A Black Dog Named War

On a warm July noon, Konstantin Brichinsky was working on his farm, preparing to plant wheat for the first time in a long time since peace had returned to Chyhyryn. The fighting had destroyed the old fortress, and the Turkomans sacked the town while Muscovite forces were on a retreat. Brichinsky fought side by side with his oldest son, Danilo, who never returned the same. The young man had seen many a battle, but this one changed something in him, broke something.

Since then, Danilo’s wife Maryana had given birth to his first son, Serafim, but even the birth of his child did not elevate the man’s spirits. Something died within him while he was defending his hometown. Inexorcisable demons settled inside him. This evil replaced his once bright soul with something cold and dark, prone to violent outbursts which led to frequent arguments with his father and altercations with the neighbors.

The thundering of hooves approaching from the distance broke the silence of the household. Konstantin’s eyes wandered towards the gates to his estate. The gatekeeper opened the gates to the oncoming carriage driven carelessly by Brichinsky’s younger sons, Serhiy and Ivan.

The carriage stopped right in front of Brichinsky’s eyes while the two young men greeted their sweat-covered father. The two young men were involved in raids into Turkoman territory. Slavers and robbers by profession. Konstantin wasn’t too keen on his sons being the land equivalent privateers, but could not force them into the Hetman’s guard.

Their mother, Afanasya, did not approve of their choice either, but seeing what the war had done to her eldest, she couldn’t really protest their lack of desire to join the regiment. As soon as she heard the noise outside, she rushed outside to greet her sons. Behind her crawled her mother-in-law; Evdokia Brichinska, the elderly mother of Konstantin. And Vladyslav, their crippled child.

As they were exchanging pleasantries, Brichinsky’s eyes wandered across the outline of the carriage and he saw the chest tied to its back. Questioning his sons about it, Ivan could only tell him they found it on the banks of the Tiasmyn. Brichinsky approached the chest and studied it keenly. Quickly surmising the ornate decorations to include inscriptions in Latin or some other Western script he couldn’t read. The container was decorated with strange words and even stranger symbols all over its form.

Soon enough, their superstitious sister-in-law, Maryana, noticed the commotion and questioned the youth why they’d bring such a strange object into their home. Serhiy could only smirk and quip that it seemed expensive and could help bolster their pockets, to which everyone laughed.

Once Danilo arrived, the laughter settled, his presence almost changing the mood. Liquid from the alcohol he was distilling covered his shirt. His mouth didn’t utter a single word, but his eyes spoke volumes. As with a silent command, his younger brothers walked to the back of the carriage and started untying it. They carefully placed it on the ground as Konstantin made his way into his barn where had kept all of his tools.

The air stood still as the anticipation grew heavy. Family members looked at each other with curious looks, almost as if trying to read each other’s minds to gauge what was inside the ornate chest.

Konstantin returned with a hammer, and with a mighty swing of his hands, he broke the lock. The tension in the air became palpable. One could cut it with a knife as the gaze of the entire family shifted toward the chest.

Vladyslav was clutching his mother’s hand tighter while his cane shook under the ever-shifting weight of his body as he excitedly shifted it from his good leg to the wood, keeping him upright.

Konstantin purposefully shifted his gaze around his relatives, looking into each of them in their eyes. Visibly amused by their curiosity, before hastily swinging the chest open.

The stench of a thousand rotten corpses exploded out of the chest, forcing everyone present into a violent fit of coughing. Danilo spat all kinds of profanities, sending both his father and brothers into a fit of maddened laughter between coughs.

Once the stench passed, and everyone caught their breath. All eyes were on the contents of the chest, which was empty.

Danilo cursed once again, cursing his younger brothers for bringing a useless box wreaking of rot into their home before profusely apologizing to his visibly angry mother and utterly shocked grandmother. Much to the bemusement of his father.

The two younger Brichinskies justified bringing the chest home by promising to sell it for a decent price. After all, it was lined with gold and silver all over. All they had to do was melt the metals off and sell them.

Konstantin was on board with the idea, so he told his sons to take away the chest into the shed until they could figure out a way to strip it of its valuable metals and more importantly, the stench.

Once they were done, he ordered them to help him work his field. The rest of that day was uneventful. The entire Brichinsky clan gathered around in Konstantin’s house at the center of their residential compound after sunset for dinner.

Afanasya filled the table with all kinds of food and drink. A banquet that even the Hetman himself, if not the kings of Poland and Tsars of Moscow would be envious of. With an abundance of food and alcohol, the dinner table soon turned into a hotbed of arguments about all sorts of subjects.

With the two eldest Brichinsky men possessing short tempers, verbal arguments soon turned into drunken wrestling as both men threatened to destroy the entire household.

The women and children watched in awe and concern as Danilo and Konstantin wrestled all over the living space on equal footing before Danilo found an opening and was about to take his father to the ground, but opted not to out of respect for his father. Thus, the son allowed his father to beat him and they both tumbled to the ground, bursting into laughter.

They spent the rest of the evening in joyful singing and vulgar humor before all parties retired to the sleeping chambers.

As drunk and exhausted as Danilo was, however, he could not stay asleep for long. Nightmares plagued his mind frequently, and that night had been none different. Envisioning himself on the outskirts of his hometown covered in the blood and gore of Turkoman, whose head lay at his feet, he stood in front of the chest his brothers had brought home. The chest swung open and a host of insects and snakes crawled out of it, threatening to devour him whole.

