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roesslyngTitle: Colour in Your Cheeks
Fandom: Stand Still Stay Silent
Characters/Pairing: Aksel, Sigrun, Gøran & Berit. No pairing.
Rating: 13+ for canon-typical violence.
Length: ~6k
Summary: The fence hasn't been up for very long. Something has found its way in. Looks like they'll need to deal with it.
Other: Beta reading done by Scytale as services for Sunflower Auction. Thank you!
Title references a Mountain Goats song by the same name.
Colour in Your Cheeks
No reports from Bergen, Vossevangen, Storebø, Rosendal. I must tell you, folks, it's strange over here in Odda. News has come in that weird creatures have been attacking people. Well, we've always had stories about trolls in these mountains, haven't we? No matter what you think of that, take care. I know that cell coverage has been spotty lately, so if you must leave your house, tell someone where you are going, and make sure you're somewhere safe and secure after dark. Now, onto the weather; my predictions suggest that the rain will continue...
Aksel turned down the radio. Odd from Odda's weather predictions were not worth a single øre; everyone knew he made them with a pendulum and scrying mirror. Besides, all you had to do to know that it would keep raining was to take one look out of the cafe's windows.
The Dalsnes cafe had become an unofficial community centre. Or rather, it had always sort of had been, but now pretty much everyone in the village continued to gravitate there, even though most of the cafe's fresh supplies had run out and there was nothing much left except heated-from-frozen biscuits and tea. Internet and phone reception had been bad lately, but at least at the cafe, there were people to talk to, and the radio on the countertop providing some background noise when nobody felt up to saying much of anything. There was something to be said for a familiar setting and good company.
Still. Company or not, the message from Odda was a reminder that there was a reason they were all gathered together.
"What do you think he means by 'weird creatures'?" Aksel asked, turning to his grandmother as if she might have the answer. She usually did. "I'd be more worried about people."
His grandmother was quiet for a long time. She cupped her mug of tea and said nothing for a while, staring out the window at the rain.
Aksel looked out, too. In the dim light, it was hard to see much at all.
"I think it wouldn't hurt to be careful," his grandmother said quietly. "Just in case."
"Oh, grandma, don't tell me you believe what Odd says! The only reason we're listening to him in the first place is because all of the other stations have been put on autoplay and he's the only one actually coming in. He's always been a weirdo."
"Yes, yes, I know. He goes around saying he's a witch, did you hear that? But he's right that there have always been stories about dangerous things in these mountains. Even when I was a little girl, we always were careful of trolls."
The 'yeah, but' was on the tip of Aksel's tongue. He bit it down. Those were only stories; everyone knew that. His grandmother had grown up in Dalsnes, and she had told him stories about trolls just like her parents had told her, and he was sure that all those tales about monsters were a way to make sure that kids wouldn't go out into the mountains on their own. There was nothing more to it than that. But she did sound bothered, so –
"I wonder when Sigrun and Gøran will be back," he said, looking out the window, watching the rain come down. They had volunteered to check on the fence, making sure that it was still whole, just in case.
Aksel had tried to talk his friends out of it. It's dark, he'd said. You won't be able to see a thing. Leave it until tomorrow.
Sigrun pointed out that there was a little bit of light, you know, and besides that, crap weather meant that parts of the fence might fall over. It'd be best to patch those holes right away, or at least mark where they were so they could get taken care of later.
And then she and Gøran had gone out into the drizzle, as if it was nothing.
Maybe I should have tried harder to get them to stay, Aksel thought. Not that he was worried – well, maybe – it was only that it was slippery and wet out there, and –
Suddenly, the door to the cafe opened, and Gøran and Sigrun stepped in, their raincoats dripping, their faces white.
"Oh! You're finally back –"
"Aksel, there's something really weird out there."
Oh, no.
His grandmother spoke before he did. "What do you mean, Sigrun?" she asked, looking toward the door, pushing her glasses up on her face.
"I don't know." Sigrun came over to their table, dripping. The parts of her hair that hadn't been covered by her hood were plastered to her face. "At first I thought it was a dog, but it looked too weird to be a dog."
"A fox?" Aksel ventured.
"No, Einstein, not like that. It was way bigger, and like, I don't know, creepy."
"It had two heads," Gøran said, coming to stand beside Sigrun.
"You're kidding, right?"
"No, he's not." Sigrun put her palms flat on the table and leaned in close. She looked first to Aksel, then to his grandmother, then back to Aksel again. "I know it sounds like a whole load of bull, but there was seriously something wrong with that thing."
"I see. Tell us what happened, dear."
"Hah! See, Aksel? Berit believes me." Sigrun flashed a grin, but didn't look any less worried. "Here, we'll tell you all about it."
As Sigrun and Gøran shrugged off their slickers and sat down, Aksel thought back to the radio broadcast. He'd thought it sounded ridiculous, and that his friends could have seen anything out there. But that didn't change how troubled they looked. And his grandmother was taking it so seriously. There couldn't be anything behind it, could there?
"So. We were going on out back, checking around the fence, right? And then we heard something. I'm not sure what it was. Some kind of growling." Sigrun looked from Aksel to his grandmother. She spoke as steadily and clearly as she could, but her face was pale, the damp hair clinging to her cheeks making her look more startled. Her gaze stayed on Aksel's grandmother, as if she though that she was the only one who might, maybe, possibly, take what she said about monsters at face value.
"It moved really jerky. Like there was something wrong with it," Sigrun continued.
"Did you get a close look at it?"
"No. Close enough, but like... no."
Gøran, who had been quiet, cleared his throat. "It was sniffing around. I don't think it saw us, but I'm not sure."
"If it was actually a dog, it would've smelled you," Aksel said.
Sigrun and Gøran glanced at each other, and uncomfortable look crossing both their faces. It seemed as if that hadn't occurred to them.
For a moment, they all sat in quiet, contemplating the prospect of this. Outside, the rain picked up from a drizzle to something heavier, wind sending it patting against the windows. The other people in the cafe kept talking, the separate conversations a low roll of sound in the background. Gøran was looking out, as if he expected to see the thing out there somewhere, having followed them into the village from the boundary line. Sigrun stared at her hands, brows furrowed as she tried, it seemed, to decide how she felt about what she'd seen.
The fence had been put up to keep people out.
They'd heard reports of wanderers – both people with the illness, and others who had, in a panic, left their cities and towns and villages to find someplace safer. At the time, it'd seemed to make sense to ensure that the only way to enter Dalsnes via land would be through a designated checkpoint. Two weeks later, one of the official government updates had come through recommending small communities should do exactly that.
So far, nothing unexpected had happened. And yet....
Strange creatures. That was what Odd had said. Reports of strange creatures in the valleys. And even though everyone knew better than to listen to anything Odd from Odda reported, it did seem like a weird coincidence.
"Did you find any places in the fence that needed repairing?" Aksel's grandmother asked after a moment, looking carefully at Aksel's friends over the brim of her mug.
Gøran shook his head. "It looked okay. Like, the thing, whatever it was, was on the outside. But it was getting darker by then; I think we'll have to check again tomorrow."
"And there's no telling if it might find a way to break through or dig under or something," Sigrun added, looking more uncomfortable with every word.
Aksel's grandmother nodded slowly. "That's possible. But I think it's more likely that the fence will hold. Try not to worry about it, dear. You'll be able to reinforce it in the morning.
The fire crackled in the grate.
In the dim light, it was hard for Aksel to make out his grandmother's expression. They hadn't spoken about what Sigrun had seen when she went out with Gøran earlier that day, but he could tell now that she was thinking about it. She had that same contemplative gaze that she'd had when she was listening to them tell about what they had seen.
"What do you think about it?" he asked from where he sat near the fire, cat in his lap, purring. "About, um, what Sigrun told us."
