Collected Stories and Poems

by Joseph Payne Brennan

  Along with scattered ash, pumice, and the puffed bodies of dead fish, the black horror was hurled towards a beach. The huge waves carried it more than a mile inland, far beyond die strip of sandy shore, and deposited it in the midst of a deep brackish swamp area.

  As luck would have it, the submarine explosion and subsequent tidal wave took place at night, and therefore the slime horror was not immediately subjected to a new and hateful experience - light.

  Although the midnight darkness of the storm-lashed swamp did not begin to compare with the stygian blackness of the sea bottom where even violet rays of the spectrum could not penetrate, the marsh darkness was nevertheless deep and intense.

  As the water of the great wave receded, sluicing through the thorn jungle and back out to sea, the black horror clung to a mud bank surrounded by a rank growth of cattails. It was aware of the sudden, startling change in its environment, and for some time it lay motionless, concentrating its attention on obscure internal readjustment which the absence of crushing pressure and a surrounding cloak of frigid sea water demanded. Its adaptability was incredible and horrifying. It achieved in a few hours what an ordinary creature could have attained only through a process of gradual evolution. Three hours after the titanic wave flopped it on to the mudbank, it had undergone swift organic changes which left it relatively at ease in its new environment.

  In fact, it felt lighter and more mobile than it ever had before in its sea basin existence.

  As it flung out feelers and attuned itself to the minutest vibrations and emanations of the swamp area, its pristine hunger drive reasserted itself with overwhelming urgency. And the tale which its sensory apparatus returned to the monstrous something which served it as a brain, excited it tremendously. It sensed at once that the swamp was filled with luscious tidbits of quivering food - more food, and food of a greater variety than it had ever encountered on the cold floor of the sea.

  Its savage, incessant hunger seemed unbearable. Its slimy mass was swept by a shuddering wave of anticipation.

  Sliding off the mud bank, it slithered over the cattails into an adjacent area consisting of deep black pools interspersed with water-logged tussocks. Weed stalks stuck up out of the water and the decayed trunks of fallen trees floated half-submerged in the larger pools.

  Ravenous with hunger, it sloshed into the bog area, flicking its tentacles about. Within minutes it had snatched up several fat frogs and a number of small fish. These, however, merely titillated its appetite. Its hunger turned into a kind of ecstatic fury. It commenced a systematic hunt, plunging to the bottom of each pool and quickly but carefully exploring every inch of its oozy bottom. The first creature of any size which it encountered was a muskrat. An immense curtain of adhesive slime suddenly swept out of the darkness, closed upon it - and squeezed.

  Heartened and whetted by its find, the hood of horror rummaged the rank pools with renewed zeal. When it surfaced, it carefully probed the tussocks for anything that might have escaped it in the water. Once it snatched up a small bird nesting in some swamp grass. Occasionally it slithered up the crisscrossed trunks of fallen trees, bearing them down with its unspeakable slimy bulk, and hung briefly suspended like a great dripping curtain of black marsh mud.

  It was approaching a somewhat less swampy and more deeply wooded area when it gradually became aware of a subtle change in its new environment. It paused, hesitating, and remained half in and half out of a small pond near the edge of the nearest trees.

  Although it had absorbed twenty-five or thirty pounds of food in the form of frogs, fish, water snakes, the muskrat, and a few smaller creatures, its fierce hunger had not left it. Its monstrous appetite urged it on, and yet something held it anchored in the pond.

  What it sensed, but could not literally see, was the rising sun spreading a grey light over the swamp. The horror had never encountered any illumination except that generated by the grotesque phosphorescent appendages of various deep-sea fishes. Natural light was totally unknown to it.

  As the dawn light strengthened, breaking through the scattering storm clouds, the black slime monster fresh from the inky floor of the sea sensed that something utterly unknown was flooding in upon it. Light was hateful to it. It cast out quick feelers, hoping to catch and crush the light. But the more frenzied its efforts became, the more intense became the abhorred aura surrounding it.

  At length, as the sun rose visibly above the trees, the horror, in baffled rage rather than in fear, grudgingly slid back into the pond and burrowed into the soft ooze of its bottom. There it remained while the sun shone and the small creatures of the swamp ventured forth on furtive errands.

