Copyright © 2021 by CHM LLC

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Cover Art: Ben V Funk

Linguistio illustration: Alvaro "AlvarInk" Maldonado

Terms of Transition illustration: Dennis Hubag

The Chain of Aforgomon Illustration: Luke Spooner / Carrion House

Cosmic Horror Monthly

www.cosmichorrormonthly.com

Linguistio

By Nick Olivo

Scott tapped a few keys on his keyboard and looked into Camera 1, mounted on his desk at eye level. “What’s up, everyone? Today we’re looking at a possible scam app called Linguistio, that promises big cash prizes just for pronouncing words. A viewer told me that it sounded too good to be true, and at Too Good to Be True Reviews, I’m here to tell you if it is or not. Let’s get this show on the road.” Scott pressed a button on the sound board and his theme music, an electric guitar riff, played in the background.

“All right,” Scott said, flipping Camera 2 on. An image of a smartphone with a progress bar appeared in the feed. “As you can see, the app’s nearly finished installing, and here we go, it’s done now.” He tapped on its icon, and a popup box asked him to confirm his locale and to select which languages he spoke. “I speak English, German, and Spanish, and oh ho, look at this, my friends. It’s already asking me for my bank account information. That’s a bad sign. No problem. In anticipation for stuff like this, I’ve got a couple of savings accounts with a few bucks in them, so I’ll use one of those.” He tapped another button that blurred out the account information as he entered it in. “And now it looks like we have a new friend.”

An animated white kitten with a pink bow around her neck appeared onscreen, and a word bubble popped up over its head. “Hi, I’m Morgan! Welcome to Linguistio. This is a fun game that helps us better understand how people pronounce words. It’s our goal to create educational material that make it easy for people to communicate with one another. I’ll show you a sentence, and you pronounce it as best as you can. We’ll do some practice sentences, and then you’ll get a chance to win a dollar. The more you play, and the harder the sentences you pronounce, the bigger the prizes. Ready to start?”

“All right, people, let’s see what Morgan has for us.” Scott tapped ‘Yes.’

Morgan ran off screen, then ran back on, followed by a sentence in German. “The sun is shining,” Scott translated. The sentence turned green, then vanished. Another sentence. “Today is my birthday.” It turned green and vanished. Another sentence, this one in Spanish. “Huh. The app’s not displaying the translated phrases. It’s just displaying the sentences in their native language. If I didn’t know these languages, I’d have no idea what I was saying.” Scott clucked his tongue. “I’m going to pronounce this next one wrong, just to see what happens.” He mispronounced “I would like to see the doctor.”

The sentence turned green and Morgan reappeared, wearing a party hat. Confetti exploded around her. “Great job! Now that we know how you pronounce words from languages you’re familiar with, we’ll show you some words from languages you don’t know. And, as part of our research, we’ll also have you pronounce a few nonsense words. These aren’t real words, but are just to help us better understand how you process phonetics. Don’t go too fast, and say them however feels natural to you.”

“Sha vel ray gohl,” Was this Latin, or nonsense? Scott sounded out the words. A chill shot down his spine and the hairs on his arms bristled. He rubbed at them absently before a trumpeting sound on the phone drew his attention.

“Wonderful!” More confetti burst around Morgan. “Here’s your reward.” A counter in the upper left of the screen shifted to read $1.

Scott made eye contact with the camera. “Ok, so we’ve seen that incorrect pronunciations don’t seem to deter our little friend. Which, I suppose makes sense if they’re trying to understand how people pronounce words. And, interesting.” Scott switched windows to show the bank account screen. “It looks like they’ve already deposited my buck. I have to be honest folks, going into this one, I was positive this was a scam. How about you all? Any questions so far?”

Scott switched focus to the comments window. Several people had similar experiences, installing the app and then getting a dollar or two right away. Scott acknowledged those and looked for the questions. “Got a question from Skywalker69 asking if I’ve done a source code analysis yet. I have. Linguistio isn’t gathering any personal data, doesn’t access any other apps on your phone, doesn’t try to access your camera, and doesn’t access your GPS. There was one source file that I found that didn’t make sense to me.” He clicked through a few folders as he looked for it. “It was just a text file, not executable code, and it looked like it contained a bunch of hieroglyphics. Hmm. Weird, I can’t seem to find it right now, but I’ll post some screenshots on the blog later.”

“Question from LadyShade asking, ‘Off topic, why do you do these reviews?’” He glanced at the photo taped to the corner of his monitor, then pulled up an electronic copy so that the audience could see. It showed an elderly woman wearing a birthday hat, a birthday cake with an 84 candle before her. Scott himself was seated next to her, arm around her. Both were beaming into the camera. “This is my Mawmaw. She was the sweetest lady you could ever know. Worked her fingers to the bone for forty years at a luggage factory so my dad and his sisters could go to college. She retires, starts getting her pension checks, and then one day some jackass online posts a scam. Well, Mawmaw got suckered, and lost fifty grand. It totally ruined her financially. She lost her house, had to move in with one of my aunts. So, I do this to keep your Mawmaw safe.”

Onscreen, Morgan had rolled onto her back and was playing with a ball of yellow yarn. “You know,” he said to Camera 1. “It almost feels like she’s watching me.” He laughed. “Anyway, thanks for joining me today. I’ll do some further investigation over the course of the week, and my full review will be up by Saturday. I’ll give it a few days to see if they steal anything from my account, but right now things look promising. Be careful if you install it yourself, and until next time, stay sharp.”

Scott ended his streaming session and leaned back in his gaming chair. The lights in his home studio were low, strategically placed red and blue LEDs giving the room a techno feel. He pressed a button to turn the AC back on, since its fan made too much noise to run during a session. It shuddered and groaned before finally sending a wave of cool air into the room. He’d need to have the repair guy out again to look at it. But right now, he wanted to just lean back in the dimness and think. Which was hard because his phone’s screen was still lit up, Morgan the kitten idly swatting at a toy mouse onscreen.

Scott tipped his head to the side as he regarded the phone. He’d set it to automatically shut off after five minutes of inactivity, but maybe Linguistio could somehow override the default settings? He hadn’t been looking for anything like that in his source code analysis. As he picked up the phone, Morgan’s toy mouse went racing offscreen, and the kitten perked up. “Hi Scott! Want to do more?”

“Huh,” Scott said to himself. “You must be tied in with the phone’s accelerometer to know when I picked up the phone. Interesting. That’ll make for a neat point to discuss with the audience next time.” He looked at the ‘Continue?’ button onscreen, its border pulsing blue every few seconds. “Sure, Morgan,” he said as he tapped the button. “Let’s continue.”

Over the next few hours, Morgan gave Scott progressively more complex sentences. Slang expressions began creeping in, and Scott got one sentence that had words from Spanish, German, and what he suspected was Italian. The text had highlighted in green, Morgan told him he’d done a good job, and his account increased by $10.

An hour after that, Morgan gave him another line of nonsense. Scott tried to take a screenshot of it, but the app just gave an angry buzz at him. Morgan leaped to the front of the screen, obscuring the sentence, her cartoony eyes glowing red.

“Oh, I know you want to get things purr-fect,” she said. “But our research depends on your natural reaction to language. No taking pictures, just pronounce things as best as you can.” Morgan’s eyes shifted back to green and she began licking her paw.

Scott shrugged. The camera mounted to his desk was still recording, anyway. A timer appeared onscreen. Five seconds remaining. He said the words, which turned green, and got another $10 in his account.

After closing the app, he pulled up the camera’s footage to get a screenshot of the odd words, and stared at the blank Linguistio screen. Morgan was clearly visible onscreen, he heard himself speaking words, but there were no words on the screen. The cash counter at the top right dinged, and he saw the money he’d just won. He rewound the footage. The sentence in Spanish was clearly visible, as was the one in German that had preceded it. But it was like these nonsense words hadn’t happened. He pulled up one of the earlier recordings and found that in each of them, sentences in languages he knew were visible, but the nonsense words weren’t. The hell? He drummed his fingers on the desk, then opened a browser and logged on to Linguistio’s website. The sounds of those words were stuck in his head like a litany, and he started saying them under his breath. He needed to know what language he’d just spoken.

Morgan appeared in the upper right of the browser window. “Hi Scott! If you’d like to do more spoken word exercises, please use the app on your phone. If you have questions, you can find answers here in our knowledge base.” Scott entered ‘Nonsense words’ into the search box. Morgan swatted at a ball of yarn before displaying, “A person’s ability to decode or pronounce nonsense words can help predict their overall reading ability, and can also help teach proper syllabication. These are especially helpful when a child is in school, and we’re looking to develop material for school children someday.”

Scott thought about that Latin-esque sentence he’d been given earlier and entered ‘Dead Languages’ into the search bar. Morgan chased a butterfly onscreen for a moment before displaying her answer. “If you’ve been doing exceptionally well, we’ll challenge you with dead languages. For languages that used pictograms, like Sumerian, we’ll give you a phonetic interpretation. While Latin, Coptic, and Sumerian aren’t spoken conversationally any more, our hope is that talented people like you can help us get a better picture of what they sounded like.”

“If you can give me a phonetic interpretation,” Scott said to himself. “Why would you need me to say the words?” Before he could enter the question into the search box, Morgan displayed, “Scott, you’ve successfully translated every sentence we’ve given you and you translated a sentence in Lencan, a Central American language that has no known living speakers. You are quite a cunning linguist.” Morgan winked at him. “Would you like to enroll in the special Dead Languages Only contest? The sentences are tougher, but the prizes are bigger. Interested in learning more?”

Ah, this must be how they get you, he thought. Scott clicked the ‘Yes’ button.

“Purr-fect!” Morgan said. “There are some languages we’ve discovered that are only partially translated. We don’t know for sure if our phonetic interpretations are correct, so we need talented people like you to try them out. Each sentence you speak earns you $5. We only extend this offer once, and only to a very few select participants. If you enroll, you can’t go back to the default Linguistio, so be sure before you click that ‘Enroll Me’ button.”

“Offer expires in 10. 9. 8...” A timed pressure offer. Scott grinned. I’ve got you now, Morgan. He glanced at the photo taped to the corner of his monitor. “Let’s get these bastards, Mawmaw.”

“Pawsome!” Morgan displayed, and did a happy dance. “Let me change.” The kitten ran off screen and returned wearing a tiara and robe. To Scott, she looked like a feline Cleopatra. “The next time you launch the app on your phone, you’ll be in dead language mode. And, you’re eligible for a special bonus round where the prizes are doubled! Good luck!”

Scott closed the tab and rubbed his eyes. He glanced at the clock. Nearly midnight. He’d run through this Dead Language Mode and then call it a night. He launched the app on his phone and saw Morgan there, clad in her pharaoh outfit. “Ready, Scott? Here we go!”

The phonetic interpretation of some dead language came onscreen. It wasn’t Latin, he knew that much.

“Sha vel ray gohl,” Scott said.

Thunder clapped outside. Had the forecast said anything about storms?

“Ajay kai re sa.”

Lightning flashed, and the power flickered. The air in his apartment was hot and heavy, more than it should’ve been. The AC must be on the fritz again.

“Liyo veth ej cha.”

The power went out. Scott frowned, but kept his focus on the phone’s screen. How many sentences would he have to say?

“Zego reath empa zan.”

A sound like ripping cloth tore through the room, and stale, freezing air rimed his skin with a thin layer of frost. Before his eyes, twisted, shadowy forms stepped through a hole in the air. No, not a hole, more like a giant tear, a rip in the air in front of him nearly eight feet high. Each of the forms was the size of a person, but with elongated arms that ended in hands that looked like tree branches. While they weren’t solid, their glowing red eyes were sharp and defined.

Scott opened his mouth to scream, but “Sha vel ray gohl” came out. He wanted to run, but his body refused to move. The shadows slithered forward, and Scott found their tendrils were much more like tentacles than tree branches. “Sha vel ray gohl”, Scott said.

“Mal kath tre svin,” the forms intoned in unison.

Scott found himself turning back to the computer and clicked on Camera One. He heard himself laugh, and say a few sentences. He was aware of his guitar riff playing, and then he was tapping out a few commands on his keyboard. That done, he turned back to the figures. They’d stayed out of the camera’s view, but now they surrounded him.

“Sha vel ray gohl”, Scott said again.

They lifted Scott from his chair, their shadowy fingers felt like ice covered leather. The cold hit him like a hammer as they hauled him through the tear, and the sensation of being stretched caused him to convulse, yet he didn’t stop speaking the language. As they pulled him through, the words changed.

“Zego reath your fire. I give myself to you, great one! I give myself to you! Take my soul to fuel your hunger! Let my essence fuel your fire. Glory to you! My will is yours, I do not resist.”

Sweat pouring down his face despite the cold, Scott tried to fight against his captors. Since crossing through they were no longer wispy shadows. These beings had the torso of a man, the lower half of a snake, and a tentacled squid head topped their shoulders. His body refused to obey him, he willed his arms and legs to move, willed himself to stop speaking, yet his limbs remained still and the words kept coming.

The more he said the words, the more he believed them. He would willingly give himself to Gohl. Who is Gohl? Did it matter? Gohl needed him. Hell yes, it matters! Why resist? He shouldn’t resist. You bet your ass I’m going to resist.

A part of his mind was raging, panicking, slamming itself against the numbing bars of a cage conjured by this litany. He screwed his eyes shut, pictured the photograph of Mawmaw’s birthday firmly in his mind. He remembered that day, the party had been a surprise, and he’d given her a Chippendales calendar as a joke. She’d punched him playfully in the shoulder, looked at him over the tops of her glasses and said…

She’d said…

What had she said?

Oh, right. She’d said, “Mal kath tre svin.”

The final barrier of resistance in Scott’s mind shattered, and gradually, he began to relax. He cast his eyes around, and saw he was inside a huge underground cavern, with massive frescoes carved into the walls. As his captors pulled him along, he took in the scene depicting the squid-snake people tossing stick figures into the mouth of some great beast.

Purple-white light suffused the entire cavern, but Scott couldn’t tell where it was coming from. They continued along, and just ahead were a pair of columns with writing chiseled into their dark stone. At first, the writing appeared as Morgan’s nonsense phrases, but as he got closer, he realized he could read them.

Sha vel ray gohl. I offer myself to Gohl. Ajay kai re sa. Remove the will from this vessel. Liyo veth ej cha. I give this to you. Zego reath empa zan. Let my essence fuel your fire.

As they left the columns behind them, Scott continued his litany, and some distant part of him realized he was walking freely, the squid-snake people seeming more like an honor guard than captors.

They guided him to a ring of gray stones, each one the size of a small dog. On an altar above it, stood a feline-headed woman clad in a pharaoh’s outfit. She smiled at Scott as he approached, and spread her hands to the circle. Now just a few feet from its edge, Scott realized the circle was more like the opening of a well shaft. At the bottom, hundreds of feet down, was a light that was almost like the rift they’d come through, save it was glowing red. “Feed well and rest, Master,” the feline woman intoned. “Many more will come soon, thanks to this one. Your time to return is nearly at hand.” Morgan nodded at him, and Scott, his mind totally quiet, stepped over the edge.

He plummeted down, still numb, still chanting the words over and over again, “Let my essence fuel your fire. Let my essence fuel your fire. Let my essence —”

It never even occurred to him to scream.

*~*~*

On Saturday, a scheduled video popped up on Too Good to Be True’s site. Scott appeared onscreen, white flecks covering his shirt and in his hair. He brushed at them absently. “Looks like my air conditioner is working a little too well,” he laughed. “All right everyone, as promised, here’s my follow up to Linguistio. The app is totally legit. There’s no malware, no data privacy violations, and no shenanigans. You can make some serious bank, and you’ll be helping a great cause. This one gets my highest possible recommendation, so check it out. Until next time, stay sharp.”

Nearly a quarter of a million people watched the video within the first hour of it being posted. Linguistio.com saw close to a 3,000% increase in downloads that day.

End.

*~*~*

Nick Olivo lives in NH with his wife, three kids, and a cat who alternates between being a complete doofus and the reincarnation of an Egyptian goddess. When he's not writing, you can find him tinkering with electronics, playing D&D, or researching cosmic horrors. Say hi to him on Twitter -@NickOlivo

An Encounter

By Harman Burgess

I can no longer tell if I’m dreaming.

My skin seems thinner somehow, I can’t focus on things like I used to, my bones ache when they move. It wasn’t always like this, was it? I can feel a migraine unfolding deep within my skull, the hard seed of some infernal flower that’s set to explode in violent crescendos of pain.

I glance around the hotel room looking for a medicine cabinet or a mini-bar or (preferably) both. Nothing. There’s only a flat single bed, and a white-tiled bathroom to show that this room is meant for human occupation. I know there’s some aspirin in my car. Rule #1 of being a travelling salesman is to never leave home without it. But it’s a long walk to the parking lot, and the headache isn’t that bad yet. So, I lie down on the hard, single mattress and close my eyes. Maybe sleep will take me before the headache gets going.

My breathing slows as the light behind my eyes solidifies into an inky blackness. The pain retreats, flowing back on itself like the tide. And right as I’m on the edge of unconsciousness, free of the burden of reality, the bloody phone rings. Groaning, I crack open one eye and reach for it, placing the cool receiver to my ear.

“Yes?” I grunt.

“Edward?” asks an unfamiliarly feminine voice.

“Yes,” I repeat. “Who’s asking?”

“Your Boss, dumbass,” says the voice, the pitch shifting to a higher register giving the impression of a playful kind of serenity, like clean spring water on a summer day. “The one who pays your salary, processes your expense reports, does all the admin… sound familiar?”

It doesn’t, and there’s a pause as I try to remember this woman’s name. Before I can work it out, the voice resumes speaking:

“Have you sold anything yet?”

“Look, lady,” I say, glancing at the clock-radio on the nightstand. “It’s 11pm here. Nobody except serial killers buy steak knives at 11 pm. I have an itinerary worked out fo–”

She interrupts me, the pastoral affectation gone from her voice. “Get out there and find the serial killers then! I’m the one paying your hotel bill, for Christ’s sake! All the porn you’ve been watching, the free food you’ve been mooching off me…”

She continues droning on, and I mean to interject and tell her she’s got me confused with a different employee, but the headache is growing so I remain quiet.

