Dark Seed

by Simon West-Bulford

  I had taken only four steps before she whispered to me: “How far is it to Weytonset?”

  “From the church, if I follow the river, it will be three miles. If I keep to the paths, probably four. Whichever route I choose, it will take at least an hour and a half before I cross the village border.”

  “Which way shall we go?”

  I stopped, crouched, and looked her sternly in the eye. “We are not going to Weytonset. You will be with your parents.”

  Dimples formed on her cheeks as she pouted. “Which way shall we go to the church, then?”

  I looked away. I knew she shared my doubts about what we would find there and that she was only reluctantly playing along with the idea that all would be well when we arrived. “We should keep to these backstreets and avoid the exposed paths,” I said, standing again. “It may take longer, but I believe the risk to be significantly less.”

  “I agree,” she said with a confident nod. “But before we go any farther, I insist that you eat. You have packed bread but have not taken a bite of anything since I met you.”

  I smiled at her. She had adopted an attitude of maturity, authorizing my decision as young ladies do, and then set about taking control, but her hand was still shaking. I too was very much ill at ease, and not hungry, yet this symbiosis born through our shared masking of fear could prove important to our constitution and survival.

  “Only if you eat too.”

  “Of course,” she said. “But you must eat most of it. My mother always says that a stout stomach makes for a stout heart, and you are far too thin.”

  I had to stifle a laugh, but it was a welcome feeling amidst our troubles. We returned to the house and shared bread, cheese, and water at a leisurely pace before setting off again. It was a pleasant but brief respite from my qualms, a naïve effort to deny the cloying doubt about my decision to go to the church. I knew what we would find, and every second spent in the claustrophobic and foggy backstreets en route would be a second courting death. Conversely, the road to Weytonset was completely exposed, which seemed an equally hazardous prospect. And there was no guarantee our neighboring village had survived this calamity either.

  But I could not, dared not, dwell on such things. Our greatest enemy now was not the beasts. It was not even fear. It was hopelessness. Hope was the one force sustaining both Lucy and me as we slipped silently through alley, path, and street.

  As we progressed, I noted that the luminous mist was thinner in some areas. This bolstered my hope, giving me reason to assume that, eventually, there would be no fog at all, signaling a border to this insanity. But our hope was fragile, and with the diminishing mist came constant reminders that Dennington Cross was lost. Not one street lamp was working, houses were abandoned, the people were gone or hiding, and there was frequent bloody evidence of fighting splashed on pavement and wall. My head continued to ache and I felt my resolve seeping like blood from a wound. Nevertheless, we made our way to the church and a full hour passed before I started to grow weary. Had it not been for the tall spire of St. James’s Church rising above the mist, I may have yielded to depression and fatigue, but as we turned that fateful corner, I saw the cross proudly displayed, and something gentle stirred within me. Fresh hope. Perhaps even faith.

  I stopped to stare at this simple sign, holding Lucy close. In the wake of the new scientific enlightenment sweeping our world, I had shunned the religious movements of our time, but now this crucifix was a beacon to me. The creatures, the fog, the howl, the absence of day—I had so stubbornly clung to the crutches of common reason that I hadn’t yet accepted the idea that these phenomena were supernatural. But then there before me was the power behind the cross, calming me, pushing me forward. Untainted in its iridescent glory, it was a symbol of supernatural dominion—a force perhaps more powerful than the creatures that had besieged us, and it granted me permission to wonder whether our foe was indeed otherworldly. This glimmer of external help before me, the chance that people had survived within those walls, offered me a crumb of hope.

  I was still tormented by my failure in Chester Street earlier, but I was determined that the coward in me should die and a new man be resurrected. What better place to sanctify that commitment than in God’s house? Years of resistance to religious belief fought within me, but so desperate was I to secure help that I clung wholeheartedly to this tender shoot of faith.

