Spring Horror Collection: “Sawn Asunder”
Welcome to the sixth and final story in the Spring Horror Collection for 2022, where Haunted MTL’s writers craft original tales of terror with the fresh scent of grass. Enjoyed Sawn Asunder and want more? Stave off your Hay Fever, slip between the corn rows and leaf through the five previous amazing stories!
For more original stories, check out Haunted MTL’s Original Creations.
“Sawn Asunder”
In a piddling village scoffed at by pedlars and highwaymen alike, a cockerel shrilled alarm at first light, awaking Dalibor from a restless sleep. The shuttered window stood ajar, breathing cool air, and the sawmill’s thatched roof opposite whistled with birdsong. Smoke puffed from the chimney, so Mr. Tesařík was already about business.
Yawning, Dalibor rolled onto his shoulder and discovered himself fastened knuckle-to-knuckle, every digit, with his twin brother Ludvík.
He batted his eyelids, washed the sleep smudging his vision, but couldn’t unsee the listless hands coupled there on the blanket.
And he could imagine nothing worse than being bound to Ludvík, who picked on smaller boys and hurled stones at scampering dogs; Ludvík who dangled little Gita Pecková over the village well, threatening to drop her into the abyss and bring the bucket down on her head, until Dalibor and Gita had cried themselves crimson.
He made a fist, as though to reel back and punch his brother–the attached palm leapt to his and clapped. At the sound, Ludvík’s eyelids whipped wide open.
A scream rose in Dalibor’s throat–they really were joined at the first knuckle, near the fingernail, like five arrows splitting as many dowels, skin encroaching like lichen on bark–and a matching terror reflected in his brother’s eyes.
Ludvík threw out his free hand and snagged Dalibor’s lip. “Get off me!”
Downstairs, Grandma Irma sprinkled more grain in the quern stone, her forehead moist despite the morning cool. Her turning arm bulged under her sleeve, dense as a rock. In another hour she’d have flour, and the boys, having slept through the daily grind, could celebrate their twelfth birthday by kneading dough and baking bread.
A bang on the ceiling. One of the twins screamed…
By the time Irma waddled upstairs and untangled them, the damage had been done. The twins had kicked, scratched and clawed themselves bloody with their free limbs. The bed was upturned, furniture broken, and enough feathers littered the floorboards from their pillows that she actually looked for a plucked goose. Panting, she stood over the boys, who lay exhausted, ugly and inseparable. A trickle of blood dribbled down her chin, the price of intervention.
“The devil taken you, boys?” She swooned, faint suddenly. “If your mother could see you… What sin? W-wh… What wicked sins of the flesh?”
It had been some fifty years since her heart had been disturbed into beating so fast. Her brother had tied two cats together by the tail, sacked them, and slung them under her sleeping blanket while she drowsed. The wailing cats, the cackling of her tormentor, sent her flying from the house. She wept behind the drinking well, raking the hair from her scalp until her mother swept her off the grass.
“Are you cursed?” Irma wiped the blood from her chin. “God’s punished you!”
The adults were whispering among themselves, but Dalibor didn’t have to strain to hear them. Their state of agitation didn’t permit them to speak below an emphatic hiss.
“Could be another month before the physician visits.” Mr. Tesařík tipped his cap and rushed his fingers through his fringe.
“If he visits,” said the seamstress, Ms. Irglová. She was the quietest of the three, and Dalibor didn’t like her tone, like he and his brother were already a lost cause.
“Then what do we do?” Irma blubbered. “Pray? I’ve prayed all morning, and now the boys are joint up to the wrist. Praying, I could hear the skin growing, like cloth tearing–where will it stop? At the elbow? Shoulder?”
“Mrs. Fibichová… Irma, if I may–” He glanced at the boys, then stepped closer to their grandmother. Ms. Irglová leaned in, and this time the talking was quiet but no less animated.
“I don’t like it,” Dalibor said.
Ludvík grinned. Grinned! “Afraid I’ll be the dominant hand?”
“How can you jape at a time like this? Don’t you see what they’re going to do to us?”
To the left of where they were seated lay a wooden bed of sorts. A small building stood at the foot of it, housing a series of cogs in different diameters; one the width of a stallion. The village stream sloshed behind the building. At the head of the bed, among the great beams and levers, menaced the vertical, serrated saw Mr. Tesařík used for cutting lumber.
“It’s for their own good,” Mr. Tesařík said, a lump in his throat. “D’you have your needle ready?”
Dalibor shut his eyes while the carpenter spoke. The seamstress said nothing, but Dalibor imagined a tremulous nod.
