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Art for The Moth: Luke Spooner / Carrion House

Cosmic Horror Monthly

Digital ISSN 2693-5805

www.cosmic-horror.net

Greetings dear reader,

Thank you for joining us for our fourth issue of Cosmic Horror Monthly.

This month, as the family farm changes hands, something sinister lurks in the corn field in Among the Stalks, then a young girl seeks the help of an old warlock to gain interdimensional insight in The Light that Festers. Following, we’ll explore two tales in which our beloved characters find themselves questioning existence and fighting uphill battles against states of eroding mental clarity in Shifting Sands and Raising Dogs and Other Truths. Finally, we’ll take a trip into the crypt for a lost tale from one of the all-time-greats called The Moth.

Halloween season is the most wonderful time of the year. We are glad you’re spending it with us, and we hope you enjoy this month’s tales.

C.R.

*~*~*

Among the Stalks

By Alexandr Bond

It comes again. More powerful than the night before, the dreadful sound mingling with the wind and shifting rustle of the corn that surrounds the farm. I stare out one of the windows for hours but can discern nothing from the swaying stalks with their sharp edges. The dark sky, with its far away pinpricks of light, hiding anything that might serve to explain this growing nuisance, this encroaching sense of doom that pervades my mind like some cyclopean horror. I have never felt such fear before and it worries me. Is this...? No, I must get a hold of myself. It would do me no good to fall apart now.

I first heard the sound about a week ago, a deliberate motion in the dead of night as though there was something alive out there. But when I checked the next morning, I found nothing that would suggest proof of my ridiculous notion. What could be out there? As I peered from the dreary, rotted porch, all I saw had been a seemingly endless sea of corn; that and that awful scarecrow.

When the sun rises, the wind begins to die down only somewhat, as is common in these parts. The swaying of the corn lessens and I feel myself relax—as though my very being is tied to them and in some way, I suppose it is. I lean back in the ancient recliner as my wits return to me. I should go outside but memory reminds me why that would prove fruitless. Instead, I sink deeper into the scratchy, tawny fabric of my chair until I can no longer tell it apart from my skin, and my thoughts turn morose.

I don’t know why, but I am thinking about my father. He named me Oscar after himself. I came to both hate and revere the name as I did the man that passed it to me. He had strong hands, a leathery face, and thought little of me. I was just another achievement and a lackluster one at that. But he is gone now, and I am all alone in the world, alone with my questionable thoughts and that which stands among the stalks outside the safety of my farmhouse.

Picturing that ramshackle scarecrow brings an unnatural heaviness to my limbs, an itch throughout that does nothing but repulse the calm that has only slowly begun to reclaim my body. I shake my head to clear it but only seem to shake things up more. Sighing, I force myself to fall asleep as my night had been spent listening for a sound that might never come. Now, blanketed by the elongating streaks of morning light, I feel sleep reachable and after a few moments, I grasp it.

I don't normally dream, never have really. But recently, I’ve been seeing vague images in my mind while I slumber. Amorphous shapes, things crawling along invisible suspended planes, and a shambling creature with no face. I hear sounds as well. Ripping fabric, squelching limbs falling away before something terrible, and a low whimpering din that echoes for what seems like forever.

It is that echo that eventually wakes me. I sit up feeling less than rested and internally grumble. This has got to stop soon. I peer around and see that the sun is higher in the sky, much higher than it should be. I think I slept most of the day. Grumbling some more, I stand up and decide I should at least move around. If I looked in a mirror, I fear my lassitude would begin to show.

As I drift through the house, memories scream out at me. Pictures adorn the mantle of the dust choked fireplace while ashes and soot, like dark grey snow, cover the floor inside it. This filth spills outward, mixing with the film of grime that has slowly been building upon the aged hard wooden floor. It has become increasingly difficult to tell what the surface of the wood had originally looked like. This place is in quite a state. It should be cleaned soon. I glance briefly at each picture. They are filled with smiles, laughter, and good times held dear to one's heart. I enjoy looking at them. If only I was in them.

I move away from the fireplace with its barren hearth and step out of the room, turning my back on the recliner, the antique furniture that clutters the floor-space, and the window that looks out upon the field beyond my door. So much corn and that scarecrow... Why can I not just take it down? Even now I feel as though it is watching me. I move my head from side to side, dislodging such a thought before it could take root. There is no life in that scarecrow. It is nothing. Less than nothing.

Refocusing my thoughts, I enter the kitchen and find it in just as shabby a state as the parlor. I should not let it get like this. In truth, I had inherited the property recently from my father. Much of his effects are still in the house, but that is no excuse. I had intended to put everything in order but when I began hearing that frightful noise, my thoughts succumbed to wild fancies born of the many strange tales I have heard all my life. I must confess: I am a thinker. Since I can remember, it seems that is all I have ever done. As such, my mind has grown bold in its scope of things, adding validity to the most minute of notions, turning a spark into an inferno, a whisper into a scream. Such an imagination I possess that it almost seems I can will my thoughts to life. That however, can lead to some troubling ideas.

Returning my attention back to the kitchen, I peer first at the long wooden table with its beige linen cloth, then the counters, with their canisters and appliances. All of them look like they have seen better days. They are my responsibility and as I stare at them, I wonder if this is all worth the trouble. Hearing no answer and not seeing anything to tempt me into remaining, I turn away and head upstairs.

The rooms here are hardly any better than those downstairs. I shuffle from one to the next, really looking at my surroundings for the first time and feeling that somehow I was cheated. Shadows and emptiness fill the rooms, echoes of my movements bounce off the walls and return to me wrong, hollow. And for a moment, I wonder what I am doing here, where I am. It all seems alien even as it is familiar, like waking up in your own room yet everything had been moved an inch to the right. The walls feel off, too tight yet their voids frighten me. So much can happen in nothing.

The last bedroom on the right is the largest. I push open the door and shamble in. Dust chokes the air. It lies heavily on the furniture throughout the room. My eyes move from one piece to the next. Each was handcrafted, the amount of care clearly visible in every angle. I set a hand upon the smooth surface, seeming untouched by time’s millstone. Why couldn’t he have shown such craftsmanship with me?

I have not dared touch his bed. It looms in the corner of the room, the navy-blue quilt still resting on it. After his death, I toyed with taking it for myself; the whole room is finally mine. His hands built this room; I can see his touch in every line of the bedposts, the sturdy rafters, and even the lamps on the nightstands. This is his domain and I am not welcome here. The veracity of the thought shocks me.  

Backing out of my father’s room, I stop before a window and glance through it. I stare past my reflection with its tan skin, gone all dry and scratchy, and my dark beady eyes, and gaze upon the sharp expanse that lies before me. I lose track of how long I stand there, the wasteland of corn sapping my attention until finally I start to sink to the floor. Jerking sharply, I regain my composure and begin to turn away when a flicker of movement catches my eye. Could it be what is making that sound? Indecision prompts a moment of hesitation but ultimately, I need to find out for myself.

I move as fast as my body will allow, trying to contain my thoughts from bounding ahead of me and descend down the rickety stairs. I reach the front door but pause. My thin fingers are hovering over the French handle, but they go no further.

Why did I stop?

I command them to move but they are frozen in place, in space, disconnected from me. The slightest twitch radiates from my fingers to my arm and soon I’m trembling.

What could be out there?

It is that question that fills me with trepidation, a haunting respite that breeds new, vague phobias. Uncertainty is my adversary, a faceless menace that steals my courage and mocks me. My fear shames me and it is for that reason I harden my nerves and force myself to grasp the door handle. With an almost violent motion, I twist it and pull the door open. If I turn for but a moment, I am undone. I keep my gaze forward and before I can ponder anything else, I step outside.

A soft breeze assails me, teasing me with its susurrant voice, but empty promises are poor succor to an already unhinged mind.

What good would it do to follow its beckoning hand? To allow it to lead me astray? I was born lost.

There I go again with such dire notions. I quash my rampant imagination and focus on the task at hand.

I stand on the unsteady porch, the boards, rotting and weather beaten, sag slightly under my weight as though time has finally caught up with them. A bench swing sits idly to my left, its xanthic cushions concealed by a heavy layer of dust. It seems this whole place is succumbing to decay. I add it to the list of things I resolve to attend to once my worries and delusions are revealed to be nothing more than my own wild daydreams.

I move down the short steps and onto the barren earth that acts as my lawn. Not ten feet away begins the field of corn. To my far right is a path cut into the crop that would lead me, eventually, to the main highway. I turn away from it and survey the land around me. A sharp forest encloses the few cleared sections of acreage on all sides. Within the clearing lie the house, a garage, and the barn. What I saw came from near the barn. I move with steady purpose, willing the preemptive conclusions in my head to quiet.

This side of the house is mostly flat, a few windows and sun baked siding long since bereft of paint. The barn, if one could call it that, is a glorified shack. Any red hue it once held lay faded. I can't deny the structure is sound though, the building seeming none the worse for wear despite its appearance, another one of my father’s creations. I stop at the entrance, ignoring the slight tremor in my legs.

The door, with its x-shaped panel of faded white wood over the worn red vertical slats, is open ajar. I feel my thoughts already coming up with reasons and certainties, none of which remain within the realm of logic for longer than a minute. With each idea, I descend more and more into this madness that I have been wading through for so long. I let it continue for a few moments more before reeling it all back in. Despite their contrasts and shifting loyalties, my thoughts amount to one thing: I’m terrified of what could be in there. I know what should be in there. But with the door open, I am faced with this cold specter of uncertainty.

With a growing tremor in my hand, I fling the door further open and let the afternoon light spill upon the filthy floor. The shadows stretch dark and deep, hiding the highest corners from my sight. Spider webs drape like ghostly lace from the rafters, their predatory architecture fascinating if you aren't food. I look from one side to the other. Everything appears as I’d left it from the last time I came out to the barn. Nothing seems out of place and I let myself expel some of the tension gripping me. I shut the door and turn only to halt in my tracks, my eyes fixating on the beast before me.

I stare at the cat in sheer wonder and surprise. Like hunched darkness, the animal crouches on all fours, its thick tail twitching back and forth while its golden eyes bore into me, through me; as though it is trying to divide the secrets from the stuffing I call a brain. I inch toward it, curiosity driving me when I hear a low growl emanate from the creature. It grows in pitch until it sounds like a lion, great fury in such a small thing. Cautiously, I move closer and the cat lets out a great hiss, as sharp as the stalks that enclose us. Before I have time to react, the beast turns and flees. I don't want it to go. What if it is the cat I've been hearing? Without letting my mind wander, I hurry after it, slipping into the wall of maize.

The blade-like edges of the corn cut into me leaving fabric and bits of flesh clinging to them. I fight the urge to turn back. Instead, I glance around for the feline. A black blur of movement streaks in front of me. I push through the dense foliage in pursuit. The deeper I delve into the field, the stronger my sensation of tightness becomes. The looming stalks seem to reach out for me and I recoil, slipping past them as I try to keep an eye on my quarry. I've spent a lot of time out here and in all honesty, I've grown to abhor it. The oppressive closeness of the corn fills me with such a desire to seek an escape, it borders on the pathological. Had I known, and if I had any real say in the matter, I'd never have chosen such a place to live. A shadow slides across my eyes and I stare up at its source: a crow. I've grown to loathe them as well. Returning my attention to my goal, I survey the ground for any sign of the cat but find none. The beast has eluded me.

