Piercing the Darkness: A Charity Horror Anthology for the Children's Literacy Initiative

by Joe R. Lansdale

  And suddenly Circe did.

  Pandora whirled to look back. Eyes bulging, the dog had planted all four paws stiffly. “You know, I never noticed it before, girl,” she told the dog, “but you pretty much look like Bette Davis too.”

  “Umm.” The other woman just stared at her in alarm. More precisely, she stared at the shotgun.

  “It’s all right,” Pandora assured her. “I’m not crazy.”

  “No, of course not. Silly idea. Umm… is there anyone else on the island?”

  “No one you want to meet.”

  “Lovely.” The woman drew a deep breath. “Look, I think I’ve about had enough of… Where’s my boat?”

  “I’m afraid I can guess.” Dora paced to the edge of the dock, and the other woman followed. The motorboat rested on the muck at the bottom, close enough for the splintered hole to be clearly visible.

  “And the little man who brought me?”

  “You won’t find him. We’d best get back to the house.” Her voice held a sad and jagged quality, reminiscent of shattered glass. “See that? Those green mounds way out there? They’re the tops of trees where islands used to be. A week ago, you couldn’t even see that much. The water’s receding at last. If we can just hold out…” She turned away from the dock. “Stay close now,” she said softly. Suddenly, she discharged the shotgun into the foliage, and Circe took off down the path, a chubby blur in a low cloud of dust. “Run.” Staggering from the recoil while she fumbled for shells, she lurched forward. “I mean it. Go!”

  They pounded back along the path. Lagging a few paces behind, Pandora tottered awkwardly with the weapon. Sweat blurred her vision, and the vine-choked woods seemed to press forward. She fired again, wildly, at nothing in particular. Finally, they reached the maw of the house and paused there, breathing hard and looking back at the woods, while Dora pumped more shells into the chamber.

  “You want…?” The other woman wheezed. “I have got to stop smoking. You want to tell me what we were running from?”

  “Where are you, girl? Girl?”

  From behind them came a small sound. Circe’s face squeezed through the barely open door and emitted an inquiring yip.

  “Yes, we’re coming in,” she told the dog.

  “May I bring my equipment?” asked the woman.

  “Oh,” Pandora considered the woman’s luggage at last. “You’re the photographer. I forgot.” For the first time, she took in the woman’s appearance. Aggressively short, she radiated a wiry energy. Even her khaki trousers seemed selected for vigorous activity, and the reddish hair had been severely cropped.

  “If now is inconvenient,” she said, “I can always come back some other time.”

  “Please.” Waving her in, Dora slammed the heavy door behind them and bolted it.

  “Well, you sure know how to make a girl feel wanted. What did you say your name was?”

  “Sorry. Pandora Fontaine.”

  “You’re kidding? Like with the snaky hair?”

  “No, that was…never mind. Grab that end of the sofa.”

  “Wait. You’re the one I was coming to see.” The photographer fished in her pocket until she found a slip of paper. “P. A. Fontaine.”

  “Pandora Ariadne. Don’t ask. If you’d help,” she grumbled, “this would be a lot easier.” Together, they began to drag the heavy sofa toward the foyer. “Great outfit by the way,” Pandora added, looking away. “But don’t you experience some difficulty locating combat boots in children’s sizes?”

  “Shut up. What? You’re a fashion plate?” Grunting, the woman shoved the sofa against the door. “You want to tell me what this is all about now?” Her freckled face fairly simmered with intelligent frustration. “Or can’t I ask that either?”

  ««—»»

  Circling the library erratically, the dog padded across the ancient oriental carpet, clicked along the wooden floor, then settled under an oak desk.

  “Well, it’s why you’re here really, though I’m afraid it may be more of a story than your magazine ever anticipated.”

  Nodding for her to continue, the photographer studied her hostess. The longhaired woman seemed exhausted, beyond tears and panic, as though she had reached a plateau of functional numbness. Periodically, she would go very still and appear to listen for something.

  “I guess this is what you should see first,” Dora said. Opening a file, she slid a photograph across the desk.

