A Stay in the Country
Chapter 1 - Arrival
Veronika watched the taxi drive off into the distance down the winding country lane. From her vantage point on top of the hill, she could see its taillights slowly make their way around the endless curves and twists until they vanished over the next hill. She suddenly felt very alone, the advert had said "isolated English country cottage" but she hadn't expected it to be so far from civilisation. It had been a few miles since the last village, which had only contained about thirty cottages, and a real town was at least fifty away.
There had been the odd farm building closer than the village but no sign of any people and even the last barn must have been a mile away. The only thing closer had been an old church, just a little way down the road, but that had looked abandoned, the graveyard overgrown and half the tiles missing from the roof.
A quick look at her phone confirmed her fears, not a hint of reception, and they had been no mention of Wi-Fi at the cottage either. It looked like they would have to make their own entertainment during the week as Netflix and Spotify were out.
Still, she was on holiday and they had wanted a break doing something different - this was certainly going to be it. She only wished her friends would hurry up and arrive, she'd didn't like the idea of being so alone. She again cursed the last-minute delays in the office which had meant she'd been the only one who could leave on time to meet the agent to get the keys to the cottage. She just hoped they wouldn't be more than an hour or two behind, she knew she tended to get bored rather quickly.
Veronika turned and wandered up the long path through the rather rustic garden, as the sun made its slow descent behind the hill. The early evening air was chillier than she'd expected and she wished she'd been wearing an outfit that covered a little more of her trim body. Indeed the tight black skirt and green vest top might have looked rather hot, clinging tightly to her perfect arse and pert, if not large, chest but did little to keep her warm. Hopefully, it would be warmer in the cottage.
Hurrying up the path with her large bag in hand she let her long, slightly curled, brown hair fall around her bare shoulders, hoping it might keep her a little warmer. The path was sixty or seventy yards long, a stone track through large overgrowing bushes, tall gnarly trees and beds of wild and bright flowers. She recognised some but many were utterly unfamiliar and even odd-looking - large, dark green leaves nearly as big as she was; flowers with black petals and slimy, pollen dripping stamen; bushes made of clusters of thick rubbery vines; and trees with trunks covered in sharp thorns. It wasn't quite the rose-filled English country garden she was hoping for but it was certainly interesting.
As she turned around one last bend in the path she finally got a good view of the cottage. She could instantly see why it had been so easy to book at the last minute, even on their low budget - it certainly wasn't a picturesque little place. It was only one floor with a classic thatch roof but the usually brown reeds of the thatch had been utterly overgrown with a spiny thick, dark green vine so almost none of the original structure could be seen and in parts, the arboreal invader seemed to almost be menacing and attacking the house. The walls of the cottage were also rather odd, instead of the local pale grey stone most houses in the area used, they were built from large blocks of a nearly black, slightly shiny stone. It gave the whole place a very unusual look, though not unappealing, just unlike anything else Veronika had seen.
Beginning to wonder what the inside of the cottage would look like she carried on down the path. It was slightly overgrown here and she had to step over one large bush where its' giant purple leaves had spread halfway across the path. However it was so large she didn't quite make it and the sharp heel of her knee-high boot fell on one of the wide leaves. As the heel of the boot dug into the soft flesh, a thick, gooey sap squirted out and sprayed up, coating almost all the way up the black leather to the bare skin above. She squealed in disgust and hurried on, vowing to clean the boot as soon as she got inside.
By the time she had reached the door of the cottage, the goo had started to drip down her boot and she was leaving a small trail of the sap behind her. Veronika tried to ignore it, but its smell had begun to waft up, a sweet, intoxicating and tempting odour unlike anything else she had ever smelt. At first, she kept looking down at it, watching the sap dribble off her sharp heel, before turning away, letting the sweet smell fill her nose.
She then did something she would never be able to explain, she bent down and scooped up several lumps of the sap with her fingers, running her hand right along the leather of the boot to get as much as possible. Standing up again, and without even half a thought, she then brought her fingers to her lips and licked the very tip, tasting just a few drops of the sap.
As the green slimy goo touched her lips and tongue it sent a tingle all through her body which became even greater as the sweet-tasting slime slid down her throat -- it tasted delicious and seemed to excite and please every part of her. Without a further pause, she licked the rest of the sap from her fingers, greedily enjoying every drop as she swallowed the warm juice.
With it all gone, and the last of the odd tingle slipping from her limbs, Veronika smiled and giggled slightly -- she might have been on holiday to see new places and try new things but had not expected that. The more she thought about it, the more ridiculous her behaviour seemed to her. The plant could have been poisonous or at least completely unpalatable. She'd been very foolish to taste it. Chiding herself and still rather confused as to why she'd done it at all, she turned back to the cottage door.