Grumbling to myself, I start making my way back to the house, but it becomes obvious after a few minutes of walking that I must have gotten turned around. I glance up, straining to see if I can spot the tip of the roof but all that surrounds me is this vile corn, swaying innocently in the mild breeze, its edges brushing against one another making a scratching noise that attacks my mind from every direction. A building crescendo that falls away to an echo only to be picked up again a moment later. Self-repeating until an origin is impossible. My chest heaves as I clasp my head but that won't make the noise stop. The breeze is the conductor and it is blind to my suffering. I flee from the sound, hoping I will burst free from this vegetative prison. I don't know for how long I am running but, when I exit into a very small clearing, I fall to the ground in relief.

It takes me a few minutes to realize where I have stopped and when I do, my exhilaration quickly sours. Against my better judgment, I lift my head and peer up at the scarecrow that stands before me. Fastened to two large pieces of wood, one vertical, the other horizontal, my creation looms above me, a failure. Three crows, a murder in the making, perch upon its outstretched arms, tearing pieces away.

Gazing at it now, my revulsion is palpable. The birds have already undone much of my work. The stitching around the waist is frayed while the pieces that connected the head to the rest of the body are gone. How the head is staying upright is anyone's guess. To my surprise, the eyes are still intact. Like faded dark glass, they stare down at me. I shrink beneath its accusatory gaze.

A squawk from one of the birds breaks me out of my inspection and I peer at it warily. I think they know how much I dislike them.

Sparing the scarecrow one more contemptuous glance, I twist away but as I do, I stop dead in my tracks. What was that? Rotating my head back, I look at the unkempt thing. For the briefest of moments, I could have sworn the head had just moved.

Eyeing it intently, I try to deny my imagination. But as I stare at the scarecrow I can't remember if it always leaned at that angle or not. Could the jostling of the crows have caused this? Did it move at all? The harder I gape, the more doubt claws at me. A subtle trick of the light and I'm convinced it truly twitched. The crows caw repeatedly before taking flight, causing the bound thing to shudder.

I can stand no more. I hurry away, my path known only in my memory as I retreat back to the safety of the farmhouse. Once I break away from the corn, I waste little time in heading inside and shutting the door behind me.

To quell my plaguing thoughts, I perform my afternoon routine, but the persistent ruminations continue to besiege me, unbidden and each time revealing some new avenue my imagination has taken to weaken my certainty. Even my normal mental distractions seem ineffective against this evolving onslaught I wage against myself. The daily mundane tasks I set for myself have become second nature, leaving my mind to wander to unsound shores. Even worse, memories of my father well up unbidden, our time spent together both cherished and agonizing. On his last day, we had fought. Could all this be guilt?

I still recall what he told me when I was young, new. ‘Oscar, you will be the best thing I e’er made.’ Such pride he had then. He would read to me in those early days, his strong voice echoing off the kitchen walls with the dreary renderings of Poe or the watery obsessions of Melville. I would listen with rapt attention, my mind wandering to far off places, dark castles or wide-open seas. Instead I am left here, with only what my father made surrounding me.

‘I expected you to hold up better. I’m not really sure what to do with you now’ Those were his last words to me, his eyes never meeting mine before finally turning his back on me. Even after, I still wish to please him, to take care of this wretched place and that dreadful crop with its persistent secrets that continue to haunt me.

When the sun finally sets, this fear, this growing nyctophobia swells like a rising tide within me. Will the sound come again tonight? In the past week, it has come four times and deep inside, I know it will again. I still cannot say what is causing it and that bothers me the most. Darkness invades the parlor where I am sitting, my fingers gripping the aged armrests of the ancient recliner as the minutes tick by. The swaying of the stalks beyond my walls fills the night with their incessant scratching made worse by the occasional creaking of the house itself. I strain to listen past the noises for the one I dread most but for the first half of the night, I detect nothing out of the ordinary.

I feel myself relax. Perhaps my worries are only authored by my imagination. I lean back into the chair and seek out sleep. It comes quickly and I succumb only to be awoken a few moments later by a loud clatter.

I sit up turning my head from side to side. What was that? It comes again. With terrible, sudden certainty, I know the origin of the sound. With caution in my movements, I walk out of the parlor and into the kitchen.

The silvery light of an almost-full moon sheds enough illumination for me to make out most of the objects. Nothing seems out of place. I survey the room and stop upon two yellow orbs near the floor in the corner. I involuntarily take a step back, my retreat prompting the floating lights to advance. I continue to back away until the kitchen counter stops me. The orbs draw ever closer until they finally stop in a patch of moonlight. I feel relief and shame in equal amounts as I stare down at the beast, the same cat from earlier.

When my mind begins to calm down, I can’t help but wonder how it got in. I take a tentative step toward it, certain the creature will flee again but it does not. When I am a few feet from it, I finally notice it has something in its jaws. A mouse perhaps? I reach for the cat but it emits another loud hiss and scampers away to hide in some dark corner, dropping its prize in the process. I pick up its trophy and bring it into the light to better examine it. Within a moment, I let the object fall from my hand as surprise and horror strike me. It was a finger from my scarecrow. The stitching still clings to the sun-dried flesh, the bone protruding like a white worm. I look around for the cat frantically as if it could answer my questions.

It is not the cat but the flickering light that draws my attention. It is coming from the parlor. Before I have time to think, I rush back in but stop just past the threshold. A fire is in the hearth, its orange flames licking up the dust that rains down upon it from the chimney. My aversion to fire urges me to cringe away but I am transfixed by it. So much so that I almost fail to notice that my recliner has been moved. With great effort, I shift my gaze and focus on the old chair. Since taking over the farm, I’d moved the chair to face away from the fireplace as I had no reason to use it, but now it has been moved. No, I realize, not just moved. Returned to its original position.

Before I can wonder why, I see the cause and almost crumble. There is a figure sitting in the ancient recliner, a figure I know all too well. My scarecrow, my father. I take note of his appearance, rotted flesh and exposed bone, a finger missing on his left hand and the same clothes he died in still adorning what is left of his body. I can do nothing but stare in horror. And then he stirs. Like a slow boil, he rises from the chair. Like some old Dullahan from Celtic lore, he holds his head under his right arm, his dead eyes staring at me.

Our last encounter replays before my eyes. I had finally freed myself from the pieces of wood that bound me among the stalks. So pleased, I rushed to show my maker, my father. I found him in the barn, working on another scarecrow. When he saw me, the happiness I expected became horror. He attacked me. What could I do? Rage at his rejection had filled me. When I had finished, I wanted him to feel what I felt. I placed him where he had placed me.

“I made you. How could you?” His eyes seem to say.

“You made me want. How could I not?” I reply silently.

Without a murmur, he gingerly picks up one of the burning branches from the fire, a stalk of corn to be exact, and throws it at me. I’m too slow. My dry sackcloth skin catches fast and soon it starts to consume my straw. As I am engulfed, I want to scream but he never gave me a mouth. A final thought fills my mind before all is ashes. I just wanted to be like you.

End.

*~*~*

Alexandr Bond has been writing since he was nine years old and has a love for the supernatural and cosmic horror ever since he first was introduced to H. P. Lovecraft. His work has been published in a number of anthologies and more can be found on his blog: alexandrbond.wordpress.com. He currently resides in North Carolina with his family.

The Light that Festers

By Charles R. Bernard

It will kill you,” Rigel warns her. Then he grins. His facial movements are constricted and pulled off-true by the ruinous scars that so badly tatter his features. Beneath Rigel’s hood, Parson knows, he has more scars, some of them even more terrible, circumnavigating his scalp. “You owe me,” he says. His voice is as ravaged as his face, a keepsake of having had his throat cut years ago. “Would be cheating me. To die so young. And so full of promise.”

“Yes, promise,” agrees Soft Jack in his loopy child’s voice. He is seated at the crumbling edge of the doused fumarole where he and Rigel have tended to, as of late, met Parson. Here, on the very periphery of Furnace Falls, they have a panoramic view of the luminous lava lake and jetting vents that give the city its name. Soft Jack likes the fire, and it gutters in his pale little eyes like a sullen pair of stars as he looks back over his shoulder at his master. “She has such promise, yes, pretty Parson does.” She ignores him.

“You said we could live without limitation. Yet here we are, hiding in a crack in the ground like rock crabs, grubbing for scraps—it suits the both of you. It’s not what I want.”

Rigel slouches deep into the umbra cast by the infernal glow of the nearby molten rock. The darkness around him clicks and whispers, and he leans his battered head to one side and listens. “You are hungry,” he says after a moment. “Good. Know the void. Inside you. Even better.” The shadows stir in the stagnant air like heavy drapes in a wind and Parson hears something chatter softly. “Young and stupid, though. Still can’t see. The power behind the power.”

“Such a pity,” Soft Jack moans. He has rolled onto his belly. He picks and plucks at one bloody fingernail with his favorite knife—the one with the thin, yellowed blade that sporadically sheds brittle bits of its edge.

There is a long pause as Rigel considers. The shivering air is filled with the grating, grinding sound of volcanic flux. “Perhaps,” he grunts at length, “an object lesson. Is in order. Come with me.”

Rigel leads the two youths back through the secret way they came, past vapor-shrouded chasms and bubbling pools of sulfur water. They walk up to the flat ash-and-gravel road nearby, where eventually, a battered truck spots them and rolls to a stop. The dour driver recognizes the name of the place that Rigel murmurs to him. He frowns severely, but waits as the three climb aboard. They seat themselves among the assortment of greasy, half-broken machinery that lies in the truck bed like the dismembered carcass of a mechanical giant. Soon they are hurtling toward the city of Furnace Falls, a great plume of dust trailing.

At the very edge of the city lies a district of rotting warehouses and labyrinthine train tracks. The driver pulls over and allows his passengers to disembark. Parson sees Rigel slip the man a gleaming gold coin and the driver departs the derelict neighborhood so quickly that his tires issue a single bright squeal of protest. Rigel lifts his hood and squints at the buildings, which are innocent of signage. He spots one two-story warehouse— more a framework of broken windows and grey shadows than a proper building, and sets off in that direction. Parson and Soft Jack follow behind him silently.

“Been quite some time,” he croaks. “Looking forward. To seeing an old friend.”

His laugh is like soft little hands clapping at the bottom of a well. The sound floats down the empty street and echoes off of the fractured windows of the warehouse as they enter. No breach is required; the doorframe is empty, as is the interior. It’s dim, although a jagged rip in the roof emits a brilliant, zig-zag of light. Rigel pauses for a moment to savor the shadows as though tasting them. Past the pool of sunlight, in the rear of the warehouse where the light is most miserly, hangs a rotting loft with a narrow, crooked ladder descending from an open trapdoor on its underside. “Up you go,” croaks Rigel. He plucks Soft Jack from the grimy floor and helps him onto the ladder. The boy clambers up and into the grey of the loft as easily as a pale, fleshy spider. As Rigel is helping Parson to the ladder, a watery scream unfurls from overhead, muffled by the loft’s walls.

