The Tworkal

The night was a stifling shadow, encompassing every living thing in a cloying gloom. Even the creatures used to rustling through the darkness perceived an unknown threat, sniffing the air often and treading cautiously, mindful of a new danger darker and more sinister than the usual predators.

The day creatures hidden in burrows, nooks and nests lay awake, as far from the entrances of their lairs as they could squeeze their trembling bodies. The owls and bats did not hunt, terrified by a dank aroma not borne on the wind but carried as a subtle, menacing essence. Nothing moved and the unnatural stillness was pregnant with a sense of entrapment.

The Tworkal crept and slithered almost undetectably, creeping and tasting the air with its pronged tongue. The Tworkal sought food and it’s food was fear. So dreadful were the Tworkal’s psychic emanations, that its victims died without even being touched, all their precious lifeforce used up as terror and sucked from the very air by the trumpet like protuberances it directed at each hapless target.

No living thing was too large or too small; the tiniest one celled creatures shuddered and became still just as large, warm-blooded animals did. The Tworkal consumed all the life force it could reach with its painfully slow, creeping, undulating, slimy slither.

Jed awoke from his nightmare with a start, drenched in sweat. He briefly recalled the horror and disgust the terrible thing in his dreams had engendered in his psyche. Even when the memories had dissipated, a nasty, bitter choking feeling remained, like the taste of poison in the mouth of a dying victim.

Jed flung the damp, heavy bedclothes aside, ruffling the thick, oppressive air and staggered in the darkness to the jug and basin on his walnut dresser. He tripped and almost fell over his slippers. He felt for the matches, fumbled one alight and was almost blinded by the brief flare of phosphorus. He used the light to locate the thick yellow candle on the corner of the dresser, gnarled with all the wax that had run down and fanned out over glass holder and onto the walnut surface. The veins and rivulets of wax, seemed to pulsate like the straining limbs of a heavy worker in the flicker of the flame as it moved from matchstick to black, frayed wick.

Now the room danced in the candlelight, the edges vague and gloomy as the wick fizzled and sputtered to life. Shadows jumped and dance across the walls. Jed poured a noisy trickle of water into the old ceramic basin, riddled with crack lines. The faint tone of the basins inverted bell chuckled, shifting pitch as the water altered its resonant frequency up in pitch. Jed splashed water onto his face, but it failed to freshen or reduce the cloying murk that pervaded the musty atmosphere.

As Jed dried his face with a slightly damp flannel hung on a rusting iron hook above the basin, a distinct cracking sound came from outside, stopping him dead in his tracks. The silence boomed in his ears as he listened intently. His increasing heartbeat accelerated further as a horrible realisation came to him.

The dogs are silent. A sound loud enough to be heard through the thick, leaded windows, should have triggered a rabble of barking and howling sufficient to raise the dead. Jed stood silent, listening as hard a he could but, nothing could be heard. No owls hooting, no wind blowing, no background noise from the woods, nothing.

Jed took a deep breath and tiptoed hesitantly to the window, the rosewood floorboards creaking ominously as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He reached slowly for the catch on the window, its dully gleaming brass reflecting the flickering candlelight. The metal felt cool against his thumb and finger tips as he grasped it gently and eased it back.

The window’s hinges creaked as he released the catch and the heavy window slowly swung inward under its own weight. The air outside smelled stale. There was no breeze and the temperature was only a degree or two cooler than the air in his bedroom. Utter silence greeted his ears. He took a breath and whistled to raise the dogs. Nothing happened except the faint echo of his whistle bouncing back from the woods.

Beads of sweat broke out on Jed’s face. He dressed silently, trembling a little. He’d never known such a deathly silence. Something intangible vaguely nagged at the corners of his mind, trying to connect his foreboding with a distant memory.

‘The Tworkal!’ Jed said, remembering the words of his dying grandfather:

‘When the terrible silence comes, and no creature dares to make a sound, when you can smell fear in the air – that is when the Tworkal has come up from its lair to feed.’

Jed could see his grandfather’s usually friendly face contorted and ravaged by regret in his mind’s eye. His eyes had been torn by dark, regretful emotions as he spoke.
‘The Tworkal took your uncle Peter when he was only five years old Jed. He was a rosy cheeked, healthy boy when he went to bed that night, but in the morning his body was grey, his face contorted in a scream. The Tworkal kills you with fear Jed, with a terrible fear that sucks the life right out of you. Your father wasn’t born yet, and he doesn’t believe me about what happened, but mark my words Jed, BEWARE THE TWORKAL.’

Those had been his dying words, nothing else ever escaped his lips except the crackling wheeze of his last breath. It had troubled Jed for years afterwards.

Jed flinched as he remembered Jem. How could he have forgotten!? His beautiful niece, only four years old, was staying the night while her parents celebrated their anniversary.

Jed almost ripped the door from its hinges as he launched himself into the dark hallway. Jem was sleeping in the room at the far end. Yet time seemed to slow to a crawl and he felt like he was running through treacle.

The Tworkal had returned, remembering in its dim way, its most fulfilling feast. Little Peter still lived within its awareness, his fear ever churning in the stifling depths of the Tworkal’s mind.

Now the Tworkal sensed another feast, just as bright, just as innocent.

The Tworkal oozed through gaps in the floor, coalescing back into its viscous oneness, now oozing up the walls towards the glow of life, savouring the growing fear the child felt as her dream soured and began to lurch into the realms of nightmare.

The Tworkal arrived at the room where Jem slept fitfully, its all-consuming desire for her life force intensifying. It was already inside her nightmare. Now the child’s fitful sleep moved ever nearer to consciousness where she would find fears deeper, darker and more twisted than most would suffer in a lifetime.