“Are you even listening?” she asks.

“Yeah, I’ll get right on it.”

“Good.”

But before I can clarify what it is, the line goes dead. I sit up; my bones grinding together like specks of grain in a mill. This place is bound to have a bar, at least there I’ll be able to do something for my headache while I make a stab at working out what the Boss wants me to do. I lock the door behind me as I go.

*~*~*

Perhaps the best word to describe the hotel bar is medium. The wallpaper is a very medium shade of brown; the pimple covered bartender wiping glasses behind the counter is exceptionally medium, and the clientele (myself included) are the physical embodiment of the word. I slide into a sticky, plastic-upholstered booth with a glass of Guinness, nobody taking much notice of me.

The pain in my head has increased to a throbbing jackhammer, pounding away at the sides of my mind, making it difficult to think of anything else. I sip my drink and sigh. God, I wish I still smoked. It’s been years since I did, but being in a place like this makes all my old bad habits seem so much more tempting… I take another sip and rest my head in my hands.

Suddenly, the urge to run fills me. I don’t want to be out here in this butt-fuck rural hellhole, trying to sell shitty steak knives to people who probably don’t even know how to use cutlery. I want to be at home. Better yet, I want to be on a warm beach somewhere, with a friendly young waitress bringing me cocktails instead of this watered-down rat piss. Why’d I even come here? I don’t even remember wh—

There’s a bang as the bar door slams open. A woman in faded jeans and a large bomber jacket enters and strides purposefully towards my booth. There’s a few startled murmurs about the disturbance, but none of the other customers pay much attention to her. She slides into my booth, brushing cascading strands of auburn hair out of her face.

“Can I help you?” I ask.

“Don’t you recognise me?”

Her voice has the same playful ring as it did on the phone, and recognition floods through me. “I do, now, but I must be getting dementia as I seem to have forgotten your name…”

“Emily,” she says. “So, you sold anything yet?”

“I only just got here, okay? My head hurts and–”

She cuts me off. “That sounds like bitch talk to me, sonny.”

The idea floats through my mind that maybe I’m not the one being a bitch, but I don’t dare say it out loud. Instead, I ask:

“Do you want something to drink?”

She glances contemptuously at the almost empty glass in front of me. “I would never drink on the job.”

I push the glass away and lean back in the seat, the upholstery groaning as I move. There’s a pause as we consider each other, the dull grumble of the other patrons providing a sort of accompaniment.

“Why are you here, then?” I ask to break the silence.

“Can’t I check up on my employees?”

“Wasn’t that what the phone call was for?”

She squints at me in a perfect display of confusion. “What phone call?”

“Um,” I say, profoundly. “Ok, then. Consider me checked up on. I’m going to bed.”

“Alone?”

“Um.”

“Hold that thought, there is a reason I’m here, actually. I need you to drive the frying pans to this location,” she takes a white scrap of paper out of her pocket and slides it to me.

I pick it up. Rather than an address, a series of co-ordinates are listed in neat pink handwriting. “Don’t we sell steak knives?”

“Sure.”

I get my phone out and punch the co-ordinates into a GPS app. A little red bubble pops up about 2 hours away, in the middle of the desert.

“Really?” I ask. “What’ll I do with them there?”

“You’ll know,” she says as she stands.

“Right,” I say, also standing. “What are you going to do?”

She looks to the pimply bartender who has finished with the glasses and moved onto chopping limes. “Have a drink. Goodbye, now.”

*~*~*

I unlock my shit-bucket car and clamber into the driver’s seat. The clock on the dashboard reads midnight. Great. I check the glove compartment for the aspirin, but it’s missing. I resist the urge to hit something. I twist the ignition key and—after a few false starts—the engine kicks in with a rattling cough. The case of steak knives in the back jingling like little sleigh bells as I reverse out of the parking lot. An electronic voice from the GPS advises me to go straight. So I do.

*~*~*

Cars go by as brief flashes of dazzling light. I fight to keep my sinking eyes open, the beer coursing through my system makes it feel like I’m watching the world in slow motion. Why am I even driving? This can’t be safe. I sho–

A large truck with its high beams on barrels past me, blasting its horns at deafening volume. The pain in my head intensifies. And a series of words runs through my head on repeat:

Gotta keep going, gotta keep going, gotta keep going, gotta keep going, gotta keep going…

*~*~*

The road runs out about a kilometre from the destination. A big white chain is draped across the end of the road, and beyond that is sparse bushland that looks like it’d shred my car’s suspension like it was made of butter; rolling waves of rocky dirt interrupted by the occasional wilting shrub. A crescent moon projects a sickly silver glow over the land.

My headache is really going now, and I just about understand how Zeus must’ve felt when he made Hephaestus smash his head in with a hammer. I massage my temples as I consider what to do next. Maybe it’d be best if I left and came back in the morning fully rested. That sounds good. I move to put the car in reverse, but as I do so my head erupts with pain. It’s as if my consciousness has been poured into a spinning blender; my joints seize up, my limbs lock in place, and I slowly collapse on the steering wheel. A malicious presence is pushing into my mind, twisting all the delicate neurons and things together like spaghetti.

“Stop!” I yell through gritted teeth. “Stop, I’ll do it, but please stop!”

The pain subsides to a dull throb, and I grasp the dashboard, tears streaming down my face. Message received, loud and clear.

After I recover a bit, I open the door and go around to the boot. When the Bosses tell you to do something, you’d better do it. I pick up the case of steak knives and start walking. Balancing my phone on top of the case, I step over the white chain. My boots crunching on the hard ground, blending in with the symphony of cicadas and other buzzing things that have started up.

The glow of my car’s headlights fades to nothing behind me, and soon I’m completely alone with only the GPS’ electronic drone for company. The pain making any sort of reflection impossible, my only option is to:

Walk. Walk. Walk.

A faint purple pinprick appears on the horizon, shimmering with the crystalline lustre of a small gemstone. It pulsates and flickers as I draw closer, growing larger and larger; sometimes a searing iridescent white, sometimes a bloody red. My headache fades as I head towards it. Finally, after what seems like an eternity of painful walking, I crest the top of a small hill and get a proper look at the source of the light.

A gnarly, twisting tree is growing out of the desert floor. Its thick roots tearing into the undergrowth. The light seeming almost to be a kind of reflection of its true form, as if the air itself is trying to hide it. A head on view of the tree probably would’ve been enough to kill whatever remains of my sanity. A disturbing thought comes to me as I draw nearer: maybe it already has.

Two hooded figures stand before the tree, their dark robes in stark contrast to the magnificent light, their faces blank voids that I can’t quite see beneath their cowls. I place the crate of frying pans (frying pans?) before them like some kind of offering. And a high, nervous sort of laugh escapes me. This situation is like a bad joke: what does a tree need a frying pan for? To fry things, moron.

“Here you are then,” I say, calming down enough to speak clearly.

A genderless, inhuman voice reverberates through me like a cathedral bell, the kind of voice that makes insects curl up into little balls. It seems at once to come from the two figures, and from the light itself. It speaks as if reading from some vast unseen contract:

THE GOODS, FREELY GIVEN, HAVE ARRIVED. PAYMENT WILL BE RENDERED; IT IS COMPLETE.

The box vibrates and rattles as if there’s something very small and very nasty trapped inside it and not kitchen utensils. The voice comes again like crashing waves on a distant shore, this time addressed to me:

DO YOU WITNESS?

“Erm,” I say. “Yes, yes, I witness. Whatever that means.”

The light shimmers brighter, I have to squint to see what’s happening. The box vanishes, dissolving into the light like mist. I hear a human scream of pure daemonic agony, and then it’s over.

“What now, then?” I ask.

The two things (I am rethinking my initial assumption) turn their attention to me; I feel like an ant crawling across their shoes and they’re debating whether to squish me. Suddenly, I care very much what they think of me, very much indeed. In that moment I know with absolute certainty that they and what they represent are really the ones in control of my existence, that my choice in the matter is a comforting illusion they permit me to hide behind; that my thoughts and emotions are little more than fragmentary shadows in whatever bright world they inhabit.

YOU ARE NO LONGER NECESSARY TO US, the voice decides, PAYMENT HAS BEEN RENDERED.

“What are you going to do with the box?” I ask, despite myself.

A vast consciousness bears down on me. I feel thin lattices of pain threading themselves through my mind, as reality fades around me. I am on the cusp of some realisation, some hidden truth that would be revealed if I continue standing here. Something that wouldn’t just drive me mad, but make madness seem like relief.

Without hesitating, I turn away from the tree and the shadow things and run. The consciousness turning its attention away from me; the pain retreating from my mind. I’ve just been lucky, I think as I run, very, very lucky.

I don’t look back.

*~*~*

The faintest sliver of sunlight pokes out from below the horizon as I pull into the hotel parking lot. I’m dead tired, and fairly certain I’ve been driving like an absolute lunatic– swerving and speeding all over the road. But my head is clearer than it’s ever been. I get out of my car and walk up the stairs to my room. Suddenly, I realise I need to take a leak and—for some reason—this strikes me as absolutely hilarious. But I don’t laugh, no I can’t do that. I open the door and discover that…

… that my room has been completely and utterly trashed. My luggage has been ripped open and scattered about the room, the bed is snapped clean in half, there are deep gashes in the wallpaper. I walk through the ruined room like a deposed King would a battlefield. Strangely, Emily’s clothes are folded in a neat pile by the door; her jacket smelling faintly of sulphur. But my bladder is about fit to burst, so I leave the clothes where they are and head to the toilet. If Emily really is my Boss, then she can take care of this mess.

Waves of sleep crash over me as I enter the bathroom; as soon as I’ve relieved myself, I’m going to find a clean patch of floor and fall asleep. I unzip my fly and reach down to flick the seat up. Ahhh, that’s better. There’s a faint sprinkling on the legs of my trousers, though. I look down and see that there’s a severed head in the toilet, strands of fleshy string trailing from its neck like cobwebs. I stare at it for a moment, unsure of what I’m seeing. Hang on, I know this person: it’s the hotel bartender! I jerk backwards from the bowl in silent disbelief, leaving a trail of urine behind me.

This can’t be real.

I stumble out of the bathroom and fall onto the broken bed, stuffing my penis back into my pants as I do. And then I lie on the bed unable to think of anything but the bartender’s pimply face gaping out at me like a startled fish, my urine trickling down his hair. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the image. The minutes drag by. The head is like a physical presence in my mind, I can feel it lying there, taunting me.

The phone rings, a high wailing scream. I move slightly to pick it up, then stop. No more. No more. The phone rings on, but I’m not there to answer it.

End.

*~*~*

Harman studies psychology at the University of Newcastle, Australia. His short fiction has previously appeared, or is forthcoming,in a number of magazines including Flame Tree Press Newsletter, After Dinner Conversation, and Every Day Fiction.

Terms of Transition

By David McGillveray

“To my great-nephew Jeroen I leave the family mystery. You always were fascinated by puzzles when you were small, my boy.”

From the will of Gerrit Klaasz, April 2010

It came in a pine box like a miniature coffin that Jeroen had to lever open with a screwdriver. Resting amongst the straw inside was a fat triangular tube the length of his arm sealed with cork and made of heavy wood blackened by age. He removed the seal with some difficulty and upended the tube over the table in the apartment’s living room. What looked like triangular pieces of slate clattered out across the surface, each around ten centimetres to a side. Jeroen put the tube aside and sat at the table, spreading the pieces with his hand, noting how cold they felt, like metal but with the texture of stone.

He counted nineteen of them. They slid smoothly over one another like repelling magnets. When he turned one over in his hand, he saw each edge was raised in a sequence of ridges and nubs like jigsaw pieces waiting to be fitted together. One side of it was marked with fragments of what seemed to be script, although not one he recognised, with elements of Arabic, Oriental characters and even hieroglyphs. He understood none of it, although he found some of the markings strangely disturbing, pulling at his mind with hidden meaning. When he rubbed a nail over the markings, he found they were neither carved nor inscribed on the stone, but somehow embedded as if each piece had been chipped from the mother rock fully formed.

Jeroen tried to fit a few of the pieces together at random, but always they fell apart as he failed to find a matching pair. Frustrated, he searched inside the pine box for any potential instructions great-uncle Gerrit may have included and was rewarded with an unmarked, yellowed envelope. Inside was a single sheet of paper, brittle with age and covered in faded ink in a hand that did not match his great-uncle’s. It was not a set of instructions, but a letter of provenance, of sorts.

“Dutchmen did some terrible things to ensure dominance of the spice trade, things that are now a scar on the conscience of our tolerant and forward-thinking people. Entire islands were burned to support the price of nutmeg from existing Dutch holdings elsewhere in the Moluccas. Entire tribes were destroyed and driven into the sea under Dutch cannon fire to protect spice cultivation secrets that could not be allowed to pass to the British. It was on one of these blasted islands so forgotten by God and human decency that these pieces were found. The native population were all expected dead by flame and gunpowder. An initial landing to verify this resulted in perhaps just disaster, for but a single Dutchman returned, and without his mental faculties he followed his companions to his own grave soon after. It was a second expedition, led by a Captain Klaasz, my ancestor, who recovered the pieces from the smoking ruins of a hut once belonging to a tribal medicine man. Of the priest himself, there was nothing to be found, not even bones. Nor were the bodies of the ill-fated Dutchmen discovered amongst the desolation, although perhaps this is not surprising given Captain Klaasz’ craving to get off the island. Thus the provenance of these pieces is not soaked in prettiness and I urge those whose hands they fall into to respect the dead that lie in their path through history.”

The letter was signed by a Dr. Cyrille Klaasz and dated January 1902. A trail of ancestors! Jeroen, initially disappointed that his great uncle had not included him in the monetary division of his estate despite not seeing him since he was a child, was now filled with greater warmth for the man, and returned to the ancient puzzle that was his inheritance with renewed purpose.

He set out the triangular stones in rows on the table, paying attention to where the markings or ridges on their sides seemed to fit together. He laboured over the table, turning them, sliding them against one another with that curious frictionless that reminded him of magnets. So many times, just as he thought he had successfully joined two pieces, they would pop apart again, the match not quite right. Much later, he was surprised to look out of his window at the fine view of the Rijksmuseum from his apartment and see the rooftops of Amsterdam touched by the first rays of the sunrise.

*~*~*

The same obsessive love of intricate problems that had led Jeroen to a successful career in the more esoteric financial disciplines of currency and equity swap pricing drove him to complete the puzzle. But the pull of the thing and his reciprocal need to prove he would not be defeated by it grew in importance until it squeezed out all other thoughts from his mind.

He could not sleep for thinking about it. He began rising at dawn to work on the puzzle before going to the office and poring over it late into the night. Colleagues commented on the bags under his eyes, his less than usually immaculate appearance, and asked him if he was ill.

So it was accepted when he began calling in sick to struggle with the all-consuming challenge at home. Unanswered messages began to stack up on his machine, his mail piled in the hallway of the shared block. Then he ceased bothering to call in sick. Every waking thought was filled by triangles revolving in his mind and burning islands in the Pacific and the temptation and agony of final understandings haunted his dreams.

And it was during one of these dreams that he saw a way, a geometric shape revolving in space. He jerked upright, wrapped in the sheets he’d neglected to wash for so long now that a strong odour permeated. He crossed the open plan apartment to the worktable.

His mistake had been to think in two dimensions. All that time wasted! Of course, the pieces would not fit together – he had been holding them at the wrong angle. This was a 3-D puzzle. The triangles fitted together to make a shape, a shape with nineteen sides.

Sure enough, the pieces began to slide together when he fit them according to the new plan in his mind, the negative attraction that made them slide over one another suddenly working in reverse. When put together in the right configuration, the pieces snapped together almost hungrily, and Jeroen felt a profound sense of satisfaction and release as each part of the puzzle came together. He imagined a glow infused the strange fragments of script as the geometry began to take shape.

But still he was not quite there. Still, he chased that final satisfaction and various pieces lay apart on the table. On a rare moment away from the table itself, searching the Internet for geometric clues that could help him, he came across a representation of an icosahedron, a twenty-sided shape, and he made the final connection. He did not have to make a nineteen-sided shape at all, but one with nineteen solid faces and a final face left open, an eye on the world.

It took only days after that, not that Jeroen paid attention to the passing of day and night any longer. The icosahedron was all. Slowly it took shape on the table in the middle of the apartment, growing like an alien fungus.

Jeroen kept the open face upward rather than at the base, synchronous with the vision in his mind. At last, there came a time when that vision reached into reality, manifesting itself on the table, the sum of all his efforts. Jeroen felt complete, fulfilled in a way he had never been before. Replete from the act of creation, he felt like an urban deity.

He looked into the opening on the icosahedron but saw nothing. He placed a torch inside but it created only shadows. He was sure there must be more; every sense told him it must be so, that there was a greater prize. Anxious, he grasped the now-solid sides and peered once more inside. This time, he felt something. His fingertips were tingling, burning. He pulled his hands away from the icosahedron and stepped back. He had not noticed how dark it was in the room, but now he did, for his creation had begun to glow, as if it had drawn the energy out through his fingers. He was suddenly cold.

There was presence within the icosahedron now and it drew him. Careful not to touch the sides, Jeroen gazed inside for a third time and gasped with a sudden wave of vertigo. His perspective wheeled and his legs nearly gave way as a sense of immensity engulfed him, as eons rolled over him, unthreading the edges of his sanity.

Rather than terrestrial shadows, he now stood at the gate to a void. A void where bloated red stars coasted through vacuum bleeding long streamers of sick light; a void where blasted black planets turned airless and orphan in the dark; an abyss as old as every possible universe.

And he was noticed.

He felt his tiny consciousness graze against that of something infinitely greater. He felt its regard touch him for only a moment, but in that moment he understood space and time and felt what it was to be master of both. And when that regard fell away, he was as empty as the void itself, with something wondrous briefly given and cruelly torn away.

Jeroen was repelled and lured in equal measure. He stared into the triangular door and reached forward without thought. He felt resistance as his hand pressed against the invisible membrane that separated that realm from his. Then his fingers broke through, reaching for what he had lost.