The loft’s dirty skylight admits a dim luminosity. Whatever its purpose once was, it has become a repository of broken things, all nearer the end-stage of decomposition than to their original configuration. Broken shards of wood, softened almost to mulch by the teeth of rodents, lie on a bed of shredded paper. One corner is taken over by an enormous pile of rags. As Parson climbs out of the trapdoor, Soft Jack darts to and fro before the rag-pile, stabbing it playfully with one of his knives. The rags stir frantically and emit another scream as Parson realizes that a portion of the rags are some semblance of clothing—a ragged robe, that contains an emaciated man. His long hair and beard have congealed into a colorless tangle that is hardly distinguishable from the rags in which he tries to hide.

Rigel is last into the loft. He snaps his fingers and Soft Jack comes to heel. He snaps them twice, and a gout of red flame blooms before him and fills the loft with a sanguine glow. In the shifting light, Parson sees that the walls are home to innumerable black lizards. "Parson,” the warlock croaks, gesturing to the cowering rag-man. “Meet Enoch. He’s going to. Read for us.”

“Rigel. What is that.” Enoch extends a thin arm and points one shaking finger at Soft Jack. “What is that, Rigel, in the Bony Mother’s name, what have you done?” Rigel pulls Soft Jack close to him, places a scarred hand atop Soft Jack’s head, and toys with his hair. “This? This. Is Jack.”

“Hello, filthy-man,” moans Jack. Rigel grins as broadly as his mangled features will allow. In the bloody flame’s light, framed by his black hood’s shadows, the rictus is an awful sight. “Jack’s progenitors,” Rigel rasps, “needed a miracle. They got one. Jack was the price. And the product.”

“I was born to darkness,” Soft Jack boasts.

Rigel lifts his other hand and the flame floats closer to Enoch, who flinches and tries to burrow deeper into his nest of rags. “Enoch.” The red swamp-flame darts and dances closer still, driving the frightened derelict out of his corner. “I just do not.” The warlock drops his shoulders—his black cloak spreads like a cloud in a midnight sky. The red flame flickers low. “Have the time.” He is upon Enoch so quickly that even Soft Jack is startled. Scarlet light comes flooding back with a ferocious fnapf! One of the magus’ scarred and crooked hands holds the recluse aloft by the neck. Parson knows all too well how strong those hands are, despite their malformation. “For you to cower.”

“Anything,” squeals Enoch, “please!”

Parson— unlike Soft Jack— was not born to Rigel’s tutelage. Murder and extortion were languages she studied exactingly on her path to his side. A portion of the warlock’s devices are familiar to her from this more pedestrian schooling in crime and terror. Not all, but a few.

“Little oracle,” croaks Rigel as he drops Enoch to the floor of the loft. “Parson. Needs to see. The stars. The bad light. For herself.” Rigel fixes her with his glittering eyes. In the swamp-fire, they are both black and iridescent. “It’s still down there,” weeps Enoch. “Bony Mother take you. Take us all.” A long rope of snot hangs from his angular nose and paints a dark, shimmering slick down his dust-colored beard.

“Boy.” Rigel’s tone is almost sweet. Like sugar ruining some mechanism, Parson thinks. The boy lolls his head back, eyes cast up at the magician. “Bring Enoch. A lizard.”

The long-necked reptiles that tenant the walls are slippery, but not particularly agile. “Lizard lizard,” sings Jack, “baby lizard.” His yellow knife glints. “Cut off our legs, now you’re a snake!” It gleams. “Cut off your tail, now you’re a slug!” He frowns and drops the scraps. “Uh-oh, no more lizard.”

“Jack,” Rigel scolds.

Parson closes the distance between where she stands and the bloody boy in two strides and slaps him as hard as she can. “You talk too much,” she says. She closes a hand around one of the larger, slower lizards. It squirms like a half-tied knot in her grip as she presents it to Enoch. “One day,” Soft Jack tells Parson as he gets back to his feet, “pretty Parson, you and I shall have to settle the bill, yes?” The childish sing-song has bled from his voice, leaving behind something that is both cold and old. Parson has heard it before, and is wary but not frightened. The same red miracle that binds Soft Jack to Rigel limits his usefulness, and all three of them know it.

Enoch stretches one skeletal arm and rakes filth from the floor, clearing a narrow swath. He pins the lizard with one hand and uses a long, black thumbnail to slit the creature’s belly open. It waves one leg feebly in protest and then lies still. “Enoch. Is the best haruspex. In Furnace Falls.” Rigel watches as Enoch gathers the entrails in one hand, sifts them, and weighs their minute whorls and sacs with his fingertips. Finally, he hurls the string of guts at the floor, where they land in a complicated curlicue with a wet thwap!

“Oh, this is bad,” cries Enoch, his dirty face a study in mean-spirited joy. Rigel regards the innards with a scowl. To Parson’s eyes, their shape is mundane— but at their frayed terminus is a hard knot amid the soft organ-meat; a finger-sized concretion. Whatever it is shimmers shifting black-and-bright in the ruby luminescence of Rigel’s flame. Enoch plucks the moist string of dainties from the floor, now wet with the ill-fated lizard’s various fluids and holds it aloft before him. He issues a happy bark of laughter, then turns his wide eyes to Parson. They are the one part of him, she notes, that seem to have retained their color. They are brilliant, jewel-green, and absolutely scream with madness. “He’s right,” says Enoch in a hoarse whisper, “if you seek a transit of the flesh between worlds, it will kill you.” He tears the glittering lump free and hands it to Rigel, then turns back to her. “He thinks he can stop you, but he’s the one who doesn’t understand. It’s already written. Right here. See?” With a satisfied smirk, Enoch whips his hand sideways and flings the dripping guts into Parson’s face. She recoils with a cry and lifts her hands, palms-up. Rigel grates a loud and futile negation: “PARSON, NO!”

If the red flame that Rigel summoned was akin to a torch, the fire that now fills the air is a hundred of them, ablaze with the rich golden color of a polished crown. The heat is tremendous. Soft Jack yelps and scuttles down the trap door just in time to avoid being incinerated as the blaze envelops Enoch, the nest of rags, and the rest of the loft. The flames part as they reach Rigel, leaving him as unscathed as a stone in a stream, but otherwise the havoc is complete.

“Well,” Rigel says. “So ends a very long life.” He drapes an arm around Parson’s shoulders, which tremble slightly as he leads her from the burning loft. Smoke and flames from the loft spread along the underside of the warehouse roof. Rigel whistles—a brief snatch of ear-splitting music full of malevolent lunacy—and the flames roll back into themselves, sucking the smoke with them. Within a few moments, the golden fire is extinguished. “Enoch has kept. Something here. A very long time.” He gazes at Parson as though seeing her anew. “One day. You will tell others. Of this day. Who you killed. What you are about to see.” She sets her jaw and stares back at Rigel, who nods, satisfied, and pulls down his hood once more. “This way.”

The sky is leaden. Parson steals a glance up and down the street as the trio emerge; it is as empty as it was when they arrived. Detritus is strewn in the empty lot behind the warehouse like the desiccated remains of insects in some long-abandoned web. Close to the concrete foundations at the rear of the structure is a cellar door, flat against the ground. It bears no lock. Rigel hauls on the handle and it opens with a metallic scream. Beneath, stone steps sink into a rectangle of perfect night.

“Jack will wait here. And keep watch.” Rigel tousles the boy’s hair, and then he and Parson carefully descend. Rigel’s ruby-hued flame accompanies them, bobbing just over Rigel’s head and casting its light on a brief, downward-sloping tunnel that terminates in another door, this one also unlocked. The air at the bottom of the tunnel is frigid. Parson detects an odor that is hard to place. There are notes of moist rock in it, hints of old death that are familiar from catacombs that she has explored, but with an oily machine substrate that she can’t place. Rigel nudges the second door and it opens silkily without sound or resistance.

“The first time we met,” Rigel croaks, “you had me. At a disadvantage. Do you remember why?”

“I was my shadow,” Parson says. The cellar is large, and rounded in a fashion that leaves no corners. It is bare of any ornament save for a single diminutive table at its center. On the table is a rectangular box, black and plain. “I interrupted you when you were looking for someone,” she continues. “I think I startled you. I didn’t know yet that the dreams were real.” The strangle curves of the room make Parson’s voice ripple and reverberate. The smell—death and enginery—is more repellant here than at the cellar’s mouth. She extends one hand, hesitates, and gently touches the warlock’s elbow. “Rigel, I… don’t think I need whatever lesson you have in mind. I believe you, okay?”

“No,” he grunts, and pulls his arm free. “You don’t. Because you learn. The way I teach. The snake that bites. Must bite. The blistering stove. Must be touched. But this fascination of yours. With physically traveling. To the places. You’ve been in spirit. Will be your undoing. Thus, our visit. There is something. I want you to see. That requires. An additional layer. Of protection. Beyond your astral form.” Rigel pauses, sweat standing out on his brow, and raises his fingers to the twisted scar that bisects and garbles his larynx. This is more than Parson usually hears him say at one go, and it is obviously painful for him to wrench the words free.

“I want to hear you say it,” Parson blurts, and instantly wishes she could erase the words before they can reach Rigel’s ears. “What.” His face is a stone. Parson’s cheeks burn, but she pushes on, no shelter to be had any more in silence. “I want to hear you say it. That it can be done. That I could do it.” Pride burns almost as hot as embarrassment on her face. “I’ve brought things back for you from the really far away places, so I know that those lands are real, as real as Furnace Falls, as real as any place my shadow goes. Can you imagine what we could accomplish, how much we could learn? The libraries I’ve seen, Rigel!”

“It can be done.” Rigel walks to the center of the cellar. From his cloak, he produces the glittering black-and-gold lump from the lizard’s guts, which she can now see is a key. He unlocks the box and opens it carefully. “You could, Parson. Your talents… Tremendous. So much power. Still untapped. But there is so much void. So many poison worlds. With bad air. Or peopled by monsters. But our journey. To this place affords you. A chance to taste something. That most often would kill.” Gingerly, Rigel lifts a small silver mirror from the box. He scrupulously holds it where neither he nor Parson are exposed to its surface. Its silver frame shines in the light like bone at the bottom of a wound.

“This mirror is charmed. It cannot leave this chamber. In your shadow body. You would never be able. To access this place. Nor leave it. The visions in this mirror. Are infected. By a particular world. A particular sky. A place of.” Here Rigel utters a word in a language that makes Parson’s belly roil and cramp, the syllables seem to run sideways in reverse, contrary to natural speech and the very vibrations of the air. He spits after he says it, clearing his mouth of what—to judge by his face—is an unspeakable taste. “’Light-that-festers,’” Rigel translates for her. “Enrobe yourself. In your shadow. And come, see. Then you will understand. That you must never. Try to travel. In your flesh. Lest this be the sky. You find.” When he turns, Parson is already seated on the stone floor, legs crossed, hands in her lap. Her eyes begin to flutter.