  “Old boyfriend? I only ask because he appears to be… umm… happy to see you.”

  “What? Oh.” Dora stared at the photo. “I hadn’t noticed.”

  “You’re kidding? You so need to get out more. You know what it looks like?”

  “A snake?”

  “The whole monster.” The photographer rolled her eyes. “More than anything, it looks like a sort of giant muskrat. Don’t you think?” She studied it. “Except for the ape arms and stuff. Not a bad shot really. You do this?”

  “Don’t humor me.” Pandora slid the rest of the file across the desk, and the woman began to go through it. “I didn’t quite get your name.”

  “Well, it’s been a little hectic.” Without looking up, the redhead turned a page and said, “I’m Alix. Just Alix."

  ««—»»

  “Funny I’m not more scared,” Alix said later. “Just kind of cold.” The light had begun to dim when she pushed the file away. “So your entire family…?”

  “The only one I really mind about is Cass.” Pandora held her gaze. “You think I’m insane?”

  “I’ve met up with much stranger things than just monsters.” Alix shook her head. “People have been telling me I was psychic since I was a kid. Plus spirit photography is my specialty. Now you’re looking at me like I’m the one that’s nuts. Is that nice?”

  “Do you ever get any?” asked Pandora.

  “Beg pardon?”

  “Pictures of ghosts.”

  “Oh. Sort of hard to tell,” said Alix. “Smears of fog in a room is all that ever shows up. But I’m trying to perfect a film process that… why are you smiling?”

  “Nothing. I was just thinking what a good match we are. I mean, how much we have in common.”

  “Don’t blush.”

  Suddenly, Dora got up and paced around the library. “If you’re psychic, why didn’t you know what you were walking in on here?”

  “Impressions come when they come. And anyway I knew you were going to ask that.” Alix shrugged again. “So this monster of yours—the one I came all this way to get pictures of—why has no one ever seen it close up before? If it’s everywhere, I mean?”

  “They live only in the most inaccessible places. And they’re nocturnal, mostly. And I can’t imagine there are more than a handful of them left, though they must have been around an awfully long time.” Returning to the desk, she reaching into the file and rooted out a map. “Observe the distribution. I tell you, continental drift is the only explanation. These land masses…”

  “Could you maybe give me the simple version?”

  “They might be an ancestor of man’s. Or perhaps the result of parallel evolution. The point is they must account for so many of our legends.” She ticked them off on her fingers. Werewolves, forest spirits, boogey men…”

  “Boogey men?”

  “I know it sounds peculiar. You have to understand—my family has been obsessed with myths for generations. Consumed by them in fact.”

  “Literally.”

  Dora ignored that. “Even if the creatures aren’t killers by nature, their survival depends on staying hidden. So if no one who ever met one is around to talk about it afterwards, I don’t find that especially comforting.”

  Alix snapped her cell phone shut. “Still can’t get a signal. I don’t suppose there’s a phone here. Electricity?”

  “Generator’s busted again.”

  “Always said I had a yen for the simple life.”

  “Funny, we bicker like…”

  “I know.”

  An
d so the two of them spent that first afternoon fastening shutters, bolting doors and reinforcing barricades. Sunlight bled through the cracks, but with each drawn curtain it grew darker inside until Pandora lit the oil lamps. They also loaded every weapon they could lay their hands on, including an old dueling pistol (from Grandmother’s nightstand and doubtless possessing a colorful history) and a birding rifle the boys hadn’t touched in years.

  Finally, they picnicked on sandwiches in the library, while Circe insinuated herself between them and demanded handouts. Dora stood up suddenly. “What if it got inside?”

  “That wouldn’t be good,” agreed Alix.

  “No, I mean, what if it got inside? The door was open, remember?”

  “I think I’d feel something. I’m sure I would.” Alix closed her eyes, concentrating. For a moment, blankness suffused her face. “Oh dear.” She blinked several times and then just stared at the ceiling. “What’s upstairs?”

