by Shock Totem
Emile’s surprise was so profound he barely registered his own backward retreat until colliding with a granite obelisk. Only this interrupted his amazement, and then but briefly.
The gate leading to his familiar back plot no longer existed. The garden itself was not there. His meager cottage...gone.
To a man such as Emile Plimpkin—a studious man of academe who prided himself on his higher learning—it was impossible not to seek some immediate explanation for this phenomenon. More perplexing still was the question of how to return home from this abhorrent Necropolis in which he now stood.
But for the cawing of distant crows wheeling against sickly umber clouds, no sound fell upon Emile’s ears. He decided he must be dreaming. Yes, that must be it. He was still abed, dreaming, or else going mad.
Determining there was no alternative but to see this (whatever “this” might be) through to the end, Emile resolved where there were dead, there must be living, and thusly set off in the direction of the setting sun. For a moment, he paused, wondering if in this nightmarish place the sun even set in the west, as well it ought.
-2-
Just before the sun reached the peaks of the haze-muted hills, Emile found his way to the edge of a village. It was not entirely unfamiliar, and that, too, was strange. In many ways it was reminiscent of his own Chapel Landing, with high steeples spearing low scudding clouds and shop fronts crowding the cobbled streets. But if it was Chapel Landing, it was a version from long ago, and the angles of the buildings were neither true nor straight. They canted in crooked lines, leaned in awkward planes. Again, it was a construct of dream matter, which both mystified and bedeviled Emile to no end, but it also served to fortify his theory that he must be sleeping, and this place would be but a memory come morning.
But then this did not have the feel of a dream.
He scanned the distorted avenues for some inhabitant to ask about his whereabouts, but there was not one soul to query. It was as if some epidemic had wiped every trace of humanity from the land. He called out, anxiously awaiting some response, but his own voice was the only one to return, echoing back in the most melancholy fashion from grimy brick alleyways. He tried shop doors, but all were stuck fast, almost as though they were mere set decorations of some stage play than functioning portals.
What was this place, and where were its people? Emile wondered should he retrace his steps to the vast cemetery and scrape back the earth from one of the graves, if he would find a corpse picked clean to the bone by worm and mite, or if that casket would prove as vacant as this city.
If this were truly a somnolent-state counterpart to Chapel Landing, it stood to reason the best course would be to locate his own counterpart home. So, Emile strode toward what should have been the Episcopal Church at the outskirts, but in this twisted adaptation of his own village, a crudely formed mill stood in the church’s place. And yet, there his house lay beyond, altered less in detail than most other structures, though the brick proved in poor repair and the fencing remained unpainted.
The garden. The fence enclosing the garden.
The gate!
Emile couldn’t round the corner quickly enough to try the entrance and test his theories, for it seemed to him this might be a means of return.
The latch was fixed.
He forced it. And went crashing headlong through, into and beyond a sheet of shimmering vapor, opalescent in color and cold as February frost to the touch.
On the far side, Emile collapsed to the ground, rolling over carrot shoots and breaking newly tied stakes and bean poles.
But to be away from that wretched dreamland!
Here the air was neither stale, nor still. Colors were rich, not bleached away. The sweet calls of song birds were myriad, and in such contrast to the loathsome cawing of crows winging above cold tombs, as in the other land. It was noonday, not approaching dusk.
And Emile hugged his arms about himself and thought, I am back!
-3-
As it turned out, Parson Harper had no erudite words of advice for Emile when he called upon him later that day. The murmurings of rain had broken into a full torrent now, and occasional hailstones pecked at the windows.
At first, Emile had been cagey in his approach, asking at the offset after the parson’s daughters and their families, and then making light of such subjects as local politics and small talk of which congregation members had taken ill and might appreciate a word of prayer.
After a time, though, Parson Harper, who had known Emile but a short while, was able to deftly pierce his ramblings and discerned there was greater purpose behind the visit. With shrewd candor, he asked what Emile’s true business was, as he drew upon his briar pipe and blew gray circlets at the parlor ceiling.
Emile hedged, the silence broken only by an erratic peel of thunder and the persistent tapping of rain upon the windowpanes. What if the parson thought him an imbecile, or at least going daft? There was a sanitarium in nearby Athena to keep those likely to do harm to themselves or others, and Parson Harper might well think such an arrangement appropriate for Emile once he heard his tale.
But Emile was no dullard. He first insisted on invoking the sanctity of his friend’s office, asking for the parson’s word as a clergyman he would not pass judgment or share his story with any other.
“I so swear.” The parson humored Emile with a slight smile as he placed his hand upon his heart with exaggerated solemnity.
“Then I shall tell you,” said Emile, “and afterward you may advise me as to whether the devil has overtaken my senses, and if so what I may do to protect myself in the event he might seek to do me future mischief.”
Again the faint smile played at the corners of the parson’s lips. “So melodramatic, Emile. But you’ve intrigued me, to say the least. Please, go on. I’m on the edge of my proverbial seat.” So saying, the parson eased back into his chair and allowed his visitor to tell his tale.
-4-
At the end of the account, Parson Harper nodded while his eyes squinted to narrow slits in thought. But he confronted Emile with neither accusations of lunacy nor suggestions of seeking assistance from the local physician.