He screamed. Agony raced up his arm from a hand that felt as if it was being held in a flame, tingling with fierce pain as if every molecule was being torn to shreds. He snatched back his hand and collapsed backward, striking his head on the hard floorboards of his apartment. The breath went out of him and he blinked to clear his vision, for something was emerging through that broken membrane. Cradling his hand, he pushed himself backwards until his spine hit the wall. The thing kept coming, bubbling from the open face of the icosahedron, expanding and moving with a curious flickering motion to occupy the centre of the room.

It was a triangular column, so opaque that it was difficult to tell if it was liquid, gas or solid. Jeroen saw strange colours flicker inside the body of the thing, brief flashes of forked lightning. St. Elmo’s Fire played on the metal surfaces of his furniture. The thing filled the room from floor to ceiling, slowly rotating, as if waiting for him. Jeroen felt that awful, wonderful sense of regard once more, but could do nothing but whimper and try and push himself further into the corner of the room.

Then the thing was gone, flickering upward and through the walls and ceiling to leave Jeroen gasping and terrified in his own sweat.

*~*~*

Pain. Every part of it screamed as it billowed over Amsterdam. The very physics of this universe were wrong: the speed of light, the pull of gravity, the constants that bound reality together. The agony of these tiny differences in the fabric of universes burned its awareness until it bathed in pain. Only when it bathed in others, in those brief moments of consumption and annihilation when it became tenuously connected to this bastard universe, did the pain ever diminish.

*~*~*

“I thought we were finished.”

“I never said that –”

“That’s the problem, Jeroen, you never said anything. I haven’t heard from you in nearly two weeks. You didn’t answer your phone. You didn’t come to the door when I came round. Your office doesn’t know where you are. Where have you been?”

“I, I’ve been working on something. I lost track–”

“For the bank?”

“No, not exactly.”

“For whom then?”

“Well, uh, it’s, it’s a family thing.”

“A family thing.”

“Yeah.”

“And that’s all you’re going to tell me?”

“It’s too difficult to explain.”

“Oh for God’s sake, Jeroen, I’m not stupid. I don’t believe a word I’m hearing. You sound like you haven’t slept in nights. You’ve been holed up with that tart, haven’t you, the one from the office who thinks you’re so damn smart? Well, she can bloody well have you!”

“Karli, please. That’s over, I swear it. I’ve told you enough times. It’s nothing like that. I know I’ve been behaving strangely, but I need to see you. You’re the only one I can talk to. I think I’ve done something terrible, made an awful mistake.”

“It’d better not be what I’m thinking.”

“No! God, it’s not that. Will you meet me, now, tonight?”

“Jeroen, it’s ten-thirty. I’ve got work in the morning. So have you.”

“Please, Karli. I need to share this with someone. You’re the only one. It won’t be for long, I promise.”

A long sigh. “Where?”

“The Abraxas? Half an hour?”

“I’m warning you, this better be good.”

“Thank you, Karli,” Jeroen said, but she had already hung up. He put down the receiver and stared around his apartment as if he’d never seen it before. It was a mess of scattered clothes, food wrappers and empty bottles. He found his jacket and wallet and went out on to Weteringschans, a prestigious address across from the Rijksmuseum he had been proud of when he cared about such things.

It was a clear night and the stars shone through the haze above the city. A cold wind blew down from the North Sea, reddening his face and rippling the black water of the canal. He walked rapidly, hunched over to avoid being noticed, even though there were few people on the street this late on a Tuesday. It was not people he was trying to avoid. His boots echoed on the pavement. He imagined the thing in the sky above the city, waiting for him. He could feel its attention.

A shadow passed over him and a small moan escaped his lips. He could not bear the sight of that horrible column of alien substance, so heavy with disregard, such utter indifference. He glanced up, terrified of what he might see, but there was nothing. He increased his pace, turning right on to Leidsestraat and heading towards the centre of the city. It was with relief that he turned into Kerkstraat and saw the neon light of the Abraxas flashing at him.

He almost ran into the pub, a long thin room with a bar along one side and wooden tables along the other. The place was almost empty -- it was a place mostly unknown to the tourists that thronged the city. The barman gave him an odd look before nodding in recognition. Jeroen checked his watch and saw that he was early. He had two beers and a whiskey before Karli had even arrived.

She saw him as soon as she walked in and slid into the chair opposite. Some remote part of him still was pleased she had taken time with her hair, bunched at the crown of her head and with blond strands teased down over her forehead. Her cheeks were flushed from the cold, matching the colour of her lips. Jeroen felt a sudden, almost overwhelming ache for her.

“So,” she said, and let the word hang in the air.

“So,” he said back. He tried to make it a joke, tried to smile, but Karli just looked at him like he was a puzzle. The bartender brought a beer over and set it in front of Karli, moving away silently, repelled by the atmosphere over their table.

“You look even worse than you sounded on the phone.” She moved her hands across the table towards him in a familiar motion, but then she remembered the circumstances and withdrew them again. “What’s going on, Jeroen?”

“I’m sorry I haven’t been here,” Jeroen said, clasping his own hands round the cold glass of his beer. “Things have been so upside down, you know?”

“Not really.” Karli looked at her watch. “It’s very late.”

“Stay, please. Not for long, I promise.” Suddenly the words rushed from him. “Do you sometimes feel that things can pick you up and roll you along while the rest of the world stays still, like time’s stopped or something? Like everything you do is already written down somewhere and you just have to act out the lines? That’s what I feel has happened to me, like I’ve been rolled along by a big hand and the rest of the world’s meant nothing while it’s been happening. I haven’t been in control of myself these last days. I’ve not been me.”

Karli stared at him from behind her glass. “You’re rambling, Jeroen. You don’t sound yourself.”

“I’m not, that’s the point! You’d think I’d lost my mind if I told you what I’d seen,” he said.

“I’m close to thinking that already.”

He pressed his knuckles to his temples and let out a sigh. “Oh Karli, I’m sure something terrible has happened. Ever since great-uncle Gerrit died . . . what he left me.”

“Your great-uncle? Is that what this is all about? You told me he’d died but I didn’t think you were close. I didn’t think you’d take it this badly.” Karli stretched out her hands again and this time she left them there for him, like an offering.

Jeroen stared across the table at her. He started to protest but then he saw the convenient lie, the path away from the truth and he took it without hesitation. How could he tell Karli about the thing in his apartment, the bloated stars that swam inside that strange box he’d put together with his own hands? It seemed absurd even to him, unreal in a place as familiar as the Abraxas. “It’s been hard,” he said.

Karli took his hands now and pressed his fingers against her cheek. Perhaps everything would be okay after all. They talked about mundane things, about life. They talked about holidays they had shared and planned, about people and places they knew. It was a comfort to Jeroen, a mask for the mounting dread within him.

When they left the bar, Jeroen realised that his return to the familiar had failed to banish the thing that followed him. He felt something in the sky, but when he glanced upwards, he saw only the stars. Karli took his arm and they walked together awhile through the deserted streets until she turned to him on an arched bridge over a canal. A rising wind tugged at her hair.

“I have to go away with work for a few days tomorrow—to London,” Karli said. “But you call me whenever you want. I promise I’ll pick up.” She kissed him on the cheek and then on the lips.

Jeroen nodded and tried to smile. He had that awful sense of being noticed once more. Karli began to walk away and Jeroen found himself watching her in frame advance, her movements slowed down as if the air had thickened, as if gravity itself had suddenly increased. Something occluded the stars and a curtain of distortion moved between Jeroen and Karli. She turned back as it swirled around her but even then Jeroen knew that the thing that had stepped from the icosahedron had found him again.

He wanted to step forward and go to Karli, protect her no matter how ineffectually, but a sudden monstrous heat pouring from her body pushed him back. He watched as the fine features of her face shifted and seemed to settle anew, as if the thing inside her contorted her body into a new configuration. Her stance altered subtly until Jeroen could see nothing of Karli in her anymore, but instead saw something alien draped in flesh, something unused to the base limitations of human form. She opened her mouth.

Jeroen cried out her name and took a step forward, but the heat intensified and drove him back once more. Her clothing burst into white-hot flames and blew away in the gusting wind like ash from the end of a cigarette. He could not understand why her flesh didn’t blacken and burn.

“Command or return me.”

The words came from Karli’s throat in a sigh, as if her lungs were being used as billows to force air through unfamiliar channels. It was nothing like a human voice at all.

The heat was fierce. Karli stood naked before him on the bridge. Fire burned behind her eyes even as the thing inside stared at Jeroen with unknowable calculation. Her hair became filaments of white-hot intensity and her skin glowed so bright Jeroen could see her inner structure.

“Command or return me,” the terrible travesty of her voice sighed again.

Lines of white light crawled across her body, welts of fire. They formed patterns on her torso that hinted at meaning.

Then she began to come apart along those lines. Part of her skull sheared away and fell from the bridge to hiss briefly in the canal. Her body began to collapse in on itself, unable to survive even with the alien force sustaining her. Her insides shone as she fell in pieces to the cobbled paving stones, turning to hot ash stirred by the wind.

Jeroen stood as a frozen witness until the heat died and the horror that had taken him finally released its grip. Then he turned and ran, tears blurring his vision, his lips curling around meaningless sounds.

He did not remember running through the silent streets, did not remember returning to his apartment, but when he awoke on the floor the following afternoon his furniture lay broken and pictures had been torn from the walls and the component triangles of the icosahedron lay scattered about the room.

*~*~*

The terms of transition went unmet. The custodian of the portal bound those who emerged from it in this universe, but this operator was ignorant, a child or a slave. No purpose was given, and the way remained closed. Amidst the prolongation of pain there were only brief moments of grace, in the spending of creatures native to this existence.

It ached for a different physics.

*~*~*

Behind closed curtains amongst the wreckage of his dark room, Jeroen listened to the voices on the radio. There had been disappearances reported from Central Station and the Red Light District and the housing projects out in the direction of Schipol. A street performer in Dam Square had spontaneously combusted in front of a screaming crowd on a sunny afternoon.

When he closed his eyes, Jeroen saw Karli incandescent on the bridge, turning to ash. He saw light crawling across her body in alien script.

All of it lay at his feet. He was responsible: his damned need to solve a puzzle that should have been left alone. His horror matured to a profound despair, his guilt and incomprehension drew him towards madness.

The light crawled. He heard the voice, played through Karli like an instrument, speaking to him. He felt sure it had only spoken to him. He was the originator. He had released it.

And from this thought, he gathered his senses. Here was another puzzle and its solution lay within him.

Jeroen gathered up the pieces of the icosahedron from where he had thrown them, testing their weight and resting his palm on their cold surfaces. He began reconstructing the object he now knew was a device. He squinted over the markings on each triangular section; a language that had remained unspoken on Earth perhaps since the time of his ancestors plundered the Spice Islands of the Pacific. And he knew he had seen these markings in another place.

He closed his eyes. Light crawled. Karli’s body splintered and turned to ash.

Light writhed over her burning skin. It formed patterns, characters. Characters like those on the triangles in his hands.

The icosahedron began to form again. As he searched for the configuration he’d been shown, more events were reported on the radio. People burned and died in Amsterdam.

And when the last piece clicked into place, the patterns matched those he saw when he closed his eyes. When the warmth of his fingers touched these patterns, the void was there again in the dark insides of the icosahedron. He felt the same vertigo, the same terrible feeling of time incomparable and the insignificance of the world on which he stood. And he knew this was a home to what he had released. It called out to the sky above his apartment.

He waited, staring through the portal at that corrupted, warped universe and in time he was not alone. The air warped and the thing coalesced into the visible spectrum, a turning triangular column of appalling sentience. It filled the room and pressed him back with a pressure more psychic than physical.

“Go! You can go,” he shouted, gesturing wildly to the icosahedron and its glowing script.

But this was not the end. The creature expanded until Jeroen could no longer avoid its touch. He felt heat and shared its terrible pain. Anger and pain defined it. Anger and pain crammed into him until there was nothing else. He screamed. He could feel what it was to exist in this obscure universe, the wrongness, as if every nerve ending was being flayed without relief.

And in that extended moment of shared awareness, as he was drawn into a universe where the physics could cause only agony, Jeroen was granted understanding of the inscription that burned on the icosahedron:

“That which is summoned must pass through.

That which summons must return.”

End.

*~*~*

David McGillveray was born in Edinburgh but now lives and works in London. After a long break from writing, lockdown provided the impetus to start up again and this story is one of the results. His work has previously appeared in Futurismic, Neo-Opsis, Kaleidotrope and others.

Your Soldier

By Donald McCarthy

You look at the sunset, the orange and purple that paint the horizon. Twilight’s mural does not hold the same beauty for you that it once did. Now, in the years of the war, it brings the image, the one from the chip they placed inside you. The few others you’ve spoken to have remarked how odd it is your image comes at the same time each day.

“Sometimes I’m at the store when I see my image,” your brother once told you. “Or, out jogging. Often, I’m asleep, and it invades my dreams. I don’t think it’s ever been at the same time. Sometimes it’s even a scene, like a little movie playing in the back of my mind.”

Well, good for him. He doesn’t have a time of the day he has to dread. Somehow, receiving an image everyday doesn’t seem to bother him at all. In fact, it does not bother most people, or so they claim. “Happy to see what our soldiers are going through,” most people opine. A lot of them donate to the war effort after they see their image, feeling a kinship with the soldier they’re linked with.

“I just want to help,” everyone says. “It’s like they’re a part of me.”

Yes, but for you, it’s not a part of yourself that you like. When you were young, the other girls made fun of you for acne, so you snipped off a pimple on your forehead. It bled for hours until you had to admit to your mother what you’d done. There’s still a scar there now, a reminder not to tamper with yourself. You remember the pimple often because of the small bump on your wrist, where the chip is. You’re not to tamper with that either. You’ll get much worse than a scar, and it won’t be to your mother that you’ll have to admit your sin.

This evening, the whine of ships at the spaceport can be heard even ten miles away. They’re sending out new recruits from the city. They’ve even snatched a few idealistic patriots from the outlying towns. People are speculating a new front against the Council is opening up near Wellhole. Maybe it’s true, but you try to tune the news out. You stopped listening months ago, tending to your hydroponics most of the day, avoiding even your neighbors (albeit not a hard task since the closest neighbor is a mile away). None of them are as bothered by reality as you are. Or, at least, they won’t admit it for fear of repercussions.

“We agreed to the chip,” they all say. “Not like there wasn’t a choice.” But when everyone does something, is it possible to act like the individual has a choice?

You retreat to bed, deciding to call it an early day. Lately, you sleep near twelve hours each day. Last week, you saw an image from a soldier you’d been following. Blood on his hands as he pushed against his stomach, trying to keep his insides in place. Futile. You never saw him die, but you didn’t have to. The next image came from someone in a barracks, using VR to train. A new soldier, as if the old one had never lived. You wondered what the old soldier’s life was like beforehand but not for long. He’s the fifteenth soldier you’ve had who’s died. You can’t keep mourning. You’d do nothing else.

Today’s image comes when you’re in bed. You still see the ceiling, the one you’ve stared at for so many sleepless hours. But you also see through the eyes of the new soldier. He’s looking down at a steel floor, a long rifle cradled in his arms. You suspect he’s on a transport. Maybe to one of the outer colonies. Maybe Wellhole. You recognize his gun. The press made a big deal out of it when the average soldier began to receive them. The bullets shatter on impact, spreading through the body, insuring a painful death.

The image fades, and you avoid wondering what you’ll see tomorrow. You try to sleep, knowing you’ll fail.

*~*~*

The next day scurries by, and it’s almost twilight again. You’re in the hydroponics garden, trimming leaves on the tomato plants. The tomatoes will be ready soon, but the ones grown here on Chanaris taste differently from the ones grown elsewhere. A little drier. You’ve heard that tomatoes grown on Earth, back when people still lived there, were the best, but you suspect that might be a myth, a false belief in the good ol’ days.

You retire back to your house. The evening is quiet. The spaceport has been silent all day. That unnerves you. It has downtimes, sure, but quiet all day? Unusual. You wonder if something happened. For the first time in a long while, you consider checking the news.

“Would you like a temperature change?” the house asks you as you enter. It senses your sweat.

“No,” you snap, not sure where the anger came from. “It’s not needed,” you add, feeling stupid for caring about a computer’s feelings. It’s just that you know what time it almost is. You know the image is coming.

You shower off the day’s sweat, but you can’t get the water temperature quite right. You tell the house to lower and raise it, trying to find that perfect spot but to no avail. When you get out, the house, which you’ve never really furnished, is quiet and dark. The house usually asks if you want light, but today’s it’s silent. Maybe it’s finally learned to read your mood like advertised.

You open the window in the living room and lay naked on your couch, comforted by the cool breeze. Sometimes, in the middle of summer, you lay out in the grass like this: the benefit of living so far away from everyone else on Chanaris.

The image comes, but it’s different this time. First, there’s an intense pain in your head. Then, you don’t see your house anymore. You see only what your soldier sees.

He’s in a desert. He’s dying. You’re not sure how you know he’s dying, you don’t see anything that tells you, but you know, nonetheless. Ahead, in the far distance, lies what appears to be a structure. It’s a rectangular prism, colored as dark as a winter’s night. Your brain says it must be some storage structure for the Council, but in your heart, you know that’s not true. It’s something worse. It’s a temple, you think, or, at least, temple is the human word nearest to its nature. Closer, but still far away, stand four figures staring at you. At first, it appears they are wearing black cloaks that billow in the wind. But that can’t be as the sand is still. You realize that they are not wearing cloaks at all. Those cloaks are part of their bodies, moving to communicate in ways you can never understand. These figures, you realize, are the enemy, the Council, the ones you’re supposed to hate despite knowing nothing about them.

As your dying soldier comes closer, their faces come into view. Their features are frozen, large and warped, like they are trying to appear human but failing. Some of them have mouths where their eyes should be, others have nothing other than scars. Your soldier falls to the ground, and now you see there is blood on his legs. He looks up at the four figures, and therefore so do you. It is difficult to process them this close, and the pain in your head grows in intensity. You wonder if it comes from the soldier— if you’re feelings his last moments of life.

You’re back in your home, your head still pounding, and your stomach in knots. You’re alive and, for the most part, fine. Somewhere farther away than you can comprehend, a dead body lies in a cursed desert.

*~*~*

The knock on the door comes an hour later. You’re still on the couch, trying to avoid thinking about what you saw. You jump when the knock comes, not ready to deal with other people. Hurrying to get dressed, you shout, “One moment.”

