Fossil Lake II: The Refossiling

by H. P. Lovecraft

  “Ah,” he says. “Your faith is weakening.”

  That’s part of it, I suppose. But also, the question posed by Human Martha the other night is troubling my head. With this world around us so full of corruption, isn’t it merely inevitable that we will end up being tainted, end up offending someone, too?

  So I say, “Brother Arnold, you’ve been at this the longest.”

  “Yes,” he replies, “that is correct.”

  “Do you think that things have got any better in all that time?”

  To my surprise, he says, “No.”

  I blink. “No?”

  “No,” he repeats. “They’ve got worse.”

  Then, perhaps sensing that this is not what I need to hear, he adds, “But it’s only everyone else in the world that has got worse. We, in this fine Self-Neutering Society, have grown stronger. More powerful.”

  The average doctor or surgeon, especially one with a fondness for full nipples or large breasts, might disagree with this analysis of our prowess. Still, I feel the need to point out, “But the rest of the world, Brother Arnold . . . that’s an awful lot of people.”

  “Yes, ’awful’ is the right word for them,” he replies.

  Then he opens his shirt wide.

  It’s the first time I’ve seen him so exposed.

  Beneath the cloth, he’s barely there at all.

  You can see bone in places.

  Quite a lot of places.

  “The more they hurt others,” he says, “the more we hurt ourselves.”

  He reaches out a hand.

  Grabs mine.

  Rests my fingers against the remnants of his skin.

  “See, we serve a sacred purpose, Brother,” he tells me. “There can only be so much hurt in the world. By drawing some of that pain into ourselves, we reduce the damage that the offender causes his victim.”

  He pulls his hand back.

  Begins to button up his shirt.

  “Maybe we even save their lives.”

  He has a way to make you believe again, and thank God, he’s done it once more. But there’s still one question that lingers, and I pose it as I stand.

  “And what, Blessed Brother Arnold, if we were to offend someone?”

  He thinks it over.

  “Well,” he eventually says, “I think the ultimate sacrifice of all would then be in order.”

  When you think of all the blood we’ve shed and skin we’ve shredded, it might be hard to imagine sacrificing anymore. But I guess as long as you’re still breathing, you’ve still got more to give.

  Just ask that woman from The Scumbags.

  That was meant to be a joke.

  Was that offensive?

  Sorry.

  Better prepare the hacksaw.

  But anyway, Brother Benjamin has taken to offering me the odd bit of employment. He knows that only the offenders of the world have money to burn, and knows further that it’s hard to find work when you’re getting on a bit and your body is a protest patchwork. It’s nothing too taxing, of course . . . just taking minutes at meetings.

  So I grab the train to the tower block in which his business resides, and oh my word you would not believe the profanities that assault my ears along the way. It is going to take a lot of cutting to put right all the things I heard.

  I eventually reach his office, planning to head to the boardroom with him, and when I hear the fan set to its fastest speed and therefore loudest volume I know that he has obviously had a tough morning, too. See, no one else is allowed to enter when it’s on that loud – it’s like an unwritten rule, a sign that he is working hard and not to be disturbed. But normal rules don’t apply to fellow Self-Neutering souls, and I walk right on in.

  The head of supplies, a bitter-faced old woman called Sally, notices this, and she flashes me a dirty look as I enter.

  Once inside the office, I see that Brother Benjamin is on the table, naked except for his socks and shoes, and he’s cutting into his chest.

  “Cab driver had Tourette’s,” he explains.

  Say no more.

  I’d like to join him, but I’ve never been one for mixing business with pleasure, and being here in this office is all about the former. So I just stab myself in the leg a few times with my minute-taking pen and leave it at that.

  For now.

  Then I wait whilst he gets dressed.

  Thinking that we’re heading to the boardroom, like usual.

  But instead he stands by the window.

  Says, “I’d like to do things a little differently today, Brother Stewart.”

  “Oh?” I look at him.

  He grins. “Call all the usual suspects in here.”

  This is irregular, is something new. But you have to roll with the punches sometimes, and besides, it’s Brother Benjamin that signs the cheques that pay me. So I head out and call in the various department heads for the weekly strategy meetings.

  Including Sally.

  Her expression even dirtier than before as this non-official body comes to call her to the boss’s office.

  “Why the big change?” she asks me in an outraged tone.

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  She sneers.

  Serves her right for asking a lowly minion, no?

  When we get to Brother Benjamin’s office, though, I see immediately that something is very wrong here.

  He’s produced a huge sack from somewhere. A huge sack and it’s lying on the table and it’s bulging, its contents alive.

  I flash back to our past few meetings.

  And I don’t need to take too many guesses to work out what is in this sack.

  “Mr Moorland,” Sally says. “This is most unusual.”

  She doesn’t know the half of it.

  See, at first, Brother Benjamin is sitting at his chair.

  When he stands, though . . .