Facing the door she pulled the old key she'd been given out of her bag and opened the solid wooden door. It swung open with a somewhat alarming creak and revealed the dark interior of the cottage. With a slight sense of trepidation, she stepped inside.
To her surprise the cottage was rather nice inside, a certain oddness to it, just like the exterior, but rather grand. It wasn't large but big enough for their stay with the front door leading to a large main room, through which she could see interior doors opening into a small kitchen and a corridor which led to the cottage's three bedrooms.
The decor was predominantly dark - deep reds, dark browns and a preponderance of black. The furniture looked old, antique even, but all expensive. Most of it was wooden and ornately carved with complex patterns across much of it - even the rather comfortable cushions on the large sofa in the centre of the room were covered in a dark and twisting patterned fabric.
What caught Veronika's attention though was the artwork covering the cottage -- many paintings hung on the walls whilst small statues sat beneath them and almost every surface was covered in odd knick-knacks and strange little items. These were not generic landscapes or cute puppy statues either but unusual and striking pieces.
Most seemed to show mythical animals and monsters, some of which were creatures Veronika vaguely recognised from movies or video games but many more seemed to have sprung from some mad artist's imagination. They were made up of tentacles, teeth and unnatural bodies. Overall they were strange, utterly inhuman and a little scary. Veronika couldn't decide whether the full colour and detailed paintings were more unsettling than the three dimensional yet grey stone statues. Either way, they were very odd.
Yet as strange as they were Veronika found them rather fascinating, she'd always kind of liked weird and odd things and the décor was definitely that. Dropping her bag on the couch she moved around the room, briefly looking at each piece. As she looked at several of the paintings she noticed that along with the extraordinary monsters there were several women featured too. They were much smaller than the huge creatures, and without exception, they all were pretty, rather scantily clad and, if she had to guess, about to be ravished by the monsters. There was nothing pornographic about it but it was abundantly clear that things were about to go in that direction and the women didn't look that unhappy about it either. Veronika shook her head and giggled, thinking a little about some of the things she'd see on the internet -- clearly tentacle porn wasn't a new invention after all.
Tearing herself away from the paintings she wandered around the room some more, examining more of the statues and other items, noticing for the first time that the carvings on the furniture and almost everything else in the cottage depicted much the same things as the paintings and statues. The sides of one cabinet showed a giant tentacled dragon menacing a trio of girls, the bookcase had some slime-coated blob on it and even the arms of the sofa were shaped into the tentacles of some beast.
Turning from the furniture she popped her head into the kitchen, which at least looked more normal with all the expected items in place. All in all, it was not what she'd expected but she was here now and it wasn't too bad, once the other two arrived and the wine started flowing it wouldn't matter at all. So grabbing her bag she headed to the bedrooms to unpack.
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As darkness fell, Veronika switched on the pair of lamps in the main room and with a hint of apprehension sunk into the rather comfortable sofa. She'd studied the carved wooden frame and worked out that not only were the arms shaped like monstrous tentacles but in fact the whole frame was a mess of wrapped and twisted limbs. Whilst it was comfy, it was all a bit weird and she was beginning to hope the other girls would get there soon, with no reception on her phone she'd heard nothing from them, but thought they really should be there within the hour.
She'd spent the last couple of hours unpacking and investigating the odd house. It was much as she has first seen - comfortable but very quirky with bizarre, monster-infested decor. It was a touch disturbing but at the same time intriguing. She wondered why anyone would have a home like this, let alone look to rent it to people for holidays. The only idea she had was that maybe the owners were goths or massively into the occult, but still, she really thought they should have mentioned it in the advert.
Despite the weirdness, she found she couldn't help but stare at the artwork and the strange monsters they contained. It might not have been a style she'd have picked for her own home but it was oddly fascinating. The longer she spent in the cottage the more she found she liked it, the creatures no longer unsettling her but just intriguing. She found she wanted to learn more about them and truly what the art depicted.
Keen to learn more she'd gone to the bookcase in the corner of the room. Almost as she expected she'd found it filled with books on witchcraft, the occult and mythology. She'd previously read the odd book on the more esoteric side of history but these were on another level. She wasn't even sure what some of them were about, the terminology a total mystery to her. A few though covered straightforward magical history and areas of myth she had at least heard about. So she'd picked out a couple that she might read during their stay, the subject matter fitting the cottage perfectly. The first of them, a book about local legends sat waiting to be read on the table beside her, she figured it would pass the time until the other girls arrived.