His grandmother was quiet for a while, no sound except the click of her knitting needles. "Well, she did sound worried, didn't she."
"Yes..." Aksel nibbled at his lower lip. "But, come on. Two-headed dogs?"
"It might be nothing," his grandmother admitted. "But it might be something. And if it's something for us to worry about, we can worry about it in the morning."
Aksel quieted. There was no way he could argue with that. His grandmother had such an easy, steadfast way of going about things; even in serious situations, her presence had a calming effect. Her philosophy was to do what you can first and then worry later. He didn't always take her advice, but when he did, by the time he'd finished taking care of the problem, Aksel found that there was either nothing to worry about, or he didn't feel like worrying any more.
Hopefully this time would be like the others. But he couldn't be sure, could he? Aksel bit his lip and scritched the cat behind the ear and tried to think of something else. He couldn't.
"What if, you know, that rash illness," he asked quietly, "What if animals can get it too?"
The needles stopped clicking against each other. His grandmother lifted her head a bit, looking thoughtful. "Well now," she said, looking over at Aksel. "That would be quite a problem, wouldn't it."
"Yes..."
"You would have a scientific explanation for Sigrun's monster, then." And then she went back to her knitting, as if it was a normal conversation. "You should ask the others what they think. Maybe somebody knows something about it."
Aksel made a quiet sound of agreement. His insides felt tight. The descriptions Sigrun had given hadn't sounded like they fit the symptoms of the rash illness that had everyone spooked. A dog with mange would be one thing. But two heads? That sounded pretty far fetched.
Still. That could be what was going on. It wasn't as if he'd never heard of humans and animals catching diseases from each other. And a dog with the rash illness sounded less scary than trolls, or werewolves, or anything else.
Morning came as it usually did, with darkness followed by watery sun peeking through the grey sky. Aksel squinted out the window for a while, wondering if it would rain again, then made his way over to meet Sigrun.
She was standing outside the cafe, hands in her pockets, looking a lot less nervous than she had the day before. Gøran was there too. They both looked like they were ready for anything.
Aksel hoped that it wouldn't come to that. Please, he thought, let it be nothing. Their eyes were playing tricks on them the previous day. Please?
"Okay," he said, a bit too heartily. "Are we doing this?"
"Yep." Sigrun smiled at him. "A quick check, like usual, and then we're good."
"And hopefully it'll be nothing," Gøran said. "I mean, what we saw last night...."
"It was raining, and we were freaked out, so our eyes played some tricks on us. End of story." Sigrun squared her shoulders, then stepped away from the door, and motioned for them to follow her.
Gøran and Aksel exchanged a glance. They said nothing. But it was clear they were both thinking the same thing: She was talking big, but that didn't mean she wasn't worried.
Silently, they followed her.
Worry kept turning over in Aksel's head. What if, what if – stop it, he told himself. It's fine. It's nothing. You'll be fine.
The rain had left the ground soft, and they had to pick their way through to avoid the worst of the mud. Soon, all that rain would be replaced by snow. And ice. And worse, maybe. There was no telling how winter would go. Especially with the roads closed until further notice, and Gunnar unable to make trips to Bergen now that the harbour was closed to all unauthorized traffic, and everything else.
But they'd find out soon enough, whether they wanted to or not.
"It was somewhere around here," Sigrun said, guiding them along the fence.
"Are you sure?" Gøran scrutinized it, looking like he was pretty unclear himself. "I think it was further down. But it was pretty dark."
"No, I swear it was here –"
Aksel bit at his lower lip. He hoped that Sigrun was right; the part of the fence that she had pointed out was undamaged, no hint that anything had disturbed it. If there was a creepy monster around, it was on the other side of the fence, away from them.
"But... wait a minute. That tree over there." And Sigrun set off in the opposite direction Gøran had pointed out, trailing along the fence. "Wasn't it closer to...."
She stopped. Paused. "Uh. Guys?"
They came to her side. She pointed, but there wasn't any need for that. You didn't need anybody pointing it out in order to see where the mud had been dug down, and where the wire fence had been pushed up, leaving a big gaping hole that it whatever it was – used to crawl its way under the fence and inside the area that was supposed to be secure.
"Oh man," Gøran said, crouching to take a closer look. "This is not good."
Sigrun swore. "That thing was right there and we just –"
"Well, what do you think we should have done?! We only –"
"Well –"
"Hey, stop," Aksel said. "Wait a second."
"Wait? Aksel, that thing's inside, it –"
"Right. And we don't know what it is. Or where it went. So what should we do?"
He looked from Sigrun to Gøran. Both of them looked pale and nervous. But, he was sure, he probably didn't look much better himself.
In the end, they decided to take care of the hole first. They bent the wire back into its proper shape as best they could, then placed logs and branches to cover the hole.
"The thing is," Gøran said while they worked, "If it could get in here, then it could get in literally anywhere else, too."
"Gøran?"
"Yeah?"
"Let's not."
"But –"
Aksel sighed. "I think... Uh. The least we can do is not leave the door wide open for more things to come in. Right?"
They all glanced at each other, then looked away, getting back to work.
Though Aksel didn't want to admit it, he suddenly came to the uncomfortable realization that there was no reason to assume that whatever Sigrun had seen was the only thing that had managed to get in. There was no reason that something else couldn't have come in after it. And another. And another.
"We need to tell somebody about this."
That was how they found themselves back at the cafe, delivering the story to Aksel's grandmother. She was, after all, the oldest and most level-headed person that any of them could think of.
She listened to their story, expression growing more concerned by the minute.
"And you don't know where it went, dear?" she asked, pushing her glasses up as she peered at Sigrun.
"No. There were a few tracks, but I didn't take a close look at them."
From her seat at the table, Ingrid frowned. Her brows creased in contemplation. "What if it isn't dangerous?" she ventured. "If it's only an animal, then there's no need to go after it, is there?"
"I guess. But we don't know that for sure, right? It looked wrong."
"And even if there's nothing wrong with it, there's no way to be sure that it isn't carrying something nasty. It could make people sick. Or make other animals sick."
Ingrid paled. "I didn't think of that." All of them were quiet for a moment as they considered what exactly that might mean. "Well, I guess we need to find it."
"Right," Aksel's grandmother said. Then she rose from the table, looking as if she meant business. "We need to get some people together."
She said that as if it was the simplest thing in the world.
It didn't take long for Aksel's grandmother to put everything in order. A reasonable request from a little old lady could go a long way, and it had helped that she'd been involved in several committees in Dalsnes before she'd moved to Bergen a few years ago. Almost everyone in the village knew her. In no time, she had the word out, and everyone who was available had gathered together at the cafe, ready for the task ahead of them.
"Split into groups. At least one person needs to be armed. Cover up as much as you can; we don't know what sort of diseases this animal might be carrying."
"Do we know what it looks like?" Gøran's older brother, Anders, asked.
"Unfortunately, no. However – " Berit continued, just as the muttering started. "This is a small village. Everyone knows everyone, correct?"
There were nods all around.
"And everyone knows everyone's dogs, is that right?"
Hesitation, then a chorus of affirmative mumbling.
"Well, then. If you find someone that doesn't belong, then you've found our culprit. Now, someone needs to go fix that fence, and the rest should find the animal before it causes any more fuss. If it is a stray dog that's gotten in, I'm sure we can find someone to care for it."
There was no need to say what to do if it wasn't a dog. Living out in the mountains had given many people in the village a practical view of wild animals. An animal that didn't hesitate to spend time around humans could be trouble, and sometimes it was kinder to eliminate the problem than to try fruitlessly to help it adapt to self-sufficiency.