When Parson rises from her body, her shadow-form is not dark. It shines the same deep gold as the fire she visited upon Enoch, but muted, like lamplight glowing in a fog bank. Her shadow-eyes burn as bright as sunlight on a summer day. She floats above her body, weightless and shifting like a silk scarf under the sea’s surface. Rigel holds the mirror aloft. “This. Is why you must never. Travel wearing flesh. The corruption that waits. If you miss a single twist. Or take the wrong path.”

Parson’s golden shadow drifts closer, eyes flashing. It was, after all, the unquenchable thirst for forbidden knowledge that brought her under the warlock’s sway in the first place. For a moment, there is only silence and an unearthly tableau; the maimed wizard with eyes hidden by his cloak, the shining mirror raised in the light, the golden specter in the moment of forbidden apprehension. Then Parson’s voice, strange and muffled by the barriers of the dream and her ghostly dislocation; “Stars. There’s nothing to be afraid of— they’re just stars.”

And so they are— so it is. But she has already begun to see past them. Paralysis grips her, and she has time to be grateful for the weightless smoke that constitutes her shadow-form, for the slim protection afforded her, for her mentor’s harsh words and attempts to circumvent this moment. She has seen terrible things in his tutelage, and wonders, too— but nothing like this.

Because the stars, the stars wheel around her, multifarious and multiplying with each passing second. They fill her with a light that does more than simply shine, it lives, alive like the luminescent inverse of creeping black mold. And as she observes it, it observes her. As the radiance of those teeming stars infests her, it lives in her. Parson wants to cry out, wants to awaken and abandon her shadow-body like a puff of antiseptic vapor, but the venomous radiance of those stars has benumbed her as thoroughly as a caterpillar beset by a wasp’s barb. A limitless vortex of stars, a black and endless night that extends as far inside of her as it does around her, floods Parson, and she is washed clean of thought.

Eventually, the cellar door opens again, and Rigel emerges with Parson slung over one shoulder. “Oh, pretty Parson!” cries Soft Jack, delighted that his patience has been so lavishly compensated. He wriggles with happiness. “Is she a rag-dolly, Rigel? Did you break her?” He prods her motionless body with the jagged tip of one knife, drawing a bit of blood, until Rigel swats him away. “No. She is. Unbroken. And she isn’t infected, either. But she touched it. In the stars. A great malignance. She will have much to teach us. When she returns.”

He kneels in the trash-strewn dirt and sets Parson down gently. Soft Jack has ceased his excited squirming, and regards Parson with wide eyes that are almost respectful, almost tender.

“We’ll see. What she brought back.”

End.

*~*~*

Charles R. Bernard is a writer who lives in Salt Lake City, Utah. His work has been featured in Thuggish Itch and The Weird and Whatnot, and has appeared in anthologies like American Cult, Peaks of Madness, and Deadman Humour: 13 Fears of a Clown. He is a contributor at Madness Heart Press, where he co-hosts the podcast Wandering Monster and blogs about horror culture.

He resides next to Salt Lake City Cemetery; a sprawling necropolis whose tombs and markers stretch out over a square kilometer of grounds. Charles is lively enough company, though. You can find him on Twitter at @CRBernard and on Instagram at @SaltCitySinner, and can read more at saltcitysinner.blogspot.com

Artist: Kevin Hurtack (kevinhurtack.wordpress.com)

Shifting Sands

By A.G. Hilton

Her world exploded in flashing lights racing across the instrument panels; alarms blaring in her ears; a sickening tilt in her stomach as the artificial gravity faltered and the ship tilted wildly. All the while her head pounded as a familiar pain lodged like shrapnel in her brain.

They were going to crash.

Shelia knew this as surely as anything and yet even in the chaos, a part of her mind calmly asked: why? She remembered no collisions, no bombardments, no indications of imminent system failure. And yet they were going to crash.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” Shephard’s hands flew over the controls wildly. “Nothing’s responsive. It’s like we hit some kind of EMP field or techno-shielding, but the goddamn sensors didn’t even chirp!”

Shelia fought with her own control module but to no avail. The ship plummeted planetside in a ball of white heat.

The two of them scrambled wordlessly to secure themselves, each accepting the inevitability of the next moments and bracing for the impact. Shephard offered his hand across the center console. Shelia took it, squeezed, and closed her eyes.

*~*~*

For a time, there was darkness. Then it came to her: a blaring, incessant sound. She moaned and batted a hand as if trying to silence her morning alarm when the pain settled into her body bringing with it total clarity.

I’m alive.

A feeling of joy lifted Shelia in a pure elation of survival which for a time blotted out all else. Then she became aware of the blaring sound once more. Eyes darting to the feebly illuminated readouts on her screen, her joy in survival broke away. The fuel cells had ruptured. If a single spark contacted the fuel residue, she knew that her surviving the crash would be inconsequential.

“Shephard, we’ve got to move!”

Shephard did not heed her. Struggling to be free from her safety harness, she called his name again. Shephard sat limply in his seat, his head at an odd angle.

She disengaged herself from her own safety restraints and flew to her partner’s side. Working quickly but carefully she pulled him free of his own harnesses and laid him as gently as she could on the floor. Scrambling past him toward the back of the vessel, she felt a numbness and sickening nausea wash over her. This whole thing was a dream, had to be. It was a familiar but terrible nightmare from which she would soon awake. However, no sooner had the thought occurred, the full and horrible reality of the predicament set in with a glance at the respirator suits: they lay thrown about their storage compartment, visors smashed, material torn and useless.

Seeing no other option, she went to the hatch. The controls were down, but the manual safety lock seemed to be intact, and with great effort she managed to throw it open expecting choking gases or fierce frozen winds to decide her fate before the fuel cell explosion. Neither came.

Heat wafted in at her, bringing with it coarse sand and dry but breathable air. She took only a moment to reflect on the bit of blind luck before rushing back to the ship’s pilot cabin and the limp Shephard. Grasping him under his arms, she hauled him back through the ship, heedless of the still blaring alarms from the control cabin. She dragged him through the hatch and deposited him on a mound of sand beside the wreckage. That accomplished, she made one more foray into the ship, hauling out a black case and a duffle bag; both of which she laid beside her partner.

“Shephard? Shephard, come on!” She patted his face lightly with no response. Hesitantly, she reached for his throat with two fingers, but the way his head lolled in response to her touch confirmed her fears before she felt the absence of a rhythmic beat. Shephard was gone.

The sting of tears came immediately, but her desire to mourn clashed with her survival drive and its own blaring alarms inside her skull. Through blurred vision she took stock of the situation. The land around her lay barren, a repetition of dune upon dune as far as she could see. Aside from a rocky outcropping in the distance, the world was a swirl of whiteness under an empty and cloudless sky.

She looked at the duffle bag and the long black case she’d retrieved. She had enough rations to last for a few months and the small evaporative unit could draw out the water supply a little longer, given there was any moisture to be drawn out of the air. The disassembled plasma rifle might just weigh her down. Another look at her surroundings told her that game — likely life in general — would be sparse to non-existent in this dead place.

Then she saw something, a glint flashed against a rocky outcropping in the distance. Training reflex brought her to the ground beside Shephard’s body. She recognized the glint instantly, the reflection of a rifle scope. Perhaps the planet was not as dead as it seemed. Perhaps whomever had disabled the ship had come to clean up.

She tried to remain cool-headed, but the panic expanded in her chest with each thump of her heart. She knew how exposed she was, that it would be nothing for an average marksman to pick her off. She thought of her own rifle, knew that she would not have time to remove and assemble the components. An acrid smell in the air reminded her of the fuel cells. Then her eyes found Shephard’s. The eyelids had parted as she had moved him, the whites of his eyes beneath looked back at her emptily.

Panic ignited fear. Shelia snatched up the bag and black case, heedless of the possible sniper on the ridge, and plunged away over the nearest sand dune.

*~*~*

Shelia didn’t know how much time had passed before the explosion sent a gust of acrid wind blowing over her. Her flight had been a thing of pure instinct. Wildly, she plunged across the yielding sands, her calves screaming with the strain until, at last, she had collapsed against a monstrous dune shaking uncontrollably. She’d thought she’d heard a scream then, a mournful howl carried on the wind just before the detonation of the wreckage, but she could not be sure.

For a time, she could only lay there. She’d had the awareness to throw a blanket from the survival kit over herself to protect against the beams beating relentlessly down, but already she felt the beginnings of sunburn on her face and hands. These things were distant. Her mind was elsewhere; in her thoughts she was still with Shephard, returning from their reconnaissance mission primed for leave, and she was bursting with good news. Once we land, she had told herself, once we land, I’ll tell Shephard he is going to be a father.

She allowed the tears at last. And as they spilled down either side of her sunburned face, she could not be bothered about the waste of moisture.

*~*~*

Food would not be a problem. The condensed nutrient packs in the survival kit would sustain her for months, possibly longer. Of primary concern was the water. She had enough to hold her over a period of weeks if she conserved it, but the portable evaporator proved unable to draw much moisture from the air. Survival seemed more and more a lonely and pointless game, the conclusion of which might be brought about sooner using the plasma rifle.

But she wouldn’t let herself give in so easily. It was not just her life at stake.

She allowed her mind to focus on the one hope that remained, no matter how remote its likelihood: she knew that the ship’s last coordinates would have been broadcasting even as the crash occurred. As soon as the Corps outpost stopped receiving the transmission, they would dispatch a recovery team. But how long it would take for a ship to reach her, she could only guess.

*~*~*

Shelia assembled the plasma rifle at last. Her fear of the possible hostile presence had been rekindled. Over the previous days, she thought she had glimpsed a solitary figure following her. Sometimes there even appeared to be one ahead of her. Although, at this point a run in with anything, even a Skree war party, would have been a welcome change of pace from the stillness. But they were likely hallucinations, combinations of mirages and her heat exhausted mind which she could guess was beginning to unravel.

There was no way to tell how long she’d wandered or how far. The desert continued, a limitless expanse of ever shifting geography. Hot winds stirred the sands, filling in footprints as she went, covering up any telltale tracks behind her, and constantly remolding her surroundings. Once, she waited and watched as a section of dune seemed to break away only to reform seemingly exactly as it had been minutes later. Her disorientation was worsened by the perpetual sunlight, for the planet seemed to rotate in an incredibly slow manner, if it even rotated at all. The whole world seemed unstable, unstuck from any points of reference that would denote the passage of time or the accumulation of progress. Her existence spiraled into a maddening swirl of heat stricken Deja-vu under a perpetual sun and she wondered if she was beginning to feel the same grinding erosion of sanity which took those crews unfortunate enough to become stranded in the deep midnight between stars.

Eventually, not knowing how long a day in this world might stretch, she gave up on the notion of being able to wait to travel by nightfall and struck out in search of any shelter that might protect her from further heat exposure. She stumbled upon a rocky crag and climbed within its recesses, a haven of mercifully cool stone. Sickness rolled within her belly. Her head felt as though it had been staved in with a hammer. Greedily, she drank some of her water; it stung her cracking lips but felt like life rejuvenated inside her. Exhaustion closed in and her eyelids became leaden weights. In those moments before sleep, she imagined that she saw things clearly: this was just a nightmare. When she woke, Shephard would be fine. They would be en route to their rendezvous and all of this would forgotten.

