by S. T. Joshi
Most people don’t know exactly how an internal combustion engine functions, but they drive automobiles. In kind, Denker’s device could transcend space-time boundaries; the point was that it worked. Never mind that on the other side of the boundary might be a group of surly cosmic Vastators, or the displaced First Gods of our entire existence, itching for a rematch now that we have evolved, devised technology, and gotten ourselves so damned civilized.
A long time ago, I used to have a lit-crit friend who was enchanted by the idea of haunts—in particular, living quarters in which resonant works of literature were conceived, the way that James M. Cain wrote Double Indemnity while resident in his “Upside-Down House” in the Hollywood Hills. If it was true that the most dedicated writers “lived, ate, slept, drank and shat” their way through their most lasting works, might not some of that ectoplasmic effluvia generate a mood or lingering charge of unsettled energy, the sort of thing ordinary people might classify as a ghost?
My interest was not in Denker’s book. That seemed too risky. So I sought out the place where Denker’s book was not so much written as assembled, collated.
The locale, you might have guessed. It is dead now. The structures engird no whispers. The “charge” was long gone, if it ever existed. No negative energy. No ghosts.
Because it had all gone into the book.
By then, naturally, the world was dealing with other problems. Disequilibration was, in many ways, the most predictable outcome.
Throughout history, certain individuals had sought to destroy the book, not realizing the futility of the attempt. In the state Denker used it, it could not be destroyed. It could only be discomponentialized—taken apart the same way it had been put together. Except now that it was whole, it could only be handled in certain limited ways, and none of those would permit its possible destruction. Again, as I have said—contradictions. Did Denker have the book, whole and entire, in a single place? We may never know. Thus, when I reference “the book,” we are speaking of whatever grand assembly Denker managed, which stays in my mind as his true achievement.
One mishandling of the book caused peculiar incipient radiations—or new colors and sounds, if you will. Unfathomable byproducts and side-effects. This was one reason Denker insisted his cumbersome bronze-and-cast-iron device had to be tested in outer space.
This achieved two important goals: It removed the book briefly from the physical surface of the Earth, and it guaranteed Denker’s deception would be a long time unraveling.
I saw in Denker’s journals that he noted, early in the experiment, that animals were profoundly affected by the proximity of the book. Animals lack the ameliorative intellect by which humans justify insanity.
If one is inflexible and devoted to an illusion of normalcy—stability, permanence, reality—then the break is always harsher. The more rules there are to violate, the more violations there will be, because what we call reality is an interpretative construct of the human mind; a reality we re-make every day to deny the howling nothingness of existence and the meaningless tragedy of life. Bacilli have no such concerns. They just are. They can’t be horrified or elated.
Denker’s two safety margins were time and space. Many of his translations—the words from the book—were not meant to be in the same place at the same time, not even as ones and zeros in a database. The whole of it, as I have said, was tricky to handle. There was no manual for this sort of thing. This was completely new, untried, unsaid, undone.
In the end, Denker realized that ultimately all his equipment was not needed. The physical hardware briefly won him that fickle Nobel Prize, but all he had really needed was the book. He had already achieved what we have agreed to call a break from reality, but in the end people are more comfortable saying that he just snapped.
I think it is overreachingly grandiloquent and silly to blame Denker for the downslide of the entire planet. Haven’t you noticed that long before the incident, we had already become so biosensitive that we could not even travel without getting sick? I think the Earth is simply evolving, and it is not for us anymore.
In the midst of all that I have told you, it might be said that Denker himself fragmented. His mind went elsewhere.
And if you could find me, you could probably find Denker too, but it’s not really Denker you’re interested in, is it? You’re after the book, just like the ones before you.
Now, of course, the fashion is to impugn Denker for the way the sky looks at night. For the night itself, since I have heard that the sun no longer rises. I have not been able to bear witness to the other stories I have heard about the freezing cold or the sounds of beasts feeding.
But once I find a way to free myself from this room, I am going to seek out Denker and ask him to explain it to me.
