by John Shirley
He couldn’t stop ruminating. Getting ready to ship out. God d--- it to H---, they weren’t even in combat yet! He and three of his mates had been coming back to barracks from the pub! They saw no one in the woods, and no one met them on the road.
He remembered bits of field-chatter, before that long hour when they walked through the ring of stones and the fog quit all at once.
“How the Hell far are we from Rheins, sir? We good and noble Knights of Templar appear to have uh beaten back the marauding Visigoth in the immediate uh vicinity, unless the Colonel plans on saving B Company some Kraut snipers to keep things interestin’.”
“This valley ain’t on any maps, sir, at least not the way the mountains—”
“Shut your noise, Sarge, it bally well is..”
“No, the town is, but the valley … See, look, I …”
But he’d not seen that. He’d seen three of his mates, men he’d trained with, done his Basic with, drank and fought and gotten wounded with, whisked up out of the fog by something that squirmed. Something taller than that kind of squirming should support.
No more blood. No more blood to track. When had he lost the trail? It kept starting and stopping.
There were black slime-trails everywhere. When Hodgson attempted to make sense of them, his head hurt and he grew sleepy. And he had to sit down.
The black slime, however, began to move. Again. As it had. As it would. Before he touched it. With or without him. When he thought it could not grow any shinier, or thicker, it did, it would.
It grew behind him when he turned his head. It watched him without eyes. The formless spawn of the forest never rested. No matter where he wasn’t looking.
It could eat him, if it wanted to. He knew that. It didn’t. It had touched him. The formless spawn of the forest touched his skin. It didn’t take his flesh. But his mind was changing. Through the tiniest of cracks.
Changing. The forest was talking to him from inside. His brain was squirming. Like a toad. He fought. And fought again. The woods grew thicker and more rampant. Trees had rooted themselves in the road.
He could see a light up ahead, up a low hill in the woods, before a taller hill that was almost a mountain began. There was a cave below the tall building up on the cliff, and blue light poured from it, visible for miles in the slowly-falling snow.
It made the lieutenant tired to look at that light, all of a sudden. Like he wanted to get to that cave, and just lie down. Lie down in the mud. Deep in the mud, and then … swim further down. Too tired to stand, he got on his hands and knees and began to slither, almost hop, to the place where the trees would hide, and the hole in the rock give something like shelter.
But he paused and dared to look back. Of course, there was nothing. As he made his way up the side entrance to the Abbey from the road, the squirming forms showed up everywhere he looked. In the windows. In the cave. Come to pay respects. To welcome him home.
Some of the neighbors wore robes, and masks that looked like wax. He fell into line behind a queue of these, trying not to breathe until he could slink away. As he passed closer to the cave, he saw what looked like a vast and central stairway, museum-like. Temple-like. But the pyramidal steps led down.
He looked at his left hand. Where there’d been a scab, there was now viscous white stuff, almost green, leaking at every knucklebone and joint. The raw bits between the fingers were almost trying to web.
Somewhere, an owl began to hoot. Lt. Hodgson blearily watched the shadows wake and snarl and snap in the strange fungi and undergrowth that crawled up the hill toward the back end of the Abbey. Every shadow seemed to want to lurch forward. The cave whistled with chill breeze, spilling … Light, a fire that burned pale green, then red, then changing color—
But as he approached the light in the woods, his vision began to clear, and what he saw was both more and less dire.
***
I can still hear those Boche scum behaving like cuckoos out in the yard. The screams and hooting and wailing and whatnot have mostly stopped, but none of it ever sounded like interpretable language. Not after a while.
The adjutant is eating part of what looks like someone else, and I don’t hear the Colonel’s other toady carrying on any more.
I can hear the Colonel’s nails on the middle parlor window. (There is very little left of those white gloves.) I can see his eyes trying to turn yellow, the skin turning gray. I can hear his labored breathing in the rosebushes.