“Three people at the door,” the house informs you.

You throw on sweatpants and a loose shirt, hoping it’s just Meredith stopping by as she does once or twice a month, eager to see if she can get some of your tomatoes before you sell them. You could ask the house for more specifics about who is at the door if you hadn’t deactivated that function a year ago, worried about the surveillance aspect. You’ve had enough experience with people watching each other.

You take a breath, trying to appear steady, and open the door. It’s not Meredith.

“I’m Marcus Pottis,” says a tall man in a dark suit. His hair is slicked back, long on top but short on the sides. He’s pale, with a crooked nose and prominent chin. His eyes are so bright blue they could be flames. You’ve never seen him before. You’d remember.

Behind him are two police officers, a man and a woman. Both are dressed in brown uniforms, badges displayed on their chests, but your eyes go to their right hands, which rest on top of their guns.

“Can I help you?” you ask.

“We’re looking to have a chat,” Pottis says. “You can help us, and I’m sure you’ll want to.” He twists his lips in what you assume is supposed to be a smile. “Over the past few days, you’ve been seeing one Maxwell Garringer. He shipped out of Hazel yesterday, supposed to go to Wellhole. In fact, he was meant to arrive there right around now. Never did arrive. His whole ship vanished from the universe ten hours ago. He survived, though. We monitor their heart rates, you understand. Only, his kept beating. For a while. It would help us greatly if you could tell us what you saw.” He speaks clearly, but the words sound practiced, like he was doing his best to sound conversational.

“I’m not sure I can help,” you say. You think of not just the soldier in the desert but also of the prior one, the one holding in his body parts as he died. You wonder if Pottis sent him to his death. “And who are you again?”

“Marcus Pottis,” he replies. “I’m not from Chanaris, actually. I’m here as a representative of the Gathered Colonies. Wonderful world you have here. Small but cozy. I could see myself retiring on this planet.” He walks forward, and you are surprised to find yourself moving aside for him. The two police officers follow, never once looking away from you. They radiate not just authority, but contempt. If you were braver, you’d become defiant, but you cannot find the strength.

“The people here seem lovely,” Pottis continues. “Not a rich colony and yet the donations to the war effort are high relative to the average income. You’re not much of a donor, are you?” He gives the wretched smile once more. “Not my business, of course. I’m sure you don’t make much from growing fruit and vegetables. But consider this an opportunity to help out.” He glances around the room, his gaze eventually reaching your couch. “Not many places to sit in here. Do you mind?”

You shake your head, and he sits on the couch, crossing his legs. “So, am I to take it that you don’t recall today’s image? I mean no disrespect, but I find that enormously unlikely.”

You look between him and the two officers, who stand behind you. You wrap your arms around yourself, suddenly cold and vulnerable. Yet, you see an opportunity here, maybe a way out. “It’s not that I don’t recall. It just didn’t make much sense to me.”

Pottis nods. “Understandable. The war with the Council has opened my eyes to strange and horrible things. But what you might not understand, I may. Perhaps you could walk me through it.”

“You don’t see what I see?” you ask him. “I would assume you watch, too.”

“Sometimes we do,” Pottis admits. “But the technology does not always work as well as we’d like, sadly. Your soldier’s last vision did not come through to us as clearly as we expect it did to you. Chanaris is much closer to where he was than my headquarters; the transmissions don’t always make it. That’s why we need your help.”

“Why not just take my chip out?” you ask. “View it yourself.”

“If we take it out, it’s impossible to put back in,” he says. His voice lowers. “Is that what you want? We would need your permission for removal. Technically, at least.” You’re not sure, but you think he sneaks a glance toward the two officers. “I do have a contract with me. I thought it may come to this after I researched you. You don’t donate to the military effort, after all, and that’s rare and telling.”

“I donate my taxes,” you say.

“Not the same thing,” Pottis replies. He looks out at twilight. The sky is a maroon rash. “This is a pretty place. You’re lucky the war hasn’t come here. You don’t understand it. Not even with the images. If you did, you’d support it, unquestioningly. And you’d be more than happy to donate. Perhaps even donate some of that food you grow out there.” He waves his hand at your window. “The soldiers would love to have fresh produce.”

You think of your garden ripped apart by men like Pottis. You struggle not to shudder. “There is one other thing,” you whisper, intent on not losing this chance however faint it may be. “When you remove my chip, I don’t want a new one.”

If Pottis is phased by this request, he does not show it. “You’d stand out,” he says. “Everyone has one.”

“I don’t see many people,” you reply. It’s true. You live in your own world, the images the only interruption. Without them, life could be bliss.

“You agreed to your chip,” he says. “What changed?”

“I just want it out,” you reply. You suspect you cannot win a war of words with this man. “Then you’ll have your information, and we’ll both be happy.”

Pottis nods. “Sure, sure. But, and here’s the thing, if everyone started removing their chips, well, we’d have a bit of a problem. So, for our own knowledge, I’d just like to know what’s changed.”

What can you say to that? That you now understand the illusion of choice? That you have nightmares more often thanks to what you’ve been forced to see? That you never really thought through what having the chip implanted in you would mean, that it’d be easier to just go along with everyone else? “The images upset me,” you say. You have an idea, and you almost smile. You add, “It hurts my work. I barely make a living as is. I inherited this house from my parents. I’d be living in squalor otherwise. If I wasn’t so depressed, then I’d work more, earn more, and have money to donate.”

Pottis rubs his chin. “That’s an interesting point.” He jumps off the couch with a suddenness that makes you take a step back. He reaches into his suit pocket and removes a silver pad. “I just need your fingerprint and personal signature that we’re allowed to tamper with your body, and we’ll be able to remove the chip. A shame it had to come to this. We never like to, ah, interfere with someone’s body if it can be avoided.”

You sign his pad and press your index finger down on it, a surge of adrenaline coursing through you. Is this what freedom feels like? In this moment, you feel like you can do anything.

Pottis gestures to one of the officers, and she brings him a small black cylinder with an opening at the bottom. “This will remove the chip and then close the wound,” he says. “No risk of infection or lasting injury. It will hurt.” You get the sense he leaves the phrase “as it should” unspoken.

You close your eyes as he presses the cylinder against you. You feel something come out of it, dig into your skin, and scoop out the chip. It hurts, yes, but it doesn’t matter. You feel too relieved to let that affect you. You let loose a sigh as he pulls the cylinder away.

“Excuse me for a moment,” Pottis says. “Need to report this in.” He steps out of your house, leaving you with the two officers. Both stare at you without even a glimmer of emotion. You think about smiling at them but decide not to. What’s the point?

Pottis returns and spreads his arms. “All taken care of! The information has been sent to my superiors. I’m sure it’ll be helpful for the war effort.”

Briefly, you think of those twisted faces, and you wonder what goes on out there. You’ll probably never know without the chip. Better that way, you think. Others may want to know more about the war with the Council. Not you. Why would you go looking for nightmare fuel? “I’m glad I can help,” you lie.

Pottis raises a finger. “There is just one more thing. We need to put a new chip in you. Not one that will give you images, though.”

You feel your stomach tighten. “Why?”

“Because government records say you have a chip,” he explains. “In the past, we’ve updated things when a chip has to be removed, but, as with all things bureaucratic, there are errors. Local governments make mistakes, look at old records, and have been shocked to find someone who had a chip doesn’t anymore. They assume the person tampered with it, and legal actions ensue. Takes a while to straighten things out. A pain for everyone. It’s easier to put a dead chip back in particularly if you were to be scanned before taking a trip. Unless, of course, you don’t mind being tangled in legal purgatory.” That awful smile appears again.

You want to say no, but you say yes. You’ve pushed against the system today, and you sense you should push no further. He places the cylinder back against your skin. This time, you feel the pain, but you tell yourself it’ll be fine. It’ll all be fine. No images this time. No images. It won’t be like it used to be.

“Hopefully, you’ll be able to garden in peace now,” Pottis says. “Double your harvest maybe. We will all look forward to seeing what you do with any additional income.” He takes your wrist in his hand, rubbing his thumb over your wound. “Sad to say, though, you’ll have quite the nasty scar.”

*~*~*

Twilight is no longer painful. In fact, you often sit outside well into the night. Chanaris’ insects land on you from time to time, but they do you no harm. You don’t mind their presence. It reminds you there’s a natural world unconcerned with chips, with wars, with humanity.

The dawn, though, is a different story. The dawn brings not images but voices. The voices always beg for release, for forgiveness. You know who the voices come from. There’s never a question. They come from people who pushed too far, people who are now locked away for their temerity.

It’s a daily reminder that for the grace of men like Pottis, you are home instead of somewhere dark, where you cry out for relief, sorry that you fought against what was true and right in the world. They want you to be thankful to them for your relative freedom. And, in a way that makes you hate yourself, you are.

But sometimes? Sometimes, you’d rather see the warped faces in the desert. At least they make you suffer for only a second, at least they don’t pretend to be anything other than what they are. Rage curdles inside you, and you want to march into the city, demand they take the chip out or just shoot you in the head.

Then, when that moment of anger passes, you take in a breath and go about your day. You tell yourself that, in its way, there’s a victory in moving forward, but who likes to admit defeat?

End.

*~*~*

Donald McCarthy is a writer and educator from New York. A complete look at his publications can be found at www.donaldmccarthy.com.

Uncle Ashford

By A.G. Hilton

The secret came with a name: Francis Ashford. The name meant nothing to Stephen Hayes who was confident that, until two weeks ago, he had never heard it much less known its connection to him and his family. But that was before the letters came.

At first, he thought they were a scam: each claimed that a deceased relative — one Francis G. Ashford — had recently passed and being the closest remaining kin, he was the inheritor of the man’s estate etc., etc.

Too good to be true, too contrived. Yet his pulse quickened while reading them. The notices looked official enough. And an inheritance of any kind would be a welcome thing, a kind of answered prayer, really. He’d been letting things slip since his folks passed unexpectedly, and especially after Clarice left him for that hotshot lawyer in Orlando. The past months had crawled by raw and empty as Stephen realized that he was now middle aged and utterly alone. It was a hope of escape from dwelling on this stomach state that led him to answer the phone when the unrecognized number rang him shortly after the arrival of the second letter.

The fateful call dispelled any doubts concerning the inheritance’s authenticity, and so it was that Stephen found himself traveling from the warm climes of Florida to the brisk air of the Appalachians on the cusp of winter.

The intrigue of the thing enticed him more than anything else. He had done some digging into his family history and found that, yes, this Francis Ashford was in fact of the same Ashfords as his late mother.

His mother had never talked much about her past, but Stephen knew that she had been orphaned by a house fire while living in some rural dump up north; a back water called Dunnich or some such place. From there she had trickled through the System, ending up ultimately in the care of a family living in New Smyrna Beach, Florida where she would remain until meeting Stephen’s father. Per her story, she had no remaining relatives of consequence and her immediate family had all died in the fire.

It was exciting to learn news to the contrary, if somewhat troubling. He couldn’t help but wonder why this Uncle had been excised from his mother’s accounts of her childhood. But he tried not to let the suspicions bother him. Families often had falling outs resulting in the ostracization of one party or the other. Still, he couldn’t shake the shroud of anxiety which had begun to cloud his thoughts the further he drove along I-74 toward the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Having himself been born and raised in the flatlands of Florida, the sight of the rolling hills and deep hollows fascinated him. They suggested a grandeur of the natural world that made him feel small. They also reminded him of those Hillbilly movies, Deliverance and the like.

If there are any places where secrets are kept, he mused, this is one of them.

*~*~*

Nestled in the westernmost limit of North Carolina, Murphy was remote, small, and quaint. The main street looked to belong in an episode of The Andy Griffith Show replete with a friendly looking town hall and green awning fringed shop fronts. Several signs advertised ongoing art shows, but all was placid and calm on this Friday afternoon save a small group of people standing on one corner holding Bibles and hailing each passerby as they went. It was just past three in the afternoon. He wasn’t scheduled to meet the attorney until closer to four thirty and decided to swing into an empty spot in front of the visitor’s center, thinking the folks here might be able to point him to the right spot for a quick meal.

The bell above the door tinkled lightly. Inside, the place was a microcosm of the main street, neat and quiet. Stephen tapped the service bell with no effect and drummed his fingers on the countertop. His eye drifted to a map on the wall before him. It depicted the state of North Carolina alone, as if it had been a large slice of pie removed from the rest of the country. At the point where the state began to taper off to a point on its western side was a bright red star nearly flush with the map’s edge labeled: MURPHY! You’ve found the Edge of the Map!

This brought a nervous chuckle and thoughts about what might happen if one fell off such a map’s edge.

Stephen tapped the bell again and made to leave when he heard a fain flushing sound from the back rooms followed by the quick patter of footsteps. A portly woman in a blue blouse with long panted nails bustled out to the counter looking flustered as she adjusted her glasses.

“So sorry. I didn’t realize anyone was in.” She laughed; a sound that twanged as did her accent. “Now, what can I help you with? Looking for some good restaurants, some hiking spots maybe? We have some great places to rent kayaks, but I reckon the season for that’s passed. Real beautiful views on the rivers around here.”

“That sounds fun, but I think I’ll only have time to check out some of those restaurants. Just passing through on a bit of business.”

“Oh?”

The woman struck Stephen as a busy body, hardly someone worth sharing his business with. But he had questions of his own, and a busy body might be able to give him some insight into this mysterious Mr. Ashford.

“It’s kinda crazy,” he said. “But I found out about a long-lost uncle who lived around here. Maybe you’ve heard of him?”

“Oh, I do know right many folks up this way. What’s his name?”

“Actually, he passed recently. A man by the name of Francis Ashford. I’ll be heading up to his place — think it’s up the mountain, somewhere called Overlook Way — after going over some things with the attorney.”

The woman froze midway through adjusting the glasses on the bridge of her nose and frowned at the countertop. She seemed to be thinking up a response when she realized he had finished and said, “No, sorry, that one doesn’t ring a bell. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to finish up with some things in the back.”

“Oh… well, would you mind pointing me to a restaurant?”

“Just stick to the stuff on main street.”

And then she was gone, bustling back from whence she had come. Stephen stood for a moment running back over the conversation in his mind, not understanding what he had said to offend the woman.

He left his car in front of the visitor’s center and walked down a block to a café on the corner. When he finished his chili cheeseburger and fries, he ambled back to the rental, seeing that it would soon be time to meet the lawyer. As he sat behind the steering wheel, he happened to glance up the street and saw the woman from the visitor’s center talking with a portly gentleman who clasped a thick Bible under one arm. The pair of them seemed to sense his gaze and both looked back, regarding him with eyes that wished him gone.

*~*~*

Mr. Stafford proved to be as pleasant in person as he had sounded over the phone. A thin man with thinner hair, he fussed about with paperwork and walked Stephen through more indisputable proof of his mother’s relationship to the mysterious Mr. Ashford as well as the legal side of the property transfer.

“Will you be going up to the property this evening, Mr. Hayes? You could stay there, if you don’t have other lodging. As I understand it, the utilities are still connected owing to the sudden nature of Mr. Ashford’s passing. Courtesy of the estate account.”

“About that, Mr. Stafford—”

“Call me Brent, please.”

“Right, Brent. About Mr. Ashford’s — Uncle Ashford’s — sudden passing. Was there anything strange about it or about him?”

“Strange?”

“Maybe I’m reading things wrong. It’s just, when I stopped in at the visitor’s center, I told the lady why I was here, and she got all weird. Like, once I said I was related to him she didn’t want anything to do with me. Just got me wondering.”

“Well, now.” Mr. Stafford ran a hand through his thinning hair. “Forgive me saying so, but I wouldn’t say anything is strange about having a heart attack, would you?”

“Guess not.”

“Why your connection to the late Mr. Ashford would make people treat you strange, I personally haven’t a clue, and I’m very sorry to hear it. I can’t claim to have any intimate knowledge of your uncle myself, our relationship being purely a business one. But as I understand it, he did tend to keep to himself. And you know how small towns can whisper about those they deem outsiders.”

He did. But despite Mr. Stafford’s reassurance, this news did nothing to make him feel any less anxious.

*~*~*

Overlook Way was nesteld in the mountains north of the town proper. A gravel trail, winded its way precipitously back and forth along the mountain side, and several times Stephen wondered how he would be able to safely navigate his way down assuming he managed to make the top. He saw no other houses save one near the foot of the mountain, and he had begun to doubt that his GPS had pointed him in the right way when he finally topped a rise and came upon his Uncle’s house.

A little lodge with wood paneling and a large bay window which looked off the mountain and into rolling hills beyond sat quietly amid the pines. The view was breathtaking, and Stephen understood the reason for the road’s namesake. With the way the ridge was situated, the view was aligned between bordering hills so that one did not see any signs of civilization, as if one was looking through a window into a past of uncharted lands.

As for the house, its interior was sparsely decorated and showed obvious signs of neglect. The kitchen was the worst, stacked with dirty dishes and the remains of various cans which looked to have been Ashford’s diet in his last days. Most rooms displayed little indication that they had been inhabited or used recently. The exception was the living room with its vast bay window. Here, it seemed, the man had lived most of his life as indicated by a cot situated in the corner. Bookshelves had been crammed into the space giving it the look of a place of study rather than of relaxation. More books sat in haphazard piles against the walls, some topped with notebooks and loose pages. The coffee table in front of the ragged couch had become little more than a receptacle for various papers covered with strange designs and patterns. By the bay window, seemingly the focal point of the chaos, sat an old rocking chair of darkened wood.

Stephen stood assessing the oddness of the living arrangements when a knock sent him to the front door.

The visitor stepped back as the door opened and nodded his head with its greying hair about the temples. “Hope I’m not bothering you. I reckon you’re one of Mr. Ashford’s kinfolk.”

“Yeah, well my Mom, she was his sister. She passed recently as well.”

“Very sorry about your losses.”

“Thank you. But if I’m being honest, it’s only one loss; I never knew Mr. Ashford myself.”

The man nodded again. “Don’t surprise me. If not for some off-hand comments over the years, I would’ve thought he didn’t have any relatives. Kept to himself.”

“You knew him?”

The man shrugged and looked away. “Better than most, I reckon. I used to do some work for him. We’d have a drink every now and again. That was my place what you passed on your way up here.”

