Tomorrow's Cthulhu: Stories at the Dawn of Posthumanity

by Scott Gable, C. Dombrowski

  He pretends not to see the tears in Kerry’s eyes.

  Dale stares at the ceiling, shivering as the injection turns his arm cold.

  “Doing okay?” Dr. Rollin asks as he spreads the gel on Dale’s head.

  “Sure thing, Doc. Just a bit of déjà vu.”

  “Understandable. Don’t worry. We’ll get everything taken care of.”

  Dale nods, but he is worried. He’s worried a lot. If one nanoparticle was left behind, who’s to say it won’t happen again? But most of all, he’s worried that this time around will reverse things. Illogical, maybe, but fears usually are. He isn’t alone with his fear, either; before they wheeled him in, Kerry gave him a hug to beat all hugs. He knuckled her nose the way he did when she was small and said, “I’ll give it back when I’m done.”

  “You better,” she said, her voice trembling, tears glittering in her eyes.

  Once the transducer is in place, Dr. Rollin rests a hand on Dale’s shoulder. “Please remember to keep still—”

  “And if I feel dizzy, wave my hand.”

  “You got it.”

  The machine kicks on, its hum a kitten’s purr. Once again, Dale’s mouth tastes of wet coins. Once again, he closes his eyes. And waits for the coming storm.

  This time, though, there’s only the machine. Dale’s breathing slows, his nervousness ebbs. Maybe the nanoparticles have already found their malfunctioning sibling and are gathering up the pieces. Maybe everything will be fine after all. Dale drifts, lulled into a dreamless half-sleep.

  A wave rushes in, shaking him awake and aware. The pulsing heart of a behemoth beats in furious tempo. Dale can’t move, can’t speak, can’t think. A great darkness opens, a blooming black flower, and footsteps approach, ponderous and implacable.

  What emerges has a shape that defies description, an amalgamation of nightmare and impossibility. The creature’s voice thrums, words he can’t understand, doesn’t want to understand.

  I’m an old man, Dale thinks bitterly. Can’t you see that? What good am I to you? Go away, and leave me alone.

  The beast moves closer, traveling a pathway once blocked by plaque, now open for the taking. Scaled arms extend. Claws trace delicate lines on Dale’s arms, and with a rush of wind as its wings cut through the air, it pulls him into the dark.

  When his feet touch solid ground, he’s alone in a vast cave. Beyond the arched entrance, there’s a darkness so absolute it hurts his eyes. Distant waves crash against a shore, and he tastes the salt tang of an ocean upon his tongue. He hears no footsteps, no beating wings, and the only heartbeat is his own. Goosebumps dance the length of his arms; his hospital gown isn’t nearly warm enough.

  Weak grey light spills from the cave’s walls, revealing words etched on the stone, words in his own handwriting: Kerry, Maggie, home, love, hope. The lights flicker and begin to fade, taking the words with them as they go, and as each one disappears, something pops in his mind—a soap bubble breaking but leaving behind a tiny hole.

  “But I’m here,” he shouts, his voice an endless echo. “I’m still here!”

  Sobbing, he moves his hands along the walls for a gap, a way out, but there’s nothing. Nothing at all.

  The last of the light fades, and he sinks to the rocky ground, pulling his knees to his chest. He isn’t sure how he got here, isn’t even sure where here is. He’s lost, that’s all, but if he stays very still, if he waits, someone will come and find him. They won’t leave him alone in the dark.

  Someone will come.

  Damien Angelica Walters has appeared or is forthcoming in various anthologies and magazines, including The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2015, Year’s Best Weird Fiction: Volume One, Cassilda’s Song, The Mammoth Book of Cthulhu: New Lovecraftian Fiction, Nightmare Magazine, Black Static, and Apex Magazine. She was a finalist for a Bram Stoker Award for “The Floating Girls: A Documentary,” originally published in Jamais Vu. Sing Me Your Scars, a collection of short fiction, was released in 2015 from Apex Publications, and Paper Tigers, a novel, is forthcoming in 2016 from Dark House Press. Find her on Twitter @DamienAWalters or on the web at damienangelicawalters.com.

