Inside, the deep humming he heard earlier thumped within his chest. His heart rhythm irregular, he ran to the altar that stood stoically in the center. An offering tray, carved from the clearest emerald he had ever seen, sat upon the gold encrusted alter. He placed the statuette upon the tray and waited for something to happen. He was not sure if the Old One himself would make an appearance, if the man from the diner would show up again, or if the walls would crash down upon him. So, he waited.
Todd didn’t know how long he waited; time seemed nonexistent in the strange and forbidden realm. Yet, when the offer was accepted, he knew immediately. The entire world started to swirl, as though a kaleidoscope was placed into a blender, liquefied, then tossed into a whirlpool to swirl forever within eternity.
Clutching the ancient tome tightly, he allowed his body to give in to the melodic movement. The controlled chaos absorbed him, releasing him from all restraint, sending him through the cosmic dimension with the spark of knowledge to guide him further. He closed his eyes, still able to see the colors swirling around him. He was the colors.
***
The swirling stopped and Todd opened his eyes. He found himself in the alley, standing outside door number 42. Glancing toward the dumpster, he noticed the vagabond was gone and the dead dog lying where it had for the previous week. Composing himself, he rushed back toward the diner, avoiding the puddle at the alley entrance, and pulling open the glass door with renewed vigor; the bells upon the hinge signaling his entry.
“Well, I see you still have that God-awful book,” said Carolyn. “Must not have found that creep?”
“No, uh, no, I didn’t,” he replied.
“Well, you weren’t gone long; he must have been in a hurry. I bet he’ll be back sooner or later,” she said. “Here, take these eggs to that man over there. He creeps me out more than the last guy.”
Todd took the eggs and turned toward the table Carolyn pointed toward. The vagabond from the alley sat straight up in the corner booth, smiling the same intense smile he had when he was inside the decaying dog. Todd took a deep breath and walked toward him, noticing his skin was nearly the same color and consistency as that which covered the exterior of the book.
Essel Pratt is from Mishawka, Indiana, a North Central town near the Michigan Border. His prolific writings have graced the pages of multiple anthologies, a couple self-published works, as well as his own creations.
As a husband, a father, and a pet owner, Essel's responsibilities never end. Other than a family man, he works a full time job an hour from his home, he is a writer for the Inquisitr, a full time student on his journey to a degree and is also the Chief of Acquisitions and COO for J. Ellington Ashton Press. His means of relieving stress and relaxing equate to sitting in front of his dual screens and writing the tales within the recesses of his mind.
Inspired by C.S. Lewis, Clive Barker, Stephen King, Harper Lee, William Golding, and many more, Essel doesn't restrain his writings to straight horror. His first Novel, Final Reverie is more Fantasy/Adventure, but does include elements of Horror. His first zombie book, The ABC's of Zombie Friendship, attacks the zombie genre from an alternate perspective. Future books, that are in progress and yet to be imagined, will explore the blurred boundaries of horror within its competing genres, mixing the elements into a literary stew.
You can follow Essel at the following:
www.facebook.com/esselprattwriting
Esselpratt.blogspot.com
@EsselPratt
THE POTHOLES HORROR
G. ZIMMERMAN
1. Planting the Seed
The old sea captain drove the wagon along one of the nameless dirt roads that runs through the arid steppes of Adams County, Central Washington. It was one of the hottest days in August 1892. The sun blazed down from a cloudless sky on the cracked earth, desiccated grass, and dry brown clumps of sage and tumbleweed. The rising cloud of dust from the wagon wheels presented the only movement that could be seen for miles around other that the circling specks in the distance that were vultures descending on a kill.
Although he was returning to the land where he had been raised for the first time in thirty years, Captain Frazier was not paying attention to his surroundings. He glanced at his dark, silent Malaysian serving girl, Leila, who sat nearly motionless beside him, and then back at the great perforated packing chest in the bed of the wagon. Usually slow moving, calm and phlegmatic, Captain Frazier was clearly in a state of agitation as they neared their destination.