Ludvík pulled the joined arms. “No, you can’t do this to us.” A scrape on the ground ahead. “Come near me grandmother and I’ll bite you.”
The women grabbed Dalibor, and Mr. Tesařík seized a kicking, teeth gnashing, foaming at the lips Ludvík.
“We’ll be sawn asunder. Fight, Dailbor–we’ll bleed out.”
They tied the boys either side of the saw bed, the joined arms stretched across it, and Dalibor could but shiver.
Mr. Tesařík pulled a lever, bang. Behind the building, the water wheel started to life, and the saw began a languid bob.
“I’ll kill you,” Ludvík shrieked. “Send you all to hell!”
Irma glanced at the carpenter doubtfully. “Are you sure about this?”
The saw lurched.
The cockerel crowed at first light, and Dalibor awoke from a restless sleep. His grandmother snoozed in an armchair beside the bed, a bubble blowing from her lips. Last thing he remembered, he had fainted away, blood everywhere. Wailing.
But now he had two, fully-formed hands on his lap. Was it all a nightmare? He fancied he had heard the skin growing in his sleep–the tearing his grandmother described. Whatever, now he only wanted to embrace her.
But he couldn’t move, nor could he speak.
Nana? Nana!
And then his fingers twitched, unprompted. His jaw hinged open below bulging, incredulous eyes. He heard a mean, weaselly little voice inside that turned his blood ice cold.
“Hey, Dalibor? Are you in there?”
I don’t really know when or how I got to this shindig, but it’s been the most awesome party ever. Last thing I recall, I swerved to avoid hitting a deer on the highway, but now here I am. And I’m running into people I haven’t seen in forever, including my best friend from junior high school, David… We’d fallen out of touch ever since my family moved halfway across the country from Providence, Rhode Island. Hell, I heard he was really sick, like REALLY sick – cancer or somesuch, but he looks incredible. Glowing. So I guess the rumors were wrong.
David’s a real hottie now, with his brooding dark eyes and brown hair that sort of swoops over his right eye. And he’s really into me, it’s written all over his face. Plus, we’re blissfully chill together. It’s not like we have to say much of anything, especially with my favorite band playing on the radio, Talking Heads piped into all of the rooms in unison. When we first ran into each other, we were both joyfully surprised, and the awestruck silence never really wore off as we continue to drink one another and the party itself in. Everything here is just so dreamy, it’s unreal.
Just like heaven.
There’s a little kitchen with an island and we’re toasting champagne and cutting up this huge sheet cake that’s part white, part, chocolate, part yellow. I even got a corner piece of the white cake covered in icing roses, and all pink so they won’t stain my tongue weird colors! In fact, there’s no blue or black icing at all. The message on the cake is a little weird, just a reminder You Are Loved, but it brings all the warm fuzzies all the same. It’s almost too pretty to eat, but damn is it some good cake – perfectly spongy and not to dry. It’s all just so sweet.
Truly heaven-ly.
“Are you enjoying yourself?” David asks.
“Yes. Everything is so perfect, I never want to leave,” I reply. “This is the best, most exciting party ever.”
“You don’t have to go anywhere,” he replies. “We can just hang out here and have fun forever.”
We wander back out into the front room with our cake and champagne, which never seem to be depleted. I have a nice buzz from the fizzy alcohol, but am not feeling especially tipsy or out of it. Just warm – I can feel it rising to my cheeks. We adjourn to the sofa, which has been left vacant as if waiting specifically for us.
Heaven sent.
The house itself reminds me a lot of my childhood home. Same avocado 1970s décor. Same wood paneling. Same orange and brown stripey floral motif sofa, though this one isn’t near as scratchy as I remember that fabric being back in the day. And the cushions have just the right amount of fluff – you don’t sink too far as you sit on them. It’s all just so warm and inviting and strikes all of the nostalgia chords in my heart for simpler times, when David and I would just hang out.
He smiles as he wraps his arm around me. Feeling safe, I lean my head on his shoulder as we watch the sun set over the far horizon from the bay window in the living room. The scene is a spectacular picturesque pink and purple show streaked with light and just the right number of wispy clouds to draw out the colors as the fading sunlight shimmers behind the silhouetted evergreen trees. It would make a wonderful painting. Absolutely breathtaking.
Straight out of heaven.
I glance over from the sunset to meet David’s gaze. My eyes lose themselves in his, falling into a soft focus. He is just so dreamy. His skin is clearer than I remember. And his brown hair is still so perfectly flipped over his right eye in a cute coy way that doesn’t seem at all out of place. I admit I had a crush on him in junior high, but it was nothing like this. This is that fantasy on steroids. Beyond my wildest dreams. We lean towards one another and he whispers in my ear.
