The Weeping Thing 1

Chapter One

Donald

Since he wasn't scheduled for work that day, Donald was carelessly clicking through the personal ads on a couple of social sites. The ads he kept coming across weren't filling him up with any sort of happy hope for finding a date anytime soon. He skimmed over the usual seeking financially secure, prefer a man in the military, must be tall, very good looking, hung like a horse and in great shape posts. He did have himself a laugh when he came across some crazy woman's ad asking for a sugar daddy to help her out with a few monthly expenses, in exchange for unspecified favors.

"Yeah, right." Donald mumbled, as he abandoned his web browser and leaned back in his old executive chair on rollers.

The seat cushion was so flat and worn out he'd taken to putting a folded up, skinny blanket on it. Donald took a quick moment to adjust said blanket's unruly folds, before he resumed his seat and let his eyes scan across his small bedroom.

It was nothing to brag about. He had a twin-size bed with covers in an appealing shade of tan, a small desk that was meant for a kid and that bumped his knees whenever he rolled too close to it, a small closet and a short dresser filled with his essentials. Several large boxes were stacked up in one corner of the room. They were filled with nonessentials that he'd never gotten around to unpacking, mainly because he didn't have the room to put their contents anywhere.

The bedroom wasn't an eyesore, but it did have a few details detrimental to the upbeat lifestyle of a dating connoisseur. The walls were largely blank, the carpeting was tired, and in a few spots it exhibited some ancient stain or other discoloring. Still, he might be able to entice some woman inside his room and onto his bed. Maybe.

Well, if you didn't consider the mannerisms of the old lady he rented the room from, anyway. Crazy old Margaret owned the two-bedroom house. Along with charging him a rent of five hundred dollars a month, she'd given him a long sheet of paper with all of her prohibitions and stipulations printed on it. No drinking, no drugs, no loud music, no partying, and absolutely no members of the opposite sex were allowed.

Basically, Donald sighed, the overzealous and strict old woman was taking a lot of the fun out of his life. Since he'd been hard-pressed to find a similar rent and accommodations in that part of town, he'd gone ahead and signed the rental agreement. Dutifully, he paid off the first month's rent along with the security deposit. The alcohol and drugs he could do without, since he was definitely mellowing out in his thirties. As for the music, he purchased himself a good pair of headphones to take care of that. The lack of sex, however, was growing into a very large annoyance. It was as if since old Margaret wasn't getting laid, neither was anyone else under her roof.

Donald recalled a scene from a month prior, the last time he had gone out on a date. That was with Sallie, a perky blonde who stood all of five-foot-two, and who kissed in a way that he'd never been able to get enough of. It was too bad that he and Sallie hadn't been talking as much online anymore. Donald was slowly coming to the conclusion that she'd moved on and left him adrift like an old piece of flotsam. His erratic work schedule that always cut across the heart of the day and most weekends didn't help matters here, either.

Donald began feeling a bit depressed. Had he owned a car, perhaps he would have jumped in it and driven somewhere far away from where he lived. Perhaps he could get lost out there and never have to come back to his mundane and boring life. But no, Donald did not have a car. His prospects for entertaining himself rested exclusively on the city's public transportation system, or on the more or less reliable foot-mobile.

Feeling something approaching resignation, Donald went back to his computer screen. Full of wants and wishes, he scanned over the numerous profiles of happy, smiling women he'd never have the opportunity to meet in person.

Later that afternoon, Donald stepped out of his room. He'd taken a few naps and watched a few comedy shows, and that had lightened up his mood by not much. Now he was on his way to the kitchen to warm up a can of soup.

The quiet man took a quick glance into the living room, noticing that the news was playing on the tube, but that Old Margaret was nowhere in sight. The old woman did that sometimes; leave the TV on while she was over at a neighbor's house and chatting the day away. Margaret explained that strange habit to him on a couple of occasions. By leaving the television on it would deter potential burglars from breaking into the house, because no burglar would dare to break into a house while someone was in it. But let Donald leave his ceiling fan on overnight when the heat was unbearable, and lo and behold, there would be hell to pay to Margaret come the next morning.