*~*~*

How long she lay there she could not tell, but when she woke in a daze, the sunlight radiated just as strong as it had when shed taken shelter. Outside the wind continued to break down and reform the land about her.

I am in Hell, she thought wildly. Maybe I died in the crash or maybe we crashed into Hell itself.

Something in the thought struck her as funny in its absurd aptness and giggles rose in her from some empty and resigned place. She clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle them, slamming the door on their source. They came from a place of delirium and dementia from which she feared she may never return if the door were allowed to fully open.

She felt isolated like she could have never fathomed before this barren waste. It was as though she had come unstuck in time. Her days spiraled into endless repetitions of the same natural cycles, her nights into maddening dreams of the crash and of her flight through the desert. Sometimes when the sun seemed to beam its hottest, she thought she saw figures coming toward her. As heat rose from the dune ridges, she saw them, one following the other seeming to stretch to an infinitely distant point.

Yet she would not allow her mind to break. Whatever would happen, she would see it through or decide her ending on her own terms. This world, with its unending bleakness and despair, had become an enemy more personal than any she had faced for the Corps, and she would not let it win.

She clutched at the bag of supplies beside her. It was nearly empty.

*~*~*

The roaring tore into Shelia’s nightmare. She’d dreamt of plummeting to the hot sands and woke feeling sick and disoriented. She sat and listened, thinking at first that it was just the endless wind finding some new crevice in the rocks. But it persisted. And what once was a sound carried by the wind seemed to grow louder and more concrete. Wrapped in her blanket, she leaned out into the heat and gasped as she saw light arc against the blue sky. A transport descended rapidly through the atmosphere.

Shouting and waving, she watched as it came down leaving a thin line of smoke behind. Only after pausing to watch the ship’s descent did she see that it was wrong. She knew from the speed at which the craft approached that it was no longer under the control of the pilot.

“No!” Her unused voice came as a hoarse croak, the grinding of sand on rock. “Stop it! Stop it!”

The ship streaked down, now arcing her direction. She screamed incoherently, willing it to right itself, to settle gently into the sands. Meanwhile it tore above her head and when she heard the thump and felt the reverberations through her feet, she knew it was too late.

Gathering her things, she cursed her hopefulness. How could she imagine that her rescuers would be free from whatever disabled her own ship? Still the fierce, animalistic survivor in her had taken charge, coldly calculating the possibilities of further rations and survivors. She would live. She would live yet, and there would be another transport.

Climbing atop the rocky crag, she saw a thin line of smoke twisting in the wind. At its base, only a dot, she could see the wreckage. Scrambling back down, she retrieved her rifle and used its scope to survey the scene. A scout ship from the looks of it, like the kind she had once flown with Shephard. She could only look for a moment—the brightness of the land magnified through the scope made her head spin. The ship looked intact enough that someone may have survived. At the very least, food stores may be salvageable.

Then she was plodding toward the site, eyes ever fixed on the coiling smoke. As the ship came into view, her mind flew back to the crash, to Shephard’s lifeless eyes gazing into her own. As if conjured by the thought, she saw a form lying nearby in the sand. She ran to the crewman’s side but stopped within a few yards of him and fell to her knees.

The crewman stared at her with half opened eyes, the whiteness of the up rolled orbs burning into her mind with sickening recognition. But it couldn’t be. She rushed to the body, grabbed it and shook it so that it flopped limply. There on its chest was the undeniable evidence: a nametag reading J. Shephard.

I’ve broken, she thought in a voice from beyond the door of insanity. This is what is feels like to be lost within oneself. Then another voice, shouting, trying to drown out the call from the void: It’s a dream. All a dream. It must be a dream. Please God let it be a dream!

But when she ran to the ship, saw the state of the wreckage, felt its metal against her skin, she could not deny the reality of it. She fell to her knees and looked over her shoulder to see tracks leading away from the detritus and over the nearest sand dune just before the wind blew them away and in one horrible moment, she knew who had just fled across the desert.

She screamed. The fuel cells ignited. 

Her world exploded into flashing lights racing across the instrument panels; alarms blaring wildly; a sickening tilt filled her stomach as the artificial gravity faltered and the ship tilted wildly. All the while her head pounded as a familiar pain lodged like shrapnel in her brain.

End.

*~*~*

A.G. Hilton is a new voice in the world of dark fiction. When not dreaming up little nightmares, he spends his daylight hours as a technical writer in Charlotte, NC. You can keep up with his work on Twitter @nightsidetales.

Cthulhu's Codex

Abandon all hope who enter here...

Behold the following twisted writings discovered from scrolls found at the deepest depths of the saltiest sea. With great pains and a few near bouts with madness, we managed to translate the following:

*~*~*

Eight of us there are, twisting and touching. We can squeeze anything, except our neighbors.

*~*~*

I fell to the earth, and quickly they burrowed inside me. I can be sweet but soon I will rotten.

*~*~*

Read from my pages and I will grant thee the meaning of life. But not before you know death, agony, and heartbreak.

*~*~*

The rest can be found at the end of this tome.

Good luck.

Void Nocturnal

By Ashley Dioses

Infinite as the universe,

My soul is so eternal.

Engulfed by cosmos, I submerse

Into the Void Nocturnal.

The moons, they seek the spark Divine

Within each soul of life.

Amnesia slowly does enshrine

Awareness once so rife.

We wrongly fell so deep asleep,

And gave into such dreams

Where daemons stir and greed still seeps,

And thoughts tear at the seams.

More worlds may turn inside each mind,

And yet in ours, the cup

Pours fluid life—yet we are blind.

It’s now the time, wake up.

*~*~*

Ashley Dioses is a writer of dark fantasy, horror, and weird poetry from southern California.  Her poetry has appeared in Weird Fiction Review, Spectral Realms, Weirdbook Magazine, and elsewhere. She was also a nominee for the 2019 Pushcart Prize.  She is currently an Active Member in the HWA and a member of the SFPA.  Aside from writing, her other passions include martial arts and delving into esoteric and occult studies.  She blogs at fiendlover.blogspot.com

Raising Dogs and Other Truths

By Megan Neumann

Even with a gun pointing at him, Georgie acts like nothing strange is happening. He blows smoke in Felicia’s face and says, “Have you ever raised a dog, Felicia?” He puts his dying cigarette out on the ground and takes another one from his coat pocket. Felicia’s arm aches from holding up her gun. Georgie stops walking, leans against a tree on the path, and slowly lights the cigarette, taking his time, much to Felicia’s frustration. He’s been leading her down this wooded, path for forty-five minutes, telling her each time she asks that they’re almost there, almost to the spot. Felicia doesn’t know where they are. There’s so much of the planet’s surface she hasn’t explored since they landed.

“Not an old dog you adopted, but a puppy, one that has to be trained. Have you ever had a puppy?”

Felicia shakes her head, her eyes narrowed. “What the hell does that have to do with anything, Georgie? Puppies?” She sighs, exhausted. “Are we almost there?”

“Just a little bit further.” He starts walking again. “I’m just trying to make a point. I think you’ll see what it is after we’re there. After you hear me out. After you see what it is I’ve seen.” He pauses to smile at her and then starts moving again. “As I was saying, if you’ve never owned a puppy, maybe you won’t know this, but they’re hyper little bastards, dogs are. They’ll run around your house and tear up your shit if you aren’t careful. Even if you are careful, if you leave them alone for a second, your sofa’s torn to shreds, every shoe’s eaten up by that precious fur ball. Even things you wouldn’t think a dog would like, they’ll destroy: raw potatoes, rolls of toilet paper, books, phones, magnets. All of it gone in a few seconds of puppy fun.”

Georgie is walking faster now, forcing Felicia to jog to keep up. Damn her height and her short legs. Georgie is probably six-foot-three, with Felicia trailing behind at a measly five-foot-two. But she’s never let her stature slow her down. Or at least, she’s never let anyone see it slowing her down. She still has her gun pointed at Georgie’s back as he rushes along the dark trail. His cigarette burns between his lips, and in the darkness, it’s the only thing illuminating his stubbly face when he turns every few moments to speak.

He looks like an old man, Felicia thinks, but she knows he’s only about forty-five. Felicia’s age. The planet’s surface leaves people dried out, pruney. She wants nothing more than to leave this godforsaken place and hopefully Georgie is leading her there now—to a way off the planet at last. A portal home.

“Anyway, the way to keep a puppy from destroying your whole house is to keep them occupied. All creatures want to be occupied with something. Dogs in particular are bursting with energy. Their minds are constantly racing. Give them toys and play with them in a way that will keep them thinking. You stimulate a dog’s mind, the dog can do amazing things. Well, amazing things for a dog. Not for a human.”

“Shut it, Georgie,” Felicia says as she stumbles over a rock. She regains her footing and doesn’t think Georgie noticed. He isn’t even looking at her now. He is gazing forward into the forest, leading her to who knows where. For all she knows, he is leading her to a trap in the middle of the woods to have his way with her. Or worse. Would Georgie kill her?

*~*~*

Georgie had a history of seeming insane, but he has always been mostly harmless. He was the colony drunk and unwanted philosopher, spouting off in the streets about God knows what. Probably raising puppies. Felicia never really bothered listening to his madness. It wasn’t until yesterday when the light came into the town, washing over everything like a warm summer wind, that Felicia started noticing the things Georgie said.

She was out on patrol when it happened. She let the light wash over her, accepting it as a returning friend, rather than cowering in fear. The logical part of her brain knew she should be afraid, but she dismissed the thought for some reason, choosing to enjoy the light.

The planet still held a lot of mystery for the settlers. For all Felicia knew, the mysterious light could have burned her alive, could have burned the entire colony and killed all three hundred fifty-three people, the seventy-three cattle, eighty-nine goats, and the unknown number of stray cats roaming from house to barn.

But Felicia felt comforted by the light. She felt it was safe.

Then Georgie came running into the colony from the direction of the woods and the light, shouting he had seen it. He had found a way off the planet.

*~*~*

“Are you actually leading me there?” Felicia asks.

“Of course, I am. We’re almost there. Just a few more paces.” He flicks his third cigarette onto the ground and darts off the trail, moving so quickly into the tree line Felicia loses sight of him.

“Dammit, Georgie! Come back! I can’t see you!”

She runs in the direction she thinks he went, but there is nothing ahead of her except trees and darkness. When she can’t find him, she pauses to listen for his footsteps. Dried leaves layer the ground. Georgie should make some sounds, surely. He isn’t a ghost. But Felicia hears nothing, only the silence of the woods.

“Georgie?”

Then he’s in front of her, only three yards ahead, grinning like a madman, a fresh cigarette hanging from his chapped lips.

“It’s just up here behind me.” He turns and darts away. Damn, he moves fast, Felicia thinks. Faster than she would have expected for a man who hasn’t worked in fifteen years.

Felicia remembers when Georgie had a job like hers, when he had responsibilities and could carry on a coherent conversation. He seemed to have given up on himself some five years after they arrived, around the time it became apparent they’d never leave the planet and never contact anyone from home again.