  I looked down at Lucy. She stared indifferently at the church doors, and I knew she did not expect to find anyone alive inside. I could not fathom the feelings she must have been locking away as we prepared to go in. How selfish it was of me to indulge my navel-gazing when Lucy’s future hung on what we would find here. Whether her parents were still alive or not, for now she was reliant upon me, and I would not shirk this responsibility.

  I tightened my grip on her hand, stiffened my jaw, and we crept like thieves into the misty graveyard toward the church entrance. I glanced to my left as we hurried on, careful not to let Lucy’s hand slip from my grasp. Though they were still obscured by the slow, swirling, coppery mist, I sensed the beasts lurking. Or feeding. We were mere paces away from the porch entrance now. The little side windows were aflicker with candle flame, but there was something wrong: a red tint to the glow, dark smears over the doors and walls. I tried to resist the temptation to sink back into an attitude of defeat, but when I nudged the door to enter, my stomach sickened at the sight of a twisted limb through the crack. A body obstructed our entrance.

  I leaned hard into the door with my shoulder, grimacing as the body on the other side slid back. I covered Lucy’s eyes as I entered, keeping her close to my side, intending only to check for survivors. The sight that greeted me will haunt me always. It was like a blow to the stomach, instantly deflating my brief enthusiasm.

  A hundred candles, perhaps more, had been lit and were almost burned to the ends of their wicks, leaving waxy pools beneath them. The flames were steady, painting the legacy of carnage with a soft golden light. The few stained-glass windows that were not smashed were matted with bodily substances, the pews were splintered—some even turned upright against the walls—and half-digested bodies had been heaped in front of the altar as if in mockery of the god that did not save them.

  In shock, half dazed, I let go of Lucy and walked slowly through the bloody chaos to the pulpit. There, thrust against the wall, I saw the torn remains of a priest, deliberately stretched out in the position of crucifixion, immolated, but defiant to the last; his fingers tight around the crucifix with which he must have threatened the creatures.

  Lucy called out to me from the back of the church. She was sitting in the sticky remains of chewed cadavers, staring around her like a distracted toddler in a sandpit, as if the magnitude of destruction on display here was too great to process.

  I, however, had to exercise every atom of restraint to combat my emotions. Seeing her like that filled me with a fathomless pity.

  “They must have been so afraid,” she said.

  “Yes,” I said quietly. “We should leave. The beasts may have seen us enter and we cannot fight an enemy that invokes such terror.”

  “No, I mean the monsters. I think they were afraid. Look.”

  Lucy had noticed something important, something subtle: this footprint of violence stamped into the church had the feel of desperation about it. This was not simply the unrestrained frenzy of gluttony. There was purpose in their tirade, as if they were enraged by their victims’ stand of faith. I may have misinterpreted Lucy’s meaning or jumped to a desperate conclusion, but it seemed that the creatures may even have felt threatened by the collective belief of these people. Why else would such a terrible example have been made of the priest? This was my own leap of faith: to believe that these creatures feared the retribution of God.

  With the odor of death in my nostrils, I did not want to spend any more time there, but as I returned to Lucy with my hand outstretched to invite her along, a curiosity caught my eye. A glint of copper, like the gle
am of a lubricated cog in sunlight. The flash came from the arched doorframe as I approached it, and upon closer examination, I saw that the glint was indeed reflecting off metal. Like ivy infesting a tree, cords of oily segmented metal were woven over and into the wood. But to liken it to a climbing plant was to suggest a benevolent connection to nature, to something living, and this was not so. Whatever this infestation was, it seemed closer kin to death—skeletal in form—as though a spine had grown out of the doorframe. Looking about me, I noticed the same segmented growths had infested much of the church. It had crept between the cracks in the brickwork, pushed up the mortar joining the flagstones, and coiled around the bloodstained base of the altar like a copper serpent.

  I could stay no longer.

  I thought it best not to make mention of her parents as we exited the church; her protective shell of indifference was beginning to crack, and I saw tears quivering in her eyes.

