Friday Fiction: The GM Strikes Back

As part of an event that we’re doing over at the WFR boards, I get to GM-style some stuff for folks. Enter Yva’s Ghost Parade. Below is the first of the stories written. Many more are to come!

*****

Beltar

It begins as a creaking in the corner of the room.

There’s a chair there, a rickety one ideal for draping abandoned clothes and personal effects when you’re too tired to put anything away but can’t quite stomach the idea of just tossing them onto the floor. This is one of those nights – the moon is fat and bright outside, bright enough to make the stars seem nonexistent in that ebon sky. As pretty as she is, she doesn’t hold your attention long. Body weary, eyes threatening to droop closed, you find your room, dropping your leathers onto that chair and climbing beneath the heavy dwarven blankets. The oil lamp winks out with a slight turn of your stubby fingers. Your head sinks into your pillow, and you feel the deep haze of sleep already encroaching – a welcome friend for a battered and bruised older man who wants nothing more than to forget these past few weeks.

At just past midnight, the squealing begins. It’s like the turning of unoiled gears, except it’s slow and rhythmic, and very very close.

Squeaaaaaak thud.
Squeaaaaaak thud.
Squeaaaaaak thud.
Squeaaaaaak thud.

Quiet at first, it grows louder, loud enough to tear you from your dreams, and you lift your head, your fists rubbing at your eyes to clear them of sand and fatigue. You peer around, taking a moment to figure out that the sound is coming from the corner with the chair. Your pupils dilate as they adjust to the darkness. The mess of your clothes have created a misshapen pile of shadows, eerie to behold when combined wit . . .

Squeaaaaaak thud.
Squeaaaaaak thud.

It speeds up. Much to your dismay, it looks like something is moving there in the darkness, in that heap of clothes and wood. You force yourself up onto your elbow with a groan and turn your lantern back on, cringing as the light strikes your face. As soon as the room’s darkness is thrust away, the sound stops. The chair is . . . just a chair. The clothes are simply lumped there as you left them.

All is well.

Despite your rationalizations, the hairs on the back of your neck are standing on end.

*****

Night two comes. Once again you find your bed, once again the lantern winks out, once again you drift into dreams, abandoning the hardships of the day. It was easy to chalk the evening before up to circumstance, to overtired ramblings and the workings of an exhausted mind. It does not change the fact that this night, you put your clothes elsewhere – on the bureau – as to not create the same unnerving illusions.

The squealing begins at just past midnight, but instead of starting slow and building in intensity as it did before, it starts hard and fast, waking you much sooner. You tear your head up, once again ripped from the sanctuary of your dreams. There’s a coldness on the air now, and the faint smell of mildew.

Squeaaaaaak thud.
~Whisper~
Squeaaaaaak thud.
Squeaaaaaak thud.

It sounds like someone talking below their breath, but the rhythmic pounding on the floorboards makes it hard to discern the words. Your eyes make out that same misshapen form in the chair – what you thought were clothes before, but know now it’s something else altogether. Your belly clenches into a knot.

Squeaaaaaak thud.
~Whisper~
Squeaaaaaak thud.
Squeaaaaaak thud.
Click. Click click click.

A new sound now, the addition of a slightly metallic click to the droning whispers, the squealing gears. You watch in horror as the shape in the chair starts teetering, rocking back and forth in time with the squeaks and thuds, almost like . . . a rocking chair? You lift your hand, about to turn the lantern on, and you hear a distinct cackle as the rocking chair goes faster, and faster, and that clicking sounds maddening

The light is on, the shadows are thrust away, and all you see is a still chair in a corner.

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