Of course, Felicia and the other abandoned people knew the same things Georgie did and none of them had gone crazy. They all made the best of the situation. Felicia took her duties as a security officer and adapted them to the colony’s needs. She was the unofficial sheriff now and actually enjoyed making her rounds, helping out the new families that had formed during the previous fifteen years.

Another likely reason no one else had gone crazy was that a lot of the people in the colony had expected to live on the planet for the rest of their lives. About three hundred of the people were actual colonists, frontiersman out for adventure in a new, undiscovered land. It never really bothered them that they’d have absolutely no contact with their home world. They’d already accepted leaving everything behind.

Felicia had not intended to stay. She was head of security on the transport ship, and she was only supposed to stay on the planet for two weeks before heading home. Georgie, he was an engineer, working a few months on the ship and taking a few months off to be with his family. Felicia once heard him mumbling about his old life. He had a son, only three years old when he left. By now the baby boy would be a grown man who had never known his father. Felicia didn’t have a family. Lucky her.

About two days after arriving on the planet, everyone started to realize something wasn’t right. First, they couldn’t contact anyone through their ship’s communication systems. Also, the navigation seemed to be completely out of whack. It showed them in some uncharted area, somewhere billions of miles from where they should have been. Initially, Felicia thought, oh the ship’s malfunctioning. Could take them forever to fix it.

But no, that wasn’t it. On the second night, the captain of the ship looked up at the sky and saw the stars were different from their first night—unreasonably different. The planet had moved. It was still moving every night to some new location.

*~*~*

Georgie stands in front of a dense patch of trees, each with enormous trunks and thick bark. Past him, darkness masks the wooded area. Felicia sees nothing. Certainly, no light like she’d seen yesterday. Nothing unusual at all. Felicia raises her gun higher, leveling the barrel with Georgie’s face.

“Where have you brought me?”

Georgie smirks, revealing a line of teeth that seem to glow in the darkness. He’s not bothered by the gun; he shows no fear. Damn him for making her point her gun at him. Damn him for making her fear him. She mustn’t show her fear. She keeps the gun steady.

*~*~*

When Georgie rushed into the colony, yammering on about a way off the planet, discovering hidden truths about everything, he ran to the shack at which he kept his few possessions—a picture of his wife and child—and started to run back toward the woods on his own. Two men had to drag him back into town, slap him, and douse him with water to get him to calm down and speak. They threw him into Felicia’s holding cell and left her to interrogate him.

“I found it, and I have to get out of here! There’s a gate. I can use the gate to leave the planet! I can’t stay here any longer, Felicia!” Georgie yelled inside the cell. She stood in front of him with her arms crossed.

“What gate?”

“The gate out of this hell!” He lay on the floor, curled into a fetal position, his body filthy. Long hair hung over his face in mats. The stink of old booze and urine permeated from his stained clothing. Felicia turned her head in disgust.

“Have you finally cracked?” she asked.

“I’m not cracked, you idiot! I’m trying to get out of this limbo. Don’t you see? I’ve finally done it! I’ve opened a gate, but it’ll close soon. In just a few days! Who knows if I’ll be able to get it to open again? Let me free! Let me get out of this place at last! Please!”

At these words, Felicia felt a nauseating pity mingled with her lingering disgust. Of course, he wanted off the planet. He wanted to get back to his family. But what about her? She had a life too. She had no children, no spouse, but there’d been friends. A few distant relatives who cared about her. She’d even had a cat, an orange sack of fur named Mango who was—most likely by now—dead. But in the back of her mind, during her pathetic daydreams, she’d hoped a neighbor had cared for Mango. Maybe, just maybe, if Felicia ever made it home, she’d find her old Mango waiting for her, curled up on a cushion by the window, enjoying the sun just like Felicia remembered him doing.

Even with this aching desire to find her way home, she didn’t believe a word out of Georgie’s mouth. There was no gate, whatever that meant. She only kept him locked up to prevent harm to himself or anyone else while he ranted.

But the people in the town had heard him screaming about a way off the planet. Those that wanted to see their families again came to Felicia’s door and demanded she take a look.

“You never know,” Dr. Fay said. She was the doctor on their transport ship, and she became doctor for the colony when they landed on the planet. She would have retired by now if she were still at home. She had to be at least seventy-five, but the colony needed a doctor. She had a husband back home. He might be dead. Felicia knew from late talks at the only bar in the colony that not knowing ate the old woman up inside.

“We need to investigate it,” Fay pleaded, wringing her hands. “It’s probably nothing at all, knowing Georgie. But I’d like to know. Make him take you out to this so-called gate. There was the light that came into the town this afternoon. We don’t know what that was.”

Felicia thought the light was probably a fire Georgie had started in the woods with one of his cigarettes. They really ought to go out there and make sure nothing was left burning near the colony. But another part of her mind nagged at her. She’d felt so comforted by the light. There was something to it.

Since Dr. Fay and several others wanted her to investigate, Felicia relented. They were, after all, her people now. It was her duty.

When she demanded Georgie take her out to the gate, he ran at the bars of the cell and screamed, “Yes! Let me out! I’ll take you there!”

“Yeah, well, whatever we find out there we need to share it—if we find anything at all—with the people of this colony. That’s how we do things here. You can’t come in and make an announcement like that and not expect people to get fired up. We’ll go in the morning, Georgie. Get some sleep.”

“There’s no time! I have to take you now.” The desperation in his eyes made Felicia believe him.

She hesitated, then sighed. “Okay.”

Georgie grinned cruelly and let out a stream of laughter rising in volume the longer he cackled. Felicia double checked that her gun was in its holster.

*~*~*

“This is it?” Felicia asks. “The gate? Here in these woods? Where there’s nothing but trees and leaves and too many biting insects?” She feels a stinging on her neck and slaps her skin.

 “Oh yes, it’s here! Right here!” Georgie opens his arms wide and turns in a slow circle, his face pointing toward the sky.

Felicia wonders if he expects a magical beam to shine down from the heavens and take him back to his family.

“I don’t see anything.” Felicia looks up at the black sky. From here she can’t see any stars directly above her. The trees are too high, towering over her like the skyscrapers of cities she’ll never see again.

“It’ll appear soon. Just wait. When it opens, you’ll see it. And then, I’ll leave this place forever. Because I know the truth, Felicia! That’s right I know what it’s all about, and that’s why I’ll get to leave.”

“You won’t move!”

Felicia thinks about pressing the gun to his forehead, but is that necessary? She’s never had to kill anyone in the town, never had to be rough with anyone except for the occasional bar fight. Certainly, Georgie doesn’t deserve roughing up just yet, but it irks her that he doesn’t show any respect, that he doesn’t fear her.

Georgie lowers his head. “Whatever you say, officer. I’ll stay right here.” He chuckles.

Felicia doesn’t trust Georgie’s overconfidence. What if a gate does open? An opening in the sky with a sharp beam of light that shines only where he’s standing. What if it sucks him right up and leaves Felicia alone in the woods, lost from the colony and just as lost from her own world? Of course, that’s all nonsense. How does Georgie know what’s going to happen? But fear lingers in her mind, and she decides it’s better to be safe than sorry. Besides, no one is out here to see her buying into Georgie’s madness.

She needs to get closer to him. When he’s near, she’ll grab him, and she’ll press the gun to his head. She won't shoot him, no, but she needs him close just in case that fictional gate opens. She’ll be damned if he leaves her behind.

“Stay right there, Georgie!” She marches toward him, her gun still held straight. God, her arm is tired. He doesn’t budge. He stays standing with his arms out and his face toward the sky, grinning wildly like Felicia isn’t even there. He’s driving her mad. Why does he get to go home before anyone else? Does he think his life is more important than hers? When she’s close enough to reach him, she presses the gun to his temple and uses his head to rest some of the weight of the gun. He doesn’t flinch when the cold metal touches his skin. He’s so focused on the sky above.

“Do you hear me, Georgie? Don’t fucking move!”

“I hear you, officer. I hear you. But all your threats are meaningless. Soon it’ll all be over. They’re going to take me out of here because I know too much about their damned gate. See!”

She doesn’t look away from him. Surely, he’ll try something the moment she does. Then she sees the light on his face. Then she feels the warmth. It’s happening again. Just like it did the day before. The warm light passes through her, and her anger at Georgie vanishes.

“It’s happening!” Georgie screams. “The gate is opening!”

She dares to look up, and there it is. It’s not what she imagined, not a beam in the sky, but a hole in the blackness above. Through the hole she can see things moving, giant beings leaning over as if they’re looking down through the opening of a well. The warmth rushing over her emanates from the hole in the sky.

“What is that?” Felicia asks. It can’t be real, it just can’t. She’s been knocked out by Georgie, and she’s dreaming it all. Maybe Georgie has set fire to the woods around her. The weight of the gun in her hand reminds her of reality. Suddenly, Georgie is no longer standing at the business end of her weapon. The gun falls to her side. She sees him only a few feet away from her, as if adjusting himself to better be taken in by the hole above them.

“What is that?” Felicia repeats. She realizes she’s yelling because a loud rushing water noise has emerged, a noise louder than anything she’s heard since landing on the planet.

“It’s the gate. They’re going to take me because I found them! It’s me they’ll want.”

“No!”

Felicia doesn’t think before she rushes to where Georgie stands and pushes him out of the way. She also doesn’t think before she sees him sprawled on the leafy ground, scrambling to stand up and take his place back. She points the gun at his head and pulls the trigger without a second thought. She won’t be stuck here. She can’t live alone anymore.

Georgie lies in a pool of blood on the forest floor, but Felicia doesn’t give him another glance. She stretches her arms above her, just like Georgie had done before, waiting for the light to rush over her again, to be taken up and taken home by whatever lurks above her.

She still feels the warmth flowing through her body when she sees several more shapes like people standing over the hole in the sky. The warm light calms her, and as the heat moves over her body, she’s no longer worried about what is above her. The perspective is strange. It seems as if they must be giants standing over her entire world—the planet nothing more than a pebble seen through a microscope.

“I’m ready to go home!” Felicia yells.

The light grows stronger. A sudden jolt hits her. Agony rushes up and down her spine. She collapses on the ground next to Georgie’s corpse.

*~*~*

Felicia wakes up not on the forest ground but on a white bed surrounded by people, not people from the town though. Strangers. They’re dressed in scrubs and lab coats. She hasn’t seen clothes like these in fifteen years. She sits up quickly. The room is a typical beige hospital room. Mediocre landscape art hangs on the wall across from her. White curtains dim the light coming from a window on another wall.

“Am I home?” she asks. “Off the planet?”

They smile and look at one another, nodding knowingly as if Felicia is a child and has said something particularly precocious.

“Who are you? Where am I?”

They don’t answer her. Instead, a woman in a white coat with a tag on her pocket printed in some language Felicia doesn’t recognize pats Felicia on the head like she’s a dog. The woman turns to the others and says something else in a language that sounds like gibberish. They all nod together, seemingly pleased with whatever the woman has said or whatever Felicia has done.

They turn and leave through a door, a real metal door with a handle and a lock, not like the thrown together wooden doors in her remote colony. She must be back home, she thinks.