Aksel hoped it was nothing more than that – that a stray dog had found its way to their village, or a fox had dug under their fence in hopes of finding something easy to eat among the rubbish that was no longer being collected due to the temporary suspension of services.
Still, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't forget what the radio broadcaster had said.
Monsters in the mountains.
Surely not.
The short daylight hours didn't give them much time to work with. The rain didn't help either, with clouds thinning the sunlight until it was nothing, the constant drizzle seeping into clothing no matter how many layers were employed to keep it out.
The search was on, anyway.
Small groups spread out across the village. The atmosphere was one of grim anticipation. Regardless of what had made it through the fence, the sooner it was found, the sooner everyone would be much more comfortable.
Aksel and Sigrun walked side by side, their hoods up and their heads dipped against the constant drizzle. Sigrun carried a large flashlight. Though they didn't need it yet, there was a good possibility that they would. She'd stopped by her house to get it before they went to their assigned area, making a point to do it, like she was bound and determined to stay out until they scoured every last centimetre of the village – and if they needed to do that by flashlight, so be it.
Aksel shoved his hands into the pockets of his raincoat. His grandmother's rifle was slung over his shoulder, unfamiliar and heavy. Even though she'd taught him how to handle it, he wasn't used to its presence. Worse than that was the thought of having to use it. His grandmother had done her best, but he wasn't half the shot that she was. He hoped that someone else would find what they were looking for; that whatever Sigrun and Gøran had seen yesterday would turn out to just be a dog, a normal dog, and nothing to worry about. That would be the best scenario. And then they could all have a laugh at how everybody had gotten worked up over nothing.
They had volunteered for the area near the damaged fence. Aksel thought it was unlikely that the animal would have hung around there, but Sigrun insisted, and he hadn't wanted to argue. Gøran and Ingrid had walked part of the way with them before leaving them to go check on their assigned area. Soon, there was nothing but Aksel, Sigrun, and a lonely stretch of fencing.
Normally chatty, Sigrun had her lips clamped shut in a thin line. Aksel trudged next to her, biting his tongue to stop himself from filling the silence.
They came to the hole in the fence. By the look of it, nothing had been disturbed; the branches they had stuffed in to block the gap remained in place.
Aksel let out a long breath. At least nothing else had managed to get through.
Sigrun straightened. "Okay," she said at last. "If you were a two-headed dog, where would you go?"
"Uh, what?"
"Well, it came through here, right? So where did it go? It's got to be hiding someplace." Sigrun gestured with the flashlight. "Come on, we've got to find this thing and kick its ass."
Aksel allowed himself a small smile. That was more like the Sigrun he knew. "That might be easier said than done," he said. "There's lots of places for it to hide." Their village was small, sure, but there were any number of sheds and woodpiles, bushes and small tight spaces where a small animal could dig itself in and hide if it was determined enough.
Sigrun huffed. "I didn't say it would be easy," she said. "But somebody needs to find it, so it might as well be us."
"I guess," Aksel mumbled, and shrugged. In truth, he hoped that somebody else would find the whatever-it-was, because whoever found it would have to deal with it, and that possibility was one that he really didn't want to think about.
If Sigrun had heard his lukewarm response, she gave no sign of it. She was walking toward the hole, looking down at the disturbed earth, then toward the village, and any number of paths the animal might have taken, as if she could figure out where it went in spite of the mess of footprints all over the place. Finally, she straightened up, and pointed in a direction that looked completely random to Aksel. "This way. Come on!"
Resigned, Aksel followed. Sigrun had always been better at following animal trails than he had, and if she thought she saw something – well, maybe she did.
After a few minutes, Sigrun stopped, pointing to the ground. "Look. See that?"
Following her gaze, Aksel stared at the ground. In the muddy earth was what looked like a set of dog tracks. Or two dogs. Or one and a half. The tracks didn't make any sense; they looked as if they belonged to one animal with six feet, and longer claws than any domestic canine should have.
He swore under his breath. "We should go get help," he said, looking back up at Sigrun.
"No way! The time we spend looking for somebody is time we could spend looking for this thing. And soon it'll be too dark to find these tracks again. We need to get this thing right away."
"But –"
Sigrun gestured to the rifle slung over Aksel's shoulder. "You know how to shoot that, don't you?"
"Yeah, but –"
"Then come on!"
Without waiting for a response, Sigrun ran, following the tracks.
Aksel cast another furtive glance toward the centre of the village, groaned, then took off after her. As much as he didn't want to be the one to deal with this, he wasn't going to let Sigrun go on this wild dog chase with nothing to defend herself besides a heavy flashlight and a thick head.
No matter how much he hoped the tracks were old, Aksel had to admit that they didn't look that way. It had been drizzling for hours, but the imprints had hardly any water in them. Leaves around the footprints looked as if they had been stirred up only a moment ago. That meant something, right?
He hoped not.
The trail led along the back of a row of houses. They looked familiar, and after a moment, Aksel realized that it was Ingrid's street. Sure enough, he recognized her house, the last one in the row, with its carefully-tended back garden and tidy chicken coop nestled against the tool shed.
The chickens were making a racket.
After a moment, Aksel realized why.
Dark shapes skulked around the chicken coop. As Aksel stepped closer, he realized that it was one dark shape. At one time, it might have been a large farm dog. Now, it was something else. Two heads. Six legs. All teeth.
Sigrun swore. "That's it!" she said, and took off toward Ingrid's yard before Aksel could realize what she was doing.
"Sigrun, wait!"
But she didn't wait.
"Get away from my friend's chickens, you asshole!" Hollering at the top of her lungs, mud splashing, Sigrun ran toward Ingrid's house. She vaulted over the raised plant bed that served as a yard partition, jumped down in front of the mutant dog, and smacked it with her flashlight.
Aksel ran after her. His blood pounded in his ears. Before he entered the yard, he stopped, slipping the rifle from his shoulder. If he could –
But one look told him he couldn't risk the shot.
Aksel's hands shook. He felt acid raise in his throat. He glanced around wildly for another solution.
A shovel sat propped against one of the raised beds. Hardly thinking, he set the gun down and snatched the shovel up.
Sigrun was yelling something he couldn't understand. The dog was circling her, chickens entirely forgotten, growling and snapping at her legs. Each step she took away from it brought her closer to the back of the shed, as the dog pressed her closer and closer to the flat surface.
Aksel swung, catching one of its heads with the flat of the shovel. The dog screamed, and Sigrun screamed, and Aksel screamed as it turned on him, jaws snapping.
He backed up, panting with adrenaline, swinging wildly as the dog that was not a dog stepped toward him –
Until another whack from Sigrun's flashlight turned its attention back in her direction.
"Sigrun, what the hell are you doing?!" Aksel gasped, swinging the shovel toward the dog to get its attention.
"I'm saving your ass, that's what!"
"But –" Aksel huffed. "That's what I'm trying to do!"
"Fuck off and go run for help!" Thunk.
"No, you!" Whack.
They continued to take turns hitting the monster, like some horrible game of whack-a-mole. Each blow distracted it, but beyond that, didn't seem to have an effect. Aksel lifted his gaze to meet Sigrun's, and she seemed to be thinking the same thing – that they couldn't keep this up for long.
That one second of looking away gave the monster a chance to strike. It jumped at Aksel and the sudden movement sent him tripping backward. He hit the muddy ground with a thud, Sigrun;'s yell ringing in his ears, the breath knocked out of him. It would all be over in a minute –
But instead of the bites he expected, the monster ran over and past him, toward the end of the garden, snarling at something Aksel couldn't see.
A second later, the crack of a gunshot set his ears ringing. Then another. Then silence.
Aksel swallowed hard, then rolled over on the muddy ground to look at where the sound had come from.
His grandmother stood by the flower bed, rifle in hand, pointing it at a lump of bloody fur. She was grim-faced, more serious than Aksel had ever seen her, brows knitted together in concentration.