Key scenes from his past that had led him with grim inevitability to this journey flashed before his mind’s eye.
That little Tamil witch doctor he met in Ceylon twenty years ago started the chain of events that were still unfolding today. The man had sought him out after he had disembarked from the Golden Rose, merchant ship out of Plymouth that he commanded. He was on a spice run—a venture that turned out to be highly lucrative for his owner as well as for himself.
He vividly recalled the back room of the dilapidated hovel where the wizened old man showed him the case of strange crimson wood that held the monstrosity. Gods, was there ever seen such a creature as that case contained? Dry, dead, leathery, the thing was two feet long and was shaped like a deformed dwarf. It had mottled black and brown skin covered with bristly black hair; pointed elfish ears, and needle-like translucent pale violet colored fangs that protruded from both the upper and lower lips. These fangs had a deadly, venomous look to them. The usually placid Captain Frazier had jumped back, crying out when the witch doctor had opened the case. The thing was made of flesh and had at one time been alive, that was clear to see. The owner wanted fifty English pounds for this hideous conversation piece.
“This creature you see fell from the sky in a blaze of light,” the old Tamil said in broken English. “Once you become its owner, you will have endless good fortune. Every journey you make, every item you buy and sell, every business you undertake will be prosperous. But remember this. You must do two things, or this luck will change to misery more hellish than anything your mind can conceive. You must keep this creature, a sending of Azathoth and the Outer Gods, safe in your possession until you turn sixty years of age. And before you turn sixty you must do this,” and he whispered such an enormity into Captain Frazier’s ear that he had staggered back, eyes wide in disbelief.
“You see, this demon from the stars is alive. After you turn sixty; after you perform the ritual, it will come to life and move on to the next stage of its existence. It will leave you at that time and trouble you no further. But remember well the deed you must do! The joys of your prosperity will be nothing compared to the suffering that will come to you should you fail in this final duty.”
Captain Frazier had purchased the monster on impulse. It was as if he were compelled to do it. From that moment, his fortunes spiraled upward, just as he had been promised. This voyage marked the beginning of a remarkable string of successful mercantile ventures that were to lead to his ownership of his own small fleet of merchant ships and more money than an old bachelor sea captain rightly knew what to do with. Captain Frazier was not sure whether his prosperity was the result of hard work and perseverance or the fulfillment of the witch doctor’s promise. He was not going to take any chances. He had come on this present journey to perform the ritual that he had been charged with. His sixtieth birthday was two weeks away.
Then the other scene flashed into his mind’s eye. It was three weeks after leaving Ceylon during a stop at a small port town on the coast of Java, that he had sat in the downstairs spirit room of a run down brothel, plying drinks on the intoxicated petty merchant who had a thing he needed. The man was desperate for money and even more desperately drunk. At last the deal was struck. The staggering merchant led Captain Frazier down dirty moonlit streets to a foul-smelling hut. He disappeared inside, and quickly reappeared, pulling behind him by her skinny arm, a five-year old Malaysian girl dressed in rags. The fifty pounds in gold changed hands and Captain Frazier led away Leila
, the poor merchant’s daughter. He remembered reflecting how fifty pounds seemed to be the magic number on this trip: The cost of a desiccated demon from the stars and of a small, half-starved Malaysian girl.
Dawn was just glimmering in the eastern sky when Captain Frazier returned to the deck of the Golden Rose leading behind him his uncomplaining new charge. The ship set sail immediately, before the father sobered up and come to his senses.
Captain Frazier wiped his eyes and returned to the present. Leila, now twenty-five years old, a dark, burgeoning beauty, sat beside him on the rider board staring straight ahead of her. He had always treated her coldly, had been inattentive to anything beyond her basic need for food and shelter. This was because he could not rid his mind of her purpose. He could not afford to become emotionally attached to her.
She was a faithful servant, hard working and nearly silent. She gave him back no more warmth than she received from him. But she was loyal and unfailingly attentive to his needs. She had accompanied him on his voyages. The sailors had grinned and winked at each other knowingly after she grew to womanhood, but as the voyages proceeded they discovered they had been wrong. There was clearly nothing going on between these two other than a servant cooking, cleaning and doing menial chores for her silent, unappreciative master.
