He flinched in the darkness as images of Erebus and his brothers ran through his mind, fear once more clutching at Ethan’s heart for thoughts that the frozen pack had risen from the dead to claim final revenge by feasting upon the last Pyle buried beneath their family tower’s rubble.
But Erebus did not pounce upon Ethan as the he shook his head and attempted to process his surroundings. He felt bruised, and swollen, but none of his limbs seemed broken as he pulled himself forward through the debris. Though the thought of coming upon living dogs comforted him little more than the nightmares of Erebus’ brood, Ethan wrestled against the piles of fallen concrete and masonry towards the sound of those howling canines.
Chunks of debris scraped his back. Bent rebar grabbed at his swollen ankles. Glass cut into his skin. Shards of insulation itched at his forearms. The darkness diminished and made room for light. New voices joined the barking of the dogs.
“Don’t get so close to it, Bruce,” a man stammered somewhere further to Ethan’s left. “There’s no telling what kinds of diseases are festering on that corpse. I’m not sure it’s even dead.”
“All the more reason I don’t want any of my dogs getting at it, Leroy,” replied the second man, towards whom Ethan pushed through the ruin. “I’ve spent too much time training my rescue dogs. I don’t want them biting at that thing. I’ve never seen them so wild. Show some backbone and give me a hand with their leashes.”
The men grunted as they gripped against the pulling dogs and failed to notice Ethan as he broke through the last bit of rubble to enter the cold morning’s air. He limped towards the men covered in dust and traced with rivulets of blood. He attempted to shout for their attention, but he found his throat too dry to instill a volume into the words that might rise above the blowing wind. Another gust chilled his core, and Ethan realized his hands had turned numb for such time buried in the cold. Ethan swayed with each step, but he came near enough to the men to peer over their shoulders and grimace at the corpse the dogs had pulled from the tower’s debris.
One of the men jumped upon feeling Ethan standing so close behind him. His jaw dropped as he looked upon Ethan, and he handed his leashes into his companion’s already straining hands.
“Let’s get you out of this cold. You look frozen. Let someone look at those scrapes. Get something hot into you. Just this way.”
Ethan nodded. His body shook.
The man swayed a flashlight across Ethan’s eyes. “You’re Cedrick Pyle’s grandson. It’s a miracle you made it out of that tower.”
Ethan found the idea of miracles too much to swallow after that week. “Have you found any sign of my grandfather?”
“Not yet. But we’re still looking.”
But Ethan knew better. Cedrick was in the tower’s highest chamber when the tower crumbled. He did not think anyone would want to search too long or too hard in that debris after the dogs had dragged that thing’s corpse into the light.
“What are you all going to do with that thing?”
The man’s face turned pale. “You just worry about getting this hot chocolate into you. Worry about getting warmer. Just forget you ever saw that thing the dogs pulled out of the pile.”
“Do you think you’re going to be able to forget it?” Ethan smirked when the man didn’t answer.
Ethan hoped his lifetime would no longer brand his memory with such terrible faces after that long, cold week. The visage of that corpse dragged out by the dogs was as terrible as even Clavius Turner’s. Two small, dark cavities sat in the face where eyes were supposed to be. No semblance of ears could be found on either side of the bald head. It’s wide nostrils were sunk into the face itself, giving the impression that the visage had been smashed into existence.
Its legs were shunted, thin appendages that looked incapable of supporting the stomach that swelled from the lower spine. However, muscle weaved thickly about its arms, leading to hands brimming with six fingers, all of which ended in long, sharp talons Ethan had no doubt had served that creature well as it had dug towards his grandfather’s foundations.
But it was the teeth that defined the monstrosity. The mouth was far too oversized for its face, mandible and jaws forming a cavity that almost matched the size of the creature’s distended belly. Rows and rows of long and curved teeth crowded that oversized mouth. Broken, but no doubt sharp, incisors extended from the creature’s thin lips. Ethan knew the purpose those teeth were designed to do. He had heard those teeth so often that week whenever the wind silenced long enough for his mind to drift to the terror that scraped at his grandfather’s tower.
“The old man was right,” Ethan’s own teeth clattered. “They were eating at the tower’s foundations the entire time.”
Ethan accepted all the blankets the rescuers offered him but declined any further assistance and instead stood and counted the bodies uncovered from the rubble. He recognized the looks of disgust, of shock, of confusion as the rescuers uncovered so many incomplete bodies of the homeless, the desperate, the poor and the cold who his grandfather always so hated, who in the end gave themselves so willingly to Clavius Turner’s intention. Those souls covered by the white shrouds may have dreamed of conquering Cedrick Pyle’s tower. Ethan doubted they had ever intended to destroy it. But Clavius Turner’s monsters had brought it all down regardless, and so many of those desperate cold had in the end sacrificed themselves to a cause they did not understand.
Ethan did not see any trace of that terrible face that had peeked at him from windows and from shadows. He saw no evidence that might convince anyone a boogieman man named Clavius Turner had ever stepped onto Cedrick Pyle’s property. Ethan wondered if anyone other than himself survived who would even shudder at such a name.
Ethan doubted he would ever cross paths with Clavius Turner again, but he had no doubt he was not finished seeing that man’s face. His sleep would forever onward be restless. His dreams would forward onwards be haunted by that ugly visage that had brought his grandfather’s tower down when its master had refused to gift it.