"Are you two all right?" she asked, keeping her eyes on the dog as she spoke, apparently unwilling to risk looking away for even a second.
"Yeah," Sigrun said. "Yeah, I think so. Aksel?"
Aksel closed his eyes. He wasn't all right, but he was relieved, and that was close enough. "Yeah," he mumbled. "I guess."
Sigrun bent to offer her hand, and he took it. Her normally light expression was serious as she pulled him up, and even when he was on his feet, she didn't let go. It wasn't until they walked over to stand by Aksel's grandmother, keeping their distance from the body of the beast, that Sigrun finally put her hands in her pockets.
"Did it touch you? Either of you," Aksel's grandmother asked.
"Um," Aksel said. "No, but..."
"Uh..." Sigrun cleared her throat. "Not exactly? Sort of?"
Aksel glanced down at himself. In addition to all of the dirt, mud, and slush he'd gotten covered in when he took the fall, his clothes were flecked with the creature's blood, sprayed there from the blows with the shovel. One look at Sigrun confirmed the same. "We're kind of..." he paused, not sure how to continue.
"We're covered in it," Sigrun finished.
After a moment, Aksel's grandmother lowered the gun. She took a long, long look at Aksel and Sigrun, taking in the state of them, the blood on their clothing. Finally, she sighed and nodded. "I see. Well, it's a good thing that I was searching on the other side of the street, isn't it." She paused, pressing her lips together in thought. "You'll have to keep your distance for a while, dears. There's no telling what kind of nasty germs that poor thing was carrying. We don't know where it's been."
Aksel looked back toward the trail of tracks leading far to the edge of the village, where there was the fence with the hole in it, and the tense, troubled world beyond.
None of them knew for sure where that creature had been, but it had come from out there, and that was problem enough.
When his grandmother had said he and Sigrun would need to "keep their distance for a while," Aksel hadn't been sure what the meant.
He found out soon enough.
"House arrest," as Sigrun called it, wasn't so bad. After the initial rush of worry, the "what next?" and the "will we be okay?" and "this doesn't mean we're going to turn into two-headed monsters, does it?" the actual process was rather mundane.
As the ones who'd come into close contact with the creature, it had been Aksel and Sigrun's job to dispose of the body. Stomach-churning though it had been to gather it up and haul it to the garbage pile to be burned, it hadn't been half as bad as listening to the discussion after – conducted at a distance, as his grandmother and the rest of the village decided what to do next, while the corpse went up in flames in the background.
Nobody really knew what might happen. Would he get sick? Would Sigrun? Were they infected with something? Listening to them talk it over flooded Aksel with a rush of anxiety. He'd clenched his teeth and did his best not to vomit from nerves and the awful smell from the smoke, because that was the last thing anybody needed.
Sigrun, though usually talkative, didn't say much. She patted Aksel on the shoulder as he did his best to calm himself, but stayed quiet and listened. When he looked at her, he saw that her expression was firm and calm, but her face was as pale as a white cheese, and that told him everything. She was just as bothered as he was.
In the end, it was decided that they'd stay at Aksel's house. And not come out. For a few weeks. Aksel's grandmother would stay with Gøran and Ingrid, and Gøran would come by every day to check up on them, and that would be that.
Simple. No nonsense. Careful. Just in case. The "in case of what?" was better left unsaid.
The worst part, Aksel was coming to realize, was not the existential dread, but the fact that it was so boring.
After what seemed like the millionth game of poker, a knock on the door announcing Gøran's arrival came as a relief. Aksel sprang up, racing to the door, Sigrun following close behind him. He skidded on the entrance rug, stumbled against the door, and smacked into it as Sigrun ran into him.
"Everything all right in there?" came Gøran's voice from the other side of the door.
"Yeah," Aksel wheezed. "Perfect."
"We're okay," Sigrun replied. "Just bored." She moved to the window, drawing back the curtain to give a wave through it.
"What did you bring us?" Aksel asked. He leaned against the door, wishing he could crack it open, even a fraction, and not only because it would be easier to hear. Talking through the door just wasn't the same. It had only been a week, but he found himself thirsting for even a tiny amount of contact with someone other than Sigrun. But he knew better. That door would have to stay shut for the time being – just in case.
"Uhh, I have some groceries; pasta and sauce and stuff. And more of Ingrid's eggs – she's still really grateful you helped with, uh, you know."
"Tell her it's fine, she doesn't need to worry about it."
"Yeah, I know, I know. Oh, and there's some books in here, too."
Aksel let out a sigh of relief. He didn't even care what it was; something to read would keep him and Sigrun occupied for a while. "Thanks," he said, and meant it. Then he paused, and asked, "How's my grandmother?"
"She's getting along all right. We finished shoring up the fence, and –"
"She didn't help you with that, did she?"
"No way," Gøran said, a little too quickly. "She kind of, uh, directed us. But it's cool, the job's all done."
Aksel doubted his grandmother had only "directed" the proceedings. Knowing her, she'd been right in the middle of everything. But after all that had happened, he couldn't help but be grateful that she was the way she was. "And everything's okay? Nothing, you know, weird."
"No way, man. Everything's normal; we didn't find anything unexpected. No more of, uh, whatever that was." Gøran cleared his throat. "So, hang in there a little longer, all right? Couple of weeks, you'll be out before you know it."
"Yeah." Aksel smiled to himself. "If me and Sigrun don't drive each other crazy first."
"I heard that!" Sigrun said from her place by the window.
"Okay," Gøran said. He paused, in a way that seemed to communicate a sort of shrug. "It's getting kinda' cold out here, so..."
"I'd love to invite you in, but..."
"...Yeah."
"Yeah." Aksel cleared his throat. "See you later?"
"See you later. Tomorrow. Same time, same place."
As Gøran left, Aksel waited. Counted to thirty, enough for him to have plenty of time for him to get to the end of the walkway. Then he opened the door, hauled the bags inside, and shut it firmly, locking it behind him.
Sigrun was in the kitchen, rummaging through the pantry. She'd turned the radio on, and the Odda radio station was loud enough that Odd's familiar voice could be heard over the sound of Sigrun shifting cans around and muttering to herself.
I'm predicting a big storm coming, folks; not sure if it means snow, or more rain, or something else. But please take this as a friendly reminder to stay in, stay safe, and be on the lookout for –
"Do we really need to listen to that?" Aksel asked as he set the groceries on the counter and began unpacking. "That guy's off his rocker."
Sigrun laughed. "Are you sure? Remember, we're stuck in here because we got up close and personal with a two-headed monster." She leaned against the kitchen counter and raised an eyebrow. "I'm starting to think Odd's the only person with any real clue about what's going on."
"Maybe you're right." Aksel looked at her. Sigrun was smiling, but she also looked serious. It was an unusual look for her, and the entire situation that they were in was so strange, but there was something comforting about that determined expression.
"Of course I'm right." As if there was nothing more to be said about that, Sigrun began poking through the bags that Gøran had brought. "Sooo what are you making for supper? I'm getting so sick of spaghetti."
"Um – " The abrupt change of topic made Aksel pause. He stared at the assortment, thinking quick. "Let's see. We have eggs, and there's a can of tomatoes... I could make shakshuka?"
"Yes! Oh man, I could kiss you."
Aksel laughed, and tried to ignore the heat that crept over his cheeks. "Uh, no. But you can help me unpack these, if you want."
As they worked side by side, unpacking and rearranging, Aksel found himself feeling relaxed and calm despite the locked door, despite everything. Maybe it was Sigrun's energy, her presence strangely comforting in its familiarity.
Or maybe it was just a feeling, a sense he had that though nothing was normal at the moment, it would all turn out all right.
