The Journey

Gură-de-Lup

I’d almost fallen asleep, limbs heavy from the long trek to the train station and made even heavier by the stuffy warmth of the empty but small compartment. The sound of the old train, jarring at first, had become nothing more than a buzz as I found myself sinking deeper and deeper into the worn cushioning, one hand still grasping the small bag which held most of my possessions. I was alone. Strangely, most of the train seemed empty, making the journey, the empty halls and seats and even the wild nature among which the machine ran, feel like parts of a dream.

When the door of my lonely alcove slid open I started, despite my half-sleeping state. A flash of white light blinded my too suddenly opened eyes for a few seconds, time during which my heartbeat became deafening. I blinked away tears and light, a strange sort of anxiety clawing at my insides. It was something I don’t remember feeling before. It was something my rational mind could not grasp. When my eyes finally focused on the newcomer, I found myself face to face with a tall young woman, with skin darkened by the sun and dark, black eyes. She was looking at me searchingly, taking me in it seemed, like she was trying to figure out whether or not to slide the door back open and leave. For what seemed to me an eternity we stared at each other, her dark eyes burrowing into mine and her tall, long-limbed body propped awkwardly against the squeaking door. In the semi-obscurity of the booth, the deep blackness of her eyes seemed to shine, a dull, unnatural sort of glisten which made me wish she would leave, however my curiosity was practically begging for her to stay, to explain her unexpected appearance and strange behavior.

“Are you a tourist?”

Her voice broke the spell we had been trapped under. Unlike the rest of her, her voice was soft, warm, with a bizarre familiarity to it despite the very thick accent. Suddenly, the tiredness which had made me doze off before her coming returned and my body slumped back down, as if relieved from some unseen weight.

The young woman slowly maneuvered away from where she was grasping the door and, moving with an almost exaggerated care, sat across from me. It was like she was just now learning to walk on her very long legs, like a newly-born calf. I wanted to answer her question, even opened my mouth to do so only to find it dry and unwilling to make a sound. I coughed as silently as I could, glancing at the young woman to see if she was still waiting for me to respond.

“Not really,” I finally managed, looking at my cold, clammy hands. “I mean, I am not from here, obviously… but I am not- I mean I’m traveling for work.”

I chanced another glance at the stranger and froze. The air tightened around me and the spell struck once again. The stranger was smiling. Rather, she had arranged her expression in something which my rational mind recognized as a smile, squinting her eyes, scrunching up her nose and revealing her teeth, but something deep inside me, something I hadn’t even known still existed in the modern human made me want to leave the suddenly too small, too closed-off space and cry for help. It almost looked like the stranger only knew how to smile with her eyes and made use of the rest of her face only to make sure I got the message.

“What kind of work?” she spoke and, again, the spell was lifted.

I couldn’t help but blink confusedly, something that the stranger didn’t seem to register. She waited patiently for my answer, like she had said her piece and was not allowed to speak out of turn. A storm of questions had began forming in my mind, and it took quite a lot of effort to be able to reply to her simple question without launching a myriad of my own back at her.

“I collect local legends for my book. My name is… ”

“Have you heard of Gură-de-Lup?”

I paused. The unnatural nature of what was happening was crashing down on me hard, and my conscious mind was fighting hard to stop the primal feeling of wrongness to take over me. As if in a trance, I reached into my bag and pulled out the first notebook I could find, nodding no to the stranger as I did so.

Another smile and she began her story in a new voice, so hollow and distant that it seemed more like a tape which had been played too many times than a human voice.

“In small villages, forgotten by the world, you will find the children dancing in the dust of the streets, hands clasped together and voices soaring towards the skies. They sing until their throats are dry and their bodies collapse, to a moon that they cannot yet see but which reflects in their eyes until they become glassy and unseeing. They sing:

Gură-de-Lup, Gură-de-Lup,
Părinții ni-i iubim!
Gură-de-Lup, Gură-de-Lup,
Departe te dorim!

As the night descends upon the village, a shape appears on the horizon. It walks slowly into the village, surrounded by dust and a blistering, dry heat, under the pale face of the full moon. The children stare from their windows as the form slowly advances towards the heart of the village, as it is greeted by the adults like an old friend, as the dogs of the village break their chains and dig under their fences to join its pilgrimage. They take in the creature’s monstrous appearance, the black fur and black eyes which shine in the heavy air which surrounds it. The dogs howl and the men and women of the village shout their joyous greetings. The children stare, their still glassy eyes following its every move. As the very last house of the village disappears behind it, the creature turns and howls, a last goodbye to the dogs which only then will return to their homes. Only then will the villagers know that the drought season has passed for the year.”

As it began, the voice faded away. My wrist ached and my fingers had grasped the pen so tightly that I had to use my other hand to loosen them. I could only stare at the words I had written, not reading them, but taking in their shapes and rough lines in the darkness. The train had entered a tunnel.

The feeling of my hair standing on end was what finally made me tear my eyes from the written pages. In the pitch black darkness my eyes moved upwards, higher and higher, until the darkness became alive, shining dully as wisps of fur and eyes and teeth. I did not scream. My throat was as dry as tree bark and my eyes had streams of tears crowding at their corners. My hands grasped my notebook like an anchor. My eyes began stinging but I could not blink, I did not want to blink.

As the tunnel ended, the light which invaded the compartment was blinding. A rough, guttural shriek escaped my parched throat as my eyes were forced shut by my panicking body. I threw myself to one side, still hugging the notebook to my chest and fell off the seating in the process. The sound of heavy, unsure footsteps rang in my ears as I wiped the cascading tears from my eyes. Finally, I forced my eyelids open with my fingers.

I was alone. The summer sun shone from behind the train’s thick windows, revealing lush nature and a beautiful countryside. I fell back down on the floor, my breathing coming in short gasps, and ran my clammy hands through my tangled hair. I could feel my psyche already fighting against me, against reality, whispering into my ear that it had all been a dream, that things like this just don’t happen. I let my head thump against my seat and reached my hand towards the notebook which had escaped my terrible grasp, falling open to reveal shaky, scratchy writing and above, in big, boxy lettering, the name Gură-de-Lup.