The Dark Rites of Cthulhu
Page 26
Two women frolicked on the bed. One was obviously Marsila, as evidenced by the full treatment of thick makeup and towering wig cackling from a mound of pillows. The other woman giggled and hopped out of bed, turning toward the door and revealing herself to be Auntie Drearia, explained to a barely listening Elias months ago while going through a book of portraits as Marsila’s sister who had taken up residence as a Duchess of some sprawling mountain fiefdom in the Balkans. She was naked and pale as a corpse, skin contrasting starkly with the black hair covering her head and pubic region. Elias felt his face burn, which quickly deepened when his father danced into view. He was dressed as a tart, in dramatic makeup and bawdy ball costume. He twirled and blew into a flute made of bone, browned from age, unleashing a discordant flurry of unrelated notes. It was the song of madness. Marsila sat up and clapped along, as if he was executing the tune exactly as taught. Abruptly, she slapped the flute away and punched him in the mouth. Nevill squealed with ecstasy, picked up his instrument with a bark, and then began playing again, dancing gaily around the room.
In the crack of light, out in the hallway, Elias was gone.
Elias ran though the statuary, in the back estate grounds, each piece looming high in his path, ready to devour him. He stumbled to his knees and vomited.
He raised his face, wiped away tears from his eyes and flecks of dinner from his lips, and set his jaw. He got to his feet, adjusted his satchel, and walked with purpose toward the hill overlooking the old mill. Elias’ shadow loomed large behind him by the light of the full moon beaming from the blackness of a rare, crystal clear night sky.
A match struck and moved to each candle that flared to life in turn, illuminating the floor, where strange, geometric patterns inscribed with grainy chemicals circled both Elias, who was covered by a black robe and cowl, and the Half Made Thing, who sat across from each other.
Elias removed the hood of his robe, revealing his shaved head and face, absent hair, lashes, and eyebrows. Without these accents marking his features, he seemed to have no expression at all, and devolved into a wormlike appearance when he closed his eyes and lowered his chin. In a clear voice much stronger than his own, he spoke practiced phrases in a queer, forgotten language, watched by the Thing through two offset eyes bulging from that inverted teardrop protrusion that resembled a head.
“Th’sash nefmus, borelus klaav!” Elias intoned. “Nog ph’shagg, ph’shogg, ph’shugg soth pnokintanus!”
The candles flickered with a sudden breeze, then flared hotly, changing color, casting the room in various hues of blue, green, and finally a sickly yellow and seeped into every nook of the mill basement like a creeping mold.
Elias reached out both hands, adorned with malevolent glyphs, and placed them on the top of the Half Made Thing.
“Ia! Nog gnaiish, ‘fhalma, og ftaghu!!”
A rumbling from deep underground shook the foundation of the structure, sending ruined timber raining down from above, bouncing off the protective field erected around the two unhallowed circles.
“Ia! Goka gotha! Nog vulgtm, bug uaah yihah!!”
The jaundiced air shimmered, bent like water. The stone walls slowly heaved outward without cracking, then violently sucked inward, imploding into a black abyss under the ground, clouded with huge, swirling shapes, all watching with an infinite number of eyes...
Elias writhed, as the Half Made Thing bubbled. One crumbled as the other rose. The walls returned to stone. The outside was once again the inside. The candles guttered, sucking the light from the room and downing everything in a smothering darkness.
After several moments, the candles returned to life, casting normal light. The two figures had changed places in stature, as Elias was a quivering blob of flesh, his clothes shredded to rags, while the Half Made Thing towered above him, chest heaving, sucking in air, smelling, tasting the very atoms of this place and time...
The fully formed Thing was terrible and beautiful in its nakedness. A hulking, massive torso covered in mottled skin, powerful limbs, flexing hands. Its face was goatish, but also humanly handsome, its head topped with a crest of flowing tentacles, sweeping up like a mane of horns.
The Thing was fully made. Elias was now unmade by half. A Half Made Thing, to take the place of the other.
The newly made Thing looked down at the Half Made Elias, and cracked a cruel grin, exposing sharpened teeth. “It is done.”
