If in these few days of decline I have learned anything, it’s that one isn’t able to trace down all things with rational lines of thought without finally becoming a part of this dying world.
As I’m stepping out onto the porch I see toppled down clay pots and a rake lying at the steps, which lead into the garden. I know that it had been standing next to the door; as had been the flower pots, of which two are broken. Perhaps the same wind that had thrown the dirt against the window pane inside kitchen door had done this, too; as absurd as this thought might seem to me. I desperately try to hold on to that, like a scared toddler holding on to his mother’s bosom. But then amidst the potsherds and black, dried out flower soil, I catch sight of a circular mark that makes my blood freeze. It’s a mark that perhaps could be compared to the imprint a horse would leave onto mud; the imprint of a horse shoe.
With my heart pounding I advance backwards to the kitchen. Suddenly the eerie silence of this morning seems to me like the diabolic cry of a beast. The feeling of being observed by countless hidden eyes is so real that my fear rises to an intolerable level.
I slam the door closed with my foot. The window pane with a rattle vibrates inside its frame. With my hands trembling I turn the key.
Then my thoughts fall silent, too.
I slide down the wall next to the wood stove and stay sitting there. Breathing hard I for some minutes stare at the clear rectangle of the pane inside the kitchen door. From this prospect the room resembles me strange and threatening, the cold stove beside me looking like a sleeping monster.
While my heart at a risky pace tries to supply my shaking body I close my eyes. At the same time I hold the gun squeezed against my chest, like it was a baby.
II
I can’t tell how long I had stayed there being crouched down to the ground and if I had fallen asleep. But as I open my eyes my mind has come to a rest. In the first seconds I’m afraid of this calmness, because it seems to tell me that I’ve gone completely mad and that I had abandoned my fight against this horrible world. But then I welcome my strange calmness as an important confederate against all my fears that await me beyond the kitchen door.
I don’t know why I am so easygoing. Perhaps it’s only because of the shock I had got when I had first seen the horse shoe imprint onto the porch – because I know that I’m not alone. My mind seems to have built up a sort of protective mechanism, trying to hide from the threads of this new world by simply not letting them get through to me. I don’t have a clue for it, but I don’t try to get to the bottom of that or to the bottom of why the cold morning air had had been stinking of decay. Sometimes I think it better not to understand why abhorrent things do happen.
As I get up with a moan I feel my uncomfortable position down to the floor taking its toll. My hip aches and my knees feel as if they had been pinpricked down to my feet.
I don’t let the milky rectangle inside the kitchen door get out of my sight. There still isn’t any movement. An eerie silence is lasting heavily on the house.
It resembles me as if the old walls and the rotten woodwork were ducking deeply into the shadows of this everlasting silence.
When I open the door, jolting it – like I had done before – with the muzzle of my gun I’m received by the same cold and odor as before. I automatically hold my breath. At the same time I notice that my feeling of being watched has gone. I can’t tell if this is part of my new self-protection or if this feeling had been a mere imagination due to my strained nerves. But it helps me to keep calm and to slowly regain a certain acuteness of thought.
After having checked the neighborhood with my eyes I step out onto the porch and with my slipper smear the horseshoe mark on the wooden boards. Then I push aside the leftovers of the pottery.
As there was no reaction to the noise I had made and the feeling of being exposed to an immediate threat didn’t come back either, I return to the house, put on my bathrobe and again step out into the garden.
While walking through the damp grass towards the shed I never lose hold of the gun. I again and again throw a glance towards the fence and towards the haze that wafts behind it.
It’s not until I have checked the screen of boards with some fast glances and hectic movements of my gun that I put the weapon beside the door of the shed and begin to search for boards and tools that would suit me for barricading the windows. In doing so I move completely normal, just like I had done in a completely normal world.
It’s a good feeling.
It’s a lost feeling that bathes my mind like with warm sunbeams. At the same time I keep constantly listening for every sound that could come to me from outside.
The generator stands in the middle of the hut. I wishfully look at the ancient engine that in some winter, when the power lines had been frozen and broken, had served us well. This morning it resembles me like the gigantic shadow of a sleeping monster.
A short glance into the tank shows me that it’s still more than fifty-fifty filled with diesel. And in addition to that I in an iron bin, which stands inside a corner of the shed, find two canisters that are brimmed with fuel. But I don’t dare to actuate the generator. Who might tell which beings the noise of the engine would attract out of their hideouts?
As I have collected enough boards, a hammer and long as well as short nails, I with a gasp tow it all over to the porch, in doing so never losing the fence and the world behind it out of my sight.
With an irritating buzzing coming from my lips I begin to nail up the windows. I again call myself a complete fool because I hadn’t thought earlier of this measure of precaution.
The noise that I produce with my hammer in the garden’s silence resembles me much too loud – like grenades exploding besides me. Even the fact that my weapon directly in front of me is leaning against the wall of the house doesn’t soothe me much. I imagine how the terrible creatures in the woods turn their ugly crowns towards the source of noise. Their nostrils belly, sniff … and smell the cold sweat of an old man. Slobber drips from their teeth-bound fangs, while their clumsy bodies slowly but single-mindedly start to move towards the rhythmic sound and the beckoning odor of meat.