Nothing would ever be the same. But it would be all right.
Fandom: Stand Still Stay Silent
Characters/Pairing: Aksel, Sigrun, Gøran & Berit. No pairing.
Rating: 13+ for canon-typical violence.
Length: ~6k
Summary: The fence hasn't been up for very long. Something has found its way in. Looks like they'll need to deal with it.
Other: Beta reading done by Scytale as services for Sunflower Auction. Thank you!
Title references a Mountain Goats song by the same name.
Colour in Your Cheeks
No reports from Bergen, Vossevangen, Storebø, Rosendal. I must tell you, folks, it's strange over here in Odda. News has come in that weird creatures have been attacking people. Well, we've always had stories about trolls in these mountains, haven't we? No matter what you think of that, take care. I know that cell coverage has been spotty lately, so if you must leave your house, tell someone where you are going, and make sure you're somewhere safe and secure after dark. Now, onto the weather; my predictions suggest that the rain will continue...
Aksel turned down the radio. Odd from Odda's weather predictions were not worth a single øre; everyone knew he made them with a pendulum and scrying mirror. Besides, all you had to do to know that it would keep raining was to take one look out of the cafe's windows.
The Dalsnes cafe had become an unofficial community centre. Or rather, it had always sort of had been, but now pretty much everyone in the village continued to gravitate there, even though most of the cafe's fresh supplies had run out and there was nothing much left except heated-from-frozen biscuits and tea. Internet and phone reception had been bad lately, but at least at the cafe, there were people to talk to, and the radio on the countertop providing some background noise when nobody felt up to saying much of anything. There was something to be said for a familiar setting and good company.
Still. Company or not, the message from Odda was a reminder that there was a reason they were all gathered together.
"What do you think he means by 'weird creatures'?" Aksel asked, turning to his grandmother as if she might have the answer. She usually did. "I'd be more worried about people."
His grandmother was quiet for a long time. She cupped her mug of tea and said nothing for a while, staring out the window at the rain.
Aksel looked out, too. In the dim light, it was hard to see much at all.
"I think it wouldn't hurt to be careful," his grandmother said quietly. "Just in case."
"Oh, grandma, don't tell me you believe what Odd says! The only reason we're listening to him in the first place is because all of the other stations have been put on autoplay and he's the only one actually coming in. He's always been a weirdo."
"Yes, yes, I know. He goes around saying he's a witch, did you hear that? But he's right that there have always been stories about dangerous things in these mountains. Even when I was a little girl, we always were careful of trolls."
The 'yeah, but' was on the tip of Aksel's tongue. He bit it down. Those were only stories; everyone knew that. His grandmother had grown up in Dalsnes, and she had told him stories about trolls just like her parents had told her, and he was sure that all those tales about monsters were a way to make sure that kids wouldn't go out into the mountains on their own. There was nothing more to it than that. But she did sound bothered, so –
"I wonder when Sigrun and Gøran will be back," he said, looking out the window, watching the rain come down. They had volunteered to check on the fence, making sure that it was still whole, just in case.
Aksel had tried to talk his friends out of it. It's dark, he'd said. You won't be able to see a thing. Leave it until tomorrow.
Sigrun pointed out that there was a little bit of light, you know, and besides that, crap weather meant that parts of the fence might fall over. It'd be best to patch those holes right away, or at least mark where they were so they could get taken care of later.
And then she and Gøran had gone out into the drizzle, as if it was nothing.
Maybe I should have tried harder to get them to stay, Aksel thought. Not that he was worried – well, maybe – it was only that it was slippery and wet out there, and –
Suddenly, the door to the cafe opened, and Gøran and Sigrun stepped in, their raincoats dripping, their faces white.
"Oh! You're finally back –"
"Aksel, there's something really weird out there."
Oh, no.
His grandmother spoke before he did. "What do you mean, Sigrun?" she asked, looking toward the door, pushing her glasses up on her face.
"I don't know." Sigrun came over to their table, dripping. The parts of her hair that hadn't been covered by her hood were plastered to her face. "At first I thought it was a dog, but it looked too weird to be a dog."
"A fox?" Aksel ventured.
"No, Einstein, not like that. It was way bigger, and like, I don't know, creepy."
"It had two heads," Gøran said, coming to stand beside Sigrun.
"You're kidding, right?"
"No, he's not." Sigrun put her palms flat on the table and leaned in close. She looked first to Aksel, then to his grandmother, then back to Aksel again. "I know it sounds like a whole load of bull, but there was seriously something wrong with that thing."
"I see. Tell us what happened, dear."
"Hah! See, Aksel? Berit believes me." Sigrun flashed a grin, but didn't look any less worried. "Here, we'll tell you all about it."
As Sigrun and Gøran shrugged off their slickers and sat down, Aksel thought back to the radio broadcast. He'd thought it sounded ridiculous, and that his friends could have seen anything out there. But that didn't change how troubled they looked. And his grandmother was taking it so seriously. There couldn't be anything behind it, could there?
"So. We were going on out back, checking around the fence, right? And then we heard something. I'm not sure what it was. Some kind of growling." Sigrun looked from Aksel to his grandmother. She spoke as steadily and clearly as she could, but her face was pale, the damp hair clinging to her cheeks making her look more startled. Her gaze stayed on Aksel's grandmother, as if she though that she was the only one who might, maybe, possibly, take what she said about monsters at face value.
"It moved really jerky. Like there was something wrong with it," Sigrun continued.
"Did you get a close look at it?"
"No. Close enough, but like... no."
Gøran, who had been quiet, cleared his throat. "It was sniffing around. I don't think it saw us, but I'm not sure."
"If it was actually a dog, it would've smelled you," Aksel said.
Sigrun and Gøran glanced at each other, and uncomfortable look crossing both their faces. It seemed as if that hadn't occurred to them.
For a moment, they all sat in quiet, contemplating the prospect of this. Outside, the rain picked up from a drizzle to something heavier, wind sending it patting against the windows. The other people in the cafe kept talking, the separate conversations a low roll of sound in the background. Gøran was looking out, as if he expected to see the thing out there somewhere, having followed them into the village from the boundary line. Sigrun stared at her hands, brows furrowed as she tried, it seemed, to decide how she felt about what she'd seen.
The fence had been put up to keep people out.
They'd heard reports of wanderers – both people with the illness, and others who had, in a panic, left their cities and towns and villages to find someplace safer. At the time, it'd seemed to make sense to ensure that the only way to enter Dalsnes via land would be through a designated checkpoint. Two weeks later, one of the official government updates had come through recommending small communities should do exactly that.
So far, nothing unexpected had happened. And yet....
Strange creatures. That was what Odd had said. Reports of strange creatures in the valleys. And even though everyone knew better than to listen to anything Odd from Odda reported, it did seem like a weird coincidence.
"Did you find any places in the fence that needed repairing?" Aksel's grandmother asked after a moment, looking carefully at Aksel's friends over the brim of her mug.
Gøran shook his head. "It looked okay. Like, the thing, whatever it was, was on the outside. But it was getting darker by then; I think we'll have to check again tomorrow."
"And there's no telling if it might find a way to break through or dig under or something," Sigrun added, looking more uncomfortable with every word.
Aksel's grandmother nodded slowly. "That's possible. But I think it's more likely that the fence will hold. Try not to worry about it, dear. You'll be able to reinforce it in the morning.
The fire crackled in the grate.
In the dim light, it was hard for Aksel to make out his grandmother's expression. They hadn't spoken about what Sigrun had seen when she went out with Gøran earlier that day, but he could tell now that she was thinking about it. She had that same contemplative gaze that she'd had when she was listening to them tell about what they had seen.
"What do you think about it?" he asked from where he sat near the fire, cat in his lap, purring. "About, um, what Sigrun told us."