It is precious to watch him struggle under bufotenine, to watch the life slide down through the veins in his pinched face, thinking it is leaving when it is merely cycling endlessly through the same resistor. Cooking the fear-hot flesh to a turn.
Then: Checkmate. Watching him throw those ruined gloves in the air and wave them around like white flags. In the clearing stands a man only a little taller than Napoleon, a boxer by his stance, a sailor by his equilibrium, a fighter by his eyes that burn from that pretty face as pale as Death. They are assassin’s eyes. His hands are nimble white spiders.
“I SURRENDER!” Rauffenstein screams in perfectly accentless English, not that it would have done much good by that point. He’s squinting without his monocle, peering off into the woods to the west. I see my last toady reflected in the Colonel’s eyes, the English looey pale as Death, who takes the higher ground …
POP. POP-POP. POP.
POP. POP. POP.
POP.
The two remaining deserters buck and slide to a fall, twitch and generally take their time expiring.
Rauffenstein is already feeding the roses in quarts. (I should mulch the one who got eaten, but in the zinnias or the lupines, never the chard.)
The shadow in the woods lowers the Enfield rifle to port arms, and stepped into the light, archaic, ashamed, a pale Britisher with dark hair and spindly hands and eyes that never could be called human. Not inside. Before he ever left Blighty.
As he comes into the yard, I let him see me some more. He looks like a good altar boy, saving an old lady in distress hiding in her house from the awful Teutonic horde. Until I come out from behind the window. And he sees what my eyes look like when this kind of work is afoot.
That I am old, but not remotely in distress. I am Distress. And I am no lady, but acolyte and priestess with dirty, callused hands.
I go out into the yard, and bow. And I let him see me call the toads. I let him see me put my head down and make that subaudible sound in the back of my throat.
The lads come quickly. The lieutenant comes no closer, as I permit him to see the lads feeding, then burying their scut in the flowerbeds. It is over very quickly, even the sounds.
I raise my left hand, whose fingers have fused now to but three, and croak a single word. The lads disperse back into the woods.
“Welcome to the black fane, Lieutenant,” I call out amiably. “Welcome to the fold.” (I can smell where one of the lads bit him.) “Join us?”
When he throws the rifle at me and runs, making an inchoate scream, I know he thinks it is the bravest thing he’s ever done. No big loss. I got three. The shell at Ypres will do for Lieutenant Hodgson next year.
He was marked before. The toads are fed for a while. The Work moves on.…
***
It was days before a farmer found him, washed up on a creek bed in Rennes-les-Bains, babbling and unblinking and in severe shock. The locals, long used to such things, said nothing to anyone. There was a new priest in town, and things were as back to normal as they ever got. No need to question another local casualty.
Part of Lt. William Hope Hodgson never made it back from France.
***
FOR RICHARD STANLEY, CLARK ASHTON SMITH, AND WILLIAM HOPE HODGSON.
DARK CELL
BY BRIAN M. SAMMONS & GLYNN OWEN BARRASS
1
Prison
In a dog-eat-dog world, Jacob kept to himself for the most part. He didn’t fraternize with the other prisoners much, unless it involved getting cigarettes, or sometim
es, more intoxicating substances. He had money— correction; he’d had money—and now he was in hock to a dealer, and keeping to himself was no longer an option.
John Grout, the man who controlled the drugs in Chapelmoor Maximum Security Prison, stared at Jacob from across the exercise yard, as he had done for the last ten minutes of recreation time. Jacob thought it high time he did something about it.
He stood up from where he had been slouched against the yard wall and approached Grout, placing his hands in his coat pockets as he approached the enemy. After ten years in Army Intelligence, Jacob knew what to do with the enemy, which is why in his left pocket he gripped a headless toothbrush with a sharpened tip.
Grout’s two bodyguards, a fat black man and a tall white fellow with heavy, bony features, stepped forward with menace at Jacob’s advance.
“Step away, geezer,” the black man said in a surprisingly light voice. He clenched his hands menacingly.