The woman was paranoid and borderline insane, Donald thought, as he emptied the soup can's contents into a small pot and added a short spurt of water. When he'd first moved in, his landlord had taken to following him around the house. The suspicious Margaret would even go into the bathroom right after he'd used it, stink and all, in case he'd inadvertently left any drug paraphernalia lying around like a moron. Thank goodness she'd eased up a bit, about that.

Donald patiently waited for his soup to warm up. He considered what his life would be like if he lived elsewhere, or if he were better looking, or a rich man, when his thoughts became distracted by an unexpected sound. It was the sound of a person quietly crying nearby. With some concern, Donald left the kitchen and went into the living room to lower the volume on the TV set. He listened intently for the strange lamentation. At first he could not localize it, and afterward it halted as unexpectedly as it had commenced.

As Donald ate his soup in the tiny afterthought of a dining room, he thought he heard the sound of crying a second time. He passed it off as having come from the TV set. When Margaret came back into the house, the first thing she did was to scold him for having fiddled with the volume control on the television. This resulted in Donald quickly finishing off his light meal and heading back to his bedroom for peace and quiet.

Donald thought he heard that same strange crying, as he lay in bed and waited for sleep to come to him. It would be considered unusual for him to get out of bed to investigate, according to Margaret's observations and expectations of him. Because of that, he simply stayed in place and began to wonder who could possibly be making such pitiful sounds.

When sleep finally found him, it brought strange nightmares to Donald's mind. He dreamt that he was running through the woods, panting and out of breath. Behind him he could hear angry voices. He was being chased, he quickly realized, by a mob wielding torches, axes and pitchforks. The people were shouting curses at him. They wore an unusual fashion of clothing, made of rough cloth, leather or fur. The clothing included doublets, vests with white shirts underneath, breeches, knitted caps, straw hats, felt hats and the like.

They meant to kill him, Donald understood in a panic. He tried to run from the mob, but his movements were sluggish and cumbersome. It was a bizarre sensation, as if he was not running but sloshing along on the ground like a great, fat lump. He felt twigs and bumps below him as he moved, felt leaves sticking wetly to his flesh, felt coarse and rough patches of bark as his glob-like form flowed around trees and bent aside saplings.

The men chasing him were much faster. They surrounded him, stabbing at him with their pitchforks and hacking at him with their axes. Donald cried out from the enormity of the pain ripping through his flesh. They meant to rip him to pieces, he saw. Back in the distance, one man ordered a few of the others to start gathering tinder. They meant to hack him apart, Donald realized, and to burn the chunks right after. There was nothing he could do about it.

Abruptly, Donald sat up in his bed. His breaths were struggling to come out of him. He felt as agitated as if he had indeed been running away from a mob. In the dark, the quiet man began to wonder if he might have screamed out loud. Perhaps the landlord was even now trying to figure out what he was up to, from her bedroom across the hall. An anxious Donald swung his legs over the side of the bed. He was ready to flee from his bed, as if those men would still be tearing him apart if he dared to shut his eyes again.

That's when he heard the crying once more. It filtered through his ears like a soft song of despair and anguish. As he listened to it, and unexpectedly, the crying calmed him. The sounds soothed him enough that his breathing returned to normal. His heartbeat was no longer pounding away within his chest.

"What's happening to me?" Donald asked the night.

The song continued to relax him, like the hands of a gentle masseuse. Sitting nearby, the alarm clock told him he should be in a deep sleep. The sad song lulled him in this direction. He yawned, somehow knowing that the nightmare would not return that night. As he lay back down on his mattress, he thought the whimpering sounded like that of a small child, maybe a boy. He found himself wishing he could do something for that child, like buy him a toy or an ice cream, so the boy would be happy again. So he wouldn't have to cry any more.

Such thoughts were crossing Donald's mind, until he finally shut his eyes and went back to a pleasant slumber.

