Blackwell Unbound: The final entry

Here are Manifesto Games, we’re surrounded by so many talented writers that I forgot that most people are more happy to be readers that writers, which is OK except that I didn’t get as many ghost stories as I expected. This is the last entry in out Blackwell Unbound competition, but I think you’ll agree that it’s worth the wait. Enjoy it!

Morgan, Promotions Editor at Manifesto Games

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Ghostly Children
By Christian Schlager

Three years ago I had taken a small measly job in some sleepy run-down town near the Rhine. For the first few months I lived in an even smaller village a few miles down the river.

One evening, after leaving work at dusk, we went for a night out and therefore it was already dark when I got on my bike to drive home. Now that I think of it, it might have been midnight. The bikeway lead across the countryside and soon I had left behind me the somewhat comforting lights and street lamps. I was driving faster than usual, not entirely because I wanted to get home quickly. There was . . . something; an eerie darkness surrounded me. I started to sweat. No moon; only the mist from the river. I felt like jumping out of my skin. The only light provided by the bike's screaming dynamo. It was cold, colder even than a night in October should have been.

I was shivering.

A pair of small bare feet appeared in the tiny circle of lit street in front of me. Without thinking I jerked the bike around to avoid collision and went downhill towards a dark mass, which resolved into underwood. I grazed a tree, hit a fence and went down.

#####

My head was spinning.

What I heard when I regained consciousness turned my blood to ice. Have you ever met a horror that wiped all reason from your mind? A dozen voices, small high-pitched voices, not cheery or even frightened, but utterly abandoned and forlorn and far from sounding remotely human.. How can one describe these voices? Imagine a deep cave, but the cave has no end, it goes on forever, towards a place from where there is no return. And from that distance you hear these voices, but they are not in the distance, but closing in on you from all around.

With a murderous terror paralyzing my every thought I raised my head.

#####

They were . . . children. Despite the voices, despite their translucent appearance and haunted looks . . . children, standing in a circle around me. Through the fog still wrapped around my mind, slowly the realization trickled that they were asking me questions. "Where am I?" asked one of them closest to me. It shook me to my most inner core to hear the girl's innocence and helplessness in her whisper. They all came closer asking and asking, as if they were drawn to the heat my body was emanating. I looked down. I hadn't noticed how the girl touched my arm. She smiled a little, glowed and vanished. It didn't hurt, I wasn’t getting colder, but if anything calm. One after the other came close, touched me and vanished with the same faint smile.

After a while, I was standing alone below the trees, not frightened anymore, but utterly amazed.