Dark Seed

by Simon West-Bulford

  I fear my friend is losing his mind.

  10

  Elizabeth Fortroy, Beatrice Green, and George Stromany returned soon after our conversation, the latter with a metal bucket containing a bottle of wine, a corkscrew, and glasses, which he placed on the port table near the window.

  “Reckon you could use a proper drink,” Stromany said as he popped the cork. “You look as rough as the rest of us. Don’t smell that good neither.”

  Stromany was right, of course. Almost a day of terrified running punctuated by episodes of lying in dirt or hiding in fetid places does not aid a man’s hygiene. And Stromany was correct about the wine too. Though I knew it would be more sensible to drink water, the alcohol would provide much-needed comfort during this time of trial. Morale was debatably the highest priority, for without positive attitude, the will to survive and the resulting actions would be seriously threatened, and although my own state of mind was much improved by Beatrice’s treatment and Breswick’s words of exhortation, the simple pleasure of a fine chardonnay from Hargraven’s stock would no doubt help.

  “Where did you get it from?” I asked. Remembering the wine cellar door, I doubted he would have gone there. But Stromany tapped his nose and winked. He took a long swig from the bottle before pouring some into the glasses. Elizabeth returned to the window, and Beatrice came to look at my dressings. Breswick paced the room slowly, presumably in thoughtful prayer.

  “I think we need to take stock of our situation,” I offered, “as a team.”

  Breswick halted. “Agreed. And rule number one—in case the implication is not clear—should be that we all stick together,” he insisted, his eyes scolding the others. “Hargraven may have found a way to keep these demons at bay, but there are many questions without answers, and I am not yet convinced of our safety within these walls. These are wily demons with no concept of compassion or grace.”

  “What makes you think we’re any safer together?” Stromany said, passing me a glass. “If them things get in here, we’re brown bread. Ain’t anything we could do to keep ’em off us.”

  “Do you think they will get in?” Elizabeth turned to regard him.

  I could see a fiendish look in Stromany’s eyes, as if he took callous delight from her fear. “Course they will,” he said with a harsh grin. “Surprised they haven’t come for us already. Just a matter of time; that’s all, love.”

  “Stop it!” Beatrice said. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “Miss Green’s right,” said Breswick. “You’re not helping.”

  “Just sayin’. No point in sugarcoatin’ it, is there? Girl needs to toughen up.”

  “And you think satisfying your own sadistic pleasure is going to do that, I suppose?”

  The next few minutes devolved into a cacophony of opinion as I watched the four shout over each other with insults, threats, and accusations. It culminated in Elizabeth storming from the room in tears while Breswick and Stromany postured for authority. Beatrice was also in tears, but they seemed of a different nature to Elizabeth’s, whose crying I believed to be prompted more from a damaged ego or, dare I say it, a manipulative streak. Beatrice had the look of a woman at the end of her tether, devastated even. It was the deep sobbing of grief, and again I was reminded that this tragedy had befallen our entire community. It must have touched so many families. Guilt assaulted me again. I had no right to feel any despair, for I still had every hope that my wife and children were unharmed. Seeing Beatrice in this condition, I could only believe that she had lost someone close and that up until this moment of dire tension within our group, she had put a brave face upon her sorrow.

  A cry came from outside the room.

  We all looked around as Elizabeth came rushing back inside, hysterical. “They’re coming! They’re coming to the school! Oh, what shall we do?”

  She rushed over to Beatrice, who embraced her, and I went to the window at once to see whom she was referring to.

  “There are people coming,” I said, “lots of them, but they are not alone.”

  Several lamps pierced the darkness with the jagged movement of people running, and I saw an enormous crowd approaching the school. The pyres ringing the school were still lit, their flames blooming upward stronger than ever, and as men, women, and children came running and screaming within the circumference, a multitude of beasts gathered. I had no idea what impulse urged these people from their hiding places or how they thought they would escape these merciless creatures, but as I watched, I noticed that they were not chasing the crowd but circling them, sealing off the exits back to the woods. I had the distinct impression that I was being made ready to witness an orgiastic culling, as if the enemy had grown weary of their tedious hide-and-seek game and all at once decided to round up the remaining survivors of the village so that they could display their slaughter to us. I thought of the other places I had seen in the dark abyss beyond Dennington Cross. The fires. The empty buildings. Perhaps the inhabitants had been rounded up and sacrificed in similar fashion. Those dwellings may once have contained a group of trapped individuals like us, forced to watch a massacre, and later made to endure an even worse fate when they could no longer endure their prison.

  I could not help but watch at first, but when a few unfortunates taking the rear were dragged down into the mud, I could no longer stay at the window, and I staggered away. The blood drained from my cheeks, I felt it, and I knew that if I could not control my terror at the idea of these beasts gaining entry to our apparent safe house, I would fall victim to another one of my swoons.

  Then I heard Breswick, firm and loud. “Stand aside, Stromany. We have to help them. There is still some distance between those people and the demons.”

  “Not a chance.”