The Thing stalked from the room, climbing a hidden stairway of stone worn smooth ten thousand years ago, walking upwards, bursting a buried doorway and emerging into the night air. Behind him, in the dank basement, the Half-Made Elias shook and gibbered out of a slimy mouth on the side of his bulbous shape. Tears of oily blood streaked from a lone, horrified eye.
The Thing stalked past the statuary, bowing slightly to each of the creatures depicted in stone. He pushed over a particular statue - one that looked exactly like him. The stones toppled into a mound as he strode onward, its hot breath steaming into the night air like a furnace vent.
In the study, Marsila sat with a drink in her hand, staring into the murky brown liquid, looking spent. Suddenly, she sat up straight and cocked her head to the side, her piggish eyes widening. After a moment, she turned to Nevill.
“What is it, dearie?” he said.
“There’s something outside.”
The back door creaked open. Nevill, holding a flintlock rifle in one hand and a lantern in the other, crept outside and squinted into the blackness. A rustling of grass came from outside the circle of light. He raised his lantern. “Who goes there?”
The silhouette of the Thing emerged from the veil of night and stood in front of Nevill.
“It is I.”
Nevill’s jaw dropped, as did the lantern. Before it had even landed on the wet turf, the Thing was on top of him, ripping off his limbs, eating flesh. Marsila stood in the doorway, a stout shadow against the inside light.
The Thing, finished with Nevill and drenched in gore, stalked toward the woman and grabbed her. Marsila screamed. The Thing snatched the wig from her head, exposing two tiny goat-like horns sprouting from amid her nest of tangled, greasy black hair. The Thing wrapped its clawed hands around her neck and brought her face to its mouth. She screamed again, cut off by its mouth over hers, kissing her roughly, blood smearing away the thick makeup, exposing the seams of a fleshy mask that began to loosen over her actual skin, which was spotted and scaly underneath.
In the pre-dawn gloom, the front door opened slowly on its own, and two heavily robed figures, one stumpy and round, the other towering and thick, emerged from the house, knocking over the turnip jack o’ lanterns as they passed. The dark green carriage waited for them, and the two massive mares stamped their feet on the cobblestones dampened by the mist that had returned, pushed into the land from the frigid North Sea.
The mismatched pair entered the carriage, closed the door, and drew the curtains tight. The hooded driver grinned under his cowl, cracked the reigns, and piloted the carriage up the driveway.
It turned onto the lone dirt road, heading north as it wound up into the fog-shrouded hills, where the sheep huddled, far away from the road and the house and the mill and the Half Made Thing dwelling in the basement, waiting for the sun that promised never to come.
I.
Let us sing, let us sing
Of the Half Made Thing,
Driven mad from its half birth.
Through enchantment twas born
In half-human form
A creature not fit for this earth.
Pulled from the gloom,
And locked in a room,
The Half Made Thing did wait.
Feasting on rats
Horseflies and bats
His hunger would never abate.
For it longed to taste flesh
Spoiled rotten or fresh
Hewn from the bones of a man.
So whisper it would
Like Elder Things could
And formulated it
s nefarious plan.
II.
One day, says a legend
Came a boy, aged eleven
Newly arrived from the city.
He crept over hill
Found the old mill
And discovered something not pretty.
He spied a chewed bone
And heard a low moan
Whilst boyish heart raced with fright.
And there in the corner
Huddled a shape quite abnormal
That made truly a horrible sight.
The boy almost screamed
But the thing suddenly leaned
Toward the newly arrived lad by the door.
Then the boy surely knew
That nightmares were true
And was curious to learn so much more.
For this boy was a dreamer
A high thinking schemer
And knew he found something quite grand.
As this was a creature
Not a dime novel feature
But alive and sniffing his hand.
The Half Made thing snuffled
Twisted and shuffled,
As it tried to move on unfinished pegs
But the wizard that made it
Beat, slashed and flayed it
And only half made it down to its legs.