“Well, it’s good to meet you Mr.—?”

“Burke.” The man offered his hand. “George Burke, at your service.”

“Stephen.” They shook, and Stephen paused for a moment. “Would you like to come in? I picked up a few things in town before heading this way. It’s not much, but I sure would like to talk to you seeing how you knew my Uncle.”

Burke hesitated, looking for the briefest moment as if he’d been invited to sit on a chair of knives, then nodded and followed Stephen into the house.

*~*~*

“I was the one who found him, you know?”

“Oh? I’m sorry to hear it.”

Burke shrugged and sipped from his cup of instant coffee. He paced, refusing Stephen’s invitation to take a seat and regarded the bookshelves as if they harbored something which might jump out at him. “He was sat up in that rocking chair over there. Looked paler ‘n one of them cave fish you might happen to catch every now and again downstream in them rivers what run out of the hills. Eyes bulged out like one of them too. Wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d have jumped up and screamed what with the expression on his face.”

“Expression?”

“He looked… scared. Don’t know. I reckoned he’d had a heart attack. I know that’s what they said in the police report. Maybe it was some reaction to all them pills he was taking there at the end. I reckon he could’ve taken too many.”

“He was on some kind of medication, then?”

Another shrug. “Said it was to help him sleep. Can’t say for sure. But he did on occasion complain about not sleeping right.”

Stephen chewed the man’s words over and circled around to the rocker by the great bay window. He tried to imagine the scene, the pale death mask with its silent scream, and shivered. Upon closer inspection, something else on the chair caught his eye: carvings, which he first thought were letters and then found to be strange symbols, ran along the edge of the rocker’s seat.

“And what about all of this?” Stephen indicated the thrown together living arrangements and piles of books around them. “Looks like a mad professor made a nest in here.”

“Wasn’t always like this. Happened in the last few years. No explanation. I figured it was on account of Mr. Ashford getting on in years. Wanted to make everything more accessible.”

Stephen ran a hand along the spines of the books shelved nearest to him. He plucked one off at random. The volume was old, and when he opened it, he found the words indecipherable. After a moment, he realized the book was written in Latin: De Vermis Mysteriis, the title read.

“Seems like he was quite the brain,” Stephen said as he shelved the volume. “Makes me curious. Don’t know why Mom never spoke about him.”

Again, Burke only shrugged. “By the time I met Mr. Ashford he was already settled in at this place, retired, and in his studies.”

“Studies?” Stephen eyed the strange volumes. “Any idea what about?”

“Not really. Figured it was his business, unlike the busy bodies ‘round here. Tell you the truth—and it sounds ridiculous—but folks ‘round here thought that your uncle was some kind of... well, some kind of wizard or something.”

Stephen stared at the man on the verge of laughter, but the look in Burke’s eyes said that he was not joking.

“You’re serious?”

“Well, you gotta remember that I didn’t know Mr. Ashford for most of his life. I didn’t even live in the area until the ‘90’s, so I can’t say what kinda reputation he’d built over the years. I reckon it mostly had to do with his keeping to himself so much. That and sometimes he’d have some visitors that tended to catch the eye. Foreigners mainly, kinda professor types to hear tell of them. I only ever saw a few myself, couple of strange looking boys from some port town up in New England. Way I saw it, your Uncle was smart as a whip and interested in things that went over folks’ heads.”

Silence fell as Stephen again took stock of the room.

“Any idea what you’ll do with the place, if you don’t mind my asking?” said Burke.

“I don’t know. Guess I’ll try to sell the property, but I’m curious to look everything over.” His eye returned to the shelves of books. “Maybe the old guy squirrelled away some money in these old things. I had a great grandmother who did that. Mostly, I want to look through the stuff while I have the chance, see what I can find out about him. Then, it’s back to Florida as soon as I’m able.”

“That’ll be good,” Burke said with a nod. He looked around the room once more. “Where will you be staying while on business hereabouts?”

“I hadn’t thought about it, but they said I could stay here. Beats paying for a bed.”

“My door’s open if you’d rather not bed down in this old place.”

“Thanks, but I think I can manage.”

Burke chewed his lip. “Well, I reckon you know best. But if you need anything, and I mean anything at all, you give me a call. Hear?”

With that Stephen was left alone in the empty mountain house with its piles of books and its silence.

*~*~*

The old house was not comfortable living, but Stephen found himself distracted, wiling hours of light away nosing through various books from the shelves. He was surprised to find that most of them were written in other languages, some he did not recognize. A few volumes were completely bizarre including another Latin translation entitled Necronomicon, the bizarre illustrations of which left him reconsidering his choice to stay in the isolated house. If he had been a genius, Francis Ashford had been an eccentric one.

Before turning in, Stephen gave the house a second inspection. It remained as barren as he recalled, but one thing caught his attention which had been missed upon his first investigation: A door beneath the stairwell from which hung the busted remains of a padlock. It appeared to lead to a cellar, but Stephen did not investigate further. Upon opening the door, he was struck by a stench of rot and decay which sent him heaving toward the bathroom. Dead rats, most likely. He would have to have it cleaned and maybe get an exterminator, just to be safe.

Unwilling to sleep on the dead man’s cot, Stephen found a bare bed upstairs which he curled upon and slept only thinly. He dreamed in brief plunges into deep unconsciousness, always awakened by images of misshapen things slouching down a darkened hall and a feeling of being watched from afar.

*~*~*

“Young man.”

Stephen didn’t look up from the row of tomatoes in the supermarket’s produce section. It seemed an oppressive, leaden blanket of exhaustion wrapped his mind. But the call was repeated. He turned, finding a portly man in a gray suit and silk shirt approaching. He was older, perhaps in his 60’s if his grey, yet full head of hair, was anything to go by. The man stopped several yards from Stephen as he turned.

“You moved in up at that Ashford’s place, didn’t you?”

Stephen blinked at him and tried to grasp what the man was asking. His head pounded like he’d been drinking the night before. If only he could have gotten some real sleep. At last he managed, “I’m his nephew. Just up to settle some affairs.”

The man nodded solemnly. “I see. And what do you plan on doing with the property?”

Stephen shrugged. “I haven’t figured it out yet. Sell it, I guess.”

The man reached fat fingers into his jacket pocket and snapped out a check book. “Boy, if you name your price, I will take it from you right this instant.”

Stephen blinked in confusion. Then, it struck him; he recognized the jowly face. The man had been with the others on the street corner proclaiming the Good Word at the top of their lungs when Stephen arrived in town. He had also been the one talking to the lady from the visitor’s center.

“I appreciate the offer,” Stephen said. “But I’m going to get a realtor involved. It’s a nice place and the property—”

“That property is the Devil’s playground.”

Stephen recoiled. “Pardon me?”

“That Ashford was constructing a hive of devils, and that’s no secret at all. The place needs to be burned and forgotten, cleansed by righteous fire now that Ashford’s been taken back to his own.”

Feeling a sudden flush in his cheeks, Stephen stepped closer to the man whose face was now reddened and in whose temple a vein throbbed. “Look, I don’t know what the hell is wrong with you or any of the other inbred hicks in this town, but I think you all need to take a goddamn step back and show some respect for the dead.”

Stephen brushed past the man, intentionally shoving him with his shoulder, and made for the registers.

“Don’t tell me you haven’t felt it, boy.”

Stephen stopped and wheeled on the man. “What are you talking about?”

“You tell me. Word is you stayed there last night.”

Stephen shook his head, clenching his jaw as he did so, and turned away.

“I’ll pray for you, boy. Pray that you make the right decision and burn that place to the ground before anything else happens. Before the Eye falls on you too.”

*~*~*

It had grown dusky when Stephen finally returned to the house on Overlook Way. Upon entering, he found the place cold. When the stench hit him, he realized the basement door was open. He stood in the doorway, finding himself unwilling to go further, and caught himself listening for furtive movements in darkness. Don’t be a chicken, he thought and had to chuckle at himself then for letting that crackpot in town get his imagination all worked up. The basement door had a bad latch which explained why the now busted lock had been installed in the first place. He would have that seen to as well, perhaps after he had whatever was stinking down there cleaned out.

Later, Stephen caught himself dozing in the old rocking chair as stars filled the sky beyond the bay window. A thick book lay open on his lap. He must have fallen asleep reading it, though he could not remember ever picking it up. Strangest of all, the volume, like many other was written in some foreign language. A sheaf of paper scrawled with various notes in a thin script fell from the book as he hefted it from his lap. At its top he read the heading: “The Gateway and the Key.”

Stephen stretched and yawned, finally feeling some vitality come back into him, and let his hand drop to the edge of the rocker where it absently rubbed at the strange carvings there. The view outside was beautiful. The last of the blood red sunset drained fully from view and the stars shined brighter than Stephen had ever seen them. They were innumerable here, the sky seemed to burst in a vast and limitless expanse, and he couldn’t help but stare in wonder and feel small beneath it. How often had Uncle Ashford sat in this very spot thinking his mysterious thoughts?

Stephen went to stand and turn on a light, but something in the scene outside caught his eye.

No moon beamed down its nocturnal light, but something, perhaps the numerous stars, gave the hills and ridges a soft glow that made him think he was looking at something (somewhere) other than the wooded mountainsides. Beneath this glow, all lay still and silent save two pale things on the closest ridge. Stephen settled back into the chair, squinted, and was shocked to see that the shapes were those of two human figures. Neither wore clothes despite the coldness of this pre-winter night and both stared at him. The sheer distance should have made it impossible to discern other details, but as Stephen squinted, he found that he could see each figure’s features as if they stood but a few yards away. Their flesh lay waxy beneath the pale glow of the scene, powdered by mortician’s make-up.

He bolted up, nearly overturning the rocker. “Mom! Dad!”

They were gone. The view outside, though still holding a small amount of the preternatural light faded to near total obscurity. Stephen rubbed his eyes and blinked to clear them. A dream; he must have dozed off again. He thought maybe his brain was telling him he had never taken the time to mourn his parents like he should have, that he had never really accepted everything that had happened in the past year amid doldrums of everyday life. Whatever the case, one thing was clear: he needed to sleep worse than he thought.

Flicking on a light, he made for the kitchen suddenly craving a glass of milk. On the way, he paused. Again, the basement door stood ever so slightly ajar. He closed it, smelling that strange odor of decay and imagining that he heard something larger than rodents down there. That damn zealot from the supermarket must have done a number on his subconscious with that haunted house bullshit. Yet this time when he returned, he put a chair from the kitchen against the door to quiet his imagination.

He was debating where to sleep when he noticed something in the study area. A thin, leather volume lay in the center of the coffee table amid piles of papers. It stood out against the white sheets, and Stephen was surprised he had not noticed it before. He sat on the ragged couch and leafed through the book, remembering that the top shelf of one of the bookcases contained an entire row of similar looking volumes. As he scanned the pages and the thin script, Stephen suddenly knew exactly how he might find out more about his mysterious uncle, for the volume in his hand was not a book at all; it was a journal.

*~*~*

He would have spent the rest of that night studying the journals, but no sooner had he endeavored to begin reading he fell asleep. Once or twice he awoke to noises like something shuffling about which could only be the settling of the house. Otherwise, he slept deeply and dreamed equally deep dreams. The dreams were alien to him, bearing no semblance to his waking life almost as if they weren’t his dreams at all. In them, he floated freely like the stars wheeling about above Overlook Way, seeing across great expanses of void and light.

Stephen woke with a start in the old rocker, a blanket draped across him, another large tome tumbled on the floor before him. Sunlight beamed, and he no idea how late into the day he’d slept. He only remembered lying down on the couch. What’s more, the chair he seemed to remember foolishly putting in front of the basement door was now in its proper place in the kitchen. But he dismissed these things. He’d been tired last night and probably not in his right mind what with all the stress lately. Hell, he remembered thinking he’d seen his parents out there on the ridge. It pleased him, however, to see that at least one part of the prior evening had been undoubtedly real: the journals.

Stephen knew he needed to see a realtor about putting the house on the market and find out how he could arrange to have the clutter removed and the basement cleaned. What with the state of things, he may need to hire a damn contractor to make sure everything was up to code. But the mystery of the journals called to him and despite feeling that he had finally slept well, he felt no less exhausted. He picked up the one on the coffee table and glanced at several of the dates. The oldest only went back as far as the past year meaning this was the last Uncle Ashford had written before his death.

But before he could begin reading, there was a knock at the door

George Burke had come calling — smelling Stephen thought, ever so slightly of whiskey — and despite the overwhelming curiosity which begged Stephen to look through the journals, another part of him was strangely relieved to be interrupted. As much as it fascinated him, the atmosphere of the house, a heaviness of which he had only recently become fully aware, was beginning to wear on him. At Burke’s suggestion they went into town for a sandwich. By the time they finished eating in their secluded corner booth, Burke had already put back several beers and was cultivating an even more pronounced slur.

“Hope you don’t mind me taking you away like this. I just figured you might need to get out for a bit. Might wanna… talk some more. You been sleeping up there?”

Stephen knew the reason for the man’s question. He’d seen the bags under his eyes in the bathroom mirror before they had left. “Not well, I guess. Got a lot on my mind. I guess it’s just overwhelming.”

Burke nodded and swigged his beer. “I heard you had a run in with the Reverend in the supermarket.”

“Yeah, you can say that. Got a little defensive, I guess. I don’t understand what people around here had against Ashford. I didn’t even know him, but it makes me pissed off the way people act.” Stephen leaned across the table and fixed Burke’s eyes firmly in his own. “Be straight with me. Was my uncle on the up and up or was something bad happening up at that house? The whole mess is starting to get to me.”

“Son, your uncle was a… dear friend of mine.” Burke’s reddened eyes brimmed with sudden tears. “And even if I didn’t know all his business or about his books and secrets, I know that he would never want to hurt anyone. He was haunted, see? Haunted ‘cause he hurt someone else.”

“Who did he hurt?”

Burke had regained control of himself and his voice steadied. “They was poor back then, your uncle’s family. Still had a woodstove for heat. He wanted to help his daddy out, stoke the flame, feed the fire some, what with the nights being cold as they were. He never said what happened, but he said it was an accident and I believe him.”

“Oh my god.” Stephen drank the man’s words in with dawning revelation. “He started the fire.”

“You don’t know how much that tormented him. He’d talk about it when he was in his cups, how it drove him to do what he’d been planning.”

“Planning?”

“I don’t know. Damn him, he’d never let me know, said he never wanted me involved. But now he’s gone. And I tell you, I don’t really believe what they say about the heart attack.” All at once, Burke gripped Stephen forearm and leaned across the table. “He saw something up there. Something what killed him to look at it. There was a big storm that night when he died, and I swear something was in the swirling clouds over them hills. I’ve tried to tell myself that I imagined it, but, dammit, I can’t anymore!”

Stephen jerked his hand back and succeeded in freeing himself. He wondered what had come over the man, if it was just the alcohol, or if the alcohol was only a means by which the otherwise stoic man could bring himself to speak of these things. Stephen glanced around the room. The commotion was beginning to draw stares.

Stephen pulled money out of his wallet and stood. “C’mon let’s get you out of here.”

Burke grabbed his wrist anew. Startled, Stephen was pulled forward so that he was nose to nose with the man. “Listen, son. I been thinking on it since you come up this way, and I done you wrong by trying to make things seem like they was all fine. It was selfish, pure denial. He was up to something up there, that much is true. I don’t rightly know what, but I know one thing: It was something serious.”

Stephen threw himself back with more force than he meant to and scattered empty beer bottles. He fled the bar then, leaving an alcohol addled George Burke alone in the corner booth.

*~*~*

The day passed in a blink. He went straight back, shaken by Burke’s sudden and shocking behavior, and began at once to read the journals to try to make some sense of the mysteries presented. As he read, the sun dwindled away and the story which unspooled before him filled his guts with a squirming anxiety. For the pages raised more questions than answers, and the answers provided were hardly sane.

Stephen’s hands shook as he sorted once more though the stacks of journals on the coffee table. Already dark was falling, and ever since returning he had not once risen from the old couch save to do one thing: wedge another chair against the basement door. He watched the door steadily now, wondering what may be crouched on the other side.

But what was in those pages, the hints regarding Ashford’s demise… it could only be madness. The man had a heart attack. The records said so. And if he had been medicated in some way, could it have been for a condition that would make one prone to delusions like the ones in the journals? Stephen wanted to believe these things, almost could, but the writings seemed so sane, clinically detached, and the narrative painted so consistent, so damn… logical in its way.

He turned once more to the final pages of the last journal Uncle Ashford had kept, passing the graphs, diagrams, and symbols which filled the other pages; all of which, he had come to realize, matched the inscriptions on the old rocker. The penultimate entry was dated October 26, 2019.

I have finally attempted it. I am old now and weak. I fear now that the thing cannot be completed, but I could not have attempted it any sooner. All my life I have tried to prepare, to gather all understanding and the texts required, yet still it is not enough.

I have not pursued this selfishly. I know that Sherry will never forgive me for what happened to our family. Nor should she. I will never pretend for a moment that the fire — even if it was an accident — was not my fault. But I thought I could make it right. Even as a child I was keen enough to know there was power unseen which might accomplish such a task. I knew the old whispers about the Whateleys back in Dunwich for what they were: truth.

Yet, after all the years of work to find such a unique place as this, to build this house, to fashion the Chair, and to consult with every Shaman, Medium, Witchdoctor, Medicine Man, and Hexenmeister who know the truth of the Old Things I have failed.

Sherry, I am sorry. Even though you will never know, I am sorry. I hoped to give them back to you. I wanted to restore, even if only in a small part, what had been stolen from you. But it is beyond me. I sought them; for if our afterlife myths have anything to them, perhaps they still existed somewhere in one form or another. Perhaps a power with access to those other places, to other times even, could provide the key. I thought I found them. But, having at last pierced the veil, the things I retrieved from the ridge disgust me in their incompleteness. Perhaps the Old Science is as worthless as the new when it comes to matters of death.

But what to do with them now? Perhaps they can be restored fully. Perhaps they need to be destroyed. In truth, I fear them, their shuddering breath—

Stephen’s eyes snapped up to the basement door. Something seemed to press against it now, as if testing the obstruction. But this could not be. Nothing was in the basement except rats. He thought of standing then and ripping the chair away, throwing the door wide just to prove it. But he could not bring himself to act. Defeated, he looked back to the journal’s last pages:

…they will not die. Too strong is their connection to the well of power on the other side.

