Vermiform, Ch1: Kirchstein
After eight hours of hiking into the Swiss Alps, Rhodes was exhausted and excited. A week before, Rhodes made plans to meet with his old friend Silvio, who he hadn't seen in twelve years. They were to meet in a remote mountain pass, at the intersection of two alpine wanderwegs to swap stories and make up for lost time -- far away from the distractions of modern civilization. Despite their years apart, they still knew each other well and knew to accommodate each other's travel and hiking needs. Now, after so long with such infrequent emails between them, Rhodes couldn't wait to meet again. Silvio was an inspiration.
Like Rhodes, Silvio was an avid explorer of alpine trails. But to Silvio Morel, the term "hiker" was insufficient. Silvio insisted on being referred to as a mountaineer, and he was damn right to do so. While Rhodes spent his days walking ibex trails and relaxing in quaint little B&Bs, Silvio dared to scramble along rain-slick cliffsides and cut across ruthless glaciers scarred by time. Rhodes was a hiking enthusiast; Silvio was an adventurer.
It was hard to believe, then, that Silvio didn't make it. Rhodes, unsurprisingly, had been delayed six hours after the taxi-van to the trailheads broke down; it was a refreshing bout of luck that one of the hikers onboard was a mechanic in her day-to-day. But Silvio Morel did not accept delays. This wasn't merely a principle the man lived up to -- it was simple fact. When Silvio and Rhodes discussed their plans over the phone (giggling with excitement, like children preparing a secret expedition into the pines beyond the back garden), it was obvious and accepted that Rhodes was the only liability in their scheduled timeline. Silvio would reach the trailhead on-time, and he would be in Wellenberg smoking his pipe (his customary reward at journey's end) exactly when he meant to be. Silvio Morel had never been late in his life.
When Rhodes arrived in the tiny mountain village of Wellenbergerdorf and learned he was the first to arrive at the Kirchstein Inn, it was hard to believe. Actually, it was downright baffling. Rhodes, rust-red hair plastered to a creased brow, heart still racing with floundering excitement, stared at the hollow-chested armchairs in Frau Kirchstein's living room with a confusion of emotions playing in time-lapse across his face. Frau Kirchstein, unperturbed, smiled kindly and started unclipping his backpack. She attempted to pacify Rhodes with gentle platitudes. In her accent and cadence, they sounded like clumsy readings from a phrasebook.
"No reason to be alarmed, Mr Rhodes. I am sure your friend will be here tomorrow. He is slowed by the long cliffs, he is setting camp for tonight. That is a smart choice. It is now too dark to climb the pass."
Rhodes was barely listening, but Frau Kirchstein's reassurances would have done him no good anyway. Rhodes allowed his body to--slowly, mechanically--unburden itself of its hiking regalia with the Frau's assistance, while his mind darted from scene to scene in systematic panic. Silvio's journeys could not be delayed. That was out of the question. He must have been halted entirely. In a narrow ravine; legs trapped by ridges of biting slate. On a barren slope; ribs crushed under a tonne of rockfall. Torn ragged; the victim of a bear encounter impossible to anticipate. Rhodes continued to imagine further, less dignified fates as he slumped into one of the cavernous armchairs by the landlady's soot-scorched hearth. Exhaustion heightened his despair -- but stifled its expression. He looked back forlornly at his coat and boots, left by Frau Kirchstein's front door. They slumped wearily in response, offering no pretense of hope.
"Listen to me, Mr Rhodes. It is getting dark. You can-not now go out to find your Mr Morel. Take a bath. Rest for tonight. Mr Morel will arrive tomorrow. I am sure he knows how to be safe in these mountains."
Rhodes dragged his gaze from the broad black door to meet Frau Kirchstein's face. The flint-eyed mountain woman watched him intensely, massaging his calloused hands in a practiced ritual of comfort. Rhodes was not the first to lose someone in these mountains, and neither was he the first to receive this innkeeper's stone-faced sympathy for it. Discovering this in the innkeeper's eyes, Rhodes exhaled slowly, forcing out some of the stress that was filling his chest like oil. Painfully, he relented.
He didn't bother warming the bathwater, beyond what was necessary to avoid shivering. He didn't bother unpacking any clothes, or writing in his journal, or taking photos of his room to post online later. Rhodes couldn't enjoy the journey's end with his usual routine while Silvio was out there struggling to survive. Naked, wind-burned, and knotted with tension, Rhodes hauled himself onto his bed. He knew he was too wound up to get any sleep. He was asleep in seconds.
He is awake again. Not by chance; something has woken him, but the disturbance is unclear, and his mind is hazy. After a slow moment of recollection, despair nestles back into his belly, and stress begins seeping into his lungs again. A flash of light makes him cringe, and the ensuing rumble calls attention to the pattering of white noise on the window panes. Ah; this is what woke him. A part of him frets for his friend, while another acknowledges the grim truth that he can do nothing in this weather. A third part, more subtle but no less keen, listens for the faint groan of floorboards in the corridor, for the recurrence of the real noise that stirred him out of sleep.
Here it comes again, that sound of heavy feet burdening the floor. And Rhodes, shifting softly on woollen bedding, freezes. For moments that stretch long over the rainstorm static, he is a pinned moth. Listening. Hoping. Dreading. Then there is the scrape of backpack bulk against those same floorboards, the clickunk of an old door opening-closing. The door to the guest room opposite Rhodes. The door to Silvio's room.
Nauseous with expectation, Rhodes pulls the rumpled wool around himself and crawls to his feet. He moves soundless to the door, his movements muffled by the incessant downpour. Why he moves with such caution, Rhodes does not consciously know. That same subtle part of his mind knows, it fears, but the brain is weary and Rhodes is desperate to see his old friend's tired, drenched, embarrassed grin.
Only a second's hesitation at the door, then he pulls apart the threshold between shelter and terror.
It is Silvio's algae-red backpack bulging on the floor, but it is not a mountaineer's hands sliding it back towards the stair. They are merely the suggestion of hands (stub-fingered and clawed), the imitation of limbs (bent and reptilian), the hunched mockery of a torso (encased in calcified black jags). That squat creature lurking in the dark does not belong here; does not belong in a quaint mountain inn; does not belong in the natural order of things. It is utterly wrong.
"What the f-fuck," sputters Rhodes, "What the-- whatthefuck is that?"
Rhodes stumbles back, grasping at the walls for stability and reason and failing to find purchase. He falls back, tripped mercilessly by a slipper or doorstop meant to enhance the convenience and comfort of his stay. Flailing as if the floor were polish-slick, Rhodes shoves himself back into the bedframe and clutches at the quilt, the pastoral normalcy of its colours promising false asylum. The caliginous creature remains unmoving, glaring from obscurity like a delusion of sleep paralysis. Then another lightning flash, and the stark revelation of grotesque lunging features is burned into Rhodes's horror-white eyes. Thunder drowns his scream.
All sound cuts at the slam of the bedroom door. Rhodes, mouth gaping fish-like, darts his eyes about the room in a hopeless search of the sudden dark. Minutes pass before his senses uncoil enough to register the soft patter of rain again. In a shocked stupor, Rhodes slides himself back into bed and refuses to think about what he witnessed. Whatever he saw--whatever it is Rhodes thinks he saw--he is psychologically ill-equipped to handle it tonight. Soon the window-patter hushes his brain and sends him back to shuddering sleep. Rain drums gently against the walls, the night oblivious to this nightmare.