How long had Emile lived in the house, he inquired after a lengthy pause.
A score of months, as the parson well knew, Emile told him.
Again, the wizened pondering, nodding and blowing of briar pipe smoke at the plaster ceiling, yellowed from many similar sessions of tobacco indulgence.
Did the parson not think him mad then, Emile wondered.
The parson did not. In fact, truth be told, he had heard reports of many strange happenings which were rumored to have occurred in Chapel Landing, and the house in which Emile now lived had a most exceptional reputation unto itself. Like iron filings drawn to a magnet, stories collected around that particular residence to the extent that the parson was not surprised in the least to learn of yet another anomaly associated with it.
Emile’s interest was piqued at once, but the parson would say no more of the matter. He instead insisted he did not wish to alarm Emile’s sensibilities just yet.
“Best let sleeping dogs lie,” he said. “Rest assured, if this should happen again, we may speak more on it.”
Happen again? Emile shuddered at the thought. One such stroll through the waking nightmare he had been witness to was sufficient to last a lifetime, and he would no sooner attempt stepping through his garden gate again than he would through a portal to hell. Come to think on it, who was he to say they were not one and the same?
Yet, Emile did make his way through the gate again. The very next day, in fact.
-5-
It happened that Emile Plimpkin was very much intrigued with the history of Chapel Landing, it being the first settlement of the Northwest Territory and always an important stop of the trade routes. He liked nothing better than to pore over old texts replete with etchings of the founding fathers and the original steep-walled fort, constructed on the western side of the Muskingum to
defend against heathen Indian attacks. Many were the hours he read upon the accounts of those first pioneers and their travels from Massachusetts, who eventually touched down at the promising settlement to seek new prosperity.
During such a study period, Emile found himself drowsing over a crumbling tome while sunlight warmed his back. It was not long before his chin rested against his breast, and his breathing slowed to sleep speed.
And then he dreamt.
He dreamt a dream of himself dreaming.
Outside of his own body, he watched himself rouse with a start, stretch, and leave the drawing room. From an umbrella stand, he plucked out his walking stick.
Emile believed he knew what was to come next, and thought, Wake up, you fool! Wake up before it is too late!
Sure enough, it was as he suspected. He watched, helpless, as his dreamself headed toward the rear of the house. Out to the garden. His dreamself moved in the direction of the previously discovered Gate of Remembrance—as he now thought of it—unlatched the hook, and pulled back the slide.
Upon seeing the rippling, mercurial glow of the plane beyond the garden gate, Emile once more shouted in thought. His dreamself might have paused if only for a moment, as if having heard the warning, but then he pushed on anyway and was in turn swallowed by the shimmering liquid floe. In that instant, the dreamself and the watching Emile melded into one being once more.
On the far side of the Gate, Emile was witness to a slightly different scene than during his first trip. The vast graveyard was present, certainly, but instead of approaching sundown, it was now full dark. A gibbous, waxen moon rode a midnight sky full of pinprick stars, and the lunar light shone onto the many chalk-white tombstones, causing them to appear almost to glow.
Once more, the gate vanished at his back as an evaporating vapor, closing off any possible return to his home place and leaving him in the company of stone slabs, graven cherubs, and lichen-crusted images of the Virgin with Child. Only in this instance, the holy image seemed somehow blasphemous.
Emile had thought the experience of his last passing through could not have been worse. He was mistaken.
The chill and darkness the night brought seized his brain and imparted to him an abhorrent despondency the likes of which had never before sensed. In some fashion, the emotion emanating from this place had the unique ability to seep into the very marrow of his bones. But what was all this? Why did Emile return to this particular spot, what significance did it hold, and what was it that the parson Harper knew but of which he would not allow himself to speak?
Emile could only take heart in the fact he was somewhat acquainted with these surroundings this time around. Even by night, he recognized a particular tree on a low ridge from before. If he should head that way, he would reach the Chapel Landing of dream, and thereby would be able to locate the way home as he had previously, provided things went as they did on his last hellish jaunt.
He was about to set off when he noticed some brief movement. Surely this must be a figment of his fraught imagination. Nothing lived here, save the crows, seen last visit but now curiously absent. And yet his gaze was drawn to one monument in particular; one which described the darksome image of a man in slouch hat silhouetted against the moonlight.
Emile took a step forward, if not to admire the monument then at least to marvel at the macabre mastery in its craftsmanship.
It was at that moment the figure turned its head. It was no statue but a live figure, which had taken notice of him.
Emile might have muttered a greeting had the words not stuck fast in his throat, so surprised was he.
A laugh, low at first but soon bubbling to a high pitch, met his ears. Apparently the man found humor in Emile’s befuddlement, and in the next instant he kicked his feet out and hopped down from atop the tombstone. He drifted toward Emile, slipping eelishly between the stones so abundant on the moon-washed landscape.
He was short, roughly two-thirds the size of a typical man, and the clothes he wore were of olden style: short breeches, a waistcoat, and shoes with shining buckles.
That Emile could not make out the face for the slouch hat frustrated him a bit, for he preferred to see whom he addressed.