“May I kiss you?” he asks sweetly, the scent of champagne and cake wafting from his warm and inviting lips.
“Please do,” I sigh.
Our lips meet, slowly at first. Tenderly. The trepidation soon dissolves and the kiss becomes more intense, harder and then wet and sloppy, tongues exploring one another in the dark recesses of our joined mouths. I close my eyes and succumb to the moment…
I seem to have arrived at a really happening house party. And there are people here I haven’t seen for years, including my best friend from junior high, David! We’d fallen out of touch since the move and I heard he had cancer or the like, but I guess the rumors were wrong…
Here’s the song Heaven by The Talking Heads that inspired this creepy little story. If for some reason the YouTube doesn’t load in window, follow the link here.
And feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.
Happy holidays! Where has this year gone??? Santa and I can’t believe it’s Christmas already, but I did manage to make you all a card again… Gotta keep with tradition or something. (Santa says I’m not thinking big enough…)
And to everyone celebrating other holidays and the solstice, may you have a blessed and wonderful season as well, I’m sorry I don’t do cards for that but I tend come from what I know, which appears to be inappropriate Christmas kitsch. Just like you’ve come to expect from me, I’m sure. Since that seems to make the rounds of all the holidays. 😉
Card reads Happy Holidays jingle bell jingle bell jingle bell rock!!! From You-Can-Jingle-My-Bell Santa and Jennifer Weigel here at HauntedMTL.
Image features a vintage doll (probably Merlin or Gandalf or the like) now dressed as Santa in a handmade Victorian style cloak with matching hat. He is holding his coat open to flash the viewer with a jingle bell ribbon hanging intentionally at his crotch.
This Santa was from a series of altered dolls I did back in the day, exploring different less appropriate takes on Jolly Old St. Nick.
As gifts, I present the other three…
Happy holidays and have a wonderful winter!
If you want to check out more of my altered dolls, I have posted several to Haunted MTL here:
So, now that it’s getting cold, here on Nightmarish Nature we’re going to talk about a different kind of terror – the starvation diet. It’s winter, and food is becoming ever scarcer, so many creatures will slow down to conserve energy. Let’s take this a step further to the sleep of the damned… But I’m not talking hibernation, or settling in for a sort of long winter nap version of seasonal affective disorder on steroids. No, I’m talking hummingbirds.
Sugar Rush
Hummingbirds are about the polar opposite of what you’d think of when you talk about inactivity. They’re more the picture-perfect speed demons. And yet, due to their crazy high metabolisms and constant need to refuel by consuming all the nectar and insects they can get their little beaks in or on, they have near death experiences on a regular basis. Even during the summer at night whenever the temperature falls too low. It’s like all their systems have to go offline for a bit just so they can survive.
Energy Suck
Essentially a hummingbird burns so much energy that he can die in less than eight hours of not eating. The little sugar daddy needs another fix just to keep going. This lifestyle is a far cry from the Energizer bunny. Essentially he has to enter a torpor state in sleep so he doesn’t succumb to his own starvation diet. Not every time, but when the temperature drops or food is scarce.
A hummingbird in torpor may, by all accounts, appear dead. He can be frozen in place, his tiny feet clasped rigidly around a branch as if rigor mortis has sunk in. He can be cold to the touch and unresponsive. He can face upwards, unmoving, breathing and heart rate slowed to near indiscernibility. He can even be hanging upside down, oblivious to the world. In fact, the hummer’s heart rate can reduce to almost one tenth of his waking state, and his temperature can drop by ~5o degrees Fahrenheit (~ 30 degrees Celsius).
Miracle Mavericks
Honestly, as shown in this article on Journey North, this ability to exercise such fine control over metabolic rate on a nightly cycle makes the hummingbirds more marvelous than terrifying, switching between cold- and warm-blooded. And they are very well-adapted to their eating regimens, especially given their diminutive size. But such is the cost of burning so much energy to keep going without much room to store fuel. Like I said, a strict starvation diet.
If you’ve enjoyed this segment of Nightmarish Nature, feel free to check out some previous here:
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“Tab’s Terrible Third Eye” by Isaac Thorne: A Haunting Tale of Childhood Trauma and Supernatural Horror
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Jennifer Weigel
March 28, 2022 at 10:15 am
Interesting and eerie take on reabsorption. Love the backwoods setting and family history , kind of makes you wonder if this sort of thing has happened before and again…
J.M. Faulkner
March 31, 2022 at 4:39 am
Thank you. I enjoyed writing in this setting