themselves. The only time they stopped eating was to either take a drink, from some dirty looking decanter, or, (which they did several times while I watched), to vomit into the large, cauldron-like bowls by which they sat. It really was quite a disgusting scene. The looks on their faces were unusual, to say the least. They barely looked human, at all. Their expressions were more animalistic. Feral, may have been the best way to describe them.

As I watched this strange, debauched scene, somewhat reticently, my attention was drawn to the door on the far side of the room. My other two colleagues, came walking in. They no longer wore the warm clothing that I had last seen them in. Now, they were clad in some kind of tunic-like robes. They were a light brown, almost the color of wet sand, with some kind of symbols scrawled on the fronts. The symbols were not anything that I recognized.  They looked like they had been drawn on, with a stick of charcoal, or a dirty finger. Roughly daubed, yet bold. Almost in a completely opposite way, the expressions on their faces seemed almost blank. I say almost, as there was some kind of recognition, there. One of sadness. The look of someone who recognized what they were doing was wrong, yet could do nothing to fight it. They carried in more food, put it down on the table and left again. The two blackened figures and the raggedly dressed, crone-like being, just stood there. Observing what was going on.

Making my way to the rear of the building, was easier than I expected. Everybody in the building was transfixed on what was happening within. The first window that I came to, revealed nothing but a dark room, with no light, except for light leaking in from around the door frame. The shadows in that room were so dense, that they held on to any details within the room, as though they were secrets to be held close and kept hidden. As I crept past the wall, between the windows, a bright beam of moonlight, illuminated everything, in an almost unnatural way. It seemed unusual to me, that given the position of this building, surrounded by trees, that the moon would produce so much light. With this new light source, I was able to better see the building. To say that it looked ‘unusual’, would be an understatement. It was an odd reddish-brown color, but not like brick or, indeed, any kind of wood, that I was familiar with. There was also a distinct odor, that I had not noticed before, but I could not quite put my finger on what it was. Tentatively, I reached out to its surface. It felt quite peculiar. Certainly, it was unlike any building material that I was aware of.