  The Crunch Underfoot

  Lizz-Ayn Shaarawi

  The sun warmed my back even as each exhale showed pale white. The crisp of morning promised to burn off by lunchtime, not that it mattered to me. Too early for snow, too late for an Indian summer. I trudged up the narrow street as the wind blew leaves around my feet.

  My destination loomed ahead, the outcast amongst neat, trim homes. Much like the owner, my Uncle Cyrus, the house had an air of shabbiness, a stubborn refusal to play well with the neighbors. Spite or simple orneriness had his home slowly turning in on itself, mutating until it barely resembled its rustic yet modern neighbors.

  A metal fence surrounded the yard, black with sharp tips. The gate, not automated like the rest on the street, clanged against its post with each gust of wind. Beyond lay dead grass covered in a thick blanket of fallen leaves. Their rich, vibrant colors struck a sharp contrast to the dull, peeling paint on the warped wood of the front porch. A single gnarled tree, already leafless, curled from the earth. Its skeletal branches reached above the three-story Edwardian house.

  Those commuters, soccer moms, and basketball dads must have breathed a sigh of relief that day. The day my uncle flung open the front door and lurched down the steps, strange words spilling from his mouth just before he collapsed. They said a weird storm brewed, but only above his house. They said wind whipped at his body but stopped at the property’s edge. They said a lot of things.

  At least, they called paramedics for him. The suburbanites may have shunned him in life, but they had enough decency to be respectful of his death.

  Children raced past me on wheelie shoes. Boys abandoned blowers to jump in the leaves they had so carefully piled. A couple moms with tight butts in yoga pants, vests, and fleece tops stopped gossiping over their fence to watch me pass. I gave them a curt nod but didn’t linger long enough to catch their reactions to me: young, dark-haired, in a long coat. Black on black on black.

  I didn’t want to keep the house waiting.

  It made perfect sense that I would be the one to clean out my uncle’s home. One of my earliest memories was of my uncle peering down at me, a treat or prize offered from some hidden pocket in his threadbare coat. Though he wasn’t one of “those” uncles (the ones parents knew never to leave their children alone with), he was distant and odd, the black sheep, and most of the family (not only the children) tended to steer clear. Not me. There was a connection between us, unspoken but tangible. I suppose there must be one in every generation: a weirdo, an outcast, the family embarrassment. In our family, the spinner pointed to me.

  From an early age, I wasn’t like the other girls. Not that I was a tomboy; fighting and sports bored me as well as dolls. I rarely spoke and kept myself cocooned in books, real books made from paper, almost to the point of building forts with their dusty spines. The smell of paper and ink still relaxes me in a way that nothing else does.

  The few family gatherings I was forced to attend usually ended with me hiding in a remote library. Eventually, Uncle Cyrus would find me. We rarely spoke, both of us people of few words. Usually, we’d sit quietly, comfortable as we read side-by-side on a bench or sofa. After years of such meetings, Uncle Cyrus would often dig into his ratty coat and hand me a book just before I was called away by my parents to make my goodbyes for the day. At first, they were classics, Poe and Blackwood, but as the years passed, they became older and more obscure. After he handed me a book in Latin with no explanation, I launched into an exhaustive study of foreign and classical languages just so I wouldn’t be caught off guard again. It took years for me to translate that book, but that made its secrets that much sweeter.

  My studies shifted to the arcane. I began to correspond with Uncle Cyrus. He refused to use a computer, so everything had to be handwritten. I was not so intolerant of technology and found it very useful to
further my studies. Though we spoke little, we wrote mountains of words, boxes of letters, and miles of postcards.

  Until the day the call came.

  His will was adamant that the house and all of its contents were to be bequeathed to me. Having never married or sired children, I was his sole heir. The main decision I needed to make was whether to keep the house or clean it out and sell it.

  I reached the swinging gate and stilled it mid-creak. After passing through, I gently pushed the warped latch until it caught. The only sound was the crunch of leaves beneath my feet as I approached. The iron key ring was heavy and unfamiliar in my hand. If I kept the house, I’d need to have an eye scanner installed at once. The key entered the lock easily enough but refused to turn. A whine issued from the deadbolt as I put my weight behind it. The tumblers cracked like a gunshot, and it unlocked.