  “Bedrooms mostly,” Pandora replied. “My grandmother is laid out in one of them.”

  “Well, something up there is alive.” Alix stared fixedly upwards. “Alive and hungry.”

  ««—»»

  “How lovely.” Holding the lamp, Alix stayed close behind Pandora, as shadows swung along the mottled walls. “Like being digested by the house.” Scrabbling claws made a din on the tight, spiral staircase, and twice she nearly tripped over the dog. “Going out the backdoor must be an unforgettable experience.”

  At the top, Pandora started along the hall.

  But Alix turned away. “What’s this?” Voice hushed, she indicated a broad, short door that seemed to have been designed for trolls.

  “The gator’s head,” said Dora. “Not much of a room. Storage mostly.” Pandora pushed forward to fiddle with a latch. “Bring the light closer.” As the door swung, a stench of dust and mildew rolled into the hallway. Precariously maneuvering the shotgun, she stooped to peer into darkness.

  “Careful,” Alix whispered, ducking to enter. As a cobweb melted across her face, her vision slowly adjusted. Being inside the head felt weird—the opaque portals of the house’s eyes discharged only a dim glow on the old luggage and crates and carpets that crammed the tiny space. She raised the lamp as high as the sloping ceiling permitted.

  Shadows shifted in the murk. From behind a huge carton, twin orbs blinked at them, and the dog barked once. The shotgun trembled as a shape rushed forward.

  “Oh, Circe. You’re safe!” On her knees, Cassie buried her face in the dog’s fur while the animal groaned affectionately.

  “Hi,” said Alix. “You’re Cassandra? I’m a friend of your Aunt Pandora’s. She’s sort of having a little trouble getting her voice to work at the moment. Apparently. Sweetie, what’s with the filth? Honestly, I can hardly tell you’re blond under there. Let’s get you cleaned up, shall we?”

  ««—»»

  Even through the shutters, silent incandescence patterned the curtains until thunder rocked the house. “Well, the waters were receding,” whispered Pandora.

  Finding the child had changed everything.

  “Okay, enough of this being trapped business.” Alix paced back and forth, her boots clicking on the library floor. “We need to do something. Come out here in the hallway. What’s under here? Do these panels come up? Is there a pickaxe? Drag that rug in here.”

  Half an hour later, Cass got up from her nap on the sofa to investigate the sounds of chopping, shoveling, scraping and grunting. She had already explained, while they’d sponged and fed her, all about how she had decided to hide from the creature. (“Eminently sensible” had been her aunt’s considered assessment.) She paused to retrieve some leftovers from the sideboard.

  “It will not work,” the child mumbled around a mouthful of sandwich.

  “Knock it off, sweetie,” Alix told her.

  “And Uncle Jason doesn’t like anybody touching his toolbox.”

  “He won’t mind,” insisted Pandora. “And perhaps he had the right idea.” She helped Alix turn over a small table. “Digging the trap outside is where he went wrong.” She began sharpening table legs with a file.

  Thunder rumbled.

  ««—»»

  The scariest part had been propping the backdoor open and scampering back in the dark to hide. Crowded into the closet, they must all hear her heart still pounding, Pandora felt sure.

  “Hush now, Circe.” Cassie kept one hand clamped over the dog’s snout.

  Pandora pressed her ear to the door: the house whispered, and the rain whispered back. After a long time, something clattered, possibly from the kitchen.

  “Aunt Dora, I’m scared.”

  In the quiet, a dry scratching grew louder…until a thud shook the floor.

  “We got it!” cried Cassie.

  Shifting the shotgun’s weight, Pandora started to open the door, but Alix caught her sleeve.

  “Too dangerous. I’ll go.” In the cramped darkness, Alix edged to maneuver past the child and dog.

  “No, I need you safe. I mean, to look after Cass.” In the charred shadows, their hands grappled, then gripped. “I’ll be okay,” said Dora. “You have to let me. It’s my monster.”

  “I can’t hold her,” Cassie complained about the struggling dog.

  “Me neither,” Alix said softly. The door closed. They waited. The storm drummed distantly now.