In spite of these harsh thoughts I work on determinedly, in doing so again and again glancing over my shoulder. I repeatedly backpedal because I believe to have recognized something moving lazily inside the haze that lies beyond the fence. My breath comes rattling as if I had just finished a marathon.
When I see the windows disappear one after the other behind fibered, damp wood, I feel better; even if it saddens my heart. For how far the world must had been turning as to one has to convert one’s familiar home into one’s own dark grave?
My arms begin to ache and cold sweat runs down my forehead, then drying fast in the chilly autumn wind. I’m no longer used to that much labor. In addition to that my hip is still aching. But I don’t rest before the last nail has been sunken into the wood and one isn’t any longer able to see a trace of the windows.
From now on the house even by day will be dark inwardly, I think. An embittered smile is comes to my face. But from now on I will be able to light candles without being concerned to attract the attention of the beings onto us.
With my heart pounding and my hands feeling numb, but contented with me and my handiwork I return to the shed and carry some logs into the kitchen, where I put them into the bin that had been scheduled for storing them.
This evening Sarah will have a warm meal, I think gushily. And there will be a good, hot cup of tea with it; more than that it would be a romantic candlelight dinner.
Just like in the olden days.
III
But before I can curl up inside our stronghold together with Sarah I have to visit the Millers. One glance into the little larder next to the kitchen shows me that this plan wasn’t completely without self-interest.
Cindy had always been a marvelous cook. Sarah and I had been able to experience ourselves on several evenings we had spent together. And who knows what
this woman might have stored inside her larder before all that began. In times like these one has to close ranks. In addition to that I’m worried about Cindy and Danny because I hadn’t seen any sign for their presence when I on my way to Murphy had passed their house yesterday. I always used to appreciate and like the two. This is why I early in the afternoon set out for them in my rattling and smoldering Pick-up.
Quickened of the thought of leaving Sarah behind in a now safe house and contented of the handiwork I had done at midday, I for the first time during the last days feel free of the iron chains of fear. The maelstrom in my thoughts has come to an end and the horrible images of the Shoggothen faded to pale memories.
I know that this security is deceiving and that I’m running the risk of blindly getting into a trouble that I up till this morning would have been able to recognize immediately with my increased awareness. But my body is as leached out as is my mind. And right now, sitting in the tight cab of the Pick-up, with the blustering and stuttering engine beneath me and the squeaking auto body around me, I feel the few things keeping me grounded – as virtual this ground might be – being a welcome change to the horrors of the last days.
Nevertheless I’m relieved that the shotgun is my fellow passenger with its butt looming up to me from the leg area. The torch lies on the seat beside me.
The ground is bumpy and full of puddles. Apparently at night there had been rain.
While I drive through a landscape that’s hills and curves had once been so familiar to me, but now resemble me as strange as if I were here for the very first time; I try not to think about the incidents that had happened last night. But I’m not able to prevent neither some single pictures nor the abhorrent noises coming from the kitchen door from penetrating into my mind like black pools, trying to drown my thoughts. Oddly enough the fear that should have been connected to it doesn’t come along.
Perhaps it’s because I while driving keep my right hand set onto the comforting muzzle of the gun.
I again and again have to put on the windshield wiper. Instead of the late hour the haze lasts insistently, covering the windshield alike the dead breath of the world. Only few minute later my sight gets blinded by dirty reams that reflect the melancholy day.
An awkward cold comes in through the gaps inside the auto body. Each hair on my body stands on end.
Though I try to avoid letting my eyes browse the hills and in spite of all my discomfort, I can’t prevent me from almost eagerly soaking up the world around me; it’s like watching a terrible car crash one just isn’t able to let get out of sight.
Caught inside a wave of silent despair I again ask myself when I finally would be able to awake from that nightmare. Apparently my mind isn’t yet ready to regard this dim and silent surrounding, which passes my old Pick-up as indifferently as a dark film, as the only really existing world. Perhaps what makes me believe in a hope, which had gone lost in the haze of this new world long before, is the last instinct of mankind.
And it’s that hope that makes me old fool still believe that I sometime by night will awake of my own cry and bathed in sweat will look into the darkness that lies over our house, with Sarah sleeping quietly soundly beside me. One glance at the stock of my gun, which emerges out of the leg area of my car like an ominous shadow, shows me that this hope is the greatest self-deception an old, senile man can be up to.
The thought of never waking up again and of endlessly being caught in that weird spectacle in my subconscious mind frightens me to the bones. It dispossesses me of a lot of the calmness that with the nailing up of the windows had gently overrun me like a warm see wave in summer.
When after a drawn-out bend appear the two blackened timber needles flanking the narrow alley up to the Miller’s house, I’m glad of being able to push back the depressing thoughts that again are threatening to overwhelm me into their shadows.
I stop the car and stare through the dirty side window of the Pick-up over to the narrow sand path winding up to the porch of the little hut. The vibrations of the auto body make the world around me shake. The hut like a dark pin stands out of the silence among the hillside. Regarding it is so painful that I hardly can breathe. A cool autumn breeze drives the dark, dry leaves that cover the sand path before it. I almost get the impression that innumerous giant insects were moving over the path towards the house.