  ***

  A few miles away from Wharton’s Swamp, in the small town of Clinton Center, Henry Hossing sleepily crawled out of the improvised alley shack which had afforded him a degree of shelter for the night and stumbled into the street. Passing a hand across his rheumy eyes, he scratched the stubble on his cheek and blinked listlessly at the rising sun. He had not slept well; the storm of the night before had kept him awake. Besides, he had gone to bed hungry, and that never agreed with him.

  Glancing furtively along the street, he walked slouched forward, with his head bent down, and most of the time he kept his eyes on the walk or on the gutter in the hopes of spotting a chance coin.

  Clinton Center had not been kind to him. The handouts were sparse, and only yesterday he had been warned out of town by one of the local policemen.

  Grumbling to himself, he reached the end of the street and started to cross. Suddenly he stooped quickly and snatched up something from the edge of the pavement.

  It was a crumpled green bill, and as he frantically unfolded it, a look of stupefied rapture spread across his bristly face. Ten dollars! More money than he had possessed at any one time in months!

  Stowing it carefully in the one good pocket of his seedy grey jacket, he crossed the street with a swift stride. Instead of sweeping the sidewalks, his eyes now darted along the rows of stores and restaurants.

  He paused at one restaurant, hesitated, and finally went on until he found another less pretentious one a few blocks away.

  When he sat down, the counterman shook his head. ‘Get going, bud. No free coffee today.’

  With a wide grin, the hobo produced his ten-dollar bill and spread it on the counter. ‘That covers a good breakfast here, pardner?’

  The counterman seemed irritated. ‘O.K. O.K. What’ll you have?’ He eyed the bill suspiciously.

  Henry Hossing ordered orange juice, toast, ham and eggs, oatmeal, melon, and coffee.

  When it appeared, he ate every bit of it, ordered three additional cups of coffee, paid the cheque as if two-dollar breakfasts were customary with him, and then sauntered back to the street.

  Shortly after noon, after his three-dollar lunch, he saw the liquor store. For a few minutes he stood across the street from it, fingering his five-dollar bill. Finally he crossed with an abstracted smile, entered and bought a quart of rye.

  He hesitated on the sidewalk, debating whether or not he should return to the little shack in the side alley. After a minute or two of indecision, he decided against it and struck out instead for Wharton’s Swamp. The local police were far less likely to disturb him there, and since the skies were clearing and the weather mild, there was little immediate need of shelter.

  Angling off the highway which skirted the swamp several miles from town, he crossed a marshy meadow, pushed through a fringe of bush, and sat down under a sweet-gum tree which bordered a deeply wooded area.

  By late afternoon he had achieved a quite cheerful glow, and he had little inclination to return to Clinton Center. Rousing himself from reverie, he stumbled about collecting enough wood for a small fire and went back to his sylvan seat under the sweet-gum.

  He slept briefly as dusk descended, but finally bestirred himself again to build a fire, as deeper shadows fell over the swamp. Then he returned to his swiftly diminishing bottle. He was suspended in a warm net of i
nflamed fantasy when something abruptly broke the spell and brought him back to earth.

  The flickering flames of his fire had dwindled down until now only a dim eerie glow illuminated the immediate area under the sweet-gum. He saw nothing and at the moment heard nothing, and yet he was filled with a sudden and profound sense of lurking menace.

  He stood up, staggering, leaned back against the sweet- gum and peered fearfully into the shadows. In the deep darkness beyond the waning arc of firelight he could distinguish nothing which had any discernible form or colour.

  Then he detected the stench and shuddered. In spite of the reek of cheap whisky which clung around him, the smell was overpowering. It was a heavy, fulsome fetid, alien, and utterly repellent. It was vaguely fish-like, but otherwise beyond any known comparison.

  As he stood trembling under the sweet-gum, Henry Hossing thought of something dead which had lain for long ages at the bottom of the sea.

  Filled with mounting alarm, he looked around for some wood which he might add to the dying fire. All he could find nearby, however, were a few twigs. He threw these on and the flames licked up briefly and subsided.

