Satisfied with the plan, we retrieved four desks from the neighboring room and placed them two deep and two high in front of the door. They would not keep the murderer from escaping indefinitely—the classroom door would open inward—but his passage would be blocked sufficiently long enough for us to prevent a swift exit, and it provided adequate time for me to consider a better option than Stromany’s.
It was silent inside the room when we positioned the last desk, and with the murderer trapped inside, I was able to delay Stromany’s arson for a while longer with a new suggestion.
“Before we do anything else, I would like to read Hargraven’s letter that we retrieved from the Moon Box. It may help us understand what is happening here. I left it in the drawing room next to the box. If we bring everything we need back here, we can keep watch whilst we read it.”
Stromany seemed troubled, but he agreed, and after one final check of the desks, we returned to the drawing room. We did not linger. I retrieved the box together with the cylinder and the letter I had removed while Stromany took one of the cans of petrol, and we headed back to the murderer’s room. We sat opposite each other in the corridor beside the desks, ready for any sign that the person inside was attempting escape.
I unfolded the letter and read it out.
To whoever reads this account, know that I have only a limited time to provide instruction, so my explanations will be brief. The regrettable circumstances which led to my current condition were recorded in my journal, which I have divided and placed into the various dates within this box. Only those friends to whom I have entrusted the workings of the Moon Box will be able to unlock its secrets, for only they will know the depths to which I have fallen and the path of discovery that brought me here. I should not wish anyone else to pursue the same folly.
My mind is succumbing to the terror of the Innominatum, and my ability to keep its influence from my thoughts diminishes with each passing day. I fear that I have mere hours remaining before it controls me entirely, but I die confident in the knowledge that my soul’s captor is as arrogant as it is intelligent, and it does not consider my waning efforts to be a threat.
I have learned much from it since our minds joined. At its inception it was a base instinct in my consciousness, and it has since grown into an intelligence far beyond that of any human mind. But it is still enslaved by its lust to feed its brood—deadly beasts of violent instinct that humanity have been conditioned through the ages to fear as the demonic hordes of hell. The beast does not hunt its prey. It draws its prey into its own black realm, a place alien to me and all mankind, and we are just one of many civilizations it has ensnared. So many have fallen.
It means to do what it has done on countless occasions during the darkest ages of our world: Once it has seeded its presence within its host, it uses them to protect and nurture its growth until it is powerful enough to draw its prey to its place of origin. I do not yet know the extent of its powers or how it is able to traverse such planes of existence, but my investigations suggest that entire communities have been suddenly taken in the past, and I believe that I have placed all of our beautiful county in great danger by succumbing to its influence.
It was once believed that words have the power to undo worlds and to create worlds. It is not words that are the danger, however; it is the thought behind those words—the kindling of spirit and invention and application—that bring about the substance of sentient chaos. It is not a new concept: in the beginning was the Word and the Word was made flesh. So it is with the Nameless Beast.
When it has drawn its prey and satisfied its lusts and the creatures that depend upon it, the beast will attempt to perpetuate its life cycle. It is this which you are tasked with preventing. It will allow one survivor to return to their home, and in so doing, it will plant the seeds of its intelligence into a new place ripe for extraction. If you are that last survivor, I implore you to draw upon the strength that I could not find, and end your life now before you allow the beast to take root in your soul. It will seed itself in your instinct to survive. Resist this, or suffer the same guilt as I.
I have one last warning. The Innominatum has new thoughts now, a different agenda to the one that has sustained it in the long eons past. It is no longer content to feed its progeny upon simple organic flesh. As I have dwelt upon the words given me by Reverend Breswick, so has my captor. I sought salvation, but the Innominatum seeks something else. Breswick’s eloquence has described to me the glories of heaven if I reform. He wrote of the angelic host and of eternal life. He wrote of the perfection that resides in God’s courts and the wonders of that realm, and now the Innominatum shares my desire and yearns for it also. I know nothing of its plans in this regard, and doubt that I will be alive long enough to discover them, but I . . .