  Breswick—significantly bulkier than Stromany—shoved him aside and left the room. “If we don’t let them in, they will all die.”

  “You can’t!” I heard Elizabeth scream. “They’ll kill us too if you let them in.”

  I could hear Breswick’s footsteps beat on the wooden floor of the corridor as he ran toward the main reception hall. Determined and brave, he was not going to be stopped, but Stromany was intent on trying. Armed with the empty wine bottle, he followed Breswick.

  Moon Box Segment Translation 10

  Through mind and revelation

  The archaeological diary of Edward Cephas Hargraven

  10th September 1891

  The Word became flesh. A phrase Haynes repeats over and over, as if the meaning should be perfectly clear to me. He tells me that there are dark powers at work operating on similar principles to the Godhead but surreptitiously, such that if the right combination of words is planted in the mind and given time to gestate, the Innominatum will take root in the host’s mind and grow like a parasite until there is nothing left of the man who first welcomed it. It is a “spell,” he says—an incantation or configuration of language that robs the host of will—the etymology of which links to the way we arrange letters to form words.

  It all fits, he says, and the bodies we found are evidence of quarantine and extermination to prevent the propagation of the Innominatum. They had been infected, and the rulers decreed that the only way to purge them was to prevent them from communicating. They could not write and they could not speak.

  His hysteria is beginning to unsettle me, but for the moment I will indulge his fantasies. We need his skills to continue translation of the pictograms on the walls.

  11

  The next five minutes were a ferocious and chaotic time that I should like to forget. Still giddy, I went after Breswick and Stromany while the two ladies huddled together in the dining room. Though I was not endeared to Stromany, I did agree that it would be the worst folly to open the door and allow the creatures access. Did Breswick really believe that he could somehow gather people inside whilst driving the fiends away? As brave as the man was, and as strong as his trust in God was, I could not imagine this plan ending well. But to ignore the plight of
these desperate people would be a betrayal of compassion, declaring us to be the monsters and rendering the saving of our own lives meaningless.

  But whether noble or foolish, Breswick had already reached the door, and before I could make up my mind what to do, Stromany swung the bottle into the side of Breswick’s head with vicious speed. It did not smash, but the force of the blow sent the chaplain reeling, and he collapsed into a motionless heap a few feet away. Eyes ablaze with panic and violence, Stromany stood with his back to the door and faced me. His breathing was erratic and rasping, and beads of foam frothed in the corners of his mouth; he was sizing me up, trying to decide whether I was for or against him. And I had to decide, too. Even if he was able to overcome me, it was within my power to at least oppose him, but to what end? If the door was opened, what then?

  It was then that the hammering began at the door. Shrill screams and desperate sobbing reached us through the wood, stirring my conscience. In a matter of minutes it would all be over; the beasts would reach them and there would be no time left for difficult decisions. There would be a handful of lives saved within the school, but there would be no pacification of my guilt. Instead I would be tortured by a lifetime of remorse, the memory of those screams forever seared into my brain, and I did not know if I could live with that. Little Lucy’s scream had already imprinted upon my soul, and Tarky’s blood was on my hands. Both were already too much.

  “Don’t.” Stromany’s voice was a menacing rumble and his head was lowered, anticipating aggression. He smashed the bottle against the wall and threatened me with the jagged edge. “We can’t let them in.”

  I could have stood there until a bloody silence fell, but it was Beatrice who inspired me to act. Followed closely by Elizabeth, she had ventured into the corridor and screamed words of rage at Stromany which until that moment I would not have thought possible to pass a woman’s lips. He did not move, but her outburst was distraction enough, and without further thought, I sprang at him. He lunged too when he saw what I was doing, and the sharp edge of the bottle caught my jacket cuff as I raised my arm to protect myself. We clashed so hard against the door that it knocked the breath from both our lungs as we fell. The world became a daze to me, but winded and disoriented, I still managed to lift myself from the floor and reach the door bolts. At every moment I expected a counterattack and sharp glass to penetrate my back, but I continued until the door was unlocked.

  I opened the door to a tempest of bodies both beast and human. A wall of men and women fell into the hallway, scrabbling and clawing for escape from their monstrous assailants. I fell back too as beast after beast charged inside, pouncing upon their prey like starved jackals. I could do nothing but wait for my end. I saw Breswick stumble toward Beatrice, frantically waving her back toward the reception room, and I saw the outside world through the open door: a horde of beasts trampling across the muddy field, throwing mud and blood high into the air as they surged forward in a tsunami of lust.

  Weakly, I pushed my foot against the door—a futile attempt at closing it—but there was no hope now. Desperate people poured into the school, into the drawing room, down the corridor, up the sweeping curved stairs, and amongst them the creatures went about their grisly business tearing, rampaging, screeching, and eating in an orgy of destruction. The glittering fog had entered too, mercifully shielding my eyes from at least some of the butchery.

  I had no will to move. If I had saved my humanity by not agreeing with Stromany’s cold logic, what good was that doing anyone now? Perhaps in the next life—if there was one—my actions may prove to have had some merit, but it was of little consolation. People were dying. Because of me. Again.

