The fog rolled in from the sea in long white fingers, creeping through the grass and brush around The Burned-Out Guardhouse in west Restenford. The ruin sat on a low hill just inside the palisade wall. The old building was silhouetted against the fading orange light of the evening sky, its roof long collapsed inward and its blackened beams jutting toward the sky like broken ribs.
At the base of the hill four boys crouched hidden in the bushes.
Michael kept glancing toward the ruin.
“Me Pa says the place is haunted,” he whispered. “Said he saw a livin’ skeleton walkin’ round the place one night.”
Beside him, the young gnome Gnoginpip pulled his patched coat tighter around himself.
“My uncle says smugglers hid bodies there,” Pip muttered. “Says the crows used to peck the eyes out.”
Jory snorted quietly. “Your uncle says everything.” The half-elf sat in the grass, trying very hard to look unafraid. His pointed ears twitched every time the wind moved through the burned timbers.
Michael tilted his head toward the biggest boy among them.
“So you gonna do it, Frankie?”
Frankie tightened his grip on the stick he held in his hands.
At twelve winters old he was already tall like his father, though still thin from growing fast. His fishing coat hung open and his boots were caked with mud from the shoreline.
He looked up toward the old guard house.
The brass doorknob still gleamed faintly where it hung on the front door whenever the light hit it just right. That was the challenge. Walk up. Grab the knob. Bring it back.
Simple.
At least it had sounded simple an hour ago.
“Ain’t no skeletons,” Frankie muttered.
Michael shrugged. “Then go get it.”
Pip pointed the stick Frankie carried. “What’s that for if you ain’t scared?”
Frankie frowned. “For rats.”
The others laughed softly, though none of them laughed for very long.
Everyone in Restenford knew the stories about the burned guard house. Strange sounds at night. Lights moving in broken windows. Animals refusing to go near the hill.
The wind shifted.
Something inside the ruin scraped faintly across stone.
The boys all went quiet.
Jory sat up straighter. “Probably just the wind.”
“Yeah,” Michael whispered too quickly. “Probably.”
Frankie stood before he could think better of it.
“When I come back,” he said, “you lot owe me a copper each.”
Pip grinned nervously. “If you come back.”
Frankie started up the hill, ignoring his friend’s clear attempt to unnerve him.
The grass brushed against his boots as he climbed. The ruin seemed bigger the closer he got. Darker too.
The burned front door leaned crooked in its frame. One good shove would probably knock it flat.
The brass knob sat dull with age beneath streaks of soot.
Frankie stepped onto the old stone threshold.
The smell hit him first.
Something foul — rotten fish and damp filth — rising from within the ruin.
He swallowed hard and glanced behind him.
The boys below waved frantically for him to hurry.
Frankie reached for the knob.
Something moved inside the doorway.
Fast.
A shriek exploded from the darkness as a massive gray shape lunged low across the floorboards.
Frankie yelped as he stumbled backward.
The rat slammed into his leg, its wet fur slick against his hands as yellow teeth punched through his sock deep into the flesh of his calf.
Frankie screamed.
He brought the stick down wildly.
Once.
Twice.
The rat hissed and released him, vanishing back into the dark interior with a horrible scratching sound.
Frankie fell hard into the grass clutching his leg.
The others came running.
“What happened?!” Michael shouted.
“It bit me!” Frankie gasped.
Pip’s face went pale. “Gods…”
Jory knelt beside him. “Lemme see.”
Frankie pulled his hand away from the wound.
Blood soaked through his sock.
Four deep punctures stared back at them.
For a moment none of the boys spoke.
Then Michael looked back toward town.
“Me Da’s gonna kill us.”
“We can’t tell nobody,” Frankie hissed through clenched teeth. “You hear me?”
“That thing was huge,” Pip whispered.
Frankie grabbed Michael’s sleeve. “You tell anybody and we’re all dead.”
The boys exchanged frightened looks.
Finally Jory nodded once.
“We say you fell on the rocks by the shore.”
Michael swallowed hard. “Yeah.”
Pip looked least convinced of all.
But he nodded too.
By the time Frankie limped home, the sickness had already begun.
Rain hammered the fishing cottages through the night.
Frankie’s mother barely slept.
At first she thought it was only chills from the cold sea air. By midnight the boy was shaking beneath three blankets. By dawn he was burning hot.
And sometime near morning he stopped making sense when he spoke.
She pressed a wet cloth against his forehead with trembling hands.
“Frankie,” she whispered. “Frankie look at me.”
His eyes rolled weakly toward her.
“The scratching,” he muttered. “Don’t let it scratch…”
He began coughing so violently she thought he might die right there in the bed.
That was when she found the bite.
Four blackened punctures above the ankle.
The skin around them had turned an angry purple-red.
Her stomach dropped.
When Michael arrived that morning she dragged him inside by the arm before he could escape.
“What happened?”
“Nothin’!”
She shoved Frankie’s leg toward him.
Michael turned white.
“What happened?” she demanded again.
The boy’s lip trembled.
“He fell.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
By noon she had all four boys gathered inside the cottage.
Rain rattled softly against the windows while Frankie coughed weakly in the next room.
“You boys went to the guard house, didn’t you?”
Nobody answered.
Pip stared at the floor.
“Pip,” she said softly, kneeling in front of him. “Please.”
The young gnome’s lip trembled.
“We didn’t mean for it to happen,” he whispered.
Michael covered his face with both hands.
“The rat was huge,” Pip blurted suddenly. “Gods, it was bigger than a dog!”
Frankie’s mother went cold.
“The guard house,” she whispered.
None of the boys met her eyes.
By evening, word had spread through the fishing quarter.
Some said it was swamp fever.
Others whispered worse things.
But everyone agreed on one thing:
The boy needed the Abbey.
A pair of fishermen carried Frankie through the muddy streets wrapped in a blanket while his mother walked beside them through the cold evening mist. The bells of The Abbey rang softly overhead as they climbed the hill.
Frankie moaned weakly in a delirium.
The torchlight flickered across ancient stone walls.
The great doors opened with a groan.
Warm candlelight spilled out into the dark.
Monks hurried forward to help carry the boy inside.
Frankie’s mother lingered for only a moment beneath the archway, nervously chewing at the edge of her thumb.
Then the great wooden doors slammed shut behind them with a heavy boom.
And suddenly the night felt very cold.