Waking up while it was still dark, and with a racing mind filled with creatures and reptiles, Danilo went out for a walk. He roamed about the Brichinsky family compound aimlessly. Until he heard a voice calling out his name, looking around, he couldn’t see anything. The voice persisted, calling out to him. He looked around to find nothing but the blanket of night covering the entire world around him. Yet the voice persisted, almost seductive in its tone as it called on him to walk into the shed, and he was powerless to resist.

He did as the voice commanded, while a terror bubbled inside of his heart, slowly clouding his mind. Twisting and bending his perception and vision as he stumbled down the tunnel of darkness towards the light; the melody which was sung by the nothingness.

Once finally inside the shed, the man’s eye turns towards the open chest as it shone a beacon of darkness straight into his mind. Dissolving all common sense when a cloud of flying insects burst forth and flew straight into him, throwing him into the air. Once Danilo landed on the ground, a massive living shadow floated over him. Before he could even scream, the shadow descended upon him, dragging him into the darkness of perdition.

Come morning, Afanasya was the first one awake and was in the middle of the preparations for the breakfast for the household.

Danilo awoke in the hog pen. Thirsty beyond measure and with a terrible hunger coursing through his entire body. The appetite was so veracious it clouded every sense and emotion. His body burned with hellfire as the man crawled up to his feet. His throat burned with the feeling of knives climbing out toward his mouth. He ran, on all fours, towards the water trough and began scooping water into his mouth like a wild dog. One farmer working on the estate noticed Danilo and approached him. Danilo, upon noticing the man, lifted his head and smiled wildly.

After his father walked into the bedroom, the infant, Serafim, began crying. The weeping further enraged the already fuming man, and he picked up his own son by the leg before violently slamming him against the wall with a thundering noise. The sudden cracking of bones awoke Maryana, who could only see the silhouette of her husband standing at the edge of their bed, their son in his hand; his body bent in an awkward position. Before she could process anything, Danilo tossed the corpse of their child onto her. As the still warm body of her dead infant touched her, she wanted to scream, but as soon as Danilo saw her face contorting in horror, he pounced on top of her.

Quickly smothering her in bedsheets. She thrashed and tossed, but he was too powerful, and soon enough, she fell silent.

Vladyslav awoke to the sound of someone entering his room. As soon as he opened his eyes, he saw his eldest brother standing over him. Covered in dirt and blood, a look of pure ecstasy etched on his face. The young boy’s skin crawled as he tried to reach for his cane to get up. The boy’s heart sank once Danilo lifted the cane above his head and began laughing. Vladyslav was adamant to get away from his brother, cane or no cane, so he crawled out of his bed; falling onto the floor. As he started crawling out of his room, a wave of pain pulsated across his back.

Danilo was hot on his trail, beating him mercilessly. Raining down blow after blow from above, each blow being more powerful than the previous. With each strike, more and more bones broke until Vladyslav finally stopped moving.

Afanasya stood across the room from her eldest son. Fear paralyzed her as she watched him beat her youngest to death. Her fearful breaths echoed through the room, turning Danilo’s attention to his mother. Once their eyes met, she tried to run, but her son was already behind her. A wooden spoon in hand, the back of her head. As she fell on the floor, Danilo straddled her and began violently forcing the fork handle into her face, before penetrating her eye and into the depths of her skull, killing her instantly.

Konstantin, who heard the commotion by this point, was standing over Danilo, his rifle aimed straight into his son’s chest. A thunderclap boomed through the compound and blood splashed on the floor behind Danilo.

The rabid man wouldn’t fall down or even falter. Instead, he stared at his father with amusement as he ran his hand across his chest and then licked the blood.

The crushing dread of death began suffocating Konstantin, as Danilo rose to his feet. Eying the door behind them, the Brichinsky patriarch planned to escape the wrath of his maddened son, but Danilo glanced at the door behind them and it closed shut.

The noise awoke the elderly Evdokia who leisurely crawled out of her room only to find her grandson drenched in gore and human organs, head first inside his father’s open chest cavity. Driven by angst, she sheepishly crawled out of the house to avoid arousing the attention of her grandson.

Once outside, the true scope of the carnage graced her eyes. Bodies partially flayed with organs torn open, hanging from the trees in bloody mock crucifixions. Hung as vile parodies of the divine onto their own intestines. Limbs and bones piled about on the ground below. A macabre replication of the hills of Golgotha.

The dead’s hearts hung exposed through blood-soaked bone and their lungs clung to tree branches like the leathery wings of fallen angels.

The elderly woman screeched like a keening mother, who just lost her infant child to the plague and aroused Danilo’s attention. He stared at her through the window, with sheer contempt building up in the rotten remnants of his soul, as he watched her stumble back to her feet in a pointless attempt to escape her fate.

He followed her for some time, allowing her to escape the confines of the city and into the wild fields where none could save her from his lust for death. Once he had enough of watching her pitiful attempts to run for her life, he swung his hand upward while pointing at her and she flew into the air.

Bringing his hand back down, Evdokia’s body came crashing down onto the earth. Her skull broke and her neck snapped with a sickening noise before the rest of her form collapsed on the ground.

A black starving dog watched from the distance as Danilo approached his grandmother’s dead body before clasping his head between his hands and twisting it violently. Dropping right next to the corpse of his progenitor.

The dog looked at the two bodies for a few moments before gathering the courage to strut up to them. Once it became convinced they were both deathly still, the dog sank its jaws into Danilo’s groin, tearing out the juicy organs and signaling the start of a long-awaited feast.

Sunday prayer began in Chyhyryn, and no one in the local congregation had noticed that a black dog snuck into the church. It sat silently in the back, staring at the praying masses, preying upon them with its milky-white eyes while pulling its lips to form a human-like smile as blood-stained saliva dripped from its jaw.