Danny’s Buick is still standing in front of the porch. On its roof and engine hood centered itself a layer out of small branches and leaves, just like it had been with Murphy’s car. I even believe to hear the withered leaves rustling beneath the tires. The screen door is still hanging askew and slamming in the wind. This sound reminds me of the monstrous banging of my hammer when I had been nailing up the windows with boards. The rhythmic banging of the door suddenly resembles me to be the most forlorn sound throughout the world. My throat gets tied up and my chest begins to ache.
I tinker with the idea of driving the narrow way up to the hut with my Pick-up; just like I had often done in previous years, alone or with Sarah sitting in the passenger’s seat, the radio adjusted to our favorite station, which was bawling oldies from the olden days out to the wound down window. But in the sight of the unnatural silence that seems to cover the Miller’s house this intent in a somewhat crazy way resembles me improper.
As my hand clasps the butt again, I at once feel my heart and mind relax. To touch the weapon seems to be the only thing that I in this motionless world can associate with security; and this is a fact that startles me to the bones.
I put out the motor, trying to ignore the dying stammering of the ancient engine and the silence that follows it. Don’t think too much about things that shouldn’t be at all, I say to myself. My childlike mantra lets the heavy pounding of my heart against my chest fade down to a slight trembling of the upper part of my body.
With my vacant hand I reach for the torch, stick it with its plastic attachment into one of the loops of my belt and step out into the foggy day. With every move I make the lamp swings out and hits against my thigh.
I cautiously look around; a ceremony, which in the last days has become second nature to me and resembles me as natural as the morning brushing of my teeth. There seems to be a lot of truth in the words, stating man was a creature of habit. But I never had asked for having to get used to all the atrocities and peculiarities of this new world. I even hadn’t asked God, who apparently out of pure boredom had turned away on his creation. There isn’t any movement. The hills and bushes are just grey shadows inside this dull afternoon. I try to remember when the hills for the last time to such a late hour had been mantled inside some fog. Without coming to a clue about that I cross the street – not without by habit first looking to the left and to the right – and pause between the rotten boundary-posts of the sand path. The narrow path slightly winds up between low bushes and newly planted trees until it reaches the porch of the hut. I can see the skid marks that in the bygone years had been deeply imprinted onto the brown sand.
Looking over my shoulder for one last time, I tackle the path up to the Miller’s house. In doing so I stay ducked down and glance over groves and high grass. I almost feel like I was a soldier in one of these old films about Vietnam. The sharp screeching of the screen door accompanies my way with its horrible chant. I nevertheless am grateful for this sound, because it shows me that the world still exists – in whatever terrible condition it might be.
Then suddenly there is silence. It’s not until I have taken two further steps that I notice that I’m moving through a completely silent world. I stand still, staring at the screen door, which now hangs absolutely motionless from its rusty hinges. The wind has slowed down and now is only to be felt as a cool breeze caressing ones face. Even the bushes bordering the path seem to have been frozen in their movement. The leaves have ceased rustling and dancing forlorn through the air.
The world seems to hold its breath. As if it was watching the old, grey man moving like a stranger through the black colors of
a world bereft of each trace of life.
As I glance over to the house I get the absurd feeling to see the shadow of a beast cowering deeply down to earth, staring at me and waiting for its chance to lunge at me. I tighten my grip around the butt. As I move on hesitatingly the sound of my shoes on the withered leaves resembles very small bones breaking beneath my pace. I’m sure the rustling can be heard till Devon.
But might there still be someone to hear it?
As I get near to it I set my eyes on Danny’s blue Buick. Like I had already supposed from the street, the car hadn’t been moved for quite a while. There are little black branches covering its roof and engine hood, as if left behind by a child that had been playing there. Around its tires there are leaves that look grey and dried. There is a layer of brown dirt covering its window panes, but I can see enough to recognize that the car is empty.
That means that at least Danny has to be in the house, for it’s a long way till Devon.
Although Danny is still relatively young he at a dull day like thus wouldn’t have wanted to cover the distance to town or to Murphy’s shop by foot.
As I turn my back to the car a part of my mind – the one that with sharp cries tries to prevent me from moving on – expects that one of the detestable beings out of the wood would suddenly jump through the windshield of the Buick and pinch its claws into my back. But as I set a step onto the very low step leading up to the porch the feeling passes by. The grey wood gnashes beyond my feet; a sound pretending to this strained part of mine that the house was going to get up from its sleep with a moan and then fall together again.
I pause in my movement and stare at the black rectangle that is the door. The fly screen hangs askew in front of it, no longer moving a single inch. I can see big holes yawning in the closely meshed network; as if someone – or something – had tried to force his – or its – way into the house. The sight of the decayed door is another irrevocable and frightening fact of this new world, just as the unnatural silence, enwrapping me like a too tight coat. But, as said before, man is a creature of habit. Therefore I concentrate on the open entrance.
A World of Darkness Page 8