When the door opens, she can see outside the room. She sees people moving through the hallway outside her door. It seems like an ordinary hospital. Felicia settles back against her pillow. She’s forgotten what real, new pillows feel like. She’s been sleeping on the same pillow for so long.

Felicia tells herself she’s just in a hospital in a country where they don’t speak her language. It doesn’t matter. She’s home. That’s all that’s important.

When the door opens again, she’s feels herself dozing off. It isn’t until she hears his voice that her eyes open wide.

“Didn’t think you’d see me again, did you, Felicia?”

It’s Georgie. He’s smiling down at her, just as she remembers him in the woods. A lit cigarette hangs from his lips. His matted hair and dirty skin look out of place in the stark cleanliness of the hospital room.

“Georgie?”

“I’m afraid so. You thought you got rid of me back there. Thought you could leave me and go home by yourself, huh?”

Felicia searches Georgie’s face for signs of a gunshot wound. There’s nothing. No mark, no scar.

“But you’re not home are you, Felicia?”

She’s not sure what he means by this, and when she starts to ask, he interrupts her.

“I’ll ask you again, Felicia, have you ever had to raise a puppy? Or hell, raise any creature?”

Felicia swallows before speaking, fear suddenly gripping her. She saw him die. It doesn’t make sense.

“Answer me, Felicia!” The anger in his voice makes Felicia sit up and gulp before speaking.

“I had a cat,” she says. “Mango. I got him when he was a kitten. He was six when I left for the planet.”

“Mango? Cute name. Was Mango a handful?”

“He once climbed on top of the refrigerator. I kept a canister of flour up there. He knocked it down and spilled flour everywhere. There were white paw prints all over my apartment.”

Georgie laughs. “What a little rascal. He was just looking for something to entertain him. Young, stupid things need to be entertained, don’t they? They need some kind of stimulation to keep their minds occupied so they don’t cause trouble.”

“How did you get here, Georgie?”

“Georgie died on the forest floor when you shot him.” He smiles down again and starts to stroke Felicia’s head. Then his voice drops to a whisper. “You came here to our home. Invaders. That’s what you are. You would have brought more, wouldn’t you have? You would have caused a lot of damage. But we didn't let that happen. We kept you occupied. You understand now?”

Felicia doesn’t understand. She shakes her head.

“Georgie was an engineer. He was a smart man. He started to understand how it all worked. How we kept all of you busy by moving you around.”

Georgie strokes her head again, like she’s a lost dumbfounded child.

 “Why do you look like Georgie if you’re not Georgie?” she asks.

“I’m what you want to see. To help keep your mind occupied. Apparently, this wasn’t enough for Georgie. He didn’t care about being entertained. He wanted to know the truth even when he knew we’d kill him. He’d rather have the horrible truth than an amusing lie.”

He cups Felicia’s face in his hands and pulls her close to him. She realizes he has no smell. Even the cigarette smoke has no odor.

 “You sure are an interesting group of creatures. So young and stupid. But we didn’t want any more of you around here. So, we needed to distract you. Keep you occupied. Keep you happy. Some of you were, weren’t you? Happy, I mean. Wouldn’t you say so? Happy and staying out of trouble?”

Felicia nods, but too much is going through her mind. She blinks hard, and when she opens her eyes, the hospital is gone, replaced by an empty room. She’s lying on a squishy, somewhat sticky floor made of what looks like blue moss.

The person standing next to her, the person she thought was Georgie, is replaced by a shadow, vaguely human-shaped, except longer and thinner than any human.

“Have we kept you occupied long enough, Felicia?” a voice in her mind asks. The voice sounds like Georgie at first, but as it echoes through her thoughts she realizes it doesn't sound human at all. “Well, I guess you weren’t occupied enough. You’ve caused a bit too much trouble, haven’t you?”

End.

*~*~*

Megan Neumann is a speculative fiction writer from Little Rock, Arkansas. Her stories have appeared in such publications asCrossed Genres,Daily Science Fiction, and Luna Station Quarterly. She's a member of the Central Arkansas Speculative Fiction Writers' Group and is forever grateful for their loving support and scathing critiques.

The Moth

By H.G. Wells

Originally Published in 1895

Probably you have heard of Hapley--not W. T. Hapley, the son, but the celebrated Hapley, the Hapley of _Periplaneta Hapliia_, Hapley the entomologist.

If so you know at least of the great feud between Hapley and Professor Pawkins, though certain of its consequences may be new to you. For those who have not, a word or two of explanation is necessary, which the idle reader may go over with a glancing eye, if his indolence so incline him.

It is amazing how very widely diffused is the ignorance of such really important matters as this Hapley-Pawkins feud. Those epoch-making controversies, again, that have convulsed the Geological Society are, I verily believe, almost entirely unknown outside the fellowship of that body. I have heard men of fair general education even refer to the great scenes at these meetings as vestry-meeting squabbles. Yet the great hate of the English and Scotch geologists has lasted now half a century, and has "left deep and abundant marks upon the body of the science." And this Hapley-Pawkins business, though perhaps a more personal affair, stirred passions as profound, if not profounder. Your common man has no conception of the zeal that animates a scientific investigator, the fury of contradiction you can arouse in him. It is the _odium theologicum_ in a new form. There are men, for instance, who would gladly burn Professor Ray Lankester at Smithfield for his treatment of the Mollusca in the Encyclopaedia. That fantastic extension of the Cephalopods to cover the Pteropods ... But I wander from Hapley and Pawkins.

It began years and years ago, with a revision of the Microlepidoptera (whatever these may be) by Pawkins, in which he extinguished a new species created by Hapley. Hapley, who was always quarrelsome, replied by a stinging impeachment of the entire classification of Pawkins.[A] Pawkins in his "Rejoinder"[B] suggested that Hapley's microscope was as defective as his power of observation, and called him an "irresponsible meddler"-- Hapley was not a professor at that time. Hapley in his retort,[C] spoke of "blundering collectors," and described, as if inadvertently, Pawkins' revision as a "miracle of ineptitude." It was war to the knife. However, it would scarcely interest the reader to detail how these two great men quarrelled, and how the split between them widened until from the Microlepidoptera they were at war upon every open question in entomology. There were memorable occasions. At times the Royal Entomological Society meetings resembled nothing so much as the Chamber of Deputies. On the whole, I fancy Pawkins was nearer the truth than Hapley. But Hapley was skilful with his rhetoric, had a turn for ridicule rare in a scientific man, was endowed with vast energy, and had a fine sense of injury in the matter of the extinguished species; while Pawkins was a man of dull presence, prosy of speech, in shape not unlike a water-barrel, over conscientious with testimonials, and suspected of jobbing museum appointments. So the young men gathered round Hapley and applauded him. It was a long struggle, vicious from the beginning and growing at last to pitiless antagonism. The successive turns of fortune, now an advantage to one side and now to another--now Hapley tormented by some success of Pawkins, and now Pawkins outshone by Hapley, belong rather to the history of entomology than to this story.

[Footnote A: "Remarks on a Recent Revision of Microlepidoptera." _Quart. Journ. Entomological Soc._, 1863.]

[Footnote B: "Rejoinder to certain Remarks," etc. _Ibid._ 1864.]

[Footnote C: "Further Remarks," etc. _Ibid._]

But in 1891 Pawkins, whose health had been bad for some time, published some work upon the "mesoblast" of the Death's Head Moth. What the mesoblast of the Death's Head Moth may be does not matter a rap in this story. But the work was far below his usual standard, and gave Hapley an opening he had coveted for years. He must have worked night and day to make the most of his advantage.

In an elaborate critique he rent Pawkins to tatters--one can fancy the man's disordered black hair, and his queer dark eyes flashing as he went for his antagonist--and Pawkins made a reply, halting, ineffectual, with painful gaps of silence, and yet malignant. There was no mistaking his will to wound Hapley, nor his incapacity to do it. But few of those who heard him--I was absent from that meeting--realised how ill the man was.

Hapley got his opponent down, and meant to finish him. He followed with a simply brutal attack upon Pawkins, in the form of a paper upon the development of moths in general, a paper showing evidence of a most extraordinary amount of mental labour, and yet couched in a violently controversial tone. Violent as it was, an editorial note witnesses that it was modified. It must have covered Pawkins with shame and confusion of face. It left no loophole; it was murderous in argument, and utterly contemptuous in tone; an awful thing for the declining years of a man's career.

The world of entomologists waited breathlessly for the rejoinder from Pawkins. He would try one, for Pawkins had always been game. But when it came it surprised them. For the rejoinder of Pawkins was to catch influenza, proceed to pneumonia, and die.

It was perhaps as effectual a reply as he could make under the circumstances, and largely turned the current of feeling against Hapley. The very people who had most gleefully cheered on those gladiators became serious at the consequence. There could be no reasonable doubt the fret of the defeat had contributed to the death of Pawkins. There was a limit even to scientific controversy, said serious people. Another crushing attack was already in the press and appeared on the day before the funeral. I don't think Hapley exerted himself to stop it. People remembered how Hapley had hounded down his rival, and forgot that rival's defects. Scathing satire reads ill over fresh mould. The thing provoked comment in the daily papers. This it was that made me think that you had probably heard of Hapley and this controversy. But, as I have already remarked, scientific workers live very much in a world of their own; half the people, I dare say, who go along Piccadilly to the Academy every year, could not tell you where the learned societies abide. Many even think that research is a kind of happy-family cage in which all kinds of men lie down together in peace.

In his private thoughts Hapley could not forgive Pawkins for dying. In the first place, it was a mean dodge to escape the absolute pulverisation Hapley had in hand for him, and in the second, it left Hapley's mind with a queer gap in it. For twenty years he had worked hard, sometimes far into the night, and seven days a week, with microscope, scalpel, collecting-net, and pen, and almost entirely with reference to Pawkins. The European reputation he had won had come as an incident in that great antipathy. He had gradually worked up to a climax in this last controversy. It had killed Pawkins, but it had also thrown Hapley out of gear, so to speak, and his doctor advised him to give up work for a time, and rest. So Hapley went down into a quiet village in Kent, and thought day and night of Pawkins, and good things it was now impossible to say about him.

At last Hapley began to realise in what direction the pre-occupation tended. He determined to make a fight for it, and started by trying to read novels. But he could not get his mind off Pawkins, white in the face and making his last speech--every sentence a beautiful opening for Hapley. He turned to fiction--and found it had no grip on him. He read the "Island Nights' Entertainments" until his "sense of causation" was shocked beyond endurance by the Bottle Imp. Then he went to Kipling, and found he "proved nothing," besides being irreverent and vulgar. These scientific people have their limitations. Then unhappily, he tried Besant's "Inner House," and the opening chapter set his mind upon learned societies and Pawkins at once.

So Hapley turned to chess, and found it a little more soothing. He soon mastered the moves and the chief gambits and commoner closing positions, and began to beat the Vicar. But then the cylindrical contours of the opposite king began to resemble Pawkins standing up and gasping ineffectually against check-mate, and Hapley decided to give up chess.

Perhaps the study of some new branch of science would after all be better diversion. The best rest is change of occupation. Hapley determined to plunge at diatoms, and had one of his smaller microscopes and Halibut's monograph sent down from London. He thought that perhaps if he could get up a vigorous quarrel with Halibut, he might be able to begin life afresh and forget Pawkins. And very soon he was hard at work in his habitual strenuous fashion, at these microscopic denizens of the way-side pool.