Inhabitants of Wraithwood
W. H. PUGMIRE
W. H. Pugmire is a widely published and popular author of Lovecraftian stories, including the volumes Dreams of Lovecraftian Horror (Mythos Books, 1999), Sesqua Valley and Other Haunts (Delirium Books, 2003), and The Fungal Stain (Hippocampus Press, 2006). An omnibus of his collected weird fiction is forthcoming from Centipede Press.
I AWAKENED TO THE RAUCOUS CRY OF CROWS AND pushed my torso away from the tree beneath which I had fallen asleep. Where the hell was I? I remembered deciding not to return to the halfway house where I was completing my time for three counts of bank robbery, after doing two years in federal prison. I think the prison officials let me out early because they were impressed with my intellect and good manners. I had been the first inmate on record who had requested a one-volume Complete Works of Shakespeare. I ain’t no intellectual, but I’ve been raised by a woman who taught literature and art in college. One of my fondest memories was of my seventh birthday, when Mom took me to a thrilling production of Cymbeline, a play with which I was familiar from bedtime readings of Shakespeare since infancy. When I listen to or read Shakespeare, I hear my mother’s voice. Loving the plays is loving her.
Yes, I screwed up. After her early death, I didn’t care about anything, fell in with “bad types” and learned to enjoy petty crime. Drug addiction heightened my criminal tendencies, and I got hooked on danger. Doing time was no hassle. I read a lot of good books and improved my education. But the goons and clueless “therapists” in the halfway house were too insulting to be endured, and so I didn’t return one day from job hunting, robbed a store from which I stole a couple of bottles of choice whiskey, hijacked a weakling’s car and drove until the petrol ran out. After that things get a bit blurry, thanks to the booze. I sort of remember hoofing it for quite a while, and then stopping to rest after climbing a hill and entering a woodland. I guess I passed out beneath the oak tree.
It must have been early dusk when at last I came to my senses. The sky still held a quality of violet, and a low orange moon hung like some gigantic disc in heaven. I’ve never liked the way the moon looks at me, and so I threw my empty bottle at it; and then I noticed the other glow, the moving lamplight that slowly approached and became a lantern held by Jesus. This Christ was a tall red-headed dude with dark, penetrating eyes, attired in what looked like a suit from the 1920s. He stopped a few feet from me, and the moon directly behind his head looked like some illuminated halo as one sees in the works of Cimabue or Giotto. Moaning, I made an effort to stand up, becoming aware of the dampness at my crotch and the stink of urine. I began to laugh. “Drink, sir, is a great provoker, of sleeping and piss,” I told Jesus, paraphrasing the Immortal Bard.
“Are you in need of shelter?” asked my savior.
“Shelter would be cool, good fellow,” says me, struggling to my feet and working diligently to steady my sense of balance. The gentleman turned and walked away. Guessing that I was meant to follow, I stumbled through the growing darkness, passing a large sunken pond as I moved beneath and out of the mass of oak trees. We crossed a wide dirt roadway and approached a two-story building situated on the crest of a mammoth hill. Looking down the hill I saw a small tow
n twinkling its lights as day expired. The building looked of the same era as the silent man’s dress. Perhaps it had been some kind of hotel-cum-speakeasy in the Prohibition era. Why else would it be situated up here, so far from the rest of town?
Jesus led me into an anteroom that contained a couple of chairs and bureau on top of which were delicate bits of objet d’art. A stairway led to the second floor. We stepped through double doors into a charming sitting room filled with what looked like choice antiques. A brass chandelier softly illuminated the room, and one of the several small sofas looked especially inviting. I sat in it and sank into its comfortable depths. I saw that Jesus had abandoned me, and I assumed he had gone to fetch me a change of clothing. Leaning toward the low coffee table in front of the sofa, I grabbed hold of the large album of red leather that lay there, which turned out to be a heavy photo album.
