“Well here we go” Simon said, “whatever happened to Harvey, happens soon.”
Staring through Harvey’s eyes, they followed his progress between tree trunks coated in silvery brown, scaly bark. Their low, slender branches draped the scene with hanging green. Harvey brushed past these at a steady, forward pace, the leaf-smothered ground rustling beneath him. Fallen branches, low bushes sprouting large oval leaves, spotted the uneven forest base.
“Everything seems okay,” Simon whispered. Ben glanced round. Eyes set forward, the screen splashed him with colour. “Maybe…” Simon paused. Returning to the feed, Ben watched Harvey reach a slight incline. “Looks like a path,” he continued.
Simon was right; the robot had started following a bare brown trail of earth.
“A clearing up ahead, I think.” Ben mirrored Simon’s quiet tone. As the trail evened, a treeless space grew evident in the near distance.
“You see those?” Simon asked. The undergrowth surrounding the path lay spotted with dirty white stones, piled together like little funeral Cairns.
Harvey, continuing down the path, followed it towards the clearing. He paused at the outskirts, obviously intrigued. Ben could see why.
The oval space stood roughly thirty feet in diameter. Smothered in dead leaves, wilting, deformed trees surrounded it with darkness. Shadows held reign within the clearing, shadows and something else.
Centring the hollow stood a circle of stones matching those they’d seen surrounding the path. Leaving the path, which meandered right through the clearing, Harvey stepped towards the circle. As he approached, decaying leaves squelched moistly beneath his feet. Devoid of undergrowth the earth within appeared scorched black.
Halting before the stones, Harvey raised his hands, turning each in apparent confusion. His yellow fingers shook, as did he, shuddering wildly.
“This must be the malfunction,” Simon said. Ben nodded.
Then, something utterly unexpected happened.
Simon gasped, Ben blinking in disbelief. The clearing had disappeared, replaced by an empty, cobalt blue sky.
The view lurched dizzily, down towards the swiftly disappearing forest. Distant already, the green half moon curved around a dark yellow beach, their beach. Their cabin appeared, briefly, before Harvey’s impossible ascent turned the coast into a landmass.
Cold fear trickled down Ben’s spine. “What the hell is going on here?”
Simon shook his head.
The image disintegrated into an array of flashing, multicoloured blocks. A moment later, the speakers issued a low whine, swiftly mounting towards a high-pitched scream. Ben squinted, covering his ears.
Simon jabbed the keyboard, eliminating the tooth-jarring noise. The blocks disappeared also, the screen turning white.
The ensuing silence fell eerily within the cabin.
Lifting the laptop to the floor, Simon shuffled round. Ben followed suit, turning to face him.
“Can you explain that? Because I can’t.” His face bloodless, Simon’s nervous voice filled the room.
Shaking his head, vigorously, Ben replied, “I can’t, absolutely not.”
He reached down. Taking Simon’s hands into his own he pressed them against his knees. He was shaking.
Simon stared towards him, but through him, saying, “Abducted. They abducted Harvey then put that starfish thing inside of him.”
“What?”
Forgoing a reply, Simon shook his head. Raising his hand to his chin, Ben stilled his mechanical movements.
His eyes focussed, finally. “We have to…”
A sudden, unexpected commotion left Simon’s sentence unfinished. The violent raps against the door made Ben flinch in surprise.
Already spooked by the video and Simon’s erratic behaviour, Ben turned to the door. “Now who could that be?” The cabin stood miles from anywhere, from anyone. It made no sense.
“It’s them, or Harvey,” Simon replied, his voice growing more panicked and shrill with each consecutive word.
“Harvey? Them? What do you mean?”
Dragging his hands away, Simon replied, “those things up there.” He glanced to the ceiling for emphasis.
His panic was contagious. Still Ben made the effort to speak calmly. “Simon, you just chill, I’ll go answer it.”
“No!” Simon bared his teeth in horror. A second assault on the door brought him quickly to his feet. He pulled Ben with him. “Come on!” he pleaded, gripping his hands painfully tight.
