[Short Story] Blighted Grey Dust (Patreon)

My Dearest Friend Henry,

I hope this letter finds you well as if you are reading it; I am not. There is nothing you can do for me. My choices will have led me beyond what mortal man was meant to know, to see. I hope that you will archive my experiences. Though I will keep my destination secret so you do not walk down the same path as I have.

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Henry sighed and folded what was left of the letter, his carriage having arrived. That scrap of paper was the last anyone had heard from George Winston Elmore. While Henry wouldn’t have called George his dearest friend, he was a part of Henry’s inner circle. A jolly fellow who had been welcome to stop by the estate any day of the week.

It took Henry’s butler many hours and even more coins to retrieve this scrap of paper as well as a rough guess at where the man was last seen. As for what George had been doing out in the area that people politely called the blight, was as much of a mystery as the man’s disappearance. Both questions which caused Henry wanted answer to and this town was the place to start.

Henry’s butler knocked on the carriage door. Though Henry could tell that he wasn’t happy as the knock had been hurried and coarse. Very unlike the man’s usual refined and well timed rapping.

Once he stepped out, Henry knew right away why. Over the last half day, he had kept the windows closed to catch a nap and so had missed the change. Despite this town being on the edge of the blight, everything was covered in a penetrating dust. The ground was covered; the carriage was covered, and even the nearly dead breeze seemed saturated with the stuff.

The official story is that the nearby coal mine caught fire. Except the dust isn’t coal ash and the blighted area doesn’t show signs of subterranean fires. Of course, the rumor mill has its own fantastical explanation. Though, to his family’s chagrin, Henry was not the most religious of men and so claims of a literal pit to hell seems just as unlikely.

That night it took Henry’s butler a good hour’s hard work to clean his clothes of the grey dust. The butler was going to clean the carriage, but Henry dismissed the idea with the rightful observation that any cleaning done now would be undone over the night.

A night which passed too quickly. Both of them slept like the dead and were almost as hard to raise. Henry was ready to reprimand his butler at how late they awoke and was only held back by the fact that despite being midday, they were still some of the first up.

From there, the rest of the day followed a similar pattern. Everyone in the town seemed slow and not just in the usual easy going way you find a way from the clocks and time schedules of the city. Though more disturbing was their defeatism when it came to the grey dust.

It would build up on their bodies as they shuffled through the town. Even when they entered a building, any attempt to remove it seemed more like a half forgotten reflex. About the only place truly clear of the stuff was the inn’s kitchen, much to Henry’s joy. The local’s personal food was all a tad too grey for his comfort.

Still, despite it feeling like pulling teeth, Henry had found a lead. George had been through here multiple times in the recent past. Though the townsfolk thought him eccentric.

He had apparently found a ruin close to the center of the blight. Well, that is what he called it. Everyone in town agreed that it was just an interesting folly some long dead noble had set up. None were sure though of the when or who, so Henry sensed something was up.

Though even if it was just a folly, if old enough it becomes a relic in its own right. In the end, Henry didn’t care if it was a ruin or a folly. All that mattered was he now had a location to search.

Next day Henry managed to wake up at dawn, though it sorely tested him. Even with his butler shaking his shoulder it took a good ten minutes to get out of bed. This would be the last time he would wake up before noon for the rest of the trip.

What followed was three days that tested both horses to their limits. The ever present dust grew thicker the deeper into the blight they got. So much so that the horses were only ready to continue the journey at mid day.

At the end of the third day, Henry’s butler finally spotted the ruins. Henry was interested in seeing what had drawn his friend to this place. Still, he decided it was too late to properly explore the place and so for one final night he slept in the carriage while his butler stayed up top.

Next day as the sun once again reached its zenith, Henry and the butler approached a sad-looking collection of buildings. Most barely more than a foundation and maybe a foot of wall. Neither could tell what they were made of as this deep into the blight everything had long ago been covered by at least a good inch of dust on even vertical surfaces.

Henry made a lackluster attempt at kicking the coating off, but it had hardened up from exposure to the elements. Though he expected this as over the last day, the carriage wasn’t traveling on roads, but rather on top of the dust without a clue on how deep it was. A dangerous and very unwise action, but I believe that by this point the man known as Henry had begun to lose himself.