His grandmother was quiet for a while, no sound except the click of her knitting needles. "Well, she did sound worried, didn't she."
"Yes..." Aksel nibbled at his lower lip. "But, come on. Two-headed dogs?"
"It might be nothing," his grandmother admitted. "But it might be something. And if it's something for us to worry about, we can worry about it in the morning."
Aksel quieted. There was no way he could argue with that. His grandmother had such an easy, steadfast way of going about things; even in serious situations, her presence had a calming effect. Her philosophy was to do what you can first and then worry later. He didn't always take her advice, but when he did, by the time he'd finished taking care of the problem, Aksel found that there was either nothing to worry about, or he didn't feel like worrying any more.
Hopefully this time would be like the others. But he couldn't be sure, could he? Aksel bit his lip and scritched the cat behind the ear and tried to think of something else. He couldn't.
"What if, you know, that rash illness," he asked quietly, "What if animals can get it too?"
The needles stopped clicking against each other. His grandmother lifted her head a bit, looking thoughtful. "Well now," she said, looking over at Aksel. "That would be quite a problem, wouldn't it."
"Yes..."
"You would have a scientific explanation for Sigrun's monster, then." And then she went back to her knitting, as if it was a normal conversation. "You should ask the others what they think. Maybe somebody knows something about it."
Aksel made a quiet sound of agreement. His insides felt tight. The descriptions Sigrun had given hadn't sounded like they fit the symptoms of the rash illness that had everyone spooked. A dog with mange would be one thing. But two heads? That sounded pretty far fetched.
Still. That could be what was going on. It wasn't as if he'd never heard of humans and animals catching diseases from each other. And a dog with the rash illness sounded less scary than trolls, or werewolves, or anything else.
Morning came as it usually did, with darkness followed by watery sun peeking through the grey sky. Aksel squinted out the window for a while, wondering if it would rain again, then made his way over to meet Sigrun.
She was standing outside the cafe, hands in her pockets, looking a lot less nervous than she had the day before. Gøran was there too. They both looked like they were ready for anything.
Aksel hoped that it wouldn't come to that. Please, he thought, let it be nothing. Their eyes were playing tricks on them the previous day. Please?
"Okay," he said, a bit too heartily. "Are we doing this?"
"Yep." Sigrun smiled at him. "A quick check, like usual, and then we're good."
"And hopefully it'll be nothing," Gøran said. "I mean, what we saw last night...."
"It was raining, and we were freaked out, so our eyes played some tricks on us. End of story." Sigrun squared her shoulders, then stepped away from the door, and motioned for them to follow her.
Gøran and Aksel exchanged a glance. They said nothing. But it was clear they were both thinking the same thing: She was talking big, but that didn't mean she wasn't worried.
Silently, they followed her.
Worry kept turning over in Aksel's head. What if, what if – stop it, he told himself. It's fine. It's nothing. You'll be fine.
The rain had left the ground soft, and they had to pick their way through to avoid the worst of the mud. Soon, all that rain would be replaced by snow. And ice. And worse, maybe. There was no telling how winter would go. Especially with the roads closed until further notice, and Gunnar unable to make trips to Bergen now that the harbour was closed to all unauthorized traffic, and everything else.
But they'd find out soon enough, whether they wanted to or not.
"It was somewhere around here," Sigrun said, guiding them along the fence.
"Are you sure?" Gøran scrutinized it, looking like he was pretty unclear himself. "I think it was further down. But it was pretty dark."
"No, I swear it was here –"
Aksel bit at his lower lip. He hoped that Sigrun was right; the part of the fence that she had pointed out was undamaged, no hint that anything had disturbed it. If there was a creepy monster around, it was on the other side of the fence, away from them.
"But... wait a minute. That tree over there." And Sigrun set off in the opposite direction Gøran had pointed out, trailing along the fence. "Wasn't it closer to...."
She stopped. Paused. "Uh. Guys?"
They came to her side. She pointed, but there wasn't any need for that. You didn't need anybody pointing it out in order to see where the mud had been dug down, and where the wire fence had been pushed up, leaving a big gaping hole that it whatever it was – used to crawl its way under the fence and inside the area that was supposed to be secure.
"Oh man," Gøran said, crouching to take a closer look. "This is not good."
Sigrun swore. "That thing was right there and we just –"
"Well, what do you think we should have done?! We only –"
"Well –"
"Hey, stop," Aksel said. "Wait a second."
"Wait? Aksel, that thing's inside, it –"
"Right. And we don't know what it is. Or where it went. So what should we do?"
He looked from Sigrun to Gøran. Both of them looked pale and nervous. But, he was sure, he probably didn't look much better himself.
In the end, they decided to take care of the hole first. They bent the wire back into its proper shape as best they could, then placed logs and branches to cover the hole.
"The thing is," Gøran said while they worked, "If it could get in here, then it could get in literally anywhere else, too."
"Gøran?"
"Yeah?"
"Let's not."
"But –"
Aksel sighed. "I think... Uh. The least we can do is not leave the door wide open for more things to come in. Right?"
They all glanced at each other, then looked away, getting back to work.
Though Aksel didn't want to admit it, he suddenly came to the uncomfortable realization that there was no reason to assume that whatever Sigrun had seen was the only thing that had managed to get in. There was no reason that something else couldn't have come in after it. And another. And another.
"We need to tell somebody about this."
That was how they found themselves back at the cafe, delivering the story to Aksel's grandmother. She was, after all, the oldest and most level-headed person that any of them could think of.
She listened to their story, expression growing more concerned by the minute.
"And you don't know where it went, dear?" she asked, pushing her glasses up as she peered at Sigrun.
"No. There were a few tracks, but I didn't take a close look at them."
From her seat at the table, Ingrid frowned. Her brows creased in contemplation. "What if it isn't dangerous?" she ventured. "If it's only an animal, then there's no need to go after it, is there?"
"I guess. But we don't know that for sure, right? It looked wrong."
"And even if there's nothing wrong with it, there's no way to be sure that it isn't carrying something nasty. It could make people sick. Or make other animals sick."
Ingrid paled. "I didn't think of that." All of them were quiet for a moment as they considered what exactly that might mean. "Well, I guess we need to find it."
"Right," Aksel's grandmother said. Then she rose from the table, looking as if she meant business. "We need to get some people together."
She said that as if it was the simplest thing in the world.
It didn't take long for Aksel's grandmother to put everything in order. A reasonable request from a little old lady could go a long way, and it had helped that she'd been involved in several committees in Dalsnes before she'd moved to Bergen a few years ago. Almost everyone in the village knew her. In no time, she had the word out, and everyone who was available had gathered together at the cafe, ready for the task ahead of them.
"Split into groups. At least one person needs to be armed. Cover up as much as you can; we don't know what sort of diseases this animal might be carrying."
"Do we know what it looks like?" Gøran's older brother, Anders, asked.
"Unfortunately, no. However – " Berit continued, just as the muttering started. "This is a small village. Everyone knows everyone, correct?"
There were nods all around.
"And everyone knows everyone's dogs, is that right?"
Hesitation, then a chorus of affirmative mumbling.
"Well, then. If you find someone that doesn't belong, then you've found our culprit. Now, someone needs to go fix that fence, and the rest should find the animal before it causes any more fuss. If it is a stray dog that's gotten in, I'm sure we can find someone to care for it."
There was no need to say what to do if it wasn't a dog. Living out in the mountains had given many people in the village a practical view of wild animals. An animal that didn't hesitate to spend time around humans could be trouble, and sometimes it was kinder to eliminate the problem than to try fruitlessly to help it adapt to self-sufficiency.
Aksel hoped it was nothing more than that – that a stray dog had found its way to their village, or a fox had dug under their fence in hopes of finding something easy to eat among the rubbish that was no longer being collected due to the temporary suspension of services.