  He listened and heard - or imagined he heard - an odd sort of slithering sound in the nearby bushes. It seemed to retreat slightly as lie flames shot up.

  Genuine terror took possession of him. He knew that he was in no condition to flee - and now he came to the horrifying conclusion that whatever unspeakable menace waited in the surrounding darkness was temporarily held at bay only by the failing gleam of his little fire.

  Frantically he looked around for more wood. But there was none. None, that is, within the faint glow of firelight. And he dared not venture beyond.

  He began to tremble uncontrollably. He tried to scream, but no sound came out of his tightened throat.

  The ghastly stench became stronger, and now he was sure that he could hear a strange sliding, slithering sound in the black shadows beyond the remaining spark of firelight.

  He stood frozen in absolute helpless panic as the tiny fire smouldered down into darkness.

  At the last instant a charred bit of wood broke apart, sending up a few sparks, and in that flicker of final light he glimpsed the horror.

  It had already glided out of the bushes, and now it rushed across the small clearing with nightmare speed. It was a final incarnation of all the fears, shuddering apprehensions, and bad dreams which Henry Hossing had ever known in his life. It was a fiend from the pit of Hell come to claim him at last.

  A terrible ringing scream burst from his throat, but it was smothered before it was finished as the black shape of slime fastened upon him with irresistible force.

  ***

  Giles Gowse - ‘Old Man’ Gowse - got out of bed after eight hours of fitful tossing and intermittent nightmares and grouchilv brewed coffee in the kitchen of his dilapidated farmhouse on the edge of Wharton’s Swamp. Half the night, it seemed, the stench of stale sea-water had permeated the house.

  His interrupted sleep had been full of foreboding, full of shadowy and evil portents.

  Muttering to himself, he finished breakfast, took a milk pail from the pantry, and started for the barn where he kept his single cow.

  As he approached the barn, the strange offensive odour which had plagued him during the night assailed his nostrils anew.

  ‘Wharton’s Swamp! That’s what it is!’ he told himself. And he shook his fist at it.

  When he entered the barn the stench was stronger than ever. Scowling, he strode towards the rickety stall where he kept the cow, Sarey.

  Then he stood still and stared. Sarey was gone. The stall was empty.

  He re-entered the barnyard. ‘Sarey!’ he called.

  Rushing back into the bam, he inspected the stall. The rancid reek of the sea was strong here, and now he noticed a kind of shine on the floor. Bending closer, he saw that it was a slick coat of glistening slime, as if some unspeakable creature covered with ooze had crept in and out of the stall.

  This discovery, coupled with the weird disappearance of Sarey, was too much for his jangled nerves. With a wild yell he ran out of the bam and started for Clinton Center, two miles away.

  His reception in the town enraged him. When he tried to tell people about the disappearance of his cow, Sarey, about the reek of sea and ooze in his bam the night before, they laughed at him. The more impolite ones, that is. Most of the others patiently heard him out - and then winked and touched their heads significantly when he was out of sight.

  One man, the druggist, Jim Jelinson, seemed mildly interested. He said that as he was coming through his backyard from the garage late the previous evening, he had heard a fearful shriek somewhere in the distant darkness. It might, he averred, have come from the direction of Wharton’s Swamp. But it had not been repeated and eventually he had dismissed it from his mind.

  When Old Man Gowse started for home late in the afternoon he was filled with sullen, resentful bitterness. They thought he was crazy, eh? Well, Sarey was gone; they couldn’t explain that away, could they? They explained the smell by saying it was dead fish cast up by the big wave which had washed into the swamp during the storm. Well - maybe. And the slime on his bam floor they said was snails. Snails! As if any he’d ever seen could cause that much slime!

  As he was nearing home, he met Rupert Barnaby, his nearest neighbour. Rupert was carrying a rifle and he was accompanied by Jibbe, his hound.

  Although there had been an element of bad blood between the two bachelor neighbours for some time, Old Man Gowse, much to Barnaby’s surprise, nodded and stopped.

  ‘Evenin’ hunt, neighbour?’

  Barnaby nodded. ‘Thought Jibbe might start up a coon. Moon later, likely.’