  Breswick, still somewhat unsteady on his feet, rose to his full height, then with arms lifted, placed himself directly before the open door and called on God to deliver us, invoking the name of the Lord with such authority that I could only marvel at the man’s courage. I expected him to be cut down at any moment, but before I could pull him away, a now-familiar ear-splitting howl tore through the school. Desolate, filled with pain and torment, but loud enough this time to cause pain in the ears and to make all who heard it cower, including the beasts.

  Instinctively, I clapped my hands to my head; Breswick did the same and dropped into a crouch. To my astonishment the beasts ceased their rampage almost instantly. They lifted their huge heads, twisting and stretching their necks as if resisting an unseen leash; then they withdrew without pause. I counted at least eight of the beasts clambering over each other to push past Breswick and leave the school, and in less than a minute the atmosphere had transformed from one of carnage to near silence; I could hear only our hoarse, rapid breathing and the fading trample of heavy feet in the mud outside.

  It was the first time I dismissed the thought of God’s existence without even a moment’s hesitation. Prior to Lucy’s demise, I would have taken Breswick’s actions and the resulting departure of the creatures as evidence to at least consider the possibility of answered prayer, but my instantaneous denial and associated anger at the very thought surprised even me. It was a response of emotion and not of rationality, and a philosophical stance that would later have an astounding impact on future events.

  “Shut the door,” I whispered to Breswick.

  Stunned but compliant, he closed it, and we stared at each other, unable to put voice to our thoughts. It was only the sobbing from the reception room that eventually stirred us. Breswick nodded to me, and I could see that he was as surprised by the dramatic retreat of the beasts as I was. He said nothing as his gaze flitted from body to body in the hallway. As if his mind had returned to the trenches, he calmly but carefully stepped over each of them to attend to the women. With my teeth chattering from shock, I followed.

  It was Elizabeth’s distress we heard. She was huddled in Beatrice’s embrace like a child seeking protection by her mother, shuddering with fear. All I could see of her face—which was almost fully obscured by her arms—was a solitary eye, wide with terror and wet with tears. Face white with shock, Beatrice looked close to breaking too, though I suspect her care for Elizabeth was providing the strength she needed to maintain her sanity.

  “Are either of you injured?” Breswick asked.

  Beatrice shook her head in a jerk, and Breswick nodded slowly.

  “What just happened?” I asked.

  “You saw,” said Breswick. “Demons cannot stand against the name above all names.”

  “And the howl?”

  He looked uncertain for a moment. “I can only assume it was an answer to my prayer and the cry of defeat.”

  An answer to prayer . . . I doubted it. My instincts rallied against the idea. I rather felt it was the howl that had frightened the beasts into leaving, and that whatever damnable creature gave voice to it was not in the slightest bit influenced by Breswick’s faith. But what was that thing? The Innominatum? Why would it work against its own spawn? These questions were unanswerable at the time, and I was forced to trust that it was my prejudice against his faith that caused me not to believe Breswick’s prayer had worked. Had I known the answers to those questions then, I would have taken my chances outside with the creatures, but ignorance is not always a curse, for without it, I would not have had the opportunity later to stand against the enemy.

  “Do you think they will come back?” I asked.

  “The devil always returns.”

  Elizabeth Fortroy gently separated herself from Beatrice and curled into the corner of the foyer, hiding her face, shuddering.

  “Is it just us left?” Beatrice asked. “Did any of them get safely inside?”

  I glanced at Breswick. “I don’t think anyone else made it, and Stromany may be among the dead. But we can’t be certain until we look through these rooms. I’m not even sure how we survived.”

  “For now, let’s just be thankful to God that we did,” Breswick said.

  Moon Box Segment Translation 11

  The Innominatum’s Gate opens

&
nbsp; The archaeological diary of Edward Cephas Hargraven

  11th September 1891

  Haynes seems to revel in his agitated disposition as he deciphers the messages on the walls, but at least he remains focused. He is uninterested in the channels we have discovered several feet under the chambers leading from the antechamber. A shame, because I think they are quite fascinating.

  We found the first of them quite by accident when Joseph Reeve lifted a floor stone and, finding an unusual strand of copper in the sediment, dug several feet down to investigate further. The floor gave way and he fell through the fossilized casing of a hollowed tube. We found more soon after that. They are just wide enough for someone to crawl through, but unfortunately I have not yet convinced any of our team to venture inside one to see where it may lead.

  Our first assumption was that they were air channels—a primitive system also used by the Egyptians—but their position beneath the chambers and their erratic winding construction are all wrong. We also theorized that they could be some kind of primitive sewage system, but again, the design is not right for that. No, I am becoming more convinced they are not connected to the chambers in any way at all.

  In the same way that the design of this City of the Innominatum differs from the City of Kur’hukayia constructed on top of it, these channels are, incredibly, yet another distinct design, indicating a third, completely unknown culture.

  I am beginning to wonder just how many layers of civilization we will uncover beneath Kur’hukayia.