The Gallows Men
NOTE: I have always been fascinated by horror as a genre, and found interest in the mysterious and expressionist horror of the unexplained and unjust. This was an early attempt to play with unsettling imagery and limited backstory.
The fading sunlight seeped into the cell, past jagged iron grating that had long since turned reddish brown from rust. The birdsong of twilight began to dwindle, joining the sun in slowly sliding away from the grim event that was about to occur. Through the grating, Mary Harker watched as the random passers-by slowly faded from sight, returning to their cozy homes, loving families, and warm meals.
Mary turned from the window to her cell. Stone walls with an iron door was all that separated her from the world, but it was enough. There was little light, and only a small rat-hole in the corner that had long since been vacated. Even the rats would not stay in this cell for long — the stench of the dead reached all the way from the gallows. Mary nudged the small plate of bread that the jailer had given her. Perhaps it was Christian courtesy, or maybe some cruel joke, but the jailer had placed a small runny yellow glob of butter on the bread. She watched as the slimy fat slid its way down the stale wheat before she turned away. She wasn’t hungry at the moment.
The gallows was already up. She could see it quite easily from the grating. Its trunk was good and thick, and the arm looked straight and strong. The noose hung loose and low — an unassuming harbinger of the grim event to come. They had built the gallows in half an hour — seven strong men working fast, under the stern gaze of the Sheriff. He had been adamant that she would be dead before morning.
They had made sure to carry each and every piece of wood by the jail house, and she had seen the workmen sweating and grunting with the effort. The sound of their hammers had echoed throughout the town, playing counterpoint to the bells of the clock on city-hall. When they finished, they sat on the wooden planks for less than a quarter-hour before heading back home to their wives, leaving the dark tree to stare with one unblinking eye at Mary’s cell.
A sound outside drew her back to the grating. Standing on her small cot, she could just manage to look out onto the street below, and there he saw the march begin. Everyone in town — poor, rich, young, old, men and women, even the dogs and horses — all were filtering onto the street and heading south.
She saw him on the street, walking with his shriveled matron of a wife. His paunch sagged under his suit. His face glistened in the heat, sweat dripping down from the brow of his hat. His silk tie wrinkled under his thick chin as he pulled his golden watch out of his vest, and checked the time. The gold glinted in the sun.
Mary tried to breathe slowly as the cell door was unlocked, and opened to the blocky shape of Sheriff Pike. Pike was a loud man, a boisterous and blustering sheriff, who Mary had always thought a bit of a fool. He could always be found at the saloon, and his wide gray mustache drooped, making him look like a woeful bloodhound.
Now, however, framed in the doorway of the cell, his ruddy and slightly chubby face looked gaunt and hollow. He slowly stepped back from the door, pocketing the keys. He raised his hand and pointed, once, to the hall, ushering Mary to her fate.
He had made that gesture once before, to the same effect, in his house when his wife was away.
The wagon was short and squat, really just enough for one person to stand on. The horse stood still and silent, while the driver turned his head ever so slowly to watch Mary walk from the courthouse. His flat wide-brimmed black cap perched atop a birds-nest of silver white hair that glinted in the setting sun, and he squinted at her through the distance as she slowly strode to the wagon.
They would talk about this for some time, she was certain. Such an execution. And by hanging! Hardly the gentlemanly method for disposing of a lady. There would be whispers in the town for a good year at most, and Sheriff Pike couldn’t get rid of them all.
And as time passed, there would be justice. She knew. It would not be swift, but it would come, and cleanly and inevitably as the butcher’s knife. Calmly and with as much elegance as she could muster, Mary accepted the hangman’s hand, and stepped upon the wagon. The driver flicked the reigns, and the ancient wagon began to move, creeping slowly towards the gallows.
She turned away, coyly. She could feel his eyes on her back as she slowly strolled to the side table, casually picking up a brown family photograph in its frame. She felt the floorboards shift as his feet drew him near to her, his sour breath wafting through her nose. His voice was rough and laden with intent.