“Wh-what?” The following chaos saw Ben stammering in confusion. Their mysterious guest had begun kicking the door now. As Simon dragged him across the lounge, he watched it shudder on its hinges. The short corridor to the kitchen followed, Ben stopping him to say, “clothes man, what about…”
“No time.” His tone commanding, Simon drew him towards the kitchen.
The crack of splintering wood ended Ben’s conflict.
Simon released his hand. “We get to the hovercraft, then just get the hell out,” he panted, circling the table towards the back door.
His feet scrabbling to a halt, Ben watched Simon unlock it.
Unknown footsteps echoed loudly from the lounge. Following Simon’s lead, Ben didn’t look back.
Simon leapt down the steps. Charging towards the hovercraft, the sand scattered in his wake. A few feet behind him, Ben’s anticipation swelled. In a matter of seconds, they’d be in the hovercraft, and safe.
He reached the sand-dusted ramp. Before him, Simon stood tugging at the hatch. Almost there now, he thought in relief.
Mid-step, an invisible force thwarted his progress. A stranger sensation followed. Legs flailing, his feet lost the ramp. Following this sudden elevation, the hovercraft, and Simon, dropped away beneath him.
The sudden velocity made Ben gasp. His dressing gown flapping, the wind buffeted his body, ruffling through his hair. As the world turned miniature, he screamed Simon’s name.
Through waves of dizziness, his world turned painfully white.
The shifting waves roused him. How long have I been here? Disorientated, Simon regained consciousness sprawled out on the beach. His confusion grew: he couldn’t remember how he’d gotten there. His shirt and boxers felt damp, saturated in moisture. Pushing himself up, his arms sank through the wet sand.
I must have fallen asleep.
The overcast sky bordered on nightfall. On the horizon, the glowering sun floated above an unruly blue ocean. Fighting its departure to the underworld, it drenched the waters with crimson light.
Uncomfortable in his sodden clothes, he muttered, “damn I’m gonna need a shower soon. Wait there…”
Merciless in their intensity, sinister memories returned.
“Aw Christ no!” Harvey’s parasite, the video-feed… and Ben! “Ben!” Clambering from the sand, he turned to the cabin. Cracked around the hinges, the doorframe stood empty.
This was no nightmare, at least, not one he could awake from.
The sky had stolen Ben, drawing him up through the clouds. He had followed, struggling wildly towards a blinding white oblivion.
“Ow, damn!”
Following the painful memories came a sharp abdominal twitch. Looking down, Simon quickly parted his shirt. Just above his navel, shifting slowly beneath the skin, he discovered a lump.
The penny dropped.
Falling to his knees, Simon screamed himself hoarse, his tortured voice echoing across the beach. Then, with hesitant fingers, he examined the areas around the bulge. No scars were evident, and the lump… He cringed, the unwholesome parasite shuddering wildly at the touch.
They got me. It got me.
The pain passed, yet still he wept. Turning from the cabin, from the last vestige of his old, sane life, Simon climbed to his feet. Heading towards the ocean, he wiped his eyes clear, knowing what must be done.
He didn’t flinch from the icy shallows, didn’t once hesitate from his intended course. The alien abomination would die with him, within the briny dee
ps.
Wading deeper, the waters embraced him, numbingly cold. The mother of all life, and death, welcomed Simon, claiming man and parasite to her ancient, watery bosom.
Glynn Barrass lives in the North East of England and has been writing since late 2006. His work has appeared in over 50 magazines and anthologies including ‘Crossed Genres,’ ‘Lovecraft’s Disciples, ‘Night Land,’ and ‘Urban Cthulhu: Nightmare Cities.’ If he hadn’t discovered Lovecraft at an early age, he never would have become a writer, and that is a story he has in common with many friends and literary idols.
Details and news of his latest fiction appearances can be found on his website ‘Stranger Aeons: The Domain of Writer Glynn Barrass’: http://www.freewebs.com/batglynn
Story illustration by Stjepan Lukac.