Still, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't forget what the radio broadcaster had said.
Monsters in the mountains.
Surely not.
The short daylight hours didn't give them much time to work with. The rain didn't help either, with clouds thinning the sunlight until it was nothing, the constant drizzle seeping into clothing no matter how many layers were employed to keep it out.
The search was on, anyway.
Small groups spread out across the village. The atmosphere was one of grim anticipation. Regardless of what had made it through the fence, the sooner it was found, the sooner everyone would be much more comfortable.
Aksel and Sigrun walked side by side, their hoods up and their heads dipped against the constant drizzle. Sigrun carried a large flashlight. Though they didn't need it yet, there was a good possibility that they would. She'd stopped by her house to get it before they went to their assigned area, making a point to do it, like she was bound and determined to stay out until they scoured every last centimetre of the village – and if they needed to do that by flashlight, so be it.
Aksel shoved his hands into the pockets of his raincoat. His grandmother's rifle was slung over his shoulder, unfamiliar and heavy. Even though she'd taught him how to handle it, he wasn't used to its presence. Worse than that was the thought of having to use it. His grandmother had done her best, but he wasn't half the shot that she was. He hoped that someone else would find what they were looking for; that whatever Sigrun and Gøran had seen yesterday would turn out to just be a dog, a normal dog, and nothing to worry about. That would be the best scenario. And then they could all have a laugh at how everybody had gotten worked up over nothing.
They had volunteered for the area near the damaged fence. Aksel thought it was unlikely that the animal would have hung around there, but Sigrun insisted, and he hadn't wanted to argue. Gøran and Ingrid had walked part of the way with them before leaving them to go check on their assigned area. Soon, there was nothing but Aksel, Sigrun, and a lonely stretch of fencing.
Normally chatty, Sigrun had her lips clamped shut in a thin line. Aksel trudged next to her, biting his tongue to stop himself from filling the silence.
They came to the hole in the fence. By the look of it, nothing had been disturbed; the branches they had stuffed in to block the gap remained in place.
Aksel let out a long breath. At least nothing else had managed to get through.
Sigrun straightened. "Okay," she said at last. "If you were a two-headed dog, where would you go?"
"Uh, what?"
"Well, it came through here, right? So where did it go? It's got to be hiding someplace." Sigrun gestured with the flashlight. "Come on, we've got to find this thing and kick its ass."
Aksel allowed himself a small smile. That was more like the Sigrun he knew. "That might be easier said than done," he said. "There's lots of places for it to hide." Their village was small, sure, but there were any number of sheds and woodpiles, bushes and small tight spaces where a small animal could dig itself in and hide if it was determined enough.
Sigrun huffed. "I didn't say it would be easy," she said. "But somebody needs to find it, so it might as well be us."
"I guess," Aksel mumbled, and shrugged. In truth, he hoped that somebody else would find the whatever-it-was, because whoever found it would have to deal with it, and that possibility was one that he really didn't want to think about.
If Sigrun had heard his lukewarm response, she gave no sign of it. She was walking toward the hole, looking down at the disturbed earth, then toward the village, and any number of paths the animal might have taken, as if she could figure out where it went in spite of the mess of footprints all over the place. Finally, she straightened up, and pointed in a direction that looked completely random to Aksel. "This way. Come on!"
Resigned, Aksel followed. Sigrun had always been better at following animal trails than he had, and if she thought she saw something – well, maybe she did.
After a few minutes, Sigrun stopped, pointing to the ground. "Look. See that?"
Following her gaze, Aksel stared at the ground. In the muddy earth was what looked like a set of dog tracks. Or two dogs. Or one and a half. The tracks didn't make any sense; they looked as if they belonged to one animal with six feet, and longer claws than any domestic canine should have.
He swore under his breath. "We should go get help," he said, looking back up at Sigrun.
"No way! The time we spend looking for somebody is time we could spend looking for this thing. And soon it'll be too dark to find these tracks again. We need to get this thing right away."
"But –"
Sigrun gestured to the rifle slung over Aksel's shoulder. "You know how to shoot that, don't you?"
"Yeah, but –"
"Then come on!"
Without waiting for a response, Sigrun ran, following the tracks.
Aksel cast another furtive glance toward the centre of the village, groaned, then took off after her. As much as he didn't want to be the one to deal with this, he wasn't going to let Sigrun go on this wild dog chase with nothing to defend herself besides a heavy flashlight and a thick head.
No matter how much he hoped the tracks were old, Aksel had to admit that they didn't look that way. It had been drizzling for hours, but the imprints had hardly any water in them. Leaves around the footprints looked as if they had been stirred up only a moment ago. That meant something, right?
He hoped not.
The trail led along the back of a row of houses. They looked familiar, and after a moment, Aksel realized that it was Ingrid's street. Sure enough, he recognized her house, the last one in the row, with its carefully-tended back garden and tidy chicken coop nestled against the tool shed.
The chickens were making a racket.
After a moment, Aksel realized why.
Dark shapes skulked around the chicken coop. As Aksel stepped closer, he realized that it was one dark shape. At one time, it might have been a large farm dog. Now, it was something else. Two heads. Six legs. All teeth.
Sigrun swore. "That's it!" she said, and took off toward Ingrid's yard before Aksel could realize what she was doing.
"Sigrun, wait!"
But she didn't wait.
"Get away from my friend's chickens, you asshole!" Hollering at the top of her lungs, mud splashing, Sigrun ran toward Ingrid's house. She vaulted over the raised plant bed that served as a yard partition, jumped down in front of the mutant dog, and smacked it with her flashlight.
Aksel ran after her. His blood pounded in his ears. Before he entered the yard, he stopped, slipping the rifle from his shoulder. If he could –
But one look told him he couldn't risk the shot.
Aksel's hands shook. He felt acid raise in his throat. He glanced around wildly for another solution.
A shovel sat propped against one of the raised beds. Hardly thinking, he set the gun down and snatched the shovel up.
Sigrun was yelling something he couldn't understand. The dog was circling her, chickens entirely forgotten, growling and snapping at her legs. Each step she took away from it brought her closer to the back of the shed, as the dog pressed her closer and closer to the flat surface.
Aksel swung, catching one of its heads with the flat of the shovel. The dog screamed, and Sigrun screamed, and Aksel screamed as it turned on him, jaws snapping.
He backed up, panting with adrenaline, swinging wildly as the dog that was not a dog stepped toward him –
Until another whack from Sigrun's flashlight turned its attention back in her direction.
"Sigrun, what the hell are you doing?!" Aksel gasped, swinging the shovel toward the dog to get its attention.
"I'm saving your ass, that's what!"
"But –" Aksel huffed. "That's what I'm trying to do!"
"Fuck off and go run for help!" Thunk.
"No, you!" Whack.
They continued to take turns hitting the monster, like some horrible game of whack-a-mole. Each blow distracted it, but beyond that, didn't seem to have an effect. Aksel lifted his gaze to meet Sigrun's, and she seemed to be thinking the same thing – that they couldn't keep this up for long.
That one second of looking away gave the monster a chance to strike. It jumped at Aksel and the sudden movement sent him tripping backward. He hit the muddy ground with a thud, Sigrun;'s yell ringing in his ears, the breath knocked out of him. It would all be over in a minute –
But instead of the bites he expected, the monster ran over and past him, toward the end of the garden, snarling at something Aksel couldn't see.
A second later, the crack of a gunshot set his ears ringing. Then another. Then silence.
Aksel swallowed hard, then rolled over on the muddy ground to look at where the sound had come from.
His grandmother stood by the flower bed, rifle in hand, pointing it at a lump of bloody fur. She was grim-faced, more serious than Aksel had ever seen her, brows knitted together in concentration.