  “There is no doubt now, Lucy,” I said. “We must leave for Weytonset without delay.”

  But no sooner had the words left my lips than we were made aware of a disturbance. A length of fog had cleared west of the graveyard, revealing the rectory and a small farmhouse at the end of the adjacent field at the top of a hill. There were noises: the clang and crack of farming tools brandished against stone and anvil in threat, voices raised in defiance and alarm—two women and several men, I discerned. Lucy and I peered from behind the corner of the church into the receding fog, and just outside the doors of a barn next to the farmhouse, I could make out the shape of a small crowd bravely guarding it, and for the first time, I could see the pale fiends in their exposed form. They were prowling, circling the farmers, their breath gushing hot in the air, their wet sinewy limbs moving slowly but purposefully, their size terrible. Though the fog was thinner around the barn, I still could not see the creatures in greater detail because of our distance from them, but the defeated wailing of the men and the cries of the women as the beasts surrounded their prey were enough to convince me it was a mercy not to behold them.

  Hurriedly, I pulled Lucy’s face to my chest as, one by one, the victims fell. The silhouettes of that grisly dance of supping undulation as the beasts lapped up the remains of their kill was torture enough for my eyes, but the sounds were worse. The screams gave way to pain-filled moaning, which in turn gave way to ripping and tearing and sucking of flesh, and I could not shield Lucy’s ears from this horror. She squealed; it was the sound of innocence torn from youth. I retreated behind the corner of the church porch, one hand pressed against her mouth in the vain hope that we would not be detected. But it was too late. The sounds of bestial gluttony ceased abruptly at Lucy’s exclamation, and I feared the worst.

  Holding her back, I peeked around the corner, knowing what I would see. And there they were: four nightmares heading our way with the slow grace of the hunter. I still could not see their faces, and I did not want to. I had to act quickly if we were to survive.

  “Run as fast as you can back where we came from, back to the path,” I told Lucy. “Keep your eyes firmly ahead. Do not stop. I will find you.”

  She shuddered uncontrollably in a paroxysm of fear. There was no possibility of her running anywhere. Close to a state of inaction myself, I forced my body to move. I swept Lucy from the ground, cradled her in my arms, and ran hard back to the village streets.

  A thick patch of fog engulfed me as I stumbled into Baker Crescent and the way forward became invisible. I carried on running regardless, squinting in apprehension of colliding with a wall or post, until I almost fell into what I thought was another alley, but I was wrong; it was merely a shallow alcove in which a small well had been built. A full pitcher was by the side of it and my feet caught it, knocking it over and spilling water over the cobbles. I fell too, and with Lucy tumbling from my arms in wide-eyed catatonia, I lay sprawled in wet dirt, reaching for my defenseless companion. The pitcher rolled down the slope of the street, announcing our position with great clattering bounces. If the beasts did not detect us, I would have been forced to further admit the error of my faithlessness and trust that some benevolent being had shielded us. But although this did not happen, the outcome was equally miraculous.

  I lay breathless, angry and desperate as the four monsters came upon us. I reached helplessly for Lucy, mere inches from my fingertips, but she simply gazed ahead. Evidently her mind was refusing to acknowledge anything surrendered to her senses, and so I prayed. I prayed inarticulate syllables of desperation and remorse for having removed Lucy from her previous place of safety, imploring any god that would listen to have mercy, for I could not live if I allowed this child to suffer the same fate as those on the slope. I prayed as the claws stretched out of the mist, that they would take me and not her, and I prayed that this was not real, that this was just a symptom of insanity. All my supplications escalated into a screaming bellowing tirade of unrecognizable words amidst a stream of agonized tears and spit.

  I thought I heard the terrible howl again as I continued my outburst, but the beasts had already stopped. They had crept back and were observing us, crouching almost out of sight in the mist. Patterns swirled in the fog from their patient breath, and here and there I could see the malicious flash of alien eyes. Had my prayers stopped them? A lifetime of atheism prevented me from accepting this, but I could not deny the timing, and my skepticism did not stop me offering up another prayer of thanks when the creatures withdrew entirely.

