October writing prompt #16: Putting in the...

   "I'm sorry, Sven, but you will have to put in a lot more effort if you want to get anywhere with this."

   Mr. Anderson, my therapist, looked at me with his wet-looking "I'm so sorry you have to deal with all that crap" eyes.

   "What do you mean by more effort? I really don't know what more to give, I've already explained everything."

   "Indeed, Sven,", said Mr. Anderson, slightly smiling. "You have explained, from an objective point of view. You have given me what an outsider would give, someone who hasn't been in your situation and truly felt what it was like."

Mr. Anderson corrected his posture in his seemingly comfortable armchair, slightly leaning towards me and gazing at me, straight into my eyes - straight into the bottom of my soul.

   "If I am to help you, then I am to know exactly what happened. Not from an outsider's point of view, I could not care less what the authorities say about that incident. I need you to tell me exactly what you saw and how you feel about it, how you view the whole situation."

A sad grin rose on my face.

   "I'm afraid you wouldn't believe me."

   "And I believe I have seen and heard all manner of things during my career. I might even claim that there are not many things that would be entirely unheard of."

Mr. Anderson changed his posture again, now leaning back and crossing his legs. His notebook lay on his lap, ready to record all the insanity I was soon going to tell him. I let out a deep sigh.

   "Well, then... here goes nothing.

   As I told you before, me and my wife were going on a roadtrip in Norway. We had plans to drive from Tromsø to Alta and eventually make it to Hammerfest. The first three days went just fine, we drove around the country, bought some souvenirs, had a few breaks for sleeping and eating and we were just... well, happy. We had just celebrared our fourth anniversary and we were doing great. I mean, it's not that we hadn't had our own difficulties, but... That really hasn't anything to do with this.

   On the third day, we left Alta in the evening and drove in the night. Yeah, I know that's a stupid thing to do in northern Norway in January with snow and frost and all, but... we just thought it might add to the exitement of the trip. We had read some stories earlier, about monsters living inside the mountains there. We wanted to laugh at them, to show that there's nothing there. Except for darkness and an empty road to nowhere."

I gulped loudly. The more I advanced in the story, the harder it was to tell. Mr. Anderson, however, didn't show any signs of impatience. He just sat in his chair calm as ever, making no notion to rush me.

   "Then we got tired. We decided we'd sleep in the car, we had sleeping bags and all to keep us warm so the cold wasn't going to be a problem. It was still half a day's drive to Hammerfest, so we thought it would be best to get some sleep.

   My wife fell asleep fast but I had trouble to sleep. Sure I was tired, but something just kept me awake... I can't say what it was, I just had this feeling - or more like a hunch - that something wasn't right.

   And then I saw it."

I closed my eyes and shook my head. I really didn't want to continue any further as remembering everything again was too painful, and Mr. Anderson would never believe any of it.

   "Go on, Sven," said Mr. Anderson gently. "What did you see?"

I opened my eyes again to see my therapist frowning and tilting his head to the side, apparently to indicate that he was curious to hear the rest as well.

   "Well... first came the stench, as if I had rotting meat beside me. Then I heard footsteps - no, it sounded more like someone was dragging their feet around instead of walking with them. Then came the silence. And I swear, Mr. Anderson, I swear on my mother's name that it wasn't just any kind of silence. It was deathlike, like in a grave deep in frozen ground."

I gulped again. The hardest part was yet to come.

   "Then someone - or something - opened the car door and pulled my wife out. It was pitch black so I couldn't see what happened, but I heard everything, and I think that's quite enough to know what happened out there."

I squeezed my chair's armrests so hard that my knuckles turned white.

   "That thing tore my wife apart. I heard her scream in such way that I know she died in horrible pain, scared, and not knowing what happened to her in the first place. And that creature... it ate her. I heard it chewing on her, I heard her limbs being torn apart... And then it jumped at me, and I saw its face. It was pale as a white sheet, it was all covered in my wife's blood, and it let out this sound - a deep growl, its mouth opened so that I could see its rotten teeth. It tried to reach me, but I took off. I was so scared and shocked that all I could do was drive straight to Hammerfest."

I closed my eyes again. It was only now that I noticed the tears on my cheeks.

   "And that's that, Mr. Anderson. That's what I saw and heard, the whole atrocity."

Mr. Anderson didn't utter a word. I waited for his reaction, and I knew already what it was going to be. You're insane, Sven, you're completely crazy. It's mental hospital and electric shocks for you, for the rest of your miserable life!

But such conclusion never came. Instead, Mr. Anderson tore a piece of paper out of his notebook.

   "I was afraid something like this might happen. I had so wished that these creatures would be a thing of the past, but apparently that is not the case."

Mr. Anderson wrote something on the piece of paper and showed it to me.

   "Have you ever heard of draugs, Sven?"

   "Wha--- draugs? No, I have not. What is that, some kind of animal?"

   "Well, not exactly. Draugs were once human. Basically they are living corpses, people who once died and, for a reason or another, rose from the grave again."

   "You mean, like a zombie? Are you saying my wife was murdered by a zombie?"

   "A zombie of sorts, one might say."

   "That's completely insane!"

   "That is a curious statement from a patient, usually it is the client who is found to be insane, not the therapist. To start with this ugly procedure of sorting things out, there is a book you must read. Here, I'll write it down for you."

Mr. Anderson wrote the book's name on the same piece of paper and handed it over to me. Encyclopaedia: The history of beasts was the book's name.

   "Go to the library and read that book. Call me once you have, and we'll talk more."

   "But---"

   "No buts, Sven. There are things in this world that normal mortals should never know about. However, now you've come to meet one of those things, and I believe it would be for the best if you become acquainted with the rest of it, too."

Mr. Anderson looked at me with his wet-looking eyes that no longer had that typical apologetic look of his.

   "Read, Sven. Then we'll talk."