For this place is special. I have known this, and yet I have underestimated it completely. Like the high places in old Dunwich, these hills with their curves and slopes create the perfect geometry, geometry used in sigils and other supposed “magic” symbology by humans in ignorance for as long as man has wondered about the nature of reality. That is why the Veil is thin. That is why I could commune with that which could provide the access beyond which I required.

The Natives of old knew the nature of this place and avoided it. It is too late for me. I feel It ever watching and waiting to collect Its due. I am so tired. I know how it must end. Its will swallows my own indifferently. The chair is so inviting, but I dare not sit and face It. Not yet.

Every gate has a gatekeeper: It is preeminent of those Outer Gods and stands astride time and space. Aion, Chronos, so many names, all one and the same and none close to the truth or The Name, Yog-Sothoth, which I dare not speak. It crouches ever at the doorway eternal.

And though the Door be opened, who can shut it?

Stephen stood, the journal falling from his hands. Slowly he looked around and wondered. Wondered about the books and the man, his own uncle, who — if a fraction of what he had written was true — had done something which Stephen could not comprehend much less believe.

Stephen walked to the rocker, the movement unconscious and mechanical. He needed to sit and think, to make some sense of things before he went as crazy as Uncle Ashford had been. His mind was exhausted. All at once, the chaos of his life came to a boiling point, and with no relations and no friends in these mountains he no longer felt properly moored to anything in a sane reality.

As he sat in the chair, absently rubbing the grooves of the mysterious carvings, the nighttime world once again became illuminated by the pale glow. The stars whirled overhead, and Stephen could only marvel at all of this as a weight of exhaustion almost willful in its intensity pressed him into the seat. It seemed that the symbols carved into the wood had begun to glow. Slowly, he began to rock, and in rocking he felt suddenly that he teetered on some vast precipice.

A noise of splintering wood came then, but it seemed only a whisper beneath a torrential roaring which now filled his ears as of a great wind whipping the mountains outside. Then the smell wafted from the basement. Not, he realized, the stench simply of rotting tissues, but that of burned and charred flesh. His head was locked in place by a will not his own. He could not see them as they approached, but he knew them from the journals, and sensed them as the stench grew stronger, as he heard their ragged breathing described in those pages. Charred hands pressed down on his shoulders, and if it weren’t for the state of their flesh, perhaps the scene could have been a family portrait. He may have even recognized his mother’s features in their own. For he knew that they too were his flesh and blood.

Stephen realized he could see far now, farther than the view from Overlook Way suggested. For the view was not into the world but beyond into someplace deeper which pulsed and throbbed with chaos beyond the ridges and hills, and he knew with certainty that the Door had remained open. And like the broken basement door, it could not contain the what lay beyond.

On the horizon it rose from that chaos, the rounded, dull-yellow shape of the fullest moon Stephen had ever seen. But the scene was wrong. For the orb was joined by others which rolled, pulsed, and revealed slit pupils deeper than the oceans. Stephen screamed as the shroud lifted and he saw the heart of the secret, shared for the briefest instant the same sight his uncle had known. And as secret became truth, his sense of self withered away before a gaze from across gulfs unknown and unimagined. Laid bare were his most insignificant thoughts, leaving him in those final moments exposed and utterly alone in this world and worlds beyond.

End.

*~*~*

A.G. Hilton is an emerging voice in dark fiction who enjoys blending eldritch horrors into the rural settings that populated his youth. His stories have also appeared in collections from Eerie River Publishing and Prospective Press and have featured in Pulp Modern Flash. You can keep up with his work on Twitter @nightsidetales.

Lyle and the Space Man

By Lee Rozelle

Originally printed in STEEL TOE REVIEW, October 2019

“Haircut for me,” Space Man said.

“Buddy,” Lyle winked. “You got a wig on.”

“Haircut for me.”

“Then get up here bubs,” Lyle grunted.

Lyle’s jug ears flapped when he laughed like the wings of a bat, but he wasn’t laughing now. For a second he was stumped. As the bald man sat in the barber’s chair with erect back and loose face, Lyle tried to act unperturbed. I seen stranger heads than this, he told himself. Lyle swung the black cape around the man and, with a low clearing of the throat, selected the nose and ear hair trimmer.

The thing about Lyle’s is you could drive past that place and never even see it. A white block building with the words “Barber ‘$8.00’” stenciled on the side, Lyle’s was as close to a heart as you could find in that mean strip of Alabama highway called East Tallapoochee. The shop was part hunting camp, part museum, and along the back wall posed an assortment of stuffed fish and deer heads garbed in dust. Old Lyle lived in a trailer back behind the place, and he worked every weekday except Friday when he went fishing.

Lyle was a character. With his hair and shag eyebrows dyed jet black, oiled and slicked back, the fuzz jutting from the neck of his cowboy shirt was white as snow. He was tall, old, big bellied, skinny-legged, and stooped way over the barber chair, scissors snipping and mouth moving nonstop. A gold chain dangled near the faces of customers as Lyle shaved, clipped and razed, all the while speaking low and from the gut. Occasionally he glared up at his audience to accentuate tales that never seemed to end, scissors angled, elbows up, his voice deep and serious. He said stuff like, “Slapjack put mouthwash on his arm cause it was itchin’,” and, “Slapjack was shootin’ dogs in the pecker with a pellet pistol.”

With the exception of the bald fellow they called Space Man, most of the regulars who hung around Lyle’s shop were backwoods folk. The regulars figured Space Man was just asking directions when he first drove up at Lyle’s in an aged van wearing a black turtle neck and slacks. But, to their surprise, the mysterious personage opened Lyle’s screen door, walked without a sound to a narrow space on one of the benches along the wall, and sat down amongst the likes of Ronnie and Old Man Dyer with the straightest back in the world. Old men looked at each other without changing their faces.

Levitating at the tip-top of a longish head, the man was wearing this really bunched up mushroom-shaped toupee like Moe from The Three Stooges. His skin was as pale as the belly of a catfish, and he stared straight forward with eyes the color of olives. For hours and days that turned to weeks, Space Man would sit at the barber shop like a plastic dummy as Lyle told wild stories and jokes. Space Man never once cracked a smile, not even on the rare occasion when the jokes were funny. But this one day, without warning, Space Man went up to the barber’s chair with a stare on his face.

“I was out there at the bend,” Lyle half nodded at a retiree named Fred. “First cast, didn’t even get a chance to sit down ‘fore a fish snatched my Ambassador right out of my hands. My best rod and reel. One I caught that 175 pound catfish up at Lake Guin.”

“That’s a lie,” said Fred.

“And it was gone.” Lyle removed the toupee with one quick pop and began to lather Space Man’s shiny head. “Fish sucked the damn thing right off the bank. And I could see it down there in the creek. Course I kneeled down there to get it, stuck my hand in the water, got way over, just about to get my fingers on it…and then it moves, just a little bit, crost the creek, over toward the deep end. And shit I can still see it. I just got to get it. So I get back up on the bank, take my shoes and socks off, take my pants off, take off my drawers, take off my shirt, take off my hat, lay my pistol on top of my clothes—my ass is butt-ass nekkid. I scooch down there on the bank and slide right into the creek. A bass goes after my pecker!” Lyle squeezed the front of his pants.

“Bull,” said Fred.

“Son of a bitch bites my goober six times but I ain’t studying that. I’m going after that reel. So I dive in there, I can still see the damn thing way down there at the bottom. I dive down there, swim way down to the bottom, and grab it with both hands.”

“One ‘nem Candiru Fish woulda…” T.J. blurted.

“…I grab it,” Lyle continued. “Both hands, and all of a sudden it feels like I’m getting pulled by a ski boat. I ain’t lyin’ that fish snatches me all the way back across to the other side of the creek, pulls me up under this brush pile, all these logs and sticks piled up there above me, and that damn bass is still biting my dick ninety to nothing. And I’m surrounded by ‘em … circling ... bass, bream, suckerfish, catfish, big old gars, messed up looking fish I never even seen before, prehistoric like, big spikes on their heads like some kind of dinosaur. And they circling, staring, giving me funny looks. There was one fish with these real long tentacles, fish grinnin’ with big teeth and I think this is it, I’m a goner. And all of a sudden the rod pulls my half-drowned ass back across to the shallow end. That’s when I start reeling, and brother that fish put up a fight. Fish jumps up in the air seven feet and looks me dead in the eye. I’m thinking this has got to be some kind of mutated gator, a sea serpent, I can already see my picture in the paper and I’m pulling in that butt fucker an inch at a time. And that’s when I see a fin, like a shark, I swear to God, so I lean back with one hand and grab my pistol…”

“Eight dollars,” Lyle said as he shook the nonexistent hair off the barber’s cloth and beckoned T.J. to the chair with a long, black comb. “I grab my pistol off the bank and start shootin’. I must have capped that fish three times. And then it’s like he just jumps up on the bank and runs off, snatching the rod and reel out of my hands, again. That fish, and my prized reel, is gone for good.”

“Whad’ee look like?” T.J. asked.

“What the hell you thank he looks like?” Lyle grunted. “A fish!”

“That has got to be the stupidest fish story I ever heard,” Ronnie said.

“Oh I got stupider.” Lyle cut on his razor.

“I seen ‘eem,” Old Man Dyer said. The aged trout-liner gazed around at everybody with red-rimmed eyes. “I seen that fish.” The shop went quiet as Space Man attached the wig back to his head and handed Lyle a pristine $50 bill. The only sound made as the man shut the screen door behind him was the turkey hunting DVD playing in the corner.

The regulars figured now that Space Man got his haircut, that was that. The nut was gone for good, but the next week he came back. Nobody took that much notice when he took his narrow seat, however, because the crowd that packed out Lyle’s that morning was making fun of this tubby fellow everybody called Slapjack. It was clear that Slapjack had roused the crowd into a state. Slapjack had heavy eyelids and he grinned in a slovenly fashion that said, “I am bed shittin’ drunk.” Everyone seemed to be interested in Slapjack’s new false teeth and wanted to see them over and over. Every time Slapjack grinned with those horsy, spotless white falsies, the boys grew agitated and confused. In the recent past Slapjack had sported a mouthful of rotten little nubs, and it seemed that the entire geometry of Slapjack’s face had changed, from jack-o-lantern pumpkin to jackass mule, by virtue of the new choppers.

“More offth top,” Slapjack said with a toothy grin. High-pitched laughter ensued from all quarters.

“Damn, look at them teeth,” Ronnie said. Clearly Ronnie had crossed the line because the crowd stopped laughing and scowled at him.

“You just jealouth,” Slapjack said and pooched his lips.

“Don’t let them mess with you Slapjack,” Lyle said as the scissors snipped along the straight edge of Slapjack’s bangs. “They don’t understand.”

“Understand what?” Ronnie blurted. “Slapjack looks like a gopher?”

“Have you ever worn a set of dentures?” Lyle stooped over Ronnie like some spook house ghoul.

“Naw,” Ronnie scowled.

“You mean you never tried on your Grandpaw’s teeth, the ones in a jar? I bet you did. Or maybe that old aunt of yours lives up the road…”

“Naw!”

“Then shut your fat ass. Cause if you did you would have learned something about the human condition.” There was a sudden stillness in the room, all eyes trained on Lyle as he held up the mirror so that Slapjack could see the back. “Eight dollars.” He beckoned Ronnie up to the barber’s chair and spun it like a Tilt-A-Whirl.

“What you want?” Lyle pumped the chair with his foot. “High and tight?”

“Ball-headed like him.” Ronnie grinned over at Space Man.

“I’m gone tell you something. And I want you to listen.”

“Uh oh,” T.J. said and bit into a honey bun.

“Years ago there was a man,” Lyle said. “Lived way down past Eclectic. Caul, they called him. Big old tall ball-headed son of a bitch.” Lyle cut on the electric razor and started working up one side of the young man’s head. “Caul Jeter.”

“What’s that got to do with Slapjack’s teeth?” T.J. said.

“I’ll tell you what that’s got to do with Slapjack’s teeth,” Lyle said. “If you give me a minute. Caul Jeter. That’s his name. Jeter. Back then he had this big, long, white Chevrolet, come driving up. Never seen the man smile. Never got a haircut either cause, you know, he was ball-headed.” Lyle paused reflectively. “Some folks said he had second sight. He’d just kind of lumber up and down the street on Saturdays, get stuff at the Piggly Wiggly. But here’s the thang. He didn’t have a tooth in his head neither. Just gums.”

“That’s charmin’,” said Ronnie.

Lyle looked at the ceiling. “But back then a lot of folks didn’t have, you know, proper hygiene. Hell, my Grandpaw never once brushed his teeth, ‘cept maybe with a sweetgum limb. He didn’t have but one maybe two little old snagglers when I was a kid. But boy you ought to have seen him go at an ear of corn. Being toothless made them old folks’ faces kind of look like witch faces. The nose would dip, and the chin would curve up, long creases next to their eyes. Kind of like a catfish…”

“My Grandpaw uthed to…” Slapjack said.

“…this fellow Caul,” Lyle continued. “One day he was in town, you know, just kind of loping up and down the street when Minnie Cleckler run up bawling her eyes out. Your great aunt,” Lyle pointed his scissors at T.J. “It was the day her daddy died. Everybody in town knew that he was ‘bout to die of liver cancer. She came running up holding a jar with a pair of false teeth in it. It was her daddy’s. She gave those teeth to Caul Jeter and without so much as a suck yo titties he stuck the false teeth right in his own mouth.”

“Nasty.”

“But here’s the thang,” Lyle said, dousing Ronnie’s head with a squirt bottle. “The minute he stuck those teeth in his mouth his eyes lit up like a pinball machine and he started talkin’. He was grinning, nodding… but see he wasn’t talking in his own voice. He was talkin’ in Minnie Cleckler’s daddy’s voice. Minnie hugged Caul and talked to him, asking all these questions about the great beyond. Everybody started to gather around Caul asking all kinds of questions. And you could see that Caul’s face little-by-little was starting to look like old Cleckler.”

“I ‘member,” Old Man Dyer uttered.

“After a couple of hours I guess Caul had enough and he tried to take the teeth out of his mouth. But Minnie went crazy and tried to stuff them choppers back in there, wanted her daddy back, crying and begging him to just put them teeth in his mouth one more time. She just wanted to hear her daddy’s voice one more time again. Couple of Minnie Cleckler’s cousins starting roughing old Caul up, telling him to put in the teeth or they’d whoop his ass.”

“What did he do?”

“What could the man do? He spit the choppers out and ran like hell. Got to his car and drove off. But it was too late. When he got home there was already ten or eleven people out in his yard,” Lyle grinned, “all clutching these little jars.” Lyle turned Ronnie toward the mirror.

“That ain’t right,” Ronnie stared at his hair. One sideburn had been removed, and the other one extended way down the neck.

“Boy you ain’t right. Eight dollars.” Lyle snapped the apron like a whip. Old Man Dyer wheezed and got up in the chair.

“One lady,” Lyle continued. “Said her husband had a thousand dollars in gold hid out in the yard. She wanted the teeth to tell her where the money was. Another man wanted the teeth to tell who shot his uncle. Caul tried to keep them all happy, sticking one set of teeth or another into his mouth, but it was no use. People just kept a-coming. So finally, after two weeks of folks chasing him down sticking false teeth in his mouth, he run off. But weren’t no time they found him holed up in Tuscaloosa.”

“What he do?” asked T.J.

“This is where the story gets kind of peculiar,” Lyle said. “He’s in a motel and this pretty little woman comes to his room, got these military-issue false teeth that belonged to her husband. Supposedly the fellow drowned the year before and his body was never found. When Caul puts them teeth in his mouth he starts shaking and hunching. His face turns purple and his whole body starts to jitter. ‘You whore!’ he hollers. ‘You’re tryin’ to kill me! I’m gone kill you!’ And then Caul grabs a coat hanger out of the motel closet and starts gouging at her with it, all the time the teeth have gone crazy dog-cussing her, clacking and gritting like plastic magic shop choppers. Caul’s eyes look like a devil’s, his face dark and full of murder. But then suddenly Caul chokes up the teeth and they hit the floor. And Lord he’s catchin’ a spasm. She screams and crawls away from her husband’s teeth cause they’ve come alive. There’s slobber everywhere. Blood. And you know what? They find out the husband hadn’t drowned at all but was hiding out in Cleburne County with a woman. Next day they found the husband dead in the bed with his Charlie McCarthy bit clean off. You see when Caul put on those teeth he went where nobody but God can go.”

Space Man stood like a soldier and left without a word, the door slapping shut behind him.

“Damn,” Ronnie said. “What happened to Caul?”

“Went to work at Waffle House.”

That Friday, Lyle woke before daybreak and staggered to the kitchen. Still kind of snoring, he stood next to the stove with his half-closed eyes fixed on the orange light of the coffee maker. The first whiff of the coffee stirred him a little, and he turned to the refrigerator to get out some bologna and mayonnaise to make sandwiches for his fishing trip. As he reached for the white bread, he was puzzled to see that the lights of his barber shop were burning. For twenty years Lyle had gone back and forth from shop to trailer, and he had never left the shop lights on. Lyle shuddered and grabbed his gun. In boots and white underwear, Lyle tiptoed the twenty feet from the trailer pointing the .357 at his barber shop the whole time. He crept up to the back door and tried the handle. It was locked, and he had left the key at the trailer. Arms starting to shake, Lyle stooped over and made his way around to the front door, which he found was half open. But Lyle was no fool. Instead of kicking the door wide in a blaze of bullets, Lyle backed through the door, gun pointed backwards over his right shoulder, then swiveled around like a geriatric cowpoke.

“What the hell you doing in here?” Lyle said. Space Man sat erect in the barber’s chair.

“Take me fishing,” the man said. “I want to see the big one.”

“What you talking about?”

“The big one.”

Lyle was about to slap the man’s jaws when something happened. It was nothing more than a subtle change in the man’s face, something Lyle couldn’t quite register, like parts of his face were vanishing for a second then coming back, moving, blinking on and off. Lyle clutched his throat for a second then put down the gun.