"Are you two all right?" she asked, keeping her eyes on the dog as she spoke, apparently unwilling to risk looking away for even a second.
"Yeah," Sigrun said. "Yeah, I think so. Aksel?"
Aksel closed his eyes. He wasn't all right, but he was relieved, and that was close enough. "Yeah," he mumbled. "I guess."
Sigrun bent to offer her hand, and he took it. Her normally light expression was serious as she pulled him up, and even when he was on his feet, she didn't let go. It wasn't until they walked over to stand by Aksel's grandmother, keeping their distance from the body of the beast, that Sigrun finally put her hands in her pockets.
"Did it touch you? Either of you," Aksel's grandmother asked.
"Um," Aksel said. "No, but..."
"Uh..." Sigrun cleared her throat. "Not exactly? Sort of?"
Aksel glanced down at himself. In addition to all of the dirt, mud, and slush he'd gotten covered in when he took the fall, his clothes were flecked with the creature's blood, sprayed there from the blows with the shovel. One look at Sigrun confirmed the same. "We're kind of..." he paused, not sure how to continue.
"We're covered in it," Sigrun finished.
After a moment, Aksel's grandmother lowered the gun. She took a long, long look at Aksel and Sigrun, taking in the state of them, the blood on their clothing. Finally, she sighed and nodded. "I see. Well, it's a good thing that I was searching on the other side of the street, isn't it." She paused, pressing her lips together in thought. "You'll have to keep your distance for a while, dears. There's no telling what kind of nasty germs that poor thing was carrying. We don't know where it's been."
Aksel looked back toward the trail of tracks leading far to the edge of the village, where there was the fence with the hole in it, and the tense, troubled world beyond.
None of them knew for sure where that creature had been, but it had come from out there, and that was problem enough.
When his grandmother had said he and Sigrun would need to "keep their distance for a while," Aksel hadn't been sure what the meant.
He found out soon enough.
"House arrest," as Sigrun called it, wasn't so bad. After the initial rush of worry, the "what next?" and the "will we be okay?" and "this doesn't mean we're going to turn into two-headed monsters, does it?" the actual process was rather mundane.
As the ones who'd come into close contact with the creature, it had been Aksel and Sigrun's job to dispose of the body. Stomach-churning though it had been to gather it up and haul it to the garbage pile to be burned, it hadn't been half as bad as listening to the discussion after – conducted at a distance, as his grandmother and the rest of the village decided what to do next, while the corpse went up in flames in the background.
Nobody really knew what might happen. Would he get sick? Would Sigrun? Were they infected with something? Listening to them talk it over flooded Aksel with a rush of anxiety. He'd clenched his teeth and did his best not to vomit from nerves and the awful smell from the smoke, because that was the last thing anybody needed.
Sigrun, though usually talkative, didn't say much. She patted Aksel on the shoulder as he did his best to calm himself, but stayed quiet and listened. When he looked at her, he saw that her expression was firm and calm, but her face was as pale as a white cheese, and that told him everything. She was just as bothered as he was.
In the end, it was decided that they'd stay at Aksel's house. And not come out. For a few weeks. Aksel's grandmother would stay with Gøran and Ingrid, and Gøran would come by every day to check up on them, and that would be that.
Simple. No nonsense. Careful. Just in case. The "in case of what?" was better left unsaid.
The worst part, Aksel was coming to realize, was not the existential dread, but the fact that it was so boring.
After what seemed like the millionth game of poker, a knock on the door announcing Gøran's arrival came as a relief. Aksel sprang up, racing to the door, Sigrun following close behind him. He skidded on the entrance rug, stumbled against the door, and smacked into it as Sigrun ran into him.
"Everything all right in there?" came Gøran's voice from the other side of the door.
"Yeah," Aksel wheezed. "Perfect."
"We're okay," Sigrun replied. "Just bored." She moved to the window, drawing back the curtain to give a wave through it.
"What did you bring us?" Aksel asked. He leaned against the door, wishing he could crack it open, even a fraction, and not only because it would be easier to hear. Talking through the door just wasn't the same. It had only been a week, but he found himself thirsting for even a tiny amount of contact with someone other than Sigrun. But he knew better. That door would have to stay shut for the time being – just in case.
"Uhh, I have some groceries; pasta and sauce and stuff. And more of Ingrid's eggs – she's still really grateful you helped with, uh, you know."
"Tell her it's fine, she doesn't need to worry about it."
"Yeah, I know, I know. Oh, and there's some books in here, too."
Aksel let out a sigh of relief. He didn't even care what it was; something to read would keep him and Sigrun occupied for a while. "Thanks," he said, and meant it. Then he paused, and asked, "How's my grandmother?"
"She's getting along all right. We finished shoring up the fence, and –"
"She didn't help you with that, did she?"
"No way," Gøran said, a little too quickly. "She kind of, uh, directed us. But it's cool, the job's all done."
Aksel doubted his grandmother had only "directed" the proceedings. Knowing her, she'd been right in the middle of everything. But after all that had happened, he couldn't help but be grateful that she was the way she was. "And everything's okay? Nothing, you know, weird."
"No way, man. Everything's normal; we didn't find anything unexpected. No more of, uh, whatever that was." Gøran cleared his throat. "So, hang in there a little longer, all right? Couple of weeks, you'll be out before you know it."
"Yeah." Aksel smiled to himself. "If me and Sigrun don't drive each other crazy first."
"I heard that!" Sigrun said from her place by the window.
"Okay," Gøran said. He paused, in a way that seemed to communicate a sort of shrug. "It's getting kinda' cold out here, so..."
"I'd love to invite you in, but..."
"...Yeah."
"Yeah." Aksel cleared his throat. "See you later?"
"See you later. Tomorrow. Same time, same place."
As Gøran left, Aksel waited. Counted to thirty, enough for him to have plenty of time for him to get to the end of the walkway. Then he opened the door, hauled the bags inside, and shut it firmly, locking it behind him.
Sigrun was in the kitchen, rummaging through the pantry. She'd turned the radio on, and the Odda radio station was loud enough that Odd's familiar voice could be heard over the sound of Sigrun shifting cans around and muttering to herself.
I'm predicting a big storm coming, folks; not sure if it means snow, or more rain, or something else. But please take this as a friendly reminder to stay in, stay safe, and be on the lookout for –
"Do we really need to listen to that?" Aksel asked as he set the groceries on the counter and began unpacking. "That guy's off his rocker."
Sigrun laughed. "Are you sure? Remember, we're stuck in here because we got up close and personal with a two-headed monster." She leaned against the kitchen counter and raised an eyebrow. "I'm starting to think Odd's the only person with any real clue about what's going on."
"Maybe you're right." Aksel looked at her. Sigrun was smiling, but she also looked serious. It was an unusual look for her, and the entire situation that they were in was so strange, but there was something comforting about that determined expression.
"Of course I'm right." As if there was nothing more to be said about that, Sigrun began poking through the bags that Gøran had brought. "Sooo what are you making for supper? I'm getting so sick of spaghetti."
"Um – " The abrupt change of topic made Aksel pause. He stared at the assortment, thinking quick. "Let's see. We have eggs, and there's a can of tomatoes... I could make shakshuka?"
"Yes! Oh man, I could kiss you."
Aksel laughed, and tried to ignore the heat that crept over his cheeks. "Uh, no. But you can help me unpack these, if you want."
As they worked side by side, unpacking and rearranging, Aksel found himself feeling relaxed and calm despite the locked door, despite everything. Maybe it was Sigrun's energy, her presence strangely comforting in its familiarity.
Or maybe it was just a feeling, a sense he had that though nothing was normal at the moment, it would all turn out all right.
Nothing would ever be the same. But it would be all right.