  “Aunt Dora will never come back.”

  “Shut up, kid.”

  When the closet door opened suddenly, the dog immediately launched away into the darkness. “It’s all right, Cass,” said Pandora, leaning in the doorway. “Take the dog upstairs, please.”

  “Is the monster dead?”

  They followed the low growls to find Circe, patrolling the edge of the pit while baying like a twenty-pound Hound of the Baskervilles. A rank, wet smell filled the hall.

  The trap had worked perfectly, and the creature huddled at the bottom of a space beneath the house. Hunched into itself, it looked surprisingly small. Blood glistened in the fur. The small rug lay in a heap, and one of the sharpened legs of the splintered table appeared to have snapped off. “No, it’s not dead.” Pandora lowered the shotgun. “But I want you to take Circe and go to your room. Now, young lady.”

  “But…”

  “Go on, sweetie, please,” added Alix, and the child complied without further argument.

  “You’re good with her.”

  The two women stared down into the pit, and Alix slid an arm around Pandora’s shoulders. “Please, don’t shake like that,” said Alix. “We’re all right. For heaven sakes, what am I thinking? Where’s my camera? I’ve got to get shots of this while it’s still breathing.” She raced for the library.

  The cowering beast scuttled even deeper into a corner, and the acrid sting of urine tinged the air. Listening to the labored hiss of its breathing, Pandora fancied she heard a faint, hopeless moan. “I knew this would be bad.” After a moment, she paced to the window and pulled back the heavy draperies. Straining to raise the window, she unlatched the shutters. Rainy wind gusted in, cool and fresh, fighting back the stench, and murky evening light flooded the hall, augmented by a flicker of lightning.

  She returned to the brink of the pit, and at last the creature raised its head. Even in the gloom, the savage yellow eyes seemed desperate, imploring.

  ««—»»

  When Alix lugged in the tripod and several cameras, she found Pandora, sitting in an old straight-back chair. Lit now, the lantern smoked. Dimness seemed to seep from the corners of the room, but the glow formed a quiet pool, barely trickling over the edge of the trap.

  The hole now contained another chair, a bentwood coat rack, and several drawers from the china cabinet. Of the creature only pools of various fluids remained.

  For a long moment, no one spoke. A wet breeze snapped sodden curtains as Alix moved to the window. Rain struck the house with a clatter, and wind clapped through the trees. There were things Alix wished to say, things she wanted to shriek.
Are you mad? Why would you do this? It could have killed you. Could have killed all of us. Still might. But words didn’t slide easily into this quiet, and finally her pulse hammered with less insistence. Still, other questions churned her thoughts. Would it die out there? And how long before anyone came to the island? Even issues as simple as what they would make for dinner plagued her. Surely the child would be hungry again soon. Beyond the window, each spurt of electricity revealed a world of teeming green, shoulder-high grasses and ancient shrubs, thrashing limbs that blurred into swaying shadows. The downpour made a rapid patter, soothing, hypnotic. “Sap rises,” whispered Alix. “Leaves hang low and wet.” She was barely conscious of having begun to speak. “Water slaps the bank. The mud. Sinking. Waiting and watching through all the seasons. Always alone. The blood. Does it stop? Is this death? Alone.” Thunder rumbled in the floor. “Is it life?”

  Pandora’s voice could barely be heard above the rain. “Is that the creature’s mind you’re reading? Or mine?”

  “Not yours.” Almost at once, storm sounds dimmed to a droning, repetitive hush. “You’re not alone.”

  Neither of them spoke again for a long time.

  — | — | —

  SPIDER GOES TO MARKET

  GERARD HOUARNER

  Spider was walking from one village to the next when he came upon a dozen men from each arguing over a debt. Their words were loud, and their voices flew close to the pitch of war. Drawn to their passion, and knowing that men of passion are distracted and easily tricked, Spider hid in the grass to listen.

  “You must pay what you owe,” shouted the Big Man of one village.

  “Such a price has never been asked,” answered the Big Man from the other village, waving a fist.