  ‘My cow’s gone,’ Old Man Gowse said abrupdy. ‘If you should see her —’ He paused. ‘But I don’t think you will...

  Barnaby, bewildered, stared at him. ‘What you gettin’ at?’

  Old Man Gowse repeated what he had been telling all day in Clinton Center.

  He shook his head when he finished, adding, ‘I wouldn’t go huntin’ in that swamp tonight fur - ten thousand dollars!’

  Rupert Barnaby threw back his head and laughed. He was a big man, muscular, resourceful, and level-headed - little given to even mild flights of the imagination.

  ‘Gowse,’ he laughed, ‘no use you givin’ me those spook stories! Your cow got loose and wandered off. Why, I ain’t even seen a bobcat in that swamp for over a year! ’

  Old Man Gowse set his lips in a grim line. ‘Maybe,’ he said, as he turned away, ‘you’ll see suthin’ worse than a wildcat in that swamp tonight! ’

  Shaking his head, Barnaby took after his impatient hound. Old Man Gowse was getting queer all right. One of these days he’d probably go off altogether and have to be locked up.

  Jibbe ran ahead, sniffing, darting from one ditch to another. As twilight closed in, Barnaby angled off the main road on to a twisting path which led into Wharton’s Swamp.

  He loved hunting. He would rather tramp through the brush than sit home in an easy chair. And even if an evening’s foray turned up nothing, he didn’t particularly mind. Actually he made out quite well; at least half his meat supply consisted of the rabbits, racoons, and occasional deer which he brought down in Wharton’s Swamp.

  When the moon rose, he was deep in the swamp. Twice Jibbe started off after rabbits, but both times he returned quickly, looking somewhat sheepish.

  Something about his actions began to puzzle Barnaby. The dog seemed reluctant to move ahead; he hung direcdy in front of the hunter. Once Barnaby tripped over him and nearly fell headlong.

  The hunter paused finally, frowning, and looked ahead. The swamp appeared no different than usual. True, a rather offensive stench hung over it, but that was merely the result of the big waves which had splashed far inland during the recent storm. Probably an accumulation of seaweed and the decaying bodies of some dead fish lay rotting in the stagnant pools of the swamp.

  Barnaby spo
ke sharply to the dog. ‘What ails you, boy? Git, now! You trip me again, you’ll get a boot!’

  The dog started ahead some distance, but with an air of reluctance. He sniffed the clumps of marsh grass in a perfunctory manner and seemed to have lost interest in the hunt.

  Barnaby grew exasperated. Even when they discovered the fresh track of a racoon in the soft mud near a little pool, Jibbe manifested only slight interest.

  He did run on ahead a little further, however, and Barnaby began to hope that, as they closed in, he would regain his customary enthusiasm.

  In this he was mistaken. As they approached a thickly wooded area, latticed with tree thorns and covered with a heavy growth of cattails, the dog suddenly crouched in the shadows and refused to budge.

  Barnaby was sure that the racoon had taken refuge in the nearby thickets. The dog’s unheard of conduct infuriated him.

  After a number of sharp cuffs, Jibbe arose stiffly and moved ahead, the hair on his neck bristled up like a lion’s mane.

  Swearing to himself, Barnaby pushed into the darkened thickets after him.

  It was quite black under the trees, in spite of the moonlight, and he moved cautiously in order to avoid stepping into a pool.

  Suddenly, with a frantic yelp of terror, Jibbe literally darted between his legs and shot out of the thickets. He ran on, howling weirdly as he went.

  For the first time that evening Barnaby experienced a thrill of fear. In all his previous experience, Jibbe had never turned tail. On one occasion he had even plunged in after a sizeable bear.

  Scowling into the deep darkness, Barnaby could see nothing. There were no baleful eyes glaring at him.

  As his own eyes tried to penetrate the surrounding blackness, he recalled Old Man Gowse’s warning with a bitter grimace. If the old fool happened to spot Jibbe streaking out of the swamp, Barnaby would never hear the end of it.

  The thought of this angered him. He pushed ahead now with a feeling of sullen rage for whatever had terrified the dog. A good rifle shot would solve the mystery.