My mother had taught art and literature to university brats, and so our home had been packed with quality books. I had delighted in pouring over those picture books when I was a kid, long before the text explaining the artwork was of interest. Mom had always encouraged me to be imaginative, and many of our games together, after father had left us, consisted of trying our hand at copying great works of art, our tools being color crayons, watercolor, and children’s modeling clay. (My Play-do Pietà had been a deliciously somber affair.) Because I am by nature lazy, I never advanced in art or literature, although I had a modicum of talent. I was a curious and tragic combination of intellect and debauchery, and my high priest was Oscar Wilde. I was equally comfortable in either a museum of classical art or in the lowest mire of Malebolge. Art was one of my sanest obsessions. And thus, when I opened this oversized leather binder and began to study the photographs within, I was instantly mesmerized.
I recognized the first photograph as a kind of take on Caspar David Friedrich’s Raven Tree; but instead of an actual tree the main focus in the print was an outrageously lean old guy with long hair and beard, who had contorted himself to mimic the shape of Friedrich’s tree. The sky above the fellow was crowded with crows, one of which had perched on his scrawny shoulder. The photo’s sepia tone suggested that it was an extremely old print.
Turning the leaf, I saw that the next photo was a wicked parody of the Mona Lisa. The ancient woman pictured, old and haggard though she be, still contained a degree of facial beauty. She had been a seductress in her day. The diabolic smile unnerved me, as did the hand that clutched one wrist, digging a talon into thin flesh. A single drop of blood upon that talon was the photo’s one touch of vivid color.
The next photo was Jesus, posing with his lantern and attired with a gown of what looked like silken gold. Over the gown he wore an embroidered cloak, and a curious crown of metallic thorns adorned his dome. He was standing within the grove of oaks, knocking upon one tree. Unlike the two previous images, this one was new and full of color.
Ah, how I sighed when I turned the leaf and beheld the next image, for it copied my favorite painting, Fuseli’s The Nightmare, and this photographic representation was superb. Where they had found a creature who so resembled Fuseli’s incubus was beyond conjecture. There were, however, unnerving anomalies. The gremlin in the photograph was tragically incomplete, missing both legs and all its fingers. One stunted paw leaned against the thing’s chin, near its mouth, and one could not escape the suggestion that the beast had been supping on its corporeal tissue.
The woman on whom the daemon squatted was dressed in white, as in the original painting, but her hair was dark and fell in such a way as to conceal most of her face. Unlike the original, her mouth did not frown. Above the woman and her incubus, to the viewer’s left, an equine skull peeked through an opening in the curtain behind the bed.
I shifted in my seat, and the smell of my soiled pants drifted to me. Feeling restless, I shut the album and got up to investigate the room. Upon one wall was a large painting of an oak grove at night-time. Arching over the trees was what looked like a pale lunar rainbow, and I seemed to remember some such effect in a painting by Friedrich. It certainly produced an eerie effect. Dim winged specks, which I took to be night birds, spotted the darkened dimension.
Sensing company, I turned to face the beings who were watching me. The woman, tall and slender, was dressed in a long black gown of antique silk, its tight brocade collar decorated with raised patterns in gold and silver. Gloves of black lace covered dainty hands, and a veil concealed the details of an emaciated face. I could just make out the pale and colorless eyes that observed me. She stood behind a ramshackle wheelchair that was occupied by the incubus from the photograph I had earlier been admiring. I stared at that impish visage with its sickly hue, at the yellow eyes and bulbous nose, at the blue veins that lined the grotesque face.
“Welcome to Wraithwood,” the gnome sighed, in a high child-like voice. “Philippe has gone to find you clothing. You could benefit from a bath. Pera has a wee bathroom adjoining her room. Follow her, please.”
“Thank you, uh...” I hesitated, not knowing how to address him, not wanting to shake the malformed hand. When I studied the right hand, I saw that it differed from the photograph, having two stunted fingers where in the photograph there were none.
“Eblis Mauran,” he offered, bowing his head.