Its skin was half on
Its organs half gone
Its mouth only opening to one side
Teeth framed a snout
And fluids drained out
Yet the thing had only half died.
The boy at the time
Paid it no mind
That the Half Made Thing seemed to know him
For how could he guess
That this creature, this mess
Was one of his own creations so grim.
Now this wretched beast
Only lived on to feast
But of this boy it made not a snack.
As somewhere in deep
A feeling did creep
That a new master had finally come back.
The boy became mage
And so turned a page
As sanity started to flee.
Because in the end
Enemy becomes friend
For the wizard is actually me.
III.
So now I do sing
Of this once Half Made Thing
Fully formed into a whole.
And learned once did I
That mouth, teeth, and eye
Don’t mean a thing possesses a soul.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
William Meikle is a Scottish writer, now living in Canada, with twenty novels published in the genre press and over 300 short story credits in thirteen countries. His work has appeared in a number of professional anthologies and magazines with recent sales to NATURE Futures, Penumbra and Buzzy Mag among others. He lives in Newfoundland with whales, bald eagles and icebergs for company. When he's not writing he plays guitar, drinks beer, and dreams of fortune and glory.
T.E. Grau is an author of dark fiction whose work has been featured in over a dozen anthologies, including The Children of Old Leech, Tales of Jack the Ripper, The Best of The Horror Society 2013, Dark Fusions: Where Monsters Lurk, Suction Cup Dreams: An Octopus Anthology, Mark of the Beast, World War Cthulhu, The Dark Rites of Cthulhu, Urban Cthulhu: Nightmare Cities, Dead But Dreaming 2, The Aklonomicon, and Horror for the Holidays, among others; and such magazines, literary journals, and audio platforms as LA Weekly, The Fog Horn, Lore, Tales To Terrify, The Teeming Brain, Eschatology Journal, and Lovecraft eZine. His two chapbooks, The Mission and The Lost Aklo Stories, will be published in early 2014 by Dunhams Manor Press. In the editorial realm, he currently serves as Fiction Editor of Strange Aeons magazine. T.E. Grau lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter, and can be found in the ether at The Cosmicomicon (cosmicomicon.blogspot.com).
Christine Morgan works the overnight shift in a psychiatric facility, which plays havoc with her sleep schedule but allows her a lot of writing time. A lifelong reader, she also reviews, beta-reads, occasionally edits and dabbles in self-publishing. Her other interests include gaming, history, superheroes, crafts, cheesy disaster movies and training to be a crazy cat lady. She can be found online at www.christine-morgan.org
Josh Reynolds is a professional freelance writer of moderate skill and exceptional confidence. His work has appeared in anthologies such as Miskatonic River Press’ Horror for the Holidays, and in places such as Innsmouth Magazine and Lovecraft eZine. In addition to his own work, he has written for several tie-in franchises, including Gold Eagle’s Executioner line and Black Library’s Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000 lines. Feel free to stop by his blog, http://joshuamreynolds.wordpress.com/ to tell him he’s wrong about whatever it is you disagree with him about.
Edward M. Erdelac is the author of the acclaimed Judeocentric weird western series Merkabah Rider and the novels Terovolas, Buff Tea, and Coyote's Trail. His work appears in over a dozen anthologies and periodicals including most recently Steampunk Cthulhu, Swords And Mythos, World War Cthulhu, After Death, and Star Wars Insider Magazine. Born in Indiana, educated in Chicago, he now lives in the Los Angeles area with his wife and a bona fide slew of kids and cats. News of his work can be found at http://emerdelac.wordpress.com
John Goodrich endures the horror of retail work, then take his day out on fictional characters. Despite this, he loves life in Vermont, the last haunted bastion of Lovecraft’s New England. His weird tales have appeared in Dead but Dreaming II, Undead & Unbound, Anthology II Inner Demons Out, the Lovecraft E-Zine, and Steampunk Cthulhu. Sample his madness and some free fiction at qusoor.com.