As the last traces of its presence slipped into the room, it contorted, rising up and lengthening to hover over the tiny, sweet morsel packed with pure, clear, vital energy that would soon be transformed into terror, ready for consumption. The remnants of little Peter, recognising the scenario began to scream an endless scream from the depths of the Tworkal’s awareness.

The trumpet-like suckers coalesced into form and expanded, stiffening in anticipation of the feast. Tendrils of the Tworkal’s malevolent psyche squirmed and wriggled within the panting child’s nightmare, edging her ever closer to her horrific awakening.

As Jem approached the final layer of awakening, the Tworkal shuddered and twitched, savouring the moment. Little Peter’s screaming grew louder and more intense as the sucker organs stretched and strained, sucking up the first scraps of life forced squeezed from the child’s growing terror.

Jem flinched, her eyelids fluttering as the Tworkal’s swaying motion became an orgasmic shudder. It willed the child to awaken, to be sucked screaming, pissing and shitting out of her body and down into the dark, smothering depths of primordial terror, forever.

‘Jem!’ Jed shouted as he burst into the room. As dark as the room was, the Tworkal was darker. So focused had its murky awareness been on its perfect victim, it had become oblivious to it’s surroundings and had failed to sense the man’s arrival. Shocked by this intrusion from the old enemy, it reluctantly withdrew from the childs psyche, raging at the interruption of its fabulous triumph.

Now the trumpet suckers turned towards their new target with devastating power. Jed stopped, wobbling, choking, a terrible darkness descending over him. With great vengeance, the Tworkal drained Jed’s energy, crushing his resistance with intense, hatred-driven fury. A terrible wail arose from the bed, where Jem had finally awoken.

‘The Tworkal kills you with fear, Jed, with a terrible fear… ‘ Jed recalled the words his grandfather had used even as he floundered in a cloying sea of terror. What can fight fear, he pleaded with himself, desperately trying to find a solution. He sank to his knees, life leaking out of him, but managed to slump his torso onto the end of the bed.

Defying the Tworkal’s power he edged his hand forward, reaching for Jem. Finally he felt her foot but she yelped and pulled it away.
‘Jem…it’s uncle…Jed. Come…to…me…’ Jed managed to squeeze the words out in a rasping whisper. She hesitated, aware of the lightless menace, then leapt for him, crashing into him trembling and clinging on, literally for life.

‘Don’t let the monster get me, please uncle Jed.’ He let out a sob of despair, losing hope as the darkness crushed the life from him. He pulled his niece close. ‘I love you Jem,’ he whispered.
‘I love you too uncle Jed’ Jem replied softly.

The Tworkal recoiled, hissing, as the hated frequency of love flared up mid-suck, burning its suckers and slicing into its awareness like a sword. Jed felt the thick, greasy coating of fear that enveloped him lighten for a moment. ‘Love,’ he gasped.

‘Jem, think about how much you love mommy and daddy, and Froglet and Tiffy…and Ben,’ Jed said, galvanised by the realisation and the brief respite.
‘Uncle Jed I’m scared,’ Jem whispered.
‘Shhhhh, darling, it’s going to be okay, just think about love, that will chase the monster away.’ The effort needed to soothe Jem felt immense. Jed would have given up had he not had Jem to save.

The Tworkal was furious, frustrated. Rarely had any living thing resisted it. Its desire to suck the child of her life force overrode all its other senses. It’s sucker trumpets strained harder, suck, SUUUCK, it thought.

Jed dragged Jem down with him from the bed. Love…light! He willed and heaved himself towards the dresser where matches lay by a candle. He fumbled over the wooden surface of the dresser but knocked the match box off onto the floor. He felt himself weakening, Jem seemed so heavy, clinging to his neck. He found it impossible to stay upright and slumped down. He could feel the energy draining from him; he could no longer move.

With nothing left, only Jem’s trembling body kept him from complete surrender.
‘Uncle Jed, uncle Jed, don’t let the monster get to me, please uncle Jed.’ Jed let out a little sob of despair, he’d lost hope. He pulled Jem close.
‘I love you Jem.’
‘I love you too uncle Jed.’

Once again the hissing sound arose as the hated frequency burned the Tworkal. Jed, grasping the moment, felt around for the matches in the dark and found them. Hands shaking, he managed to pull a match from the box. At the third strike the phosphorus flared to life.

The light weakened the Tworkal as Jed flung the flaring match at it. The Tworkal only emerged on the darkest, starless nights because it hated light. Light was its enemy, a burning, destructive force it had no answer to.

Jed quickly lit another match and put it to the head of one of the matches in the box. The moment it caught light he flung the box at the hissing entity. The flaring matchbox disappeared into the darkness of the Tworkal, throwing the room into pitch blackness.

A horrendous screeching ensued as the Tworkal writhed, wriggled, twisted and contorted wildly in agony. Then a terrible, nose burning, sickly, smell filled the room. It stung Jed’s eyes so much he had to blink the tears back.

Then, suddenly, whatever it was, it was gone, and the matchbox reappeared, still burning weakly on the floor where darkness had been moments before.

Jed grabbed the candle and hauled himself over to the flame, holding the wick inside it until it caught, then patting out the burning embers. Jem still clung to his neck.

The Tworkal dispersed, releasing all the sparks of life it had absorbed over millenia. Little Peter stopped crying, freed at last from his terror, and slipped into the ether.

The next day they found blackened stains on the ceiling of the room below and running down one of walls in the downstairs hall. Jem’s parents were dumbfounded by the story, but knew the story of Peter and saw the stains.

The whole world was a little lighter after that. One of the dark, secret evils that had preyed mercilessly on life was no more. But there are more Tworkals, buried deep in their lairs, waiting for darkness to descend before they emerged, hungry, in dank, dark places. Hold those you love dear, especially on the darkest nights.

Beware the Tworkal.