  He’s stripped off again.

  Razor blades still jutting from bloody wounds.

  Maggots crawling across his body.

  And of course, he’s looking at me, right at me, making me a party to his madness.

  “I’ve got it now, Brother Stewart,” he says. “I understand.”

  “Brother Stewart?” Sally enquires, eyebrows rising.

  Ignoring her, he says, “We can’t do it alone. We can’t take on the people who swear, the people who drink, all the people who offend on our own.”

  “Mr Moorland,” I try, hoping I can nip this little thing in the bud, knowing that Brother Arnold will take a dim view of this, “I don’t think –”

  “We need new numbers,” he goes on, cutting me off. “We need to be bigger.”

  And he grabs a handful of maggots and eats them.

  His sub-ordinates groan.

  I’ll admit to feeling a little queasy, myself.

  “I’m hurting,” he says, and I almost allow myself to breathe a sigh of relief, hoping that he’ll pass out before too much damage is done. “But don’t worry. I know how to take care of that.”

  And he pulls one of the blades from his skin.

  A plume of blood flies out, into the eyes of Mr Wiggins from accounts.

  Brother Benjamin doesn’t notice.

  No, he’s too busy with other business.

  Namely splitting the bag wide open.

  And diving headfirst into the sea of maggots that lie inside it.

  Sally is sick, then, vomiting all over her shoes.

  Is it offensive to think, serves her right?

  Maybe so.

  I think it anyway.

  And so my fall begins.

  For that, you see, is when Brother Benjamin looks up to me.

  His face covered in crawling, squirming, squelching maggots.

  Only small portions of his skin visible.

  He opens up his mouth, and says to me, “Join in, Brother Stewart.”

  Then he says something else, but you can’t quite hear it through the army of maggots that march into his mouth.

  H
e reaches a hand towards me.

  Coming up from the table.

  He mutters something else unintelligible.

  But he’s looking at me as he says it.

  Friendship in his eyes.

  Solidarity, too.

  But all I see is the creatures that swarm over him.

  And I bat him away.

  A bit too hard.

  As he slips back and back and back until his body meets the window.

  And goes through it.

  Sally runs to the window in what seems like slow motion, and looks out of it.

  Looks down.

  Then back at me.

  I recognise what’s in her eyes.

  Oh dear, I think.

  Looks like I just offended someone.

  They’re all gathered around me.

  Brother Arnold.

  Human Martha.

  The urn of Brother Benjamin.

  The first two wearing black.

  Standing in the hide-out.

  The last place I’ll ever see.

  Human Martha hands me my hacksaw.

  My old friend.

  My dear tool.

  We’ve been through so much together.

  But no more.

  I begin to saw.

  It’s shocking how easily my head comes off.

  I’ll really have to complain to God about that when I see him in just a few seconds.

  THE NIGHTMARE LAKE

  H. P. Lovecraft

  There is a lake in distant Zan,

  Beyond the wonted haunts of man,

  Where broods alone in a hideous state

  A spirit dead and desolate;

  A spirit ancient and unholy,

  Heavy with fearsome melancholy,

  Which from the waters dull and dense

  Draws vapors cursed with pestilence.

  Around the banks, a mire of clay,

  Sprawl things offensive in decay,

  And curious birds that reach that shore

  Are seen by mortals nevermore.

  Here shines by day the searing sun

  On glassy wastes beheld by none,

  And here by night pale moonbeams flow

  Into the deeps that yawn below.

  In nightmares only is it told

  What scenes beneath those beams unfold;

  What scenes, too old for human sight,

  Lie sunken there in endless night;

  For in those depths there only pace

  The shadows of a voiceless race.

  One midnight, redolent of ill,

  I saw that lake, asleep and still;

  While in the lurid sky there rode

  A gibbous moon that glow’d and glow’d.

  I saw the stretching marshy shore,

  And the foul things those marshes bore:

  Lizards and snakes convuls’d and dying;

  Ravens and vampires putrefying;

  All these, and hov’ring o’er the dead,

  Narcophagi that on them fed.

  And as the dreadful moon climb’d high,

  Fright’ning the stars from out the sky,

  I saw the lake’s dull water glow

  Till sunken things appear’d below.

  There shone unnumber’d fathoms down,

  The tow’rs of a forgotten town;

  The tarnish’d domes and mossy walls;

  Weed-tangled spires and empty halls;

  Deserted fanes and vaults of dread,

  And streets of gold uncoveted.

  These I beheld, and saw beside

  A horde of shapeless shadows glide;

  A noxious horde which to my glance

  Seem’d moving in a hideous dance

  Round slimy sepulchres that lay

  Beside a never-travell’d way.

  Straight from those tombs a heaving rose

  That vex’d the waters’ dull repose,

  While lethal shades of upper space

  Howl’d at the moon’s sardonic face.