So at this point I must dispense with the illusion of this being a credible report and delve into what might be the ravings of a mad man. Henry and his butler delved into the ruins to find signs of his friend. Except they never found the other side of them!

My fellow researchers believe he simply got turned around because of the dust, but they weren’t the ones to interview Henry. Despite his difficulties, when I talked to him he was still sharp as a tack, even if that tack had been coated in clinging grey dust.

Henry and his man walked for a day and a half, though with this even Henry wasn’t certain as within the ruins the sky was a permanent grey. As they traveled, Henry was shocked as the buildings grew in size and complexity. No longer squares and rectangles, but places with arbitrary numbers of sides and some so high it pierced into the low hanging dust cloud above.

And though I dare not believe him, after a certain point not even the square buildings were truly square. He claimed to have walked around them, counting the sides and yet when he reached his butler, Henry would have counted five or more sides. Each corner was a ninety-degree angle and the buildings were not big enough to hide larger angles.

Still somewhat in control of himself, Henry stopped at this point because of a dwindling food supply. Neither had planned on being away from the carriage for so long. They only lasted as long as they did because the butler had been cautious and packed a few days worth of food and water.

And so with Henry thus faced with the necessity of turning around, he chose to more closely examine one of the buildings. While the butler hauled most of the food, he had been carrying some basic tools for excavation.

Henry barely recalled the feel of his pick biting into the grey dust. Instead, what stayed with him was the sound. For all who may read this, I will not try to reproduce the noise he made in an attempt to replicate it. That sound was not meant for a human’s throat and my nightmares will forever force me to try and figure out what it had sounded like.

Worse, the pick didn’t last long. That should have been the end of it. A coating of dust so hard a pick of good steel broke? He had nothing else that could deal with that.

It is at this point that I believe the man’s senses fully fled him. Instead of turning around and coming back with more men, food, and tools the man went at the wall with his hands! Then, as his nails ripped off, his blood caused the queerest of changes to the material.

What was once a solid wall of grey fell away. Wherever his blood touched, large portions of the wall turned back into the ever present dust. I don’t know what to think!

Henry had such conviction when he told me this. How he dug into the wall with his flesh and blood. The fact that no matter how far he dug, he never came out the other side!

After that no man knows what happened as at some point Henry lost consciousness. He was later found a few miles outside of the blight in need of medical attention. Though going by his tale, I must assume he dug quite a distance as when he was found, both his hands were gone.

Not only that, but half of both his forearms had also vanished, leaving just two stumps completely caked in the dust. I didn’t personally see this as when the doctors tried to remove it; they found that no matter how hard they tried, it just wouldn’t seem to come off. So, instead, they amputated even more of his arms.

In the end, they had to cut off even his elbows as the dust kept being found in the wound when they amputated before that point. The only saving grace is that Henry didn’t appear to have any feeling in either arm.

Then he was remanded to my care. I’m not a trained psychologist, but they found that he responded best to my presence. Though at this point I wish he hadn’t as I do not want this knowledge! I can tell by how it seems to creep into even unrelated memories that any attempt to forget it would be futile.

Worse yet is the butler. The butler. The butler. Over and over I refer to them as Henry’s butler, though even that is a guess. While everyone agrees that he had someone who helped him, none can remember who they were!

We assume they were a male as there are memories of them sharing a room. Other than that though, even the butler’s parents can not recall their face and as time passes more and more forget them. Old letters lack any reference to them and I have rewritten this paper multiple times until I realize any direct references to them would fade.

At least I think they did? I know I’ve written this before and yet the papers have vanished. Maybe this copy doesn’t exist anymore, either. I hope not, though. George’s warning: let me reiterate it. Do Not Tread The Same Path I Do.

Henry escaped three days ago and has vanished. Despite the fact that he appears to have dug through the walls, walls strangely covered in grey dust, they blame me. I was apparently too close to him and let him go. That isn’t true, but it appears that I’m about to follow him.

There is something in those grey dust walls. Something man was not meant to know, but I’ve seen beneath the curtains! I know I’m not in the right mind and yet I must know more!