“Let me grab you a rod and reel.” Lyle coughed into his fist and glanced at the man. “You? You look like a Zebco 202.” Lyle handed the man a child’s pole.

Lyle drove the man miles down two-lane highways and crooked dirt roads until they got as close as they could to the creek then walked down a deer trail holding their rods in front of them to catch spider’s webs. Both men trudged through mud, over barbed wire fences, around brush piles and streams. The man held the tiny rod straight up with no emotion on his face. After walking for almost an hour through briars and hardwood trees, they got to a rock overhang next to a cliff thick with mountain laurel. Cigarette butts, knots of fishing line and bobbers in trees, and some charred sticks on the bank marked the fishing hole. The dark water at this bend in the creek made a slow ring, a deep eddy.

“See that brush,” Lyle caught his breath and pointed at the far edge of the creek with the tip of his rod. “That’s where I almost got ‘eem. I was using a purple worm.” Lyle opened his tackle box to get a lure, but the man had dropped to his knees. To Lyle, Space Man seemed to be having some kind of a convulsion.

“You all right Goober?” Lyle said. The man quivered, squirmed, and writhed, his body now flopping on the muddy ground. Lyle tried to lift the man, but he slithered out of Lyle’s grasp into the water. Undulating, the man moved just under the surface across the creek and disappeared in the deep water under the brush pile. For ten minutes Lyle watched and waited, then twenty minutes, thirty. He cast a few times, but the fish weren’t biting.

“Hell with this,” Lyle said. He picked up his tackle and went home.

But when Lyle drove up to his shop, the lights were burning again. When he poked his pistol through the opened door, Space Man was sitting in the barber shop chair dry as a bone, back erect, a Mason jar between his legs.

“Caul Jeter,” the man said. “I want to see Caul Jeter.”

“What’s in that jar mister? How’d you get back here so fast?”

“Caul Jeter.”

“What you want to see Jeter for?”

“He went where nobody but God can go.”

“I don’t know about all that. Some folks don’t even believe that story.”

This time the man’s whole head flickered, shifted around, the nose taken in by the skin for a second, the chin becoming blank then the forehead, entire eyes seeming to go out and come back. And when it stopped the man’s head was somehow swollen, his skin even whiter, the olive eyes flatter. Lyle again felt a tingle in his throat.

“I’ll take you,” Lyle wheezed. “Just cut that shit with your face out.”

Space Man stood up holding the jar.

“What you got in that jar? That moonshine?”

The man pulled from the jar a set of twisted teeth the size of a child’s fist.

The long hallway at the retirement home was empty, the room cold and dark. A stark night light and a couple of aged medical machines created this empty haze around the man-sized knot lying in the bed. When Lyle and the man entered Caul Jeter’s room, it was clear that the old clairvoyant and former Waffle House employee was near death. His aged face was half-squinted like a man who had suffered many strokes. His eyes continually rolled, his lids flickered, and his pinched hands were twisted up around his neck.

“Mr. Jeter?” Lyle said as they stood by the bed. “Mr. Jeter? This feller...”

“Rise,” Space Man said and pulled back the sheet. Caul Jeter sat up like a made-for-TV vampire, his arms up and toothless mouth opened wide. The man put the strange teeth in Caul Jeter’s mouth and with long, skinny fingers pushed his lips together. In an instant Caul Jeter got different. A sharp pair of eyes opened as Jeter leaned forward, his grayish face and head seeming to stretch. Jeter glared at the man, teeth exposed…

*~*~*

“...I tell you what,” Lyle lathered T.J.’s neck. “Ain’t too much I haven’t seen, but I ain’t never seen nothing like that.”

“Seriously,” Ronnie said, “what happened to Space Man?”

Lyle wiped the straight razor on both sides. Fred clicked the remote looking for the basketball game.

“It’s like he was made out of paper,” Lyle said in a half whisper. “Jeter just kept staring at the man, him staring back, both of them froze, their faces almost touching like they were whistling into each other’s mouths until the man just slumped. Space Man just kind of bent sideways, and it’s like I don’t know he looked like a corn husk, like he didn’t have nothing in him. When I reached over to get him out of Jeter’s face, his shoulder and his shirt just kind of broke up in my hand like crumbs. Then, from everywhere I’m talking about, ants and roaches crawled from every crack in the room and started clustering all over him. They were on him just like that. I couldn’t see him anymore there were so many bugs on his body. The ants were inside him bubba, eating holes big as soda crackers and scurrying in and out of the holes in strings. I just stood there about to puke. Less than a minute later I’m telling you that joker was gone, vanished, carried off by the roaches and ants and creepy crawly bugs bit-by-bit-by-little-bit. But when the nurse opened the door, all she saw was me standing by Caul Jeter’s bed. Jeter was still there, but the bugs was gone. It was like nothing had happened. There were still a couple of roaches clinging to the ceiling in one corner, but she didn’t see ‘em. She pulled Jeter’s sheet up, fluffed his pillow, and told me visitation was over. Looking at me funny, she put her hand in Jeter’s mouth and pulled out the fish teeth and stuck them in the pocket of her scrubs. With the look she had on her face, she let me know that this kind of thing had happened before. Said she wouldn’t report me if I promised to leave the old man alone, said Mr. Jeter needed rest. Then she walked out.

“‘Ma’am, what you got in your other hand?’ I asked the nurse in the hall. She didn’t say nothing but just kept on walking. But I knew. I saw ‘em. She was clinging to her own set of teeth, trying to answer some questions of her own.”

“Bull ‘thit,” said Slapjack. “Tell another one.”

End.

*~*~*

Lee Rozelle is the author of nonfiction booksZombiescapes and Phantom ZonesandEcosublime. He has published short stories in HellBound Books'Anthology of Bizarro, If I Die Before I Wake vol. 3, Shadowy Natures, Dark Dossier Magazine,and theScare You to Sleeppodcast.

The Chain of Aforgomon

By Clark Ashton Smith

Originally published in 1935

It is indeed strange that John Milwarp and his writings should have fallen so speedily into semi-oblivion. His books, treating of Oriental life in a somewhat flowery, romantic style, were popular a few months ago. But now, in spite of their range and penetration, their pervasive verbal sorcery, they are seldom mentioned; and they seem to have vanished unaccountably from the shelves of book-stores and libraries.

Even the mystery of Milwarp's death, baffling to both law and science, has evoked but a passing interest, an excitement quickly lulled and forgotten.

I was well acquainted with Milwarp over a term of years. But my recollection of the man is becoming strangely blurred, like an image in a misted mirror. His dark, half-alien personality, his preoccupation with the occult, his immense knowledge of Eastern life and lore, are things I remember with such effort and vagueness as attends the recovery of a dream. Sometimes I almost doubt that he ever existed. It is as if the man, and all that pertains to him, were being erased from human record by some mysterious acceleration of the common process of obliteration.

In his will, he appointed me his executor. I have vainly tried to interest publishers in the novel he left among his papers: a novel surely not inferior to anything he ever wrote. They say that his vogue has passed. Now I am publishing as a magazine story the contents of the diary kept by Milwarp for a period preceding his demise.

Perhaps, for the open-minded, this diary will explain the enigma of his death. It would seem that the circumstances of that death are virtually forgotten, and I repeat them here as part of my endeavor to revive and perpetuate Milwarp's memory.

Milwarp had returned to his house in San Francisco after a long sojourn in Indo-China. We who knew him gathered that he had gone into places seldom visited by Occidentals. At the time of his demise he had just finished correcting the typescript of a novel which dealt with the more romantic and mysterious aspects of Burma.

On the morning of April 2nd, 1933, his housekeeper, a middle-aged woman, was startled by a glare of brilliant light which issued from the half-open door of Milwarp's study. It was as if the whole room were in flames. Horrified, the woman hastened to investigate. Entering the study, she saw her master sitting in an armchair at the table, wearing the rich, somber robes of Chinese brocade which he affected as a dressing-gown. He sat stiffly erect, a pen clutched unmoving in his fingers on the open pages of a manuscript volume. About him, in a sort of nimbus, glowed and flickered the strange light; and her only thought was that his garments were on fire.

She ran toward him, crying out a warning. At that moment the weird nimbus brightened intolerably, and the wan early dayshine, the electric bulbs that still burned to attest the night's labor, were alike blotted out. It seemed to the housekeeper that something had gone wrong with the room itself; for the walls and table vanished, and a great, luminous gulf opened before her; and on the verge of the gulf, in a seat that was not his cushioned armchair but a huge and rough-hewn seat of stone, she beheld her master stark and rigid. His heavy brocaded robes were gone, and about him, from head to foot, were blinding coils of pure white fire, in the form of linked chains. She could not endure the brilliance of the chains, and cowering back, she shielded her eyes with her hands. When she dared to look again, the weird glowing had faded, the room was as usual; and Milwarp's motionless figure was seated at the table in the posture of writing.

Shaken and terrified as she was, the woman found courage to approach her master. A hideous smell of burnt flesh arose from beneath his garments, which were wholly intact and without visible trace of fire. He was dead, his fingers clenched on the pen and his features frozen in a stare of tetanic agony. His neck and wrists were completely encircled by frightful burns that had charred them deeply. The coroner, in his examination, found that these burns, preserving an outline as of heavy links, were extended in long unbroken spirals around the arms and legs and torso. The burning was apparently the cause of Milwarp's death: it was as if iron chains, heated to incandescence, had been wrapped about him.

Small credit was given to the housekeeper's story of what she had seen. No one, however, could suggest an acceptable explanation of the bizarre mystery. There was, at the time, much aimless discussion; but, as I have hinted, people soon turned to other matters. The efforts made to solve the riddle were somewhat perfunctory. Chemists tried to determine the nature of a queer drug, in the form of a gray powder with pearly granules, to whose use Milwarp had become addicted. But their tests merely revealed the presence of an alkaloid whose source and attributes were obscure to Western science.

Day by day, the whole incredible business lapsed from public attention; and those who had known Milwarp began to display the forgetfulness that was no less unaccountable than his weird doom. The housekeeper, who had held steadfastly in the beginning to her story, came at length to share the common dubiety. Her account, with repetition, became vague and contradictory; detail by detail, she seemed to forget the abnormal circumstances that she had witnessed with overwhelming horror.

The manuscript volume, in which Milwarp had apparently been writing at the time of death, was given into my charge with his other papers. It proved to be a diary, its last entry breaking off abruptly. Since reading the diary, I have hastened to transcribe it in my own hand, because, for some mysterious reason, the ink of the original is already fading and has become almost illegible in places.

The reader will note certain lacunae, due to passages written in an alphabet which neither I nor any scholar of my acquaintance can transliterate. These passages seem to form an integral part of the narrative, and they occur mainly toward the end, as if the writer had turned more and more to a language remembered from his ancient avatar. To the same mental reversion one must attribute the singular dating, in which Milwarp, still employing English script, appears to pass from our contemporary notation to that of some premundane world.

I give hereunder the entire diary, which begins with an undated footnote:

This book, unless I have been misinformed concerning the qualities of the drug souvara, will be the record of my former life in a lost cycle. I have had the drug in my possession for seven months, but fear has prevented me from using it. Now, by certain tokens, I perceive that the longing for knowledge will soon overcome the fear. Ever since my earliest childhood I have been troubled by intimations, dim, unplaceable, that seemed to argue a forgotten existence. These intimations partook of the nature of feelings rather than ideas or images: they were like the wraiths of dead memories. In the background of my mind there has lurked a sentiment of formless, melancholy desire for some nameless beauty long perished out of time. And, coincidentally, I have been haunted by an equally formless dread, an apprehension as of some bygone but still imminent doom.

Such feelings have persisted, undiminished, throughout my youth and maturity, but nowhere have I found any clue to their causation. My travels in the mystic Orient, my delvings into occultism have merely convinced me that these shadowy intuitions pertain to some incarnation buried under the wreck of remotest cycles.

Many times, in my wanderings through Buddhistic lands, I had heard of the drug souvara, which is believed to restore, even for the uninitiate, the memory of other lives. And at last, after many vain efforts, I managed to procure a supply of the drug. The manner in which I obtained it is a tale sufficiently remarkable in itself, but of no special relevance here. So far — perhaps because of that apprehension which I have hinted — I have not dared to use the drug.

March 9th, 1933. This morning I took souvara for the first time, dissolving the proper amount in pure distilled water as I had been instructed to do. Afterward I leaned back easily in my chair, breathing with a slow, regular rhythm. I had no preconceived idea of the sensations that would mark the drug's initial effect, since these were said to vary prodigiously with the temperament of the users; but I composed myself to await them with tranquility, after formulating clearly in my mind the purpose of the experinent. For a while there was no change in my awareness. I noticed a slight quickening of the pulse, and modulated my breathing in conformity with this. Then, by slow degrees, I experienced a sharpening of visual perception. The Chinese rugs on the floor, the backs of the serried volumes in my bookcases, the very wood of chairs, table and shelves, began to exhibit new and unimagined colors. At the same time there were curious alterations of outline, every object seeming to extend itself in a hitherto unsuspected fashion. Following this, my surroundings became semi-transparent, like molded shapes of mist. I found that I could see through the marbled cover the illustrations in a volume of John Martin's edition of Paradise Lost, which lay before me on the table.

All this, I knew, was a mere extension of ordinary physical vision. It was only a prelude to those apperceptions of occult realms which I sought through souvara. Fixing my mind once more on the goal of the experiment, I became aware that the misty walls had vanished like a drawn arras. About me, like reflections in rippled water, dim sceneries wavered and shifted, erasing one another from instant to instant. I seemed to hear a vague but ever-present sound, more musical than the murmurs of air, water or fire, which was a property of the unknown element that environed me.

With a sense of troublous familiarity, I beheld the blurred unstable pictures which flowed past me upon this never-resting medium. Orient temples, flashing with sun-struck bronze and gold; the sharp, crowded gables and spires of medieval cities; tropic and northern forests; the costumes and physiognomies of the Levant, of Persia, of old Rome and Carthage, went by like blown, flying mirages. Each succeeding tableau belonged to a more ancient period than the one before it — and I knew that each was a scene from some former existence of my own.

Still tethered, as it were, to my present self, I reviewed these visible memories, which took on tri-dimensional depth and clarity. I saw myself as warrior and troubadour, as noble and merchant and mendicant. I trembled with dead fears, I thrilled with lost hopes and raptures, and was drawn by ties that death and Lethe had broken. Yet never did I fully identify myself with those other avatars: for I knew well that the memory I sought pertained to some incarnation of older epochs.

Still the fantasmagoria streamed on, and I turned giddy with vertigo ineffable before the vastness and diuturnity of the cycles of being. It seemed that I, the watcher, was lost in a gray land where the homeless ghosts of all dead ages went fleeing from oblivion to oblivion.

The walls of Nineveh, the columns and towers of unnamed cities, rose before me and were swept away. I saw the luxuriant plains that are now the Gobi desert. The sealost capitals of Atlantis were drawn to the light in unquenched glory. I gazed on lush and cloudy scenes from the first continents of Earth. Briefly I relived the beginnings of terrestrial man — and knew that the secret I would learn was ancienter even than these.

My visions faded into black voidness — and yet, in that void, through fathomless eons, it seemed that I existed still like a blind atom in the space between the worlds. About me was the darkness and repose of that night which antedated the Earth's creation. Time flowed backward with the silence of dreamless sleep....

The illumination, when it came, was instant and complete. I stood in the full, fervid blaze of day amid royally towering blossoms in a deep garden, beyond whose lofty, vine-clad walls I heard the confused murmuring of the great city called Kalood. Above me, at their vernal zenith, were the four small suns that illumed the planet Hestan. Jewel-colored insects fluttered about me, lighting without fear on the rich habiliments of gold and black, enwrought with astronomic symbols, in which I was attired. Beside me was a dial-shaped altar of zoned agate, carved with the same symbols, which were those of the dreadful omnipotent time-god, Aforgomon, whom I served as a priest.

I had not even the slightest memory of myself as John Milwarp, and the long pageant of my terrestrial lives was as something that had never been — or was yet to be. Sorrow and desolation choked my heart as ashes fill some urn consecrated to the dead; and all the hues and perfumes of the garden about me were redolent only of the bitterness of death. Gazing darkly upon the altar, I muttered blasphemy against Aforgomon, who, in his inexorable course, had taken away my beloved and had sent no solace for my grief. Separately I cursed the signs upon the altar: the stars, the worlds, the suns, the moons, that meted and fulfilled the processes of time. Belthoris, my betrothed, had died at the end of the previous autumn: and so, with double maledictions, I cursed the stars and planets presiding over that season.

I became aware that a shadow had fallen beside my own on the altar, and knew that the dark sage and sorcerer Atmox had obeyed my summons. Fearfully but not without hope I turned toward him, noting first of all that he bore under his arm a heavy, sinister-looking volume with covers of black steel and hasps of adamant. Only when I had made sure of this did I lift my eyes to his face, which was little less somber and forbidding than the tome he carried.

"Greeting, O Calaspa," he said harshly. "I have come against my own will and judgment. The lore that you request is in this volume; and since you saved me in former years from the inquisitorial wrath of the time-god's priests, I cannot refuse to share it with you. But understand well that even I, who have called upon names that are dreadful to utter, and have evoked forbidden presences, shall never dare to assist you in this conjuration. Gladly would I help you to hold converse with the shadow of Belthoris, or to animate her still unwithered body and draw it forth from the tomb. But that which you purpose is another matter. You alone must perform the ordained rites, must speak the necessary words: for the consequences of this thing will be direr than you deem.'

"I care not for the consequences," I replied eagerly, "if it be possible to bring back the lost hours which I shared with Belthoris. Think you that I could content myself with her shadow, wandering thinly back from the Borderland? Or that I could take pleasure in the fair clay that the breath of necromancy has troubled and has made to arise and walk without mind or soul? Nay, the Belthoris I would summon is she on whom the shadow of death has never yet fallen!

It seemed that Atmox, the master of doubtful arts, the vassal of umbrageous powers, recoiled and blenched before my vehement declaration.

"Bethink you," he said with minatory sternness, "that this thing will constitute a breach of the sacred logic of time and a blasphemy against Aforgomon, god of the minutes and the cycles. Moreover, there is little to be gained: for not in its entirety may you bring back the season of your love, but only one single hour, torn with infinite violence from its rightful period in time.... Refrain, I adjure you, and content yourself with a lesser sorcery."