The next day, Donald had only been cursed with four hours of work. He disembarked the transit bus at only a few minutes before one in the afternoon. Normally, he'd get off a few stops earlier than his, or a few stops later. He would walk the remaining distance home in the hopes of nodding at or greeting a passerby, and perhaps engaging him or her in a brief conversation. Such was Donald's deep state of loneliness. Instead, on this day the unloved man got off at the right place. He traversed the single remaining block purposefully and diligently until he stood before the house's front door.

As Donald expected, Old Margaret was not home. During the weekdays, she would often leave the house and attend to her errands or various doctors' appointments. He assumed that she was doing the same thing today. Donald stepped into his bedroom and changed into his casual attire. He sat on the edge of the bed to listen for the sound of the crying. Today, the quiet man resolved, he was going to get to the bottom of things.

Donald waited, sometimes patiently, sometimes impatiently, until the inactivity got the better of him. The day was warm. The bed covers felt comfortable enough to his touch that he ended up curling over them and taking a nap.

Half an hour later, Donald's eyes popped open. He hadn't been having any nightmare, and he couldn't remember what he'd been dreaming at all. What was it that had woken him? His ears took in all they could, until he heard it.

It was the crying. The crying had come back.

Slowly, quietly, Donald sat up, fearing that any sudden movement might drive the strange sobbing away. He tried to trace the source of the sound. In tiny increments, his head and body shifted around the entire bedroom. The crying was everywhere, it seemed. It was only slightly more noticeable in one direction than the rest.

The bedroom window.

Donald stood up and went to slide the window open. A dusty screen was in the way. The man turned an ear toward it, moving as close to the filth as he dared. He heard the sobbing, eternal and pleading, becoming certain that it was coming from outside.

Donald found himself rushing through the house and out the back door. He thought twice about running off and went back for his keys. No telling what kind of eruption Margaret would have, if she came home to find a wide-open back door. Quickly, he locked up.

After this, Donald went to stand outside his window. Once he forced his head to focus, he again honed in on the mysterious, soft crying. He started walking in the direction he calculated it was coming from.

A large gathering of red maples, white ash and white oak could be seen directly behind Margaret's house. The further away from the house that Donald went, the denser these woods became. He'd frequented the area before, mainly out of boredom and hoping to catch some possum or raccoon in action, or anything at all out of the ordinary. This time he felt like an amateur detective, sleuthing out there to find the secret of the strange weeping noise. Donald's feet trampled over the uneven blanket of crusty leaves and twigs. The steady noise forced him to pause and regain his bearings often, but through it all the crying continued.

It knows, he thought. It knows I'm out here, trying to find it. It's leading me right to where it is. The realization was unsettling, as it implied that whatever he was looking for was an intelligent thing, and capable of reaching into his mind and drawing him out to find it. What if, what if it's evil? What if it wants to hurt me?

He was becoming distracted, Donald realized, as he turned back toward the house. He could no longer see it through the trees. I should go back, he considered.

That's when the weeping called out to him, reassuring him that it wasn't too much further ahead, and that it meant him no harm. It was lonely, it said, in its weeping little voice, as lonely as Donald was. It pleaded with the man to keep forging ahead, to not turn his back and abandon the thing forever. And Donald, forgetting his disquiet, pressed on. He had to get to the bottom of this, he decided. No matter what, he had to find out what was out there.

Donald heard the caws from a trio of crows, right before he came to a strange clearing on the ground, a place where the dirt had become a sinister shade of black. It wasn't a large space, just a few feet across and shaped like a crooked oval. The quiet man wondered why his attention had been drawn to that particular spot.

Then, he understood why. This was where the weeping thing had been butchered, where its little pieces had been covered over with kindling and set on fire. The black spot marked where the thing had died. Nothing had grown there ever since.

There was a rustle to one side, causing Donald's attention to shift. Two of the crows had beaten their wings in haste and hopped backward, as if something had startled them or threatened them. As Donald watched, a single crow stalked forward and began pecking on whatever it had been consuming right before he'd arrived. Inside of Donald's head, he heard the soft sobbing turn into cries of pain. He knew that whatever it was that had called him into the woods, the crows were poking at and eating.