“Let him be, boys,” Grout said, crossing his tattooed arms over a not-insubstantial chest. “Fella, you come to pay up?” Grout’s head was shaved bald, his scalp crisscrossed with scars. Small, mean blue eyes glared at Jacob as he paused before him.
“I got your threats, your messages,” Jacob said. “I’ve come to pay my dues, right now.”
Grout dropped his arms. He sneered, revealing a row of gold teeth.
In a split second, Jacob ripped his hands from his pockets and was on him, making three stabs to the left side of Grout’s flabby chest in quick succession. Not too deep, he didn’t want to snap the blade yet, but beneath Grout’s jacket bright red blood blossomed. Jacob next went for his throat, and blood sprayed from the man with abandon.
Then, a blow from behind staggered Jacob from attacking further, a jab to his kidneys sent him to the ground. He saw boots coming for his head, felt pain accompanied by sparks of fireworks, then darkness.
2
Jordan.
Jacob was growing used to his own space in solitary confinement, a week there so far, when the guard arrived saying that he had a visitor. Jacob assumed it was his solicitor, come with bad news. He had almost killed a man, so was expecting that, but when he was ushered into the Interview Room and found himself face to face with a casually dressed stranger, he was puzzled, to say the least.
“Be careful of this one, he’s a nutter,” the guard said, and to Jacob’s further surprise, the plain, nondescript stranger in a leather jacket replied with an American accent.
“You’re not going to hurt me, are you, Jacob?” He waved his hand toward the empty seat facing his at the table. “You can leave us to it,” he continued to the guard.
The man grimaced, said, “It’s your funeral,” and left the room.
Jacob looked at the chair like it was some offensive object, the poker-faced man likewise, then sat. “You’re a brave man, whoever you are. Don’t you know I’m public enemy number one in this prison?”
The American nodded, tapped his fingers on the table’s aluminum surface. “In answer to your first question, my name is Jordan. And yeah, I know you half-killed some rival scumbag and I know that once you’ve finished your stint in solitary, you’re a dead man, and that’s without your fellow prisoners even knowing what you’re actually here for.”
Jacob snorted. “The powers that be want me to suffer every minute of my confinement after selling weapons to the IRA. I’d be dead already if people knew.”
“Well then you’re up shit creek, regardless,” the man calling himself Jordan said. “Unless you’re ready to make a deal.”
Jacob’s eyebrows rose. He didn’t know the man’s motives, but was intrigued. “I’m interested.”
3
Freedom
Jacob faced the motel room’s wall mirror and grimaced. A bruised face scowled back in return. Wearing the civilian clothes Jordan had given him felt strange—he was that unused to it. Green combat pants, black boots, a blue navy jumper and black parka; Jacob guessed his companion and guard had shopped at an Army Surplus store before coming to release him from prison.
His ankle itched where Jordan had the prison doctor administer an injection after his physical. It was a tag, apparently, not of the ankle-bracelet variety but something high-tech that would inform Jordan and his superiors exactly where Jacob was at all times. The American told him they did the same things to pets now, in case they got lost. That had made Jacob laugh a little, until he saw that Jordan wasn’t joking. So, unless he could find something to remove the damn thing, there was no escaping for Jacob.
Still. the deal was a good one: introduce this American to his old IRA contacts, and Jacob would be placed in another lockup, a minimum-security prison, which would have the added bonus of stopping his murder back at Chapelmoor. A reduction in sentence? That had been too much to hope for. If he could remove the tag and escape, however, the sentence wouldn’t be a problem.
***
Jordan paused at the motel room door and composed himself. This man, this Jacob, was the lowest of the low, scum that would sell out his own people for money. Wasn’t there a treason law in this country, meaning he could be hanged for his crimes? Jordan didn’t trust him, and there was a lot he wasn’t telling him.
