Clay Man

 Note: Some shit I wrote during class while thinking about the terracotta army. Yeup.

    Muffled voices. Faces in the windows beneath the dirt, full bodies packed in an unfinished basement. A single light blinds the ones near and grazes the ones far. Grey in the face and hands and expressionless, rigid. Their brothers keep them warm.

You see this army on the walk to your house, staring something in the eyes before the sole motile body snuffs out the light, the unknown bringer of an early sunset. You had never paid much mind to this house and you never would have without this passing glance through the sole fractured window into the basement, but now, you need to know more. You knock on the front door to no response. There's a van in the driveway, and another parked ahead of it, so you try again. Nothing. The curtains are drawn but a light is on and is backlighting a silhouette in the living room which makes you knock a third time. Still nothing. The figure doesn't move an inch. You look down the street. You look up the street. The sun paints the sky red. The trees are stilled. Nobody but you is out tonight.

You walk around to the back and see a window opened slightly. The screen pops out with ease and you hoist yourself through. The kitchen reeks of waste. Mold peels the wallpaper and the surfaces look like they haven't been cleaned in months. A meal of rotting food sits in the dining room seen through the doorway. A feast of trash, enough seating for twenty plus a single chair at the head. You gag on the air in the room. 

Beyond a wall a hand and fingers appear and through the gateway to the living room you see it is connected to a man, motionless in the shadow of the setting sun. Moving towards him, you see he is grey from head to toe. You wave your hand in front of his face. You poke him but all it does is leave an indent or his shoulder. His face has an expression that is difficult to

parse, but it almost looks like fear. Behind him is the open basement door, darkness blanketing beyond the first few steps, and only growing. You flip the switch at the top of the stairs but nothing happens. 

Your eyes adjust and faces form in the shadows, staring up at you. Their bodies are grey like the clay man. They seem bottlenecked at the foot of the stairs.

A latch is undone. You swing around. The clay man is halfway out the door. 

Footsteps on the stairs. The figures in the basement draw closer, forming a line to move up the narrow flight. 

Shoes on concrete. The clay man is in the street by now. 

Breath on your neck. They are behind you.

You jump back to the kitchen and hear the sound of floorboards creaking, over a dozen shoes stomping past you. The army leaves the house. When you look again, the clay man is gone and in the empty street, a motionless gang of soldiers have formed up, the purple of dusk at their backs and the moon guiding them forwards.

The house is silent. You stand and look back into the road. The sound of marching spills in from the street. They freeze in their limp towards the direction of the clay man, indentations around their ankles, some with pieces of their legs missing.

Down the stairs you go, a creak with every step, a few of which are slick with something. The darkness consumes you. A bulb swings from above you and you pull the string and the concrete box comes into view, four walls and the view of another outside from the tiny window above. Red and purple streams pushed by shadow with a backdrop of white. 

The floor is as grey as the men who stood there just minutes ago, the walls lined with chains and spots here and there doused in fresh blood. A leather-bound book is open on the ground, runes scribed on the page. Shadowed figures scrawled around the words, expressionless. Pages turn. You leave the book and climb the steps and stare clear through the front door, still open, curtains blowing in the nighttime breeze. The last light of the day is draining, but you can just barely make out a trail of red on the hot asphalt, running in a stream towards the path of the marching men. 

Blood of statues, glinting in the sun.