“Hank Foster,” I said, smiling. The silent woman held a hand to me, then turned to a door near a corner. I followed her into a hallway and through another door that entered on a spacious boudoir. Undoing my shirt buttons, I watched as she went into a small bathroom and began to run a bath, sprinkling various salts from antique jars into the running water. I thanked her, but she said nothing as she ushered me into the bathroom and shut the door. I tested the water for heat, then undressed and stepped into the tub. The effect was instantaneous. My groans of pleasure rose with the steam as sore limbs and soiled flesh relaxed. I barely noticed when Jesus quietly entered with an armful of clean clothing, which he placed atop the closed toilet seat. I momentarily froze as he bent and placed a hand into the water, joined to it his other hand, then brought the hands above my head and let the cupped water drop over my hair. Smiling, he turned off the running water, rose, and vacated the room.
Okay, I thought as a scrubbed myself, I’ve entered into a house full of loonies and queers. Pulling the plug, I listened as the water drained, then stepped out of the tub and reached for a nearby towel. Examining the clothes, I saw that they were from an earlier decade; but they fit well enough, and I rather liked the way I looked in the full-length mirror, nothing like the alcoholic drug addict I had become since Mother’s death.
I opened the door and entered Pera’s dusky room. The place was semi-lit by various wall fixtures that resembled candles in holders, each candle topped by an electric flame. The furnishings were all dark, with long blue-purple drapery at the windows. A black bedspread covered the commodious bed. The young woman rested upon the bed, very still, resembling a lifeless husk on its deathbed. Her frail arms clutched a length of sturdy rope. I stepped to the bed and knelt next to it, as if I were preparing to pray for the soul of a departed loved one. I touched the rope, and her head moved so that the pale eyes behind the veil gazed into my own.
She then began to sing; and as I watched the vague impression of her mouth behind its curtain of lace, I felt a chill. The song was from my mother’s favorite play.
“He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone;
At his head a grass-green turf,
At his heels a stone.”
I was uncertain of what line actually followed, and thus I recited the line I knew. “How do you, pretty lady?”
Pera smiled and blew at the veil, and some of her soft sweet air lightly touched my face. Then she turned away from me and stared at the ceiling. I moved my vision to the painting on the wall above the bed. It, too, had been one of Mother’s favorite works of art, John Everett Millais’s Ophelia. This somewhat explained the strange girl’s song. Looking at her again, I saw that her eyes were close
d. Mutely, I vacated the room.
I was uncertain what way led to the main room, for there were doors on either end of the hallway. But then the sound of someone playing music in the room next to Pera’s caught my attention. Through the partially parted doorway came a smell of incense. Gingerly, I pushed at the door with the toe of my shoe. A small man sat on the floor, playing a kind of Egyptian music on a short-necked lute. I laughed silently, for the tiny guy closely resembled the Hungarian film actor Peter Lorre. The piece he played was simple yet expressive, and to its cadence danced the creature named Eblis. Dance, of course, is a generous verb, given that the fellow had no legs. And yet he was not clumsy as he stood upon his stumps and moved with a kind of nimbleness, now and then smacking together the palms of his fragmentary hands. The dancer noticed me and wickedly smirked, his ochrous eyes twinkling.
The music ceased, and Eblis moved to his wheelchair as swiftly as a scuttling insect. The other fellow observed me from his position on the floor. “Ah, the new guest.”
“Yes,” I answered, and then quickly corrected myself. “No, actually. I’ve had some trouble with my car a ways back. One of your compatriots found me sleeping in that grove of oaks and brought me here to clean up. So, what is this place, a hotel or something?”
“Or something. Just a collection of lost souls, you might say, gathered accidentally—fatefully.” He shrugged and laughed. “So, the old crone hasn’t had you sign yet?”
“Sorry?” He shrugged again and got to his feet, throwing his instrument onto the narrow bed. Seeing the painting above that bed I went to it and touched a finger to its surface. It was a painting rather than a print, although it had not been varnished. The image seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place it. What interested me was that the sitter was almost a dead ringer for the small man who now sat upon the bed. “Wow, this could be you.”