"Give me the book," I demanded. "My service to Aforgomon is forfeit. With due reverence and devotion I have worshipped the time-god, and have done in his honor the rites ordained from eternity; and for all this the god has betrayed me."

Then, in that high-climbing, luxuriant garden beneath the four suns, Atmox opened the adamantine clasps of the steel-bound volume; and, turning to a certain page, he laid the book reluctantly in my hands. The page, like its fellows, was of some unholy parchment streaked with musty discolorations and blackening at the margin with sheer antiquity; but upon it shone unquenchably the dread characters a primal age had written with an ink bright as the newshed ichor of demons. Above this page I bent in my madness, conning it over and over till I was dazzled by the fiery runes; and, shutting my eyes, I saw them burn on a red darkness, still legible, and writhing like hellish worms.

Hollowly, like the sound of a far bell, I heard the voice of Atmox: "You have learned, O Calaspa, the unutterable name of that One whose assistance can alone restore the fled hours. And you have learned the incantation that will rouse that hidden power, and the sacrifice needed for its propitiation. Knowing these things, is your heart still strong and your purpose firm?"

The name I had read in the wizard volume was that of the chief cosmic power antagonistic to Aforgomon; the incantation and the required offering were those of a foul demonolatry. Nevertheless, I did not hesitate, but gave resolute affirmative answer to the somber query of Atmox.

Perceiving that I was inflexible, he bowed his head, trying no more to dissuade me. Then, as the flame-runed volume had bade me do, I defiled the altar of Aforgomon, blotting certain of its prime symbols with dust and spittle.

While Atmox looked on in silence, I wounded my right arm to its deepest vein on the sharp-tipped gnomon of the dial; and, letting the blood drip from zone to zone, from orb to orb on the graven agate, I made unlawful sacrifice, and intoned aloud, in the name of the Lurking Chaos, Xexanoth, an abominable ritual composed by a backward repetition and jumbling of litanies sacred to the time-god.

Even as I chanted the incantation, it seemed that webs of shadow were woven foully athwart the suns; and the ground shook a little, as if colossal demons trod the world's rim, striding stupendously from abysses beyond. The garden walls and trees wavered like a wind-blown reflection in a pool; and I grew faint with the loss of that life-blood I had poured out in demonolatrous offering. Then, in my flesh and in my brain, I felt the intolerable racking of a vibration like the long-drawn shock of cities riven by earthquake, and coasts crumbling before some chaotic sea; and my flesh was torn and harrowed, and my brain shuddered with the toneless discords sweeping through me from deep to deep.

I faltered, and confusion gnawed at my inmost being. Dimly I heard the prompting of Atmox, and dimmer still was the sound of my own voice that made answer to Xexanoth, naming the impious necromancy which was to be effected only through its power. Madly I implored from Xexanoth, in despite of time and its ordered seasons, one hour of that bygone autumn which I had shared with Belthoris; and imploring this, I named no special hour: for all, in memory, had seemed of an equal joy and gladness.

As the words ceased upon my lips, I thought that darkness fluttered in the air like a great wing; and the four suns went out, and my heart was stilled as if in death. Then the light returned, falling obliquely from suns mellow with full-tided autumn; and nowhere beside me was there any shadow of Atmox; and the altar of zoned agate was bloodless and undefiled. I, the lover of Belthoris, witting not of the doom and sorrow to come, stood happily with my beloved before the altar, and saw her young hands crown its ancient dial with the flowers we had plucked from the garden.

Dreadful beyond all fathoming are the mysteries of time. Even I, the priest and initiate, though wise in the secret doctrines of Aforgomon, know little enough of that elusive, ineluctable process whereby the present becomes the past and the future resolves itself into the present. All men have pondered the riddles of duration and transience; have wondered, vainly, to what bourn the lost days and the sped cycles are consigned. Some have dreamt that the past abides unchanged, becoming eternity as it slips from our mortal ken; and others have deemed that time is a stairway whose steps crumble one by one behind the climber, falling into a gulf of nothing.

Howsoever this may be, I know that she who stood beside me was the Belthoris on whom no shadow of mortality had yet descended. The hour was one new-born in a golden season; and the minutes to come were pregnant with all wonder and surprise belonging to the untried future.

Taller was my beloved than the frail, unbowed lilies of the garden. In her eyes was the sapphire of moonless evenings sown with small golden stars. Her lips were strangely curved, but only blitheness and joy had gone to their shaping. She and I had been betrothed from our childhood, and the time of the marriage-rites was now approaching. Our intercourse was wholly free, according to the custom of that world. Often she came to walk with me in my garden and to decorate the altar of that god whose revolving moons and suns would soon bring the season of our felicity.

The moths that flew about us, winged with aerial cloth-of-gold, were no lighter than our hearts. Making blithe holiday, we fanned our frolic mood to a high flame of rapture. We were akin to the full-hued, climbing flowers, the swift-darting insects, and our spirits blended and soared with the perfumes that were drawn skyward in the warm air. Unheard by us was the loud murmuring of the mighty city of Kalood lying beyond my garden walls; for us the many-peopled planet known as Hestan no longer existed; and we dwelt alone in a universe of light, in a blossomed heaven. Exalted by love in the high harmony of those moments, we seemed to touch eternity; and even I, the priest of Aforgomon, forgot the blossom-fretting days, the system-devouring cycles.

In the sublime folly of passion, I swore then that death or discord could never mar the perfect communion of our hearts. After we had wreathed the altar, I sought the rarest, the most delectable flowers; frail-curving cups of winewashed pearl, of moony azure and white with scrolled purple lips; and these I twined, between kisses and laughter, in the blaze maze of Belthoris' hair; saying that another shrine than that of time should receive its due offering.

Tenderly, with a lover's delay, I lingered over the wreathing; and, ere I had finished, there fluttered to the ground beside us a great, crimson-spotted moth whose wing had somehow been broken in its airy voyaging through the garden. And Belthoris, ever tender of heart and pitiful, turned from me and took up the moth in her hands; and some of the bright blossoms dropped from her hair unheeded. Tears welled from her deep blue eyes; and seeing that the moth was sorely hurt and would never fly again, she refused to be comforted; and no longer would she respond to my passionate wooing. I, who grieved less for the moth than she, was somewhat vexed; and between her sadness and my vexation, there grew between us some tiny, temporary rift....

Then, ere love had ended the misunderstanding; then while we stood before the dread altar of time with sundered hands, with eyes averted from each other, it seemed that a shroud of darkness descended upon the garden. I heard the crash and crumbling of shattered worlds, and a black flowing of ruinous things that went past me through the darkness. The dead leaves of winter were blown about me, and there was a falling of tears or rain.... Then the vernal suns came back, high-stationed in cruel splendor; and with them came the knowledge of all that had been, of Belthoris' death and my sorrow, and the madness that had led to forbidden sorcery. Vain now, like all other hours, was the resummoned hour; and doubly irredeemable was my loss. My blood dripped heavily on the dishallowed altar, my faintness grew deathly, and I saw through murky mist the face of Atmox beside me; and the face was like that of some comminatory demon....

March 13th. I, John Milwarp, write this date and my name with an odd dubiety. My visionary experience under the drug souvara ended with that rilling of my blood on the symboled dial, that glimpse of the terror-distorted face of Atmox. All this was in another world, in a life removed from the present by births and deaths without number; and yet, it seems, not wholly have I returned from the twice-ancient past. Memories, broken but strangely vivid and living, press upon me from the existence of which my vision was a fragment; and portions of the lore of Hestan, and scraps of its history, and words from its lost language, arise unbidden in my mind.

Above all, my heart is still shadowed by the sorrow of Calaspa. His desperate necromancy, which would seem to others no more than a dream within a dream, is stamped as with fire on the black page of recollection. I know the awfulness of the god he had blasphemed; and the foulness of the demonolatry he had done, and the sense of guilt and despair under which he swooned. It is this that I have striven all my life to remember, this which I have been doomed to re-experience. And I fear with a great fear the further knowledge which a second experiment with the drug will reveal to me.

The next entry of Milwarp's diary begins with a strange dating in English script: 'The second day of the moon Occalat, in the thousand-and-ninth year of the Red Eon.' This dating, perhaps, is repeated in the language of Hestan: for, directly beneath it, a line of unknown ciphers is set apart. Several lines of the subsequent text are in the alien tongue; and then, as if by an unconscious reversion, Milwarp continues the diary in English. There is no reference to another experiment with souvara: but apparently such had been made, with a continued revival of his lost memories.

...What genius of the nadir gulf had tempted me to this thing and had caused me to overlook the consequences? Verily, when I called up for myself and Belthoris an hour of former autumn, with all that was attendant upon the hour, that bygone interim was likewise evoked and repeated for the whole world Hestan, and the four suns of Hestan. From the full midst of spring, all men had stepped backward into autumn, keeping only the memory of things prior to the hour thus resurrected, and knowing not the events future to the hour. But, returning to the present, they recalled with amazement the unnatural necromancy; and fear and bewilderment were upon them; and none could interpret the meaning.

For a brief period, the dead had lived again; the fallen leaves had returned to the bough; the heavenly bodies had stood at a long-abandoned station; the flower had gone back into the seed, the plant into the root. Then, with eternal disorder set among all its cycles, time had resumed its delayed course.

No movement of any cosmic body, no year or instant of the future, would be precisely as it should have been. The error and discrepancy I had wrought would bear fruit in ways innumerable. The suns would find themselves at fault; the worlds and atoms would go always a little astray from their appointed bourns.

It was of these matters that Atmox spoke, warning me, after he had staunched my bleeding wound. For he too, in that relumined hour, had gone back and had lived again through a past happening. For him the hour was one in which he had descended into the nether vaults of his house. There, standing in a many-pentacled circle, with burning of unholy incense and uttering of accurst formulae, he had called upon a malign spirit from the bowels of Hestan and had questioned it concerning the future. But the spirit, black and voluminous as the fumes of pitch, refused to answer him directly and pressed furiously with its clawed members against the confines of the circle. It said only: "Thou hast summoned me at thy peril. Potent are the spells thou hast used, and strong is the circle to withstand me, and I am restrained by time and space from the wreaking of my anger upon thee. But haply thou shalt summon me again, albeit in the same hour of the same autumn; and in that summoning the laws of time shall be broken, and a rift shall be made in space; and through the rift, though with some delay and divagation, I will yet win to thee."

Saying no more, it prowled restlessly about the circle; and its eyes burned down upon Atmox like embers in a highlifted sooty brazier; and ever and anon its fanged mouth was flattened on the spell-defended air. And in the end he could dismiss it only after a double repetition of the form of exorcism.

As he told me this tale in the garden, Atmox trembled; and his eyes searched the narrow shadows wrought by the high suns; and he seemed to listen for the noise of some evil thing that burrowed toward him beneath the earth.

Fourth day of the moon Occalat. Stricken with terrors beyond those of Atmox, I kept apart in my mansion amid the city of Kalood. I was still weak with the loss of blood I had yielded to Xexanoth; my senses were full of strange shadows; my servitors, coming and going about me, were as phantoms, and scarcely I heeded the pale fear in their eyes or heard the dreadful things they whispered.... Madness and chaos, they told me, were abroad in Kalood; the divinity of Aforgomon was angered. All men thought that some baleful doom impended because of that unnatural confusion which had been wrought among the hours of time.

This afternoon they brought me the story of Atmox's death. In bated tones they told me how his neophytes had heard a roaring as of a loosed tempest in the chamber where he sat alone with his wizard volumes and paraphernalia. Above the roaring, for a little, human screams had sounded, together with a dashing as of hurled censers and braziers, a crashing as of overthrown tables and tomes. Blood rilled from under the shut door of the chamber, and, rilling, it took from instant to instant the form of dire ciphers that spelt an unspeakable name. After the noises had ceased, the neophytes waited a long while ere they dared to open the door. Entering at last, they saw the floor and the walls heavily bespattered with blood, and rags of the sorcerer's raiment mingled everywhere with the sheets of his torn volumes of magic, and the shreds and manglings of his flesh strewn amid broken furniture, and his brains daubed in a horrible paste on the high ceiling.

Hearing this tale, I knew that the earthly demon feared by Atmox had found him somehow and had wreaked its wrath upon him. In ways unguessable, it had reached him through the chasm made in ordered time and space by one hour repeated through necromancy. And because of that lawless chasm, the magician's power and lore had utterly failed to defend him from the demon....

Fifth day of the moon Occalat. Atrnox, I am sure, had not betrayed me: for in so doing, he must have betrayed his own implicit share in my crime.... Howbeit, this evening the priests came to my house ere the setting of the westernmost sun: silent, grim, with eyes averted as if from a foulness innominable. Me, their fellow, they enjoined with loth gestures to accompany them....

Thus they took me from my house and along the thoroughfares of Kalood toward the lowering suns. The streets were empty of all other passers, and it seemed that no man desired to meet or behold the blasphemer....

Down the avenue of gnomon-shaped pillars, I was led to the portals of Aforgomon's fane: those awfully gaping portals arched in the likeness of some devouring chimera's mouth....

Sixth day of the moon Occalat. They had thrust me into an oubliette beneath the temple, dark, noisome and soundless except for the maddening, measured drip of water beside me. There I lay and knew not when the night passed and the morning came. Light was admitted only when my captors opened the iron door, coming to lead me before the tribunal...

...Thus the priests condemned me, speaking with one voice in whose dreadful volume the tones of all were indistinguishably blended. Then the aged high-priest Helpenor called aloud upon Aforgomon, offering himself as a mouthpiece to the god, and asking the god to pronounce through him the doom that was adequate for such enormities as those of which I had been judged guilty by my fellows.

Instantly, it seemed, the god descended into Helpenor; and the figure of the high-priest appeared to dilate prodigiously beneath his mufflings; and the accents that issued from his mouth were like thunders of the upper heaven:

"O Calaspa, thou hast set disorder amid all future hours and eons through this evil necromancy. Thereby, moreover, thou hast wrought thine own doom: fettered art thou for ever to the hour thus unlawfully repeated, apart from its due place in time. According to hieratic rule, thou shalt meet the death of the fiery chains: but deem not that this death is more than the symbol of thy true punishment. Thou shalt pass hereafter through other lives in Hestan, and shalt climb midway in the cycles of the world subsequent to Hestan in time and space. But through all thine incarnations the chaos thou hast invoked will attend thee widening ever like a rift. And always, in all thy lives, the rift will bar thee from reunion with the soul of Belthoris; and always, though merely by an hour, thou shalt miss the love that should otherwise have been oftentimes regained."

"At last, when the chasm has widened overmuch, thy soul shall fare no farther in the onward cycles of incarnation. At that time it shall be given thee to remember clearly thine ancient sin; and remembering, thou shalt perish out of time. Upon the body of that latter life shall be found the charred imprint of the chains, as the final token of thy bondage. But they that knew thee will soon forget, and thou shalt belong wholly to the cycles limited for thee by thy sin."

March 29th. I write this date with infinite desperation, trying to convince myself that there is a John Milwarp who exists on Earth, in the Twentieth Century. For two days running, I have not taken the drug souvara: and yet I have returned twice to that oubliette of Aforgomon's temple, in which the priest Calaspa awaits his doom. Twice I have been immersed in its stagnant darkness, hearing the slow drip of water beside me, like a clepsydra that tells the black ages of the damned.

Even as I write this at my library table, it seems that an ancient midnight plucks at the lamp. The bookcases turn to walls of oozing, nighted stone. There is no longer a table ... nor one who writes... and I breathe the noisome dankness of a dungeon lying unfathomed by any sun, in a lost world.

Eighteenth day of the moon Occalat. Today, for the last time, they took me from my prison. Helpenor, together with three others, came and led me to the adytum of the god. Far beneath the outer temple we went, through spacious crypts unknown to the common worshippers. There was no word spoken, no glance exchanged between the others and me; and it seemed that they already regarded me as one cast out from time and claimed by oblivion.

We came ultimately to that sheer-falling gulf in which the spirit of Aforgomon is said to dwell. Lights, feeble and far-scattered, shone around it like stars on the rim of cosmic vastness, shedding no ray into the depths. There, in a seat of hewn stone overhanging the frightful verge, I was placed by the executioners; and a ponderous chain of black unrusted metal, stapled to the solid rock, was wound about and about me, circling my naked body and separate limbs, from head to foot.

To this doom, others had been condemned for heresy or impiety... though never for a sin such as mine. After the chaining of the victim, he was left for a stated interim, to ponder his crime — and haply to confront the dark divinity of Aforgomon. At length, from the abyss into which his position forced him to peer, a light would dawn, and a bolt of strange flame would leap upward, striking the many coiled chain about him and heating it instantly to the whiteness of candescent iron. The source and nature of the flame were mysterious, and many ascribed it to the god himself rather than to mortal agency....

Even thus they have left me, and have gone away. Long since the burden of the massy links, cutting deeper and deeper into my flesh, has become an agony. I am dizzy from gazing downward into the abyss — and yet I cannot fall. Beneath, immeasurably beneath, at recurrent intervals, I hear a hollow and solemn sound. Perhaps it is the sigh of sunken waters ... of cavern-straying winds ... or the respiration of One that abides in the darkness, meting with his breath the slow minutes, the hours, the days, the ages.... My terror has become heavier than the chain, my vertigo is born of a two-fold gulf....

Eons have passed by and all the worlds have ebbed into nothingness, like wreckage borne on a chasm-falling stream, taking with them the lost face of Belthoris. I am poised above the gaping maw of the Shadow.... Somehow, in another world, an exile phantom has written these words... a phantom who must fade utterly from time and place, even as I, the doomed priest Calaspa. I cannot remember the name of the phantom.

Beneath me, in the black depths, there is an awful brightening...

End.

Dear beloved reader,

I hope you found the chills you were looking for. Perhaps while entrenched in the pages of this issue of Cosmic Horror Monthly, you questioned both your own sanity and your place amongst the malevolent whims of our cold universe. If so, let not your thirst for more cosmic terror go unquenched. Simply visit COSMIC-HORROR.NET/SUBSCRIBE and offer your tribute to the old ones at a reduced rate!

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Charles Tyra

Editor