Leila never had any friends, only her master Captain Frazier. Captain Frazier called her “Girl”.
The wagon arrived at the edge of a steep cliff that fell away to a small, cold lake fifty feet below. This lake, which glittered darkly in the mid-day sun, was one of the Adam County Potholes, said to be so deep that it reached nearly to the center of the earth.
Captain Frazier stopped the wagon and engaged the brake. Wordlessly he stepped back into the bed of the wagon, motioning Leila to follow him. He pulled the large, perforated trunk to the edge of the wagon bed, and then jumped down. Leila helped him lower the trunk to the stony ground, right up next to the edge of the cliff. He took her hand and helped her descend from the wagon. His face was suddenly red and streaked with sweat. He mopped it off with a handkerchief from his back pocket. He looked at his servant woman long and hard. She was dressed in a simple blue dress. Her unadorned black hair fell loose to her shoulders. He noticed with a start how pretty this small, copper skinned woman had become. She had lived with him for twenty years; it was as if he saw her now for the first time.
He leaned over and opened the trunk. The only thing inside the oddly perforated case was the strange box of crimson wood.
“Girl,” Captain Frazier said. “Open that box for me.”
She leaned over. Captain Frazier came up behind her and clicked manacles on her wrists, one hand at a time. Click. Click.
Leila straightened up, her hands pinioned behind her back. She looked at him with panic in her eyes. Captain Frazier could not meet her gaze; instead he watched the blue cloth of the dress that covered her breast tremble with her frightened breathing. With hands far gentler than he had ever used with her before, the few times he had touched her at all, he carried her into the box and seated her there. She watched him with wide eyes as he clicked a second set of manacles on her ankles.
“Captain Frazier. What are you doing to me?” Her voice was tiny, almost a whisper.
“I must, Girl. It’s your destiny. It’s why you are here.”
He opened the crimson box and with shaking hands withdrew the dried up, grinning, hideous demon. Did he feel a palpitation there, as if there were suddenly life in the little desiccated body? He placed the form on Leila’s lap.
She started screaming. “Captain Frazier! Let me live! Please let me live! Why are you doing this to me! I’ve always been good! I’ve…“
He slammed the lid shut and bolted it. She continued to scream. “Captain Frazier! Captain Frazier! Willie! Please!”
Willie was his first name. She had never called him that before. It caused him to pause for a moment. Then he leaned down and pushed the trunk over the edge of the cliff. He watched it fall straight down into the water. It seemed to descend in slow motion, then hit the lake’s surface with a great splash and disappear. The chest bobbed up again. Streams of bubbles broke the surface from the perforations as the trunk settled ever deeper. The screams continued; just the wordless high pitched shrieks of a woman in terror, with his name “Willie!” uttered once or twice more. Then there was coughing and choking followed by silence. The trunk settled beneath the surface for the last time, and then sank, leaving trails of bubbles rising in its wake.
Captain Frazier sat back on the rider board of the wagon, disengaged the brake and rode away. He had not gone far when a cloud lifted from his mind, and he realized that he had just lost everything that had any meaning for him. He jumped off the rider board and ran to the edge of the cliff. There was nothing to see now, only the cold surface of the Potholes glittering in the summer sun.
“Girl!” he said hoarsely. “Girl! Leila!” He had to search his mind for her name, he used it so rarely.
He reeled back to the waiting wagon. He cut the traces and slapped the horse on its rear side and watched it amble away. He slid down to the ground, his back against a wagon wheel. A solitary gun shot broke the mid-day silence of the Pothole Lakes.
2. The Woman in Blue
The cute little Mexican girl Maria waltzed home from school in great high spirits. She broke away from her friends, half skipping, and half running. She was eager to show her mother that she had aced her English test. Her schoolmates were soon concealed from her behind the rolling hills. She reached the shore of the Pothole Lakes, and slowed down to catch her breath. The migrant worker camp that was her home was hidden from view behind a bluff. She felt rested now and was just about to resume running when a person stepped toward her from the shore of the lake. Where did she come from? She wasn’t there a minute ago!
