Parasite Soul by Chris Jags

definite
improvement over bare feet.
    “Wait,” she whispered as he pulled the boots on over protesting
blisters. She looked uncharacteristically apprehensive. “Do not
come in. I will return shortly. Keep watch.”
    Simon smiled tightly in return, hoping to communicate both
amenability and concern. He would have preferred to be inside, with
her. Here, pressed against the cabin wall, he felt exposed and
vulnerable. The road, which ran past the property, was quiet; he would
hear a cart or a patrol in time to relocate himself, but he wasn’t so sure he
would detect foot traffic before it was too late. If the girl came back
out and he was forced to move, where would he go? Edge around the cabin,
where every corner was a blind spot and he might run into someone else?
How large was this family? How many people might he have to avoid? What
disposition might they have, faced with an intruder of uncertain intention?
    As hurting anyone was entirely unthinkable, Simon made up his mind
to throw himself upon the mercy of anyone who discovered him. He had more
faith in his fellow country folk than Niu, who was, after all, a city girl and
a foreigner to boot. Had he and his father not given shelter to strangers
of dubious character in the past? They’d never asked questions and none
of their transient guests had caused them trouble. Hospitality was simply part
of the rural code.
    Listening hard, Simon tried to watch the road, forest, yard and
window simultaneously. He felt like his head might take flight, or at
least sprout a third eye. Sounds drifted from within the cabin, but Niu
wasn’t responsible for any of them that he could tell. He heard soft
singing – a young woman, no doubt the blonde from earlier – and the clatter of
pots and pans.
    The kind of wife , Simon thought, and
the kind of lifestyle that I might have had, if my head wasn’t always in the
clouds; if my mind ruled my mouth rather than vice-versa . In that
moment, he found himself almost resenting Niu, and had to remind himself that
it wasn’t her fault that she and he were entangled in this ridiculous,
dire situation.
    A muffled metallic clattering demanded his attention.
Straining to locate the source of the sound – which sounded uncomfortably like
the clanking of chains – he determined that it probably came from within the
cabin, but below ground. The dwelling had a cellar, then, but what was
being kept down there?
    “Keep quiet!” someone shouted, another woman, whose voice was harsh
and cracking. Staccato thumping followed, as though of heels on hollow
floorboards. Simon frowned, licking his lips as he was sometimes wont to do
when he felt anxious. What were these people keeping in their
cellar? Some kind of animal? If so, why wasn’t it penned
outside? With a prickle of foreboding, he wished Niu would reemerge and
that the two of them were well on their way.
    The next few minutes passed distressingly slowly. Simon became
aware of a muted moaning, low and desolate, which seemed to hang in the air
like a sorrowful fog. The hairs on the back of his neck stood at
attention; something uncanny, something wrong was at play here.
    “Would! You! Bloody! Well! Keep!
Quiet!” the unidentified women yelled, each word punctuated with angry
drumming.
    “Oh, calm down, mother,” came another voice from an adjoining room,
soft and soothing. “You know he just wants to be fed.”
    Simon could bear the tension no longer. He peered in the
window.
    “Niu!” he hissed. “Niu, where are you?”
    He was looking into a cluttered den, where detritus had accumulated
over a span of what looked to be decades. He couldn’t get a feeling for
the identity of the occupant, whether man or woman, young or old. Dusty
boxes were piled on the chairs, the bed, and in every corner; many of them
overflowed with mismatched items of clothing, weapons, tools, toys and assorted
knickknacks. Sheets of cobwebs draped the walls like a depressing parody
of tapestries. A ratty old doll