Jeffrey Thomas is an American author of weird fiction, the creator of the acclaimed milieu Punktown. Books in the Punktown universe include the short story collections Punktown, Voices from Punktown, Punktown: Shades of Gray (with his brother, Scott Thomas), and Ghosts of Punktown. Novels in that setting include Deadstock, Blue War, Monstrocity, Health Agent, Everybody Scream! and Red Cells. Thomas's other short story collections include Worship the Night, Thirteen Specimens, Nocturnal Emissions, Doomsdays, Terror Incognita, Unholy Dimensions, AAAIIIEEE!!!, Honey is Sweeter than Blood, and Encounters with Enoch Coffin (with W. H. Pugmire). His other novels include Letters from Hades, The Fall of Hades, Beautiful Hell, Boneland, Beyond the Door, Thought Forms, Subject 11, Lost in Darkness, The Sea of Flesh and Ash (with his brother, Scott Thomas), Blood Society, and A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Dealers. Thomas lives in Massachusetts.
Scott T. Goudsward is a New England writer, focusing on the horror genre. He began writing, seriously, in 1992. The first short story sale came in 1996 from the vampire anthology The Darkest Thirst. His first novel sale based on the short story Trailer Trash and was published by Dark Heart Press. Since then Scott has co-authored two non-fiction horror books with his brother, David, edited three anthologies and has had numerous short stories published. Scott is looking forward to many releases due out in 2014, including Horror Guide to Massachusetts from Post Mortem Press, Once Upon an Apocalypse from Chaosium and several anthologies with his work in them.
Pete Rawlik has been collecting Lovecraftian fiction for forty years. In 2011 he decided to take his hobby of writing more seriously. He has since published more than twenty-five Lovecraftian stories and the novel Reanimators, a labor of love about life, death and the undead in Arkham during the early twentieth century. A sequel, The Weird Company will be released in the Fall of 2014. He lives in Royal Palm Beach, Florida, with his wife and three children. Despite the rumors he is not now and never has been a member of the Soviet Politburo.
Glynn Barrass lives in the North East of England and has been writing since late 2006. He has written over a hundred short stories, most of which have been published in the UK, USA, France, and Japan. He also co-edits anthologies for Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu fiction line, also writing material for their flagship roleplaying game.
Tom Lyn
ch is a longtime devotee of the art of the terrifying tale. He is descended from a line of family that enjoys a good nightmare, so is it any wonder he writes stories with a darker twist? Tom’s first fiction appeared in Horror for the Holidays from Miskatonic River Press, and he has since appeared in the ever-eldritch Lovecraft eZine, Tales of the Talisman Volume 8, Issue 4, Undead and Unbound, and Eldritch Chrome. As of this moment, future appearances include When Darkness Calls, Dark Rites of Cthulhu, Atomic Age Cthulhu: Terrifying Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, and a special Carcosa-themed edition of the Lovecraft eZine. There are others, but the ink is not yet dry enough to divulge details.
By day, Tom is an elementary school teacher, looking to expand young minds and spends the rest of his spare time hunched over his keyboard writing scary stories.
Brian M. Sammons has been writing reviews on all things horror for more years than he’d care to admit. Wanting to give other critics the chance to ravage his work for a change, he has penned a few short stories that have appeared in such anthologies as Arkham Tales, Horrors Beyond, Monstrous, Dead but Dreaming 2, Horror for the Holidays, Twisted Legends, Mountains of Madness, Deepest, Darkest Eden and others. He has edited the anthologies; Cthulhu Unbound 3, Undead & Unbound, Eldritch Chrome, Edge of Sundown, Steampunk Cthulhu, World War Cthulhu, and Dark Rites of Cthulhu. He is currently far too busy for any sane man. For more about this guy that neighbors describe as “such a nice, quiet man” you can check out his very infrequently updated webpage here: brian_sammons.webs.com and you can follow him on Twitter @BrianMSammons.
Don Webb teaches SF writing for UCLA Extension and has over 70 stories on "Best of" lists since 1986. He has books from St, Martins, Inner Traditions and Wildside Press. He lives in Austin, TX with video artist Guiniviere Webb and two tuxedo cats. Drop him a note at writebydonwebb@gmail.com