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Twilight Turns From Amethyst
by Nicola Belte
“Two minutes,” you told me the day that I arrived. “Maximum. Then hands off.”
The other girls didn’t look at me; they just stared blankly ahead, peering through the peels of purple cigarette smoke as they dragged nubs of peach lipstick across their chapped mouths. Their sallow skin glowed green in the sickly lights around the mirror; their faces blank as they wrenched combs through their dry hair and sprayed themselves with perfume that made them smell like rotting fruit.
“They’ll try, but pull away. Be polite, smile, swing your hips, shake your hair. Movement distracts them.”
I nodded, but maybe I didn’t look scared enough. You walked to where I sat and tilted my chin upwards, brushing your hair back from your face. Lana Lilac, you were known as, because your eyes were like amethysts; were like nothing I’d ever seen before. I felt myself flush, felt my heart kick; I hadn’t been touched in months.
You stared directly at me, and pulled out my arm, like a junkie looking for a vein. A loose tendril of black hair slid from behind your ear, skipped across my skin as you raked your lavender nails across my wrists.
“Imagine an itch, the worst one that you’ve ever had, one that’s always just out of reach. Now think of an electric shock, your skin tingling like termites are beneath it, devouring you from the inside. Hear the screech of metal and metal, imagine that sound, whirring around your head, all the time, like teeth on tinfoil. Think of all of that, all ofthe time. That’s how it’ll be, it never goes away.”
I covered your scratches with silver bracelets, and stepped into my shimmery, silver dress, the one adorned with sequins and crystals that caught and reflected the spinning lights of the club. I rubbed the welts, for comfort, as I took a deep breath, and made my way through the faded velvet drapes, to the stage.
They came in when night fell, after the burnt fingers of the black trees had clawed the dying sun from the jaundiced sky.
They brought the darkness in with them, the doors swinging open to the smell of petrol and melting plastic, to a fusillade of drills and the steady drone of the machines, shadows that drowned out the music from our stereo and made our lilies wilt in their vases.
In that breath, before the hinges mercifully swung the doors back together, in those moments when we could hear the screams of our hunted men in the mountains, somehow we learned to smile. We took their long, leather coats, and led them to the soft couches. We poured them sparkling mineral water, with fat lemon wedges, into tall, curved glasses, ice-cubes clinking as we carried them over on ornate silver trays, our teeth gritted and our jaws clenched.
He motioned with his head, and I stood beside him, as he pulled the black chiffon scarf over the lamp. They saw better in the dark. Their eyes were still adapting, they were acclimatising, these people from an unknown, crushed coast of the universe, one that was all sable shingle that would tear the soles apart; streak the pebbles with blood.
I could feel his eyes, appraising me. He nodded. My palms were dry, and I felt sick, but I began to move, smiling as I felt his tentacles run across my hips, like underwater weeds, wrapping around me, his suckers clutched onto my skin. He felt as cold and as fast as mercury, and he was just as poisonous. I loosened my top, and peered into the folds of his hood, saw his red eyes squinting through the shadows. I’d never been this close to them before. Was it him?
They’d taken my family, yours too, setting up these clubs on the outskirts of the decimated city, for their own amusement, their little experiment. The women here were all refugees, knowing that it was this or the gulags, where they’d be forced to forage through their damp warehouses full of bodies, harvesting the eyes from those who were once their neighbours, their lovers, their children and their friends.
I closed my eyes, and kept them shut, until I felt the hum, until I had to push away.
We’d sleep in the attic above the club, falling onto the springy mattress as their trucks rattled across the graffited arches in the distance and their sirens endlessly wailed.
Brandy breath and raspberry lip-gloss; silver speckles of glitter on the white sheets so that they looked like silken coral on some impossible tropical isle. Your hair meshed inside my fingers, our limbs twisted like runes, cast out into onto the black poker velvet of the galaxy.