“She won’t return until next week.”
The entire town had come out to watch her execution. Young children whose bedtimes were long past, old women who nodded righteously a the fate of the unclean. Young men who averted their gaze when her eyes met them. Onward the wagon rattled, down the ruddy hallway, framed by dour and stern townsfolk. The light dwindled darker still as they drew closer to the shadowy tree of judgment. As night drew nigh, the clouds fell to earth, cloaking the ghastly parade in masks of icy mist. The chill wind blew through her dress, biting at her silky skin. In the dim light, she looked through the dark collection of onlookers. Mutely they stared at her as the creaking wagon carried her towards the grim gallows.
As they drew nearer still, the misty haze suddenly lifted, revealing as a rising curtain in a macabre pantomime the crowd of mute and pallid onlookers. Their skin was brown and rotten, the flesh putrid and rank, filling the air with a thick and course stench. Pus and boils festered on their foul limbs, while maggots and worms poked their heads through the squelching ooze to wave blindly in the cold night air. Their clothing was ragged and torn, moth-eaten and caked with mud and dirt. Here and there a cloak of moss, or polished twig poked through the sea of dust and grime. Their eyes were empty and cold, deep and echoing, piercing her soul to the core. She tried to scream, but no sound came.
As in a dream, the hangman took Mary from the wagon, and placed her on the rotting planks of the gallows. Trance-like, she stepped onto the small box to allow the hangman to slip the noose around her neck, and tighten it to her skin. The Sheriff spoke, then the Pastor. She could not hear them, her attention was consumed by the phalanx of empty stares that did not tear their gaze from her trembling form.
One stood tallest, over the sea of the dead. His neck was bent, and his tongue lulled lazily out from black and gaping teeth, half chewed from carrion birds. A clump of cobwebs sprouted from the rotten scalp, drifting slowly in the frozen wind. Though he had no eyes, nor voice, nor soul, a burning and loathsome connection struck her in the heart. She knew in an instant that these were no decaying statues. They saw her, clear as day. They smelled her skin and heard her breath. They had come to watch her fate.
The Sheriff spoke again, and the hangman bent down…
She fell…
She stared at him, a burning rage rising in her cheeks. She felt her hand move before she could stop it, and strike him across the face. They were silent and still then, until she could bare it no more, and strode out of the room. He followed her outside. As they left, she saw the wife, fanning herself by the doorway, her face a mask of loathing. She knew then what her fate was to be, and why she would never again be free. The wife nodded once, and followed them both to the jail.
The rope dug into her neck, burning her skin like a brand. Her lungs filled with caustic bile as her mouth tried to gasp, but her stomach could not obey.
She was too light!
Her mind could not think, the horror of her state blinding her mind to conscious thought. She felt her neck squeeze closed as the rough rope clawed at her jaw. Her lungs began to burn, the tickling flames creeping through her chest. Her rolling eyes met the gaze of the Gallows Men. They had not moved through the ordeal, still standing like statues, staring her in the face. Longing filled their empty eyes. Silent screams of dances from the beyond, and meals of hunger and thirst. The icy menagerie stood sentinel, whispering into her mind the horrible delights of the shadows in the night-time. Rocky crags hidden underneath seas of tears and blood. Empty caverns of lost hopes and wasted days. Dead and blackened trees whispering failed prayers and unanswered pleas. The thousands of moments of her life that would never come to pass.
Desperately she fought. Her lungs struggled to pull any measure of life-sustaining air past the coarse hemp and save her from her fate. Her legs swung frantically, causing her body to spasm and jerk on the noose, sending sharp daggers of red into her eyes. And still the men stood, the gaping holes in their flesh calling out to her, gently teasing her soul, whispering through their hollow chests. No matter how hard she tried, she could not escape the pull, and in horror she felt the crushing pain slowly fade. As the mist claimed her sight, and sharp bubbles burst in her brain, she thought she saw the tall Gallows Man move, raising its hands in exultation.