  Then sank the lake within its bed,

  Suck’d down to caverns of the dead,

  Till from the reeking, new-stript earth

  Curl’d foetid fumes of noisome birth.

  About the city, nigh uncover’d,

  The monstrous dancing shadows hover’d,

  When lo! there ope’d with sudden stir

  The portal of each sepulchre!

  No ear may learn, no tongue may tell

  What nameless horror then befell.

  I see that lake—that moon agrin—

  That city and the things within—

  Waking, I pray that on that shore

  The nightmare lake may sink no more!

  Look for “The Maven” by Nikki Hetfield, coming in Fossil Lake 3: UNICORNADO!

  A tween girl’s notebook cover come to life.

  A group known as the Plagiarists and their nutjob leader.

  The old Campbell property past Fossil Lake.

  “The signature calling card of the plagiarism posse is the sexual abuse of unicorns.”

  Look for “The Maven“ by Nikki Hetfield

  Coming in 2016 in

  Fossil Lake III: UNICORNADO!

  http://fossillake.wordpress.com/

  ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

  Randy Attwood

  Randy Attwood grew up at Larned State Hospital where his father was its dentist. He has been a journalist, director of PR at an academic medical center, and retired as Media Officer at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City. His fiction touches many genres. He has nine novels and two collections of shorter works published.

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  Alicia Austen

  Alicia Austen is a writer who specializes in silent cinema, old books, and dead wordsmiths. She also writes short stories and plays. In her free time, she edits books, drinks too much tea, listens to punk rock, reads, bakes delicious goodies, and blogs at onetrackmuse.com. She lives in Ohio with her husband, their beloved dog, and a hand-me-down cat.

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  Shaun Avery

  Shaun Avery is a crime and horror fiction writer whose work has appeared in many magazines and anthologies, with more currently forthcoming. He has also co-created a self-published comic that is coming soon, about which he is very excited. “Blessedly Offended“ casts a satirical eye on two of his least favourite groups of people – those who complain endlessly about TV shows, and those who would do anything to get on TV shows. Although he admits he has perhaps exaggerated the attitudes and actions of these groups for comedy value. Perhaps.

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  Doug Blakeslee

  The author lives in the Pacific Northwest and spends his time writing, cooking, gaming, and following the local WHL hockey team. His interest in books and reading started early thanks to his parents, though his serious attempts at writing only started a few years ago. From time to time he blogs about writing and other related topics at The Simms Project at http://thesimmsproject.blogspot.com/. Published works can be found in the anthologies Uncommon Assassins, Zippered Flesh 2, and Someone Wicked from Smart Rhino, ATTACK! of the B-Movie Monsters, Astrologica: Stories of the Zodiac, and A Chimerical World: Tales of the Unseelie Court. His current project is an urban fantasy novella featuring a group of changelings in the modern world. He can be reached on Facebook or simms.doug@gmail.com.

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  Bruce Boston

  Bruce Boston is the author of more than fifty books and chapbooks, including the dystopian sf novel The Guardener痴 Tale and the psychedelic coming-of-age-novel Stained Glass Rain. His poetry has received the Bram Stoker Award, the Asimov痴 Readers Award, the Rhysling Award, and the Grandmaster Award of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. His fiction has received a Pushcart Prize, and twice been a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award (novel, short story). www.bruceboston.com

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  Michael Burnside

  Michael Burnside is a graduate of Ohio University whose inquisitive nature has led him to study and work in a wide variety of fields. His int
erests include gaming, science, computer technology, history, politics, and, of course, writing. Michael is the creator of the role playing games Space Conspiracy and World War Two Roleplay. His fiction writing specializes in the steampunk and horror genres and has been featured in several anthologies. Read more nice things about him, as well as some free stories, at www.michaelburnside.com

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  A. Stinky Cat

  Hailing from a cat farm near you, Stinky Cat aspires to die laughing. An architect, curator, cat herder and comic artist, Stinky Cat is always in search of new adventures.

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  Clayton Chandler

  Clayton Chandler is an author and artist. His fiction has appeared in The Storyteller Speaks: Rare and Different Fictions of the Grateful Dead (Kearney Street Books), Control Literary Magazine, 365 Tomorrows, The Strange and the Curious, The Earl of Plaid, 3 Elements Review, TexasTechToday, and AnotherRealm. As a journalist, he won a Texas Associated Press Managing Editor’s Award for deadline writing, The Hearst Newspapers Eagle Award, and a Council for the Advancement and Support of Education feature-writing award. His artwork has exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Baltimore and Basel, Switzerland.

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  Gregor Cole

  Gregor Cole works out of Kent (the garden of England) in the UK spending most of his free time scribbling away in the gloom and watching classic horror. He sharpens the knives of his craft on a diet of tea, biscuits and lemon loaf cake, constantly waiting for the postman to deliver his weekly selection of gore films and bizarro literature.