The Story Teller's ApprenticeWritten by StalkerShrikeOnce upon a time, there was a building. Deep in the dark woods it was nestled, far away from prying eyes and eyes that would rather see other things. Old and imposing it was, a gothic monument of cold grey stone, huddled there between the looming pines. Its hallways were narrow, and lined with locked doors of thick, ribbed metal. And behind each of those doors was a little room, and in each room was a bed and a toilet and a single beating heart.She was curled up on that bed, leaned back against the wall, not moving. Her hands twitched like spiders in her lap as she whispered a poem to herself, again and again. “Bright, bright, shines the moon…”The door came open, with a skreel of hinges and a sound of shoes on stone.She snapped her head up, tilted it from side to side like a bird. Who was it? To judge by the heavy, wheezing breath, it was Dr. Lars, and with him a guest. What sort of a guest? Male, she thought. Heavy shoes, a rustling coat. Dr. Lars muttered something to him, something he thought she couldn’t hear.“Now, I warn you, she is a bit…odd.”The man didn’t reply, and Dr. Lars cleared his throat. “Um, Morwen? There’s someone here to see you.”She recognized something about the way he smelled, but she couldn’t quite place it. People, and earth, and animals of some type, but there was something else. Something…strange. “What’s his name?”“Mr. Ferguson. He’s here to –”“Mr. Andy Ferguson?”He spoke now, and his voice was so instantly recognizable that she wished he’d spoken sooner. “The same.”“How is your youngest son doing?”“He’s doing better, thank God. The chemo really seemed to…help…” He trailed off, murmuring to Dr. Lars. “Why did you tell her about that?”“I didn’t. As I say, a bit odd.”She turned her bandaged face from one to the other. She loved listening to people talk. Or anything, really. Anything that could communicate, she could just sit and listen, for hours and hours. She remembered one story, a Deep Epic, in which there was a trialogue which lasted for days…“Morwen!” Dr. Lars said, quite sharply, and she snapped herself back to what she presumed was the present. “Mr. Ferguson would like to ask you a few questions.”“Please don’t call me Morwen. I don’t know where you’ve picked up that silly name, but it is not mine. As for the questions,” she said, turning to Mr. Ferguson, “Three, Tau Ceti, and the spring equinox. That help?”Mr. Ferguson was quiet for a moment, and she could hear Dr. Lars’ beard scratch as he smiled. Or maybe frowned. It was difficult to tell with him, sometimes.“Why…yes, it does, actually. Thank you.”“Of course. Do you need anything else?”He hesitated, and she sensed he had gotten to the real reason for his visit. “There is one thing. Have you heard of something called an Ulos?”At last, the point. She’d been wondering if he had found that yet. “An Ulos? Yes, I have. Do you want to hear that story?”“If you don’t mind.”She stood up from her mantis-like crouch, breathed in, breathed out. Turned to them. And began to speak.“Once upon a time, there was a man. This man had a strange shape, wore strange clothes, said strange things. He had been called from his home, a dark place, far, far away, to a little town, and when he arrived, he asked the people why they had called to him. They told him that they required something from him, a small service, and that in return they would offer food and lodging. He accepted, and performed the service they required. Gradually, though, they became sickened by him. Who, they asked, would have such a shape, wear such clothes, say such things? They decided that they had made a mistake, and so they drove him out, into a house far outside of town, and there they left him.”She was in the rhythm of it now – deadly calm, moving her hands and her feet and her head in complex pantomime, acting out the story as much as narrating it. For this, the Storyteller used to say, was how stories were meant to be told.“But not everyone abandoned him. The mayor’s daughter, who brought the man food every week, listened to his strange tales of far-off places. She befriended him, and so, when she asked for his help at a price of his choosing, he accepted. And that night, under his guidance, she did things. Terrible, terrible things.“She was tried, found guilty. She pleaded with them, saying that her crimes had been a necessary sacrifice. She told them that the man would bring them wonderful things, if only they would do as he said. But despite her cries, they hanged her, and followed her last words to the house outside of town.“They found the man there, and killed him. It was easier than they thought it would be, for though his strange shape protected them from their weapons, he did not move or fight back. He just stood there, with a sad smile, and told them they were fools.