  I glanced back once before entering the house. The neighbors stared as if they had been frozen in time, latte or blower in hand, baby on hip or in an ergonomic jog stroller.

  I turned away and slammed the door.

  Darkness shrouded the house’s interior. Uncle Cyrus had no need for motion-activated lights. I ran my hand along the wall and found the switch. A sudden burst of light filled the entryway, yet the shadows receded a split second too late. So that’s how it was. I reached into my long black hair, easily finding the small plate drilled into my skull. Runes of protection were carved into the black metal coating, revealing the steel beneath. My fingers traced the carvings, and a custom gel slid over my eyes. Microscopic filaments sparked to life, creating a golden light that would protect me from any residual creatures my uncle left behind that might wish to do me harm. I shone the light into the corners of the room, watching with little surprise as the shadows screeched and pulled back, some slipping under floorboards or into wall cracks.

  I pulled chalk from my pocket and marked the back of the front door before continuing my exploration. The house groaned as I headed deeper. The dining room stood to my right. Small clicks of multi-legged creatures skidded across surfaces as I ducked my head in. Another chalk mark went on the door. To my left, a sitting room whose fireplace roared to life as soon as my torso crossed the threshold but went dark and cold when I leaned out. I marked this door as well.

  I continued throughout the house; each room exposed its quirks to me, each room received a mark on the door. The second floor contained three bedrooms and an antiquated bathroom. The entire time that the house revealed its secrets to me, it never gave me what I genuinely wanted: Uncle Cyrus’s library. I knew it existed; he spoke of it often in our letters.

  The main floor contained an office, but the only books I could find were ledgers, filled not with necromancy or spells but numbers and household accounts. I pushed against walls and light fixtures but couldn’t find hidden panels or secret rooms. Back through the house, back through the rooms, I searched until I ended up in the kitchen at the back of the first floor.

  A sudden hunger gnawed at my stomach. I realized I hadn’t eaten in hours. A quick inventory of the pantry and freezer proved my uncle didn’t hate technology enough to shun frozen dinners and processed food. Soon enough, a Big Guy meal was warming in the gas oven. When I opened the oven to remove the food, a draft swept through the room, causing the gas flame to sputter. I turned the knob to off and set dinner aside. Crouching, I followed the breeze along the cracked and dirt-crusted linoleum until I had crawled into the open pantry. Cool air caressed my skin. My hunger instantly forgotten, I reached for the far pantry wall.

  A scratching sound came from behind me. I whipped around, frightened. An old gnarled tree, much like the one in the front yard, leaned against the house. Its branches scraped at the glass of the kitchen window in slow shrieking jags. After a brief search, I found a seam in the pantry wall. It took little pressure to swing the panel back on hidden hinges. A dark staircase lay at my feet. My golden sight showed the way.

  The stairs creaked precariously with every step but held my weight. I found a light switch at the bottom step. It came on with a loud crack. No creatures scurried. The shadows behaved as they should. I switched off the golden gaze. Of all the rooms in the house, this was the most magnificent. Bookshelves lined three walls; the fourth (beneath the stairs) held a table and shelves of various bottles. Peeling labels advertised ingredients from sage to toad eyes. Strewn throughout the room were plump sofas and chairs covered in rich fabrics. Small windows lined the top of the walls, near the ceiling. They would have let in a bit of sunlight if they weren’t covered in heavy cloth. The bookshelves housed my uncle’s prized collection—now, my prized collection.

  Goose bumps covered my arms as I pulled book after book from the shelves. One lofty tome was so old that the pages slid from the binding when I opened it. Cursing, I placed the text gently on a nearby sofa and scrambled to pick up the pages. One had drifted under a chair. As I reached for it, my fingers brushed leather. A scratching sound erupted from behind the walls. Rats, I thought. That thought quickly slipped away, replaced by the thrill of finding the dusty tome.

  I returned the pages to the old book before reaching under the chair again. Out slid a book bound in human skin (the ear and stubble on the back cover gave it away). It fell open to a beautiful handwritten page, the margins filled with grotesque illustrations. It reminded me of The Book of Kells I had seen at Trinity College yet much more sinister. A wind kicked up outside. Leaves rustled against the small windows. The scratching in the walls increased.