It ended there. I folded up the letter, placed it in my pocket, and looked at Stromany. He was staring at the floor, deep in thought as he spoke. “Continue.”
“That’s all there is.”
Stromany met my gaze. “The end of his life?”
“Or perhaps the Innominatum stopped him.”
“But he still managed to fold up the letter and enclose it in the box.”
I pondered this. Did it mean that the Innominatum wanted us to read it?
“What does it all mean?” Stromany asked.
“It could all be metaphor,” I suggested. “A way for Hargraven to explain his obsession.”
“Or it could be true. Perhaps this beast does begin as an idea and grows within a man’s mind. Perhaps it is alive and possessing the murderer we have trapped in this room. It intends for him to be the lone survivor.”
“Then if we do stop him, we end the threat?”
Stromany nodded. “Hargraven’s letter changes nothing. It only confirms that we should do as I said and set fire to the room. Whoever it is deserves nothing less.”
I looked at the desks barricading the door. It was still silent inside, but I feared more than ever the monstrous soul within. Stromany’s plan to burn him alive and risk the school seemed a more attractive prospect than before. And if we died in the inferno, perhaps that would be for the best. If the murderer died, would the Innominatum change its plans and somehow transfer its will to me or Stromany? If it possessed Stromany I doubted that I could prevent him from killing me.
But there were still too many questions left unanswered. What was the Innominatum’s true intent? It seemed to be protecting us from the creatures outside, but even with this dubious protection, we were not safe from the murderer. Why did it not protect us from him? There was also the mystery of the cellar, and still one other factor I had forgotten.
Stromany stood, giving the jerry can a single shake. “Do you agree?”
I stared back at him, remaining seated and silent. After a moment’s pause, Stromany unscrewed the cap of the can. He looked back at me one more time, perhaps hoping I might sanction his action, and when I looked down, I heard the glug of petrol as it left the can. He shook out the last few drops and threw the can aside so that it clanged loudly in the corridor. Stromany lit a match and said, “Stand back.”
If I had any inclination to stop him, this was the moment I needed to act, but still I obeyed and got to my feet, moving three long paces away. Stromany was about to set a series of events in motion from which I doubted we could turn back, and a fresh fear for my life came over me. Hargraven warned against the temptation of self-preservation, but the notion seemed foolish—that need for survival is a fundamental trait of every living species. How could one discern if the urge was natural or the evil seed of which he wrote? I made my decision at that moment to stop Stromany, but it was too late; he had thrown the match.
Flames whooshed up to surround the desks at the door and I knew the fire would have started inside the room. We watched the door, expecting a reaction, convinced it would provoke the room’s occupant to attempt escape, but there was no activity save the hypnotic lapping of bright flames as they climbed the walls. Sm
oke thickened across the ceiling as we retreated along the corridor, but even as the fire held our attention, an eeriness fell. It was a tangible presence, thick and heavy and oppressive like a pit of tar. As we saw acknowledgement of this change in each other’s expression, the spell broke. At first it was little more than a rumble, like the complaint of a distant storm, but the boom that followed was not the sound of overhead thunder. It was the percussion of brick and mortar split apart by an explosive impact then raining heavily to the ground. A gravelly roar followed and I gasped at the shaking of the walls.
“The big demon!” Stromany pointed at the ceiling and I witnessed the jagged evidence of imminent collapse. A fine curtain of brick dust sprinkled from the crack.
“This cannot be a coincidence,” I said. “We have to leave.”
“But where can we go?”
“The shrine. We have to—”
Another boom chased my words aside and a widening crack snaked all the way across the ceiling to the opposite wall. Chunks of plaster tumbled down.
“Quickly,” I said. “We have to go. Now!”
Stromany was moving before the next tremor assailed us, but I laid eyes upon the Moon Box, not yet consumed by the fire near the door, and I faltered. Stromany stopped to observe me, the warning in his eyes insisting I leave it. I made a dash to retrieve it and thought for a moment he would stop me. He may have, too, had it not been for another deep shuddering of the walls which tipped our balance and sent chunks of burning wood crumbling to the floor. While Stromany braced himself between the walls of the corridor, I covered my mouth and nose with my jacket and braved the heat to secure the box.