  For the moment, we were safe and the relief was almost too much for me. I wept long and hard while Lucy continued to stare vacantly.

  Moon Box Segment Translation 3

  To Tarturum thy summons

  The archaeological diary of Edward Cephas Hargraven

  3rd September 1891

  An exhausting day, both physically and emotionally. We have spent all of the daylight hours digging. I am convinced there is more to see than the burial chamber, but we have yet to unearth anything. The locals we are paying for labor are growing increasingly restless, complaining that they do not wish to be part of the curse. Persuading them to stay, together with verbally dueling with Haynes for a good two hours about the validity of our expedition, has been really quite draining.

  But the day has ended on a high. Haynes conceded that the skull has yielded some interesting evidence. He refuses to tell me about it today, saying that he is far too tired to provide a detailed report, but I suspect it is his rankled ego that prevents him from doing so. And he hates it when I smirk at him.

  4

  It was at this juncture of our journey that we met Old Man Tarky. Meeting Lucy was a boon to my disposition, satisfying the need for human fellowship when the entire world had fractured into madness, and it would be safe to assume that if I had been promised the company of more souls to lighten the dark path ahead, there is little doubt I would receive them with delirious joy. Yet this was not the case with Old Man Tarky. He came to us suddenly, and until that fateful meeting, I could blame all my distress upon the hostilities of an inhuman enemy, but all that changed. I now needed to contend with the reality of human evil also. Oh, I am no fool. I am familiar with the many acts of cruelty contrived by the minds of people who, though human in species, are inhuman in nature—but Old Man Tarky exposed me to evil anew.

  It must have been my tears that drew him, because Lucy was still silent, still catatonic. I didn’t see him approach. Bent over like a prisoner made to carry ball and chain, he appeared not ten feet from us out of the fog. He was dressed in a tweed suit that had seen better days. His hair was a matted forest of white that had not been granted the attention of grooming for several days at least, and the smell reminded me of unpleasant alleyways I once had the misfortune to pass through in the less hospitable districts of London. He held up both hands as he shuffled closer, bowing his head contritely so that I had only the briefest glimpse of the insanity in his eyes.

  I felt Lucy jerk and press herself tighter into me. At least our visitor’s presence had shaken her f
rom her distant state.

  “Please, please!” The old man had a lisp. “I am here to help, only help, for you need my help. You need it very much.”

  I did not care for the swift speed at which he spoke or the sharp intake of breath he drew between each sentence. By his attire I judged him to be an educated man, but any claim he might once have held for rational thinking was no longer in evidence.

  I squeezed Lucy’s shoulder in reassurance. “Who are you, sir?”

  He paused in his advance, closed his eyes, and tapped out a slow rhythm on his forehead, as if it might help him think. “I do apologize,” he said, with more volume than felt comfortable. “The name’s, uh, Tarquin, but you can call me . . .” He faltered, then pointed at me quickly. “Tarky! Yes, call me Tarky. Old Man Tarky. I’m Old Man Tarky.”

  Lucy whispered in my ear, “I don’t like him.”

  I did not like him either, but I immediately felt a flush of guilt. I doubted that I looked or smelled much better than he, and whatever it was that had happened to Dennington Cross, no man could be blamed for allowing his mind to slip a little.

  “It’s quite all right,” I whispered back.

  I stood and helped Lucy to her feet, then extended a hand. “Drenn, Alexander Drenn.”

  He received my hand and proceeded to shake it with a grip that almost hurt and far greater enthusiasm than the greeting warranted. The shaking continued as he spoke: “Which town is this, please? Which town?”

  I managed to free myself from his grip. “You don’t know?”

  He placed his hand over his nose and sniffed deeply. “London. You smell like London. Are you from London?”

  “No,” I said, squinting. “I’m from Dennington Cross, some ninety miles south of London. Why did you think—?”