We danced each night, in the furthest corners of the club, not wanting to see the other pawed, devoured, in such a way. We never spoke about our customers, the things that they muttered in their guttural, indecipherable way that was all breath and broken English. We washed them away in the bathtub, both squeezed in until the water went cold, with petals in the tub like shards of confetti.
We’d lie in each others arms as the sun peered through the slats of the blind, making xylophones across our ribs, our fingers light as we played each other, this melody seeing us through the nights of endless dark, making us think that one day we’d get away, that one day it would change.
Two of our soldiers came by, in the morning, when it was safe. The one had lost a leg, the other had bandages around his face; they’d taken his eyes while he was still alive. They’d found their camp, killed the others, and they’d fled, running here when they saw our red silk gowns and corsets drying on the line, knowing that there were humans inside.
They told us about them, their experiments, their inseminations, the women torn apart days after fertilisation. Touching us weakened them, left them vulnerable. It killed us. But still, they were looking for a way.
We sat with them all afternoon, and gave them bread made from cornmeal and rye and cigarettes and warm dregs of red wine. You gave them jumpers, and socks, leftovers from our old lives, and you looked at me when they asked if they could stay.
I wanted to shake my head, to say no, to keep what we had, to keep us safe. I saw the bloody bandages on the counter, the trembles of tobacco on the young boy’s stained shirt, thought of my father, somewhere beyond the city, pleading for quarter at a rusted stone door. I nodded.
You and I had each other. Some had none. Celeste wanted to go to her son, who was safe with her sister across the river. She’d made a bargain, made a proposal, and bartered with them for goods. You and I watched her as she worked in the yard, her red hair tied back and the slap of the sun on the back of her neck, beneath the rusty, corrugated iron canopy. We watched silently as drilled holes in the perspex and placed rubber bathmats, still scented with jasmine and lily and the valley, on the floor.
“It’ll kill you, they won’t be able to control themselves” you said, watching as she hinged the four sides together. Was she an inventor? A scientist? A mechanic? I wondered what life she’d had before this. She wouldn’t say. None of the girls did. She ignored us, carrying it inside herself, brushing aside our offer of help.
She led five of them in, and we watched as they pushed their tentacles through the holes of her cubicle. Celeste perched on the top, naked, and then let herself drop, like a beautiful acrobat spiralling from a tight-rope. I looked away as their tentacles wrapped around her, and towards the clock, thirty seconds, forty, fifty.
The floor was buzzing; I could feel the
energy riding up, moving through my stilettos, making my stomach flip. They were pressed up against the perspex, desperate, like swatted moths, craving the light, dead but for their probing antennae. Bottles shook and the glasses rattled on the shelves. I could see the tension in her legs as she braced down, like somebody trying to find a grip in the sand in strong tide. Four minutes, five. Her eyes bulged as she tried to dispel their energy, her veins looked like they were about to pop, and then you were running over, breaking the spell, distracting them, leaving them to fall back onto the floor, gasping, like hooked fish left on the shore. You wrapped a towel around her and led her from the box, limp and pale, as she vowed never to do it again.
She did, the next night, and the next. Within a month her eyes liked like blown lightbulbs, and her hair fell out in clumps. Each time before they shut her in, she asked them about her son, and every time they nodded a lie.
The night they came was a sultry one, like the world was holding its breath. Footsteps beneath our open window, and then the crackle and hiss and the splintering of wood.
We ran, bare feet skidding along the floorboards, dreams flung over our shoulders as we plunged into nightmare. The soldiers had found a route, an underground passage that led to the old fire station, leading from the cellar.
We could hear their footsteps on the stairs as we grabbed the girls, trying to lead them out onto the roof, where we could drop to where the boys had hid the precious solar flares, the ones that would buy us precious seconds.
Celeste. Refusing to leave, screaming about her son, about how they’d make good on her bargain. My fingers in your elbow, pulling you away, Celeste clutching at your coat, pulling you down, slowing your down, the other girls pulling me away, out through the window into a black, starless night.
Lovecraft eZine Megapack - 2012 - Issues 10 through 20 Page 47