I ignored the strongman’s look of objection as we headed at pace back to the door that would lead out of the west wing and to the colonnade. We stopped after passing through it when new mayhem was revealed. A huge section was missing from the east end of the colonnade wall, and amidst the destruction, covered in brick dust and surrounded by its sibling beasts, the Behemoth stood like a titan general observing his troops on a battlefield. We were trapped between fire behind us and the Behemoth and its lesser kin ahead.
A clutch of the creatures circled the Behemoth like crouching bodyguards, and beyond this radius, other beasts tore and bit into each other, their great jaws stretched wide in efforts to devour each other. Above the tumultuous roar of falling architecture at the Behemoth’s hand, the howl and screech of savagery filled the air. There was anarchy in the ranks. The beasts were not united.
Old Man Tarky—if his testimony could be relied upon—had spoken of the Behemoth’s rebellion against the Innominatum. Could this creature really be a potential ally? Still now amidst the chaos, as if my own brief analysis of this fearful thing had attracted it, it set its gaze upon me. It studied me, probed me with dark psychic feelers as if testing the muscles of its mental capacity to connect with another being. I clutched harder at the Moon Box. There was rage buried deep in the Behemoth’s mind—an insidious treachery driving into my mind like rusty nails—but I was simply a proxy. Its stilled fury was not meant for me but for another, and I sensed the anger of a child’s rebellion crushed by the cruel hand of a ruthless parent. I tore my eyes from the giant. My shame at remembering Tarky, and what I did, was great enough even to shake me from the gaze of something so obviously evil. I could feel its touch even as Stromany shook me and urged me on, but with the advance of enemy beasts to challenge it, the Behemoth turned its ire upon them and returned to its rampage across the grounds, tearing apart chunks of the school to use as clubs and missiles against the opposition.
Stromany and I staggered along what was left of the colonnade, too frightened to scream or think, terrified that the beasts might stop fighting amongst themselves at any moment and turn their attention upon us. Through the madness, one objective filled my thoughts now: to end this nightmare any way we could. We had to reach the wine cellar and Hargraven’s shrine. I had no idea if attacking the stamen could mortally wound the Innominatum, but there were few options available. Its underground home would at least shelter us from the carnage erupting here.
Before we reached the end of the colonnade, the terrible howl came like the screech of a giant banshee and brought us to our knees. It afflicted the beasts too—even the Behemoth. Whether it was the intent or not I cannot say, but it served to stir the fighting to greater frenzy. Worse than this, though, was that Stromany and I were no longer unnoticed. A guttural cry was directed at us and two of the beasts instantly forgot their feud to stalk us.
Moon Box Segment Translation 26
Cold and silent within
The archaeological diary of Edward Cephas Hargraven
26th September 1891
We have still gleaned nothing sensible from the box. We have opened the second vial: four more meaningless words. Could it be that they are not supposed to mean anything? I am reminded of my trip to India, when my team was bedazzled by a traveling magician. He performed the Indian Rope Trick, which most of us had seen many times, but then he performed an illusion with colored smoke. We were entranced by the swirling of green, gray, and gold smoke and he invited us to see if we could recognize the faces of recently deceased loved ones. One of our party believed he saw the profile of his father. I saw nothing but found myself completely absorbed in the process of analyzing the constantly changing patterns as mesmerizing sitar music played around us. When the magician left and we checked our belongings, we found we had been robbed. Fooled by simple sleight of hand.
And I wonder, is that what we are being subjected to here? Are the words merely a distraction? A vehicle for something more sinister to ride into our minds? I think, however, that it is far more likely I have allowed Haynes’s paranoia to infect me more than anything that could be transported into my mind by this nonsensical text.