“Well met, friend,” he said at last. “Have you become stranded in this place, as well? Perhaps you have passed through some gate of your own. What is your name, friend, and shall we attempt to solve this enigma together?”
For a prolonged moment only silence reigned, as though the figure were trying to decide what to make of this speech. The he cocked his head from side to side then looked Emile up and down, and he, too, spoke.
“Gots any gold, Doddy?”
-6-
The voice was guttural, base, and when the speaker took another step forward, some self-preserving instinct directed Emile to retreat, raising his senses to full alert. There was something about this man, who’d been lingering alone in this place of the dead, which did not sit well. And what of the gold of which he spoke? Was he some highwayman intent on waylaying unsuspecting passersby? And if that were the case, who did he expect, anyway, since this place seemed to hold no people. At least none living.
Perhaps this truly was some crossroads of other times and places, and this man knew something more than Emile. Be that as it may, Emile found he didn’t care overly much for further enlightenment on the subject. Thinking it best to simply head for town, he nodded toward the figure and took his leave of him.
Only the graveyard squatter was not so easily discouraged. He followed Emile like a dark, noiseless shadow, weaving between tombstone and marker.
Emile hastened his pace.
The man matched his speed.
“Don’t run, pretty Doddy. Leave me have some gold. Don’t let’s be stingy now. A mere coin or two will do.” The dwarf quickened his steps until finally overcoming Emile, and with a cackle, he leapt up and over an aboveground vault, landing upon Emile’s back.
Emile toppled over, collapsing to the dewy grass while his accoster’s calloused fingers sought his throat. He did not delay, but twisted to one side, seeking to dislodge the smaller man. But what the dwarf wanted for in stature he made up in brute strength, and he hung on until the last. Then, once bucked, he hissed as might a feral cat. Now that his hat had been knocked aside in the scuffle, the stranger’s face was clear in all its disturbing detail. Baggy, pocked flesh surrounded a squashed nose and baleful eyes. A cauliflower ear, as corrupted and gristly as a piece of porous corral, stuck out from his loathsome head. It could as easily have been the fleshy growth of a tree fungi for all its misshapen abhorrence.
“Do you not wish to play, pretty Doddy? ‘Tis time to play. Yes, yes. Time to play...and pay.” With a movement too sudden for the mortal eye to trace, the fellow brought out a knife, whose keen edge flashed silver in the moonlight. “Give over your purse and pay the toll, and your death shall be merciful,” the man promised.
What? This fellow meant to kill him even though he could offer up some tithe? Did he think Emile some sort of lamb for the slaughter who would lie down and expose its neck with nary a fight? How foolish!
Emile bent low, his hands seeking and finding his walking stick, while his eyes never left his toadish visitor.
Instead of breaking and running at the sight of the larger weapon, though, the fellow’s face split into a wide, gap-toothed grin. Mayhap his mind was as decayed as his face appeared. That or he was undaunted—perhaps even goaded—by the challenge.
He circled Emile, feigning with the knife as if to strike, most likely to test his opponent’s reflexes. For his part, Emile brought up his staff to meet the blade, every time knocking it harmlessly to one side. But the blackguard grew more daring, more cunning, now passing the knife from hand to hand and back again so that Emile would have less chance of telling from which direction a jab might come. Then the man darted forward, at once gripping the staff and thrusting the knife toward Emile’s midriff. If not for his quick turn to one side, Emile would have been run t
hrough, skewered as surely as meat upon a spit.
“I’ll sup upon your spleen, Doddy, ‘ere this night is done. Will cooks it in butter and serve some to your mother with a nice pint o’ ale, I will.” Spittle flew from the little man’s mouth as he let loose more laughter—the sound of one whose brain is truly beleaguered with dark thoughts most foul.
Emile voiced his disagreement while jerking his walking stick free from the hoary paw which clasped it, then clouted the man upon the crown. While the other was dazed, he further scrabbled at a rock roughly the size of a pavestone and brought it crashing along the fellow’s temple. It might have killed a normal man, but of course there was nothing typical about this chap.
Then Emile ran. Ran as one might with the very devil after him.
“Don’t go now, Doooooddddddy...” the voice resonated between the tombstones. “Stay and play a bit longer. We’ve only just begun, we have...”
-7-
Time passed at a different rate in the dreamland—or so it seemed. It was not long before Emile entered Chapel Landing’s counterpart and its moon-silvered avenues and cul-de-sacs. All the while, he had watched breathlessly over his shoulder, lest his adversary appear and take him unawares. It was with great relief he reached the garden fence and the return gate home.
-8-
The sun was just kissing the horizon when Emile made for the clergyman’s home. No longer full night, and no sickly white rind of a moon. No more dreamland.
Within the parsonage, Parson Harper poured Emile a glass of excellent port to brace up his nerves while asking for an account of his most recent adventure.
Even sitting mere inches from the comforting warmth of hearth fire, Emile had to concentrate to keep his hands from shaking and spilling the wine he’d been given. When he had purged his mind of the experience through the telling of his second trip through the Gate of Remembrance, he admitted to an improved mood.