The woman was slim and very beautiful. She had glossy black hair and wore a plain old-fashioned blue dress. Her skin was darker than Maria’s, but she wasn’t Mexican or Indian. She wasn’t African American either. She continued to approach Maria without saying a word. Maria waited for her. She was not afraid of this pretty woman, who probably just wanted to ask directions.
When the stranger woman was within touching distance her image wavered like heat waves rising from asphalt. There was no woman there now, but rather a hideous monster dwarf, three feet tall, with leathery skin, bulging eyes with crimson irises, and needle-sharp violet-colored fangs that protruded from its lower and upper lips. The thing leaped forward and bit Maria in the shoulder, clasping her form with webbed hands equipped with curving, vicious black claws. The pain of the bite was excruciating, but then some sort of venom deadened Maria’s thinking and paralyzed her arms and legs. She was helpless to resist or even scream for help as the preternaturally strong dwarf-monster dragged her into the lake.
***
The City of Othello squad car was parked prominently on the aging asphalt pavement between several mobile homes of the migrant worker camp. While the police had taken notice of the five female Mexican immigrant children who had disappeared from the camp over the last year, particularly the girl Maria whose older sister was a University of Washington graduate with a Master’s degree in Oceanography and had some social prominence, it was the recent vanishing of Heather Golding, of solid early settler stock, that finally got them actively involved in an investigation. Heather had been visiting a friend in the migrant camp at the time she disappeared, so the detective work began there.
No remains or traces of the missing young women and girls had been found.
Detective Demetrious Johnson interrogated the family that Heather had been visiting during her disappearance, and he knew he was not going to get any more information out of them. The father worked in the orchards; the mother spoke no English, and the daughter, Rosario, was shy and terrified and clung to her mother’s colorful dress for security. Last Friday Rosario and her friend Heather wandered down to the shore of Pothole Lake where there was a little sandy bea
ch. While they were wading in the shallow water, Heather had suddenly said, “Oh look!” and pointed toward a bluff to their right. She ran around the edge of the bluff and never returned. Rosario had searched for her, and soon every resident in the camp that was not away laboring at their day job joined in her search. But Heather was never found.
Even though Demetrious wore plain clothes, the family was terrified of him. They probably thought this was the end of the ‘good life’, and they’d all be deported to Mexico. He rose to his feet, glanced around the dingy interior of the dilapidated mobile home. There was a sudden pandemonium of screaming voices outside. He rushed through the door.
Residents of the camp were yelling, crying and running back and forth from the lake. Another girl had just disappeared. The girl’s hysterical mother had seen the abduction. Her story was soon told. She and her daughter were heading toward the lake with buckets when a very dark, slim young woman in blue suddenly appeared, as if out of nowhere, grabbed the girl, and dragged her into the water. Within seconds they disappeared beneath the surface. It had happened just minutes ago.
Demetrious ran to the shoreline and quickly scanned the lakefront and the surrounding cliffs. There was nothing living to be seen. He noticed an old Mexican with wooly white hair and mustache and a tattered serape sitting cross-legged with both hands extended over the sand. The man rocked back and forth mumbling indistinct words. Demetrious noticed that his eyes were rolled back in his head. He seemed to be in some sort of trance.
Demetrious radioed in for backup, recommending that a dive team and a group of volunteers be assembled to drag the lake. The elderly man rose to his feet. “Detective, you may want to see this,” he said, pointing down to the sand beneath him. Demetrious approached and took a closer look. There were two sets of footprints pressed into the fine sand: the small sandal prints of a child who seemed to have walked two steps and then been dragged the rest of the way to the lake, and next to them the trail of something that looked like the tracks of a large bird with three splayed toes tipped with sharp talons. Demetrious blinked and looked again. He immediately cordoned off the area with stones and did not leave the beach until his backups arrived. While he waited a solitary child’s sandal bobbed to the surface of the lake about a hundred feet out.
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