27
Running to the nearby drawing room seemed like a futile act; there was no exit aside from the door by which we would gain entrance, so we retreated back toward the fire. With nowhere else to go, Stromany and I simply backed ourselves into the wall of the colonnade, curling into our knees to watch the approaching beasts. They were hesitant at first, as if trying to resist the call, but as the howl came again, they set about their business with greater conviction. I was perplexed and paralyzed with terror. It seemed the howl had not deterred them but encouraged them. The heat from the spreading fire increased and seared my left side as I instinctively shuffled toward the flames, and behind the beasts, a third joined them, and still a fourth.
Only then did Stromany act. With a cry of either terror or rage, he leapt up and rushed forward to meet them, clashing violently with the first. It took him easily, lifting him up with one claw, slamming him against the wall with a bone-jarring force that shook the wall. The other three beasts continued toward me and I raised one hand to prepare for the end, still clutching the Moon Box with the other. Instead of striking me down, they stalked over me toward the west wing and the fire. I looked to see if Stromany had been killed, but he was still held against the wall. His attacker opened its jaws wide and Stromany turned his head toward me, eyes begging. Again the great howl echoed through the remains of the colonnade and out into the grounds, deafening, terrifying, and Stromany’s captor resisted snapping its jaws. Instead, it jerked its head as if responding to a rebuke and used its free claw to pierce Stromany’s side just below the ribs. It cut slowly. The talon slid downward as if opening a zip in the strongman’s flesh. Stromany screamed out his agony but was silent as the beast tossed him aside like a broken doll. It watched me for several long seconds before turning away.
It returned to the grounds, and I was surprised to see that many of the beasts had gone. A few still ripped at each other, but their numbers had drastically diminished. Even the Behemoth was no longer in sight. I thought perhaps death had taken most of them, but a distant rumble signaled the Behemoth’s continued attack on Hargraven Manor. It had taken the war with it. Whatever feud was being played out, whatever battle was being wage
d between these infernal creations, we had been given a reprieve, yet I had not the will to contemplate either its reasons or its advantage to us. I was a shell-shocked casualty of war, wavering in the midst of a holocaust, robbed of coherent thought. It seemed that recovery became more arduous after each new horror-filled situation presented itself to us; our spirits were statues of sand gradually succumbing to the erosion of endless tides. But I did not know if there still was an “us.” Stromany had been seriously wounded at the least. I could not bring myself to look.
I had forgotten about the three beasts that had strode into the fiery hell of the west wing, but at last they reminded me of their presence. I heard them smash through the burning wood of our barricade. Splintered fragments skidded the length of the corridor as they swept aside the remains of it, and with the door exposed, I heard them shatter its weakened panels and tear it from the hinges. To my right, Stromany gasped and moaned, trying to crawl along the colonnade away from the exposure to the grounds, and I snapped out of my horror-induced trance to crawl to his aid. Blood flowed easily from his wound and his eyelids sagged as he waved me away.
“No,” he said in barely a whisper. “I cannot . . .”
I looked around me. Our only refuge was the drawing room. I grasped both of his arms by the elbows and almost fainted as I attempted to drag him there. My only hope now was to get him inside out of sight and shut the door. I glanced back at the west wing corridor and saw that most of the fire had been extinguished. Smoldering pieces of door and desk were scattered on the floor and I could no longer hear the beasts, but I assumed they were inside the room with the murderer. It would not be long before I found out why.
I had almost pulled Stromany into the drawing room, when I paused for breath and saw the beasts return. They observed me as they stalked toward us, and they were not alone. A figure walked slowly just behind them. I discerned the shape of a man, ragged and stooped, with a long-handled knife clutched at his side. The other hand cradled a fleshy lump against his chest, dripping and glistening in the dim light. I knew it to be Beatrice’s heart. Smoke snaked from his torn clothes and wispy, burnt hair as he stepped closer. I saw his face fully illuminated by the flickering firelight of the grounds, sallow, gray, and twisted by unfathomable pain. I recognized him. Dear God, I knew him! Though it was undoubtedly the countenance of a dead man, the features withered and torn beyond any semblance of humanity, I knew him by the one aspect of that haunted visage that still harbored life: his eyes. It was the tortured gaze of one who had been forced to commit and endure unspeakable acts.
Dark Seed Page 21