“No one knows quite what happened to the town after that. But they do know this. Each drop of the man’s blood, spattered on the walls and the ground, was called an Ulos. And each place an Ulos fell…”She paused. She could hear Mr. Ferguson’s shallow breath, hear the scribble of a pen in a little notebook. “What happened where an Ulos fell?”She grinned, so wide that her cheeks pushed up against the bandages that covered her eyes. “Each place an Ulos fell…a thousand cities, a thousand civilizations, disappeared into the dark.”There was silence for a moment. She twitched her head curiously, from one to the other. Had she said something wrong? She had said wrong things before – people would ask her to tell a story, and she would, and they would get very angry…Mr. Ferguson was talking again. “If you don’t mind…may I speak to Morwen? Alone?”She heard Dr. Lars shrug. “If you wish. She’s relatively harmless. Will five minutes be enough?”“Five minutes should be plenty.”Dr. Lars walked slowly off down the hallway, and when he was gone, Mr. Ferguson stepped into the cell and closed the door. “You say your name isn’t Morwen?”“No, it isn’t. I don’t know why the doctors call me that, but it’s not my name.”“What is your name, then?”An interesting question. She might have had a name, once. Before. But if she had, she didn’t remember it.“I’m the Storyteller’s Apprentice. I don’t need a name.”“I see…Well, I’ll just call you Morwen for the time being, if that’s all right?”“Fine.” She shrugged and folded herself back down into a huddled bundle on the bed.“Right. To business. I work for a group of people called the Late Revelationists, and –”“And you’ve found an Ulos. And you wanted to know more about it, so you asked Dr. Ramey where she gets her information from, and she sent you to me. Is that right?”“Crikey, stop doing that. Yes, that’s exactly right. And we’d like you to come back and take a look at it.”She grinned. An Ulos! She hadn’t actually been in the presence of one before. She’d heard stories, of course – the story of their origin, and the stories of what happened in places where they popped up. But she’d never actually been near one. What would it be like, something like that?“Morwen?”“Oh! Yes, please. How do you want to get me out of here?”“By car, a week from now. The Tanners will fill out the necessary documents under the names of your family, and take you into their custody.”“Wonderful.” She didn’t really care about getting out, but she did care about going somewhere new. She had been wondering when this would happen, after all. And it wasn’t just because this was how the story went, either. She wanted to be in the presence of the Ulos, wanted to feel its strange, alien nature. That was a once-in-a-lifetime chance, and she would almost rather die than miss it.Mr. Ferguson’s voice cut into her thoughts again. “Well, that’s settled, then. I’ll see you in a week, I suppose.”“Okay.”He walked out, and she ignored the shriek and boom of the door as it closed. She ignored Dr. Lars as he came back and locked it, ignored the nurse as she came in later with dinner. The story of the Ulos had taken her mind to strange, far-off places, and she had no intention of coming back.The Tanners came a week later. Well, she presumed it was them – she didn’t really pay much attention when she was brought to meet them. They drove her off in a stately black motorcar, through the deep, cold woods and down to where Black Arrow Ranch stood at the foot of the mountains. She had pulled herself back to reality at that point, more or less, and she felt the crunch of gravel under her shoes as they led her up to a large building.Porch boards creaked, old and tenuous. A doorframe squealed as Mrs. Tanner pulled it open. Beyond it was another door, and then a large room, with people breathing and murmuring at the other end. Her outstretched hands brushed rows of benches on either side, and…was that…?“The Storyteller has arrived. Morwen, these are the Twins.”The Twins…She listened to them, breathing in tandem up there on what she guessed was some kind of dais. They weren’t the Twins – well, not just that. They were the Conjoined Minds. Only ten there had been in history so far, all of them worshipped as oracles or demigods. And here she stood, before a pair, like some kind of Babylonian prince.“You are the Storyteller?” They spoke in tandem, too, as though they were one person with two voices. And behind them, the others spoke as well, in voices too low for even her to hear.“No. Not yet.” She tipped her head back and forth, trying to get a better idea of where they were. “I’m his apprentice.”“But you can tell us what we need to know?”“Probably.” She leaned a hand onto one of the benches, trying to find something to ground herself. The voices in unison, coming from so close together, were throwing off her sense of direction. “What do you need to know?”“You have been
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The original Spooky Boo's Scary Story Time telling spooky, scary stories since 2016. Here you'll find true scary stories, fiction stories, urban legends, creepypasta, and other tall tales from the darkest corners of the internet.
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