Donald gulped, as each time the crow snatched its head down and snapped its beak, another jolt of hurt sounded in his mind. He picked up a couple of stones and launched them at the black birds, along with his threatening shouts. The crows were unnaturally persistent. They hurled their own insults back at him, until Donald found a sturdy branch and scattered them with a few wide swings. The crows flew up into the trees, where eerily, they took up posts and closely watched him.

"Fucking crows!" He shouted up at the broken canopy, before he began the short trek to where they'd been feasting.

It was half hidden under dirt and leaves. From its coloration, Donald at first thought he was looking at a human hand. It was the right size, he thought, as he used the end of his branch to scatter the debris and get a better look at the thing.

Donald shuddered. It wasn't a hand but a pale pink glob of meat, with little open wounds where the crows had been tearing away at it. As far as he could see, it had no hair, or wrinkles or fingernails, or any other identifiable features on it. He should leave immediately, he thought. He should leave this unholy thing behind and forget all about it. Forget about the weeping, and forget about its...

The song started up again, a beautiful lullaby like the song of sirens just before they led sailors to maneuver their ships towards jagged rocks, and ultimately to their doom.

In unison, the crows suddenly descended upon him, using their voices to startle him and their claws to tear at his head and arms.

Donald was disconcerted and in shock for the first few seconds. His initial reaction was to keep the birds from ripping at his face, until he remembered the stick he still had in his grip. He swung hard, smashing the stick into a crow and sending the creature pummeling in a wild flutter into the leaves. A second blow crashed another crow into a tree trunk. This one fell like a dead thing to the ground. The last crow cried out for vengeance, but with its strength in numbers so greatly diminished, it had no choice but to retreat back to a safer distance.

Or so Donald thought. The moment he lowered his gnarled weapon, the crow sped past him to continue its assault on the weeping thing. The bird was trying to scratch the glob apart with its evil claws, cawing out loud as it repeatedly struck. The sheer ferocity of the attack left Donald dumb for a moment. Gripping the tree limb like a golf club, the man stepped forward, swung and smashed the last crow into oblivion.

Donald was panting, as he raised his eyes toward the sky and took in the high spots where other crows might be hiding. In the trees he found nothing. Not wanting to risk any of the first three threatening him again, Donald took the next few minutes to inspect the fallen birds. He went on to batter them with his stick until he was certain they were all dead.

After, he returned to the weeping thing, feeling that same black knot in his stomach as his eyes took in its pulpy, bloody form on the ground.

"What..." Donald struggled to catch his breath. "What the fuck are you?"

The thing replied, in its own bizarre way, by sobbing and gasping like a child who'd just been beaten to tears.

Donald watched the thing, heard it crying in his head, and wondered what to do next. He couldn't leave it out there, for other crows or some other animal might come by and finish it off. Then he would never know what it truly was.

"I've got to take you back home with me, don't I?" Donald leaned closer to get a better look at it. He made a squeamish face as he took in all the blood. "I don't see how you're going to make it, but here goes."

Donald poked his stick at it, wondering how he'd get the thing to balance on it, when the thing took the initiative all on its own. It swept around the end of the stick like a pair of very fat fingers and held on tight. Donald nearly dropped the stick when he saw this. He kept a wary eye on the thing, in case it scurried down the piece of wood and tried to latch onto his hand, like what happened in some old horror movie he'd once seen.

"I don't trust you, whatever you are." He told the thing, as he stood back up and felt the thing's slight weight on the end of the tree limb.

Donald took one last look at the dead crows, before he started on the journey home.

When Donald came within view of the back door, he took a good look around. He propped the stick, with the thing still stuck to its end, next to a nearby tree.

"It won't do to have Margaret see me bringing you inside." Donald explained. "Let me go in first and see if she's come back yet."

Donald walked toward the house, swinging his arms jauntily as if he was only returning from a short walk. As carelessly as usual, he unlocked the back door. A brief tour of the premises informed him that the house was still empty. Donald hurried into the kitchen and looked around until he grabbed up a glass salad bowl that Margaret hardly ever used. Hopefully, the crabby woman wouldn't miss it. Donald had lived with Margaret for nearly a year now. He had since learned that she kept a much closer watch on him and his things than she did on hers.