He had no intention of telling Jacob that he wanted his ‘in’ with the terrorists not to sell them arms, but rather to see how entrenched the group was in a certain book, an ancient tome of druidic evil called The Black Goat in Ireland. The thought of the most militant and diehard IRA holdouts being involved with the beings that had been such a bane to Jordan’s life … he looked forward to nipping this group in the bud, permanently. He opened the door and found himself face to face with the scum in question.
“Let’s go to work,” Jordan said.
4
Contact
Jacob made the call. He had two numbers for the terrorists memorized, and thankfully one of them was still in service. He made it from a call box, with Jordan stuffed in the small cubicle beside him watching his every move, while their breaths plumed out into the confined space. The man was watching for a double-cross. The man was wise.
Three rings and someone on the other end answered.
“What?” the Irish accented voice said abruptly. It was Patrick Birkett, the cell leader.
“This is Jake, at the dry cleaners; your suit is ready,” Jacob said. He turned to Jordan and placed his hand on the mouthpiece a moment. “The codeword, just as I said.”
“I didn’t think that suit was coming,” the voice replied. “Especially considering your current circumstances.”
“Things change, and I got out. This suit, it’s a really good fit.”
The line went quiet for a few moments, then, “Delivery tomorrow, nine p.m. Spitalfields.”
Jacob placed the phone back in its cradle. “It’s done. Now what?”
“Now we go back to the motel,” Jordan said and left the telephone booth.
“So now I’ve done what you’ve asked, how about you tell me something?” Jacob asked.
“Like what?”
“Like what’s an American like you doing here mucking about with the IRA?”
Having reached the rental car, Jordan removed the keys from his pocket and switched off the alarm. “That’s need-to-know and you don’t. Now get in the car before we freeze out here.”
***
The meet was at the old docklands, one of the places Jacob had used in the past when dealing with his clients. The Spitalfields docks: halfway to regeneration with the skeletal shapes of partially constructed apartment blocks facing a Thames that looked black and sluggish in the light from a spatter of dull stars. Jordan had parked the car near a row of shipping containers, blue but chipped and rusty. The pair stood side by side, staring at the Thames, Jordan not happy with the river’s brackish odor and Jacob quite enjoying it.
“Used to come catching eels here when I was a brat.” Jacob said. “Lying in the undergrowth with a cheap fishing rod in hand.” He took a drag from his cigarette and
tossed it into the weeds. “They tasted good with mash.”
There was a sound of footsteps, multiple footfalls, and both men stood straight and turned to the source. Four shadowy figures, approaching the shipping containers, they paused about ten feet away. All four men wore casual clothes and black balaclavas.
“Remember, keep it simple and let me speak for myself.” Jordan whispered out the side of his mouth as the quartet approached. “And should anything go wrong, you’ll be the first one to die.”
***
The face masks didn’t bother Jordan; the telltale bulges in the men’s jackets did. He was glad he had his own, better-concealed bulge from his firearm of choice; a H&K USP .45 loaded with the now-discontinued Black Talon hollow-points. He was also happy that the turncoat traitor beside him wasn’t armed.
“Jacob,” a strong, Irish-accented voice said. It was the man at the forefront of the group. “What on earth are you doing breathing the same good clean air as the rest of us?”
“You call the air around here clean?” Jordan said, speaking with an impressive Irish accent of his own. He felt Jacob staring at him, but he quickly recovered.
“Ignore my new friend, boys,” Jacob said. “He’s not good with the conversation but very good at dry-cleaning.”
The leader stepped forward, his men followed suit. “There’s a lot of factors to dry-cleaning, though. isn’t there? Quality and quantity, and a bargain price.” He walked until he was just a few feet from Jacob. “Then of course there’s—” Quick as a flash the man pulled a 9mm Berretta from his jacket and aimed it at Jacob’s head.
“You think we’re stupid, boy?” He ripped off his mask, revealing a red scowling face with a shaved head and a full, black beard. “You just walk out of prison and come straight to us. You fucking fool!”