  The archaic words described the Fenyw’dŵr, She Who Lives in the Water. Through distant dimensions, on the entropy beach, Fenyw’dŵr crawled from the brine to do battle with her sister. Coedeno’boen, She Who Brings the Pain and sister to She Who Lives in the Water, tore through the ground, pushed past the rocks and the dirt until she stood tall, her head in the rumbling sky. Mae’r Dail, the daughters, drifted down from the mother, clung together and did her bidding. Together, they were the mothers, both creators and destroyers.

  The wind outside Uncle Cyrus’s house became a squall.

  The drawing on the page depicted a slimy, pale-skinned hag with clumps of stringy blue and green hair crawling from black water. Rage pulled her face into a hideous mask. Water boiled at her feet and bent knees. Hints of movement just under the water’s surface spoke of a legion at her command.

  A moan rose through the house as the wind battered against it. The scratching became a single blur of white noise.

  Somewhere deep in my brain, the sounds registered. But my attention never left the book where on the shore Coedeno’boen stood tall and brown, rising into a stormy sky. Small patches of brown, red, and yellow fell from her wild hair onto the rocky ground.

  A howl erupted from the backyard. I set the book aside. It took standing on a chair for me to reach the heavy cloth that covered the windows. The fabric was so old and rotten, only a few small tugs were needed before it fell away. Leaves thrown against the glass by the wind obscured any view.

  I headed upstairs through the kitchen, passing the now-cold dinner. The house shuddered at the assault from the storm outside. At the window, the tree bucked against the panes. Clouds covered the sky and blackened the world. I had never seen a storm like this. Beneath the howl, a low chant sounded. The words were lost in the storm. Could someone be out there?

  I raced through the back door into the yard. Lightning flashed but no thunder came, no rain fell. The wind whipped at my coat, sent leaves rolling around my legs and feet. They crunched underfoot as my hand slid up through my hair to touch the runes. The golden beam fought against the darkness as it swept the yard. The chant grew louder as the large tree behind me swayed. I turned my lighted gaze toward it and froze. There she was, towering above me: Coedeno’boen, She Who Brings the Pain. Her trunk twisted, her branches raised high despite the hurricane-force winds.

  The branches unfurled and rushed down at me. My golden light did nothing to stop her. I traced the runes again, felt the light strengthen, grow bright
er, but the branches continued to tear toward the earth.

  I raced across the yard and slipped in the leaves as Coedeno’boen’s boughs crashed and beat the ground around me. Red, yellow, and brown leaves tumbled and rolled past me, against the wind, until they formed a pile at my splayed feet. The branches lifted from the ground, and I skittered backward as the leaves, the daughters, Mae’r Dail, opened a gaping foliage maw and lunged.

  I stumbled to my feet and felt Mae’r Dail brush my legs, just missing me. Coedeno’boen twisted again, her furious eyes boring through me as she aimed. I sprinted across the yard and threw myself through the back door as the branches crashed to the earth, spraying soil, tearing against the back of the house.

  I raced through the house, past the scrambling creatures in the dining room, past the roaring then silent fireplace in the sitting room, through the front door, and out into the front yard. Tiny leaves snapped at me, swirled around my body. My hair rose in tendrils as the wind whipped at me. The golden beams swatted the tiny leaves away as I staggered to the metal gate. The latch stuck. I kicked at the metal with my heavy, booted foot until the latch cracked, and the gate swung wide. I burst through the opening and tumbled face first into the street.

  The chant abruptly cut off. Beams of sunlight shone down. My breath came in rapid puffs in the crisp winter air. I raised my bruised, cut face from the pavement. Neighbors paused and stared at me; my long, black coat in tatters, my eyes wide with fear, with knowledge, with insanity.

  Now, machines beep and whine around me all day long. My dark hair is white. The doctors disabled my golden beams, but I don’t care. All of our gadgets, trinkets, and talismans are useless against those who came before.

  One day, when they let me out of this padded room, I’ll return to the house, my house. The secret to banish She Who Brings the Pain must be in the basement library.

  I’ll find it.