It was on the third day of the diatoms that Hapley became aware of a novel addition to the local fauna. He was working late at the microscope, and the only light in the room was the brilliant little lamp with the special form of green shade. Like all experienced microscopists, he kept both eyes open. It is the only way to avoid excessive fatigue. One eye was over the instrument, and bright and distinct before that was the circular field of the microscope, across which a brown diatom was slowly moving. With the other eye Hapley saw, as it were, without seeing. He was only dimly conscious of the brass side of the instrument, the illuminated part of the table-cloth, a sheet of notepaper, the foot of the lamp, and the darkened room beyond.

Suddenly his attention drifted from one eye to the other. The table-cloth was of the material called tapestry by shopmen, and rather brightly coloured. The pattern was in gold, with a small amount of crimson and pale blue upon a greyish ground. At one point the pattern seemed displaced, and there was a vibrating movement of the colours at this point.

Hapley suddenly moved his head back and looked with both eyes. His mouth fell open with astonishment.

It was a large moth or butterfly; its wings spread in butterfly fashion!

It was strange it should be in the room at all, for the windows were closed. Strange that it should not have attracted his attention when fluttering to its present position. Strange that it should match the table-cloth. Stranger far that to him, Hapley, the great entomologist, it was altogether unknown. There was no delusion. It was crawling slowly towards the foot of the lamp.

"New Genus, by heavens! And in England!" said Hapley, staring.

Then he suddenly thought of Pawkins. Nothing would have maddened Pawkins more...And Pawkins was dead!

Something about the head and body of the insect became singularly suggestive of Pawkins, just as the chess king had been.

"Confound Pawkins!" said Hapley. "But I must catch this." And looking round him for some means of capturing the moth, he rose slowly out of his chair. Suddenly the insect rose, struck the edge of the lampshade--Hapley heard the "ping"--and vanished into the shadow.

In a moment Hapley had whipped off the shade, so that the whole room was illuminated. The thing had disappeared, but soon his practised eye detected it upon the wall-paper near the door. He went towards it poising the lamp-shade for capture. Before he was within striking distance, however, it had risen and was fluttering round the room. After the fashion of its kind, it flew with sudden starts and turns, seeming to vanish here and reappear there. Once Hapley struck, and missed; then again.

The third time he hit his microscope. The instrument swayed, struck and overturned the lamp, and fell noisily upon the floor. The lamp turned over on the table and, very luckily, went out. Hapley was left in the dark. With a start he felt the strange moth blunder into his face.

It was maddening. He had no lights. If he opened the door of the room the thing would get away. In the darkness he saw Pawkins quite distinctly laughing at him. Pawkins had ever an oily laugh. He swore furiously and stamped his foot on the floor.

There was a timid rapping at the door.

Then it opened, perhaps a foot, and very slowly. The alarmed face of the landlady appeared behind a pink candle flame; she wore a night-cap over her grey hair and had some purple garment over her shoulders. "What _was_ that fearful smash?" she said. "Has anything----" The strange moth appeared fluttering about the chink of the door. "Shut that door!" said Hapley, and suddenly rushed at her.

The door slammed hastily. Hapley was left alone in the dark. Then in the pause he heard his landlady scuttle upstairs, lock her door, and drag something heavy across the room and put against it.

It became evident to Hapley that his conduct and appearance had been strange and alarming. Confound the moth! and Pawkins! However, it was a pity to lose the moth now. He felt his way into the hall and found the matches, after sending his hat down upon the floor with a noise like a drum. With the lighted candle he returned to the sitting-room. No moth was to be seen. Yet once for a moment it seemed that the thing was fluttering round his head. Hapley very suddenly decided to give up the moth and go to bed. But he was excited. All night long his sleep was broken by dreams of the moth, Pawkins, and his landlady. Twice in the night he turned out and soused his head in cold water.

One thing was very clear to him. His landlady could not possibly understand about the strange moth, especially as he had failed to catch it. No one but an entomologist would understand quite how he felt. She was probably frightened at his behaviour, and yet he failed to see how he could explain it. He decided to say nothing further about the events of last night. After breakfast he saw her in her garden, and decided to go out and talk to reassure her. He talked to her about beans and potatoes, bees, caterpillars, and the price of fruit. She replied in her usual manner, but she looked at him a little suspiciously, and kept walking as he walked, so that there was always a bed of flowers, or a row of beans, or something of the sort, between them. After a while he began to feel singularly irritated at this, and to conceal his vexation went indoors and presently went out for a walk.

The moth, or butterfly, trailing an odd flavour of Pawkins with it, kept coming into that walk, though he did his best to keep his mind off it. Once he saw it quite distinctly, with its wings flattened out, upon the old stone wall that runs along the west edge of the park, but going up to it he found it was only two lumps of grey and yellow lichen. "This," said Hapley, "is the reverse of mimicry. Instead of a butterfly looking like a stone, here is a stone looking like a butterfly!" Once something hovered and fluttered round his head, but by an effort of will he drove that impression out of his mind again.

In the afternoon Hapley called upon the Vicar, and argued with him upon theological questions. They sat in the little arbour covered with briar, and smoked as they wrangled. "Look at that moth!" said Hapley, suddenly, pointing to the edge of the wooden table.

"Where?" said the Vicar.

"You don't see a moth on the edge of the table there?" said Hapley.

"Certainly not," said the Vicar.

Hapley was thunderstruck. He gasped. The Vicar was staring at him. Clearly the man saw nothing. "The eye of faith is no better than the eye of science," said Hapley awkwardly.

"I don't see your point," said the Vicar, thinking it was part of the argument.

That night Hapley found the moth crawling over his counterpane. He sat on the edge of the bed in his shirt sleeves and reasoned with himself. Was it pure hallucination? He knew he was slipping, and he battled for his sanity with the same silent energy he had formerly displayed against Pawkins. So persistent is mental habit, that he felt as if it were still a struggle with Pawkins. He was well versed in psychology. He knew that such visual illusions do come as a result of mental strain. But the point was, he did not only _see_ the moth, he had heard it when it touched the edge of the lampshade, and afterwards when it hit against the wall, and he had felt it strike his face in the dark.

He looked at it. It was not at all dreamlike, but perfectly clear and solid-looking in the candle-light. He saw the hairy body, and the short feathery antennae, the jointed legs, even a place where the down was rubbed from the wing. He suddenly felt angry with himself for being afraid of a little insect.

His landlady had got the servant to sleep with her that night, because she was afraid to be alone. In addition she had locked the door, and put the chest of drawers against it. They listened and talked in whispers after they had gone to bed, but nothing occurred to alarm them. About eleven they had ventured to put the candle out, and had both dozed off to sleep. They woke up with a start, and sat up in bed, listening in the darkness.

Then they heard slippered feet going to and fro in Hapley's room. A chair was overturned, and there was a violent dab at the wall. Then a china mantel ornament smashed upon the fender. Suddenly the door of the room opened, and they heard him upon the landing. They clung to one another, listening. He seemed to be dancing upon the staircase. Now he would go down three or four steps quickly, then up again, then hurry down into the hall. They heard the umbrella stand go over, and the fanlight break. Then the bolt shot and the chain rattled. He was opening the door.

They hurried to the window. It was a dim grey night; an almost unbroken sheet of watery cloud was sweeping across the moon, and the hedge and trees in front of the house were black against the pale roadway. They saw Hapley, looking like a ghost in his shirt and white trousers, running to and fro in the road, and beating the air. Now he would stop, now he would dart very rapidly at something invisible, now he would move upon it with stealthy strides. At last he went out of sight up the road towards the down. Then, while they argued who should go down and lock the door, he returned. He was walking very fast, and he came straight into the house, closed the door carefully, and went quietly up to his bedroom. Then everything was silent.

"Mrs. Colville," said Hapley, calling down the staircase next morning, "I hope I did not alarm you last night."

"You may well ask that!" said Mrs. Colville.

"The fact is, I am a sleep-walker, and the last two nights I have been without my sleeping mixture. There is nothing to be alarmed about, really. I am sorry I made such an ass of myself. I will go over the down to Shoreham, and get some stuff to make me sleep soundly. I ought to have done that yesterday."

But half-way over the down, by the chalk pits, the moth came upon Hapley again. He went on, trying to keep his mind upon chess problems, but it was no good. The thing fluttered into his face, and he struck at it with his hat in self-defence. Then rage, the old rage--the rage he had so often felt against Pawkins--came upon him again. He went on, leaping and striking at the eddying insect. Suddenly he trod on nothing, and fell headlong.

There was a gap in his sensations, and Hapley found himself sitting on the heap of flints in front of the opening of the chalk-pits, with a leg twisted back under him. The strange moth was still fluttering round his head. He struck at it with his hand, and turning his head saw two men approaching him. One was the village doctor. It occurred to Hapley that this was lucky. Then it came into his mind with extraordinary vividness, that no one would ever be able to see the strange moth except himself, and that it behoved him to keep silent about it.

Late that night, however, after his broken leg was set, he was feverish and forgot his self-restraint. He was lying flat on his bed, and he began to run his eyes round the room to see if the moth was still about. He tried not to do this, but it was no good. He soon caught sight of the thing resting close to his hand, by the night-light, on the green table-cloth. The wings quivered. With a sudden wave of anger he smote at it with his fist, and the nurse woke up with a shriek. He had missed it.

"That moth!" he said; and then, "It was fancy. Nothing!"

All the time he could see quite clearly the insect going round the cornice and darting across the room, and he could also see that the nurse saw nothing of it and looked at him strangely. He must keep himself in hand. He knew he was a lost man if he did not keep himself in hand. But as the night waned the fever grew upon him, and the very dread he had of seeing the moth made him see it. About five, just as the dawn was grey, he tried to get out of bed and catch it, though his leg was afire with pain. The nurse had to struggle with him.

On account of this, they tied him down to the bed. At this the moth grew bolder, and once he felt it settle in his hair. Then, because he struck out violently with his arms, they tied these also. At this the moth came and crawled over his face, and Hapley wept, swore, screamed, prayed for them to take it off him, unavailingly.

The doctor was a blockhead, a just-qualified general practitioner, and quite ignorant of mental science. He simply said there was no moth. Had he possessed the wit, he might still, perhaps, have saved Hapley from his fate by entering into his delusion, and covering his face with gauze, as he prayed might be done. But, as I say, the doctor was a blockhead, and until the leg was healed Hapley was kept tied to his bed, and with the imaginary moth crawling over him. It never left him while he was awake and it grew to a monster in his dreams. While he was awake he longed for sleep, and from sleep he awoke screaming.

So now Hapley is spending the remainder of his days in a padded room, worried by a moth that no one else can see. The asylum doctor calls it hallucination; but Hapley, when he is in his easier mood, and can talk, says it is the ghost of Pawkins, and consequently a unique specimen and well worth the trouble of catching.

End.

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Cthulhu’s Codex Continued…

1. GKQHGUT

2. BPDQROF

3. UJHEKFUKROCUZ