Searchers After Horror

by S. T. Joshi

  A GPR scan would eventually reveal a hollow icosahedron embedded in rocks that had been deposited on a delta adjacent to the Cretaceous lake that had preserved the bones of the tiny dinosaurs and the unusually large mammals and giant crocodilians. The polyhedron had proved to have a volume of 2,427,613.6 cubic meters, roughly that of the Great Pyramid of Giza. There could be no doubt it was an artificial structure, that it had been constructed.

  By whom, and by what?

  After that initial survey, the government had stepped in, with its own scientists and its own methods. No one had asked Berkeley to hand over the specimens already in their care, but the Department of Homeland Security had threatened all parties involved with immediate legal action, including suspension of civil liberties, should any data from the “herpetosapient” specimens or the icosahedron be published or released to the media until further notice.

  Which, of course, made this talk of a press conference inexplicably insane.

  He’d only spoken with the Italian graduate student once after the expedition.

  “What do you believe we saw down there?”

  “I don’t see any point in speculating.”

  “But you do speculate. You can’t stop speculating.”

  “Maybe I don’t. Maybe I never think about it.”

  “Sei un bugiardo . . .”

  “Perché gli sarai testimone davanti a tutti gli uomini delle cose che hai visto e udito. Si?”

  Jeremiah has told Aden about the finds; it only seemed fair, the way she has to bear the consequences of his nightmares and the dreamsickness that follows. Afterwards, she told him that she wished he hadn’t told her. Not because the knowledge frightened her, but because of all the scary shit with the DHS. So, he’d apologized.

  “You people,” she’d said, shaking her head, “you have no idea what’s down there, in the deep places.”

  “Probably, it’s better that way,” he replied, thereby declaring himself a scientific apostate.

  Three weeks after Jeremiah had returned to San Francisco, he’d gotten word that the graduate student from Monfalcone had hung himself.

  Probably, it’s better that way, Aden.

  The UC Berkeley team had been allowed to analyze what they’d taken from the object—less than six grams, all told. But the tests had been carried out by another department, and Jeremiah has never asked after the results. They’ve never been volunteered. The twelve pieces of permineralized bone he’d used to reconstruct the “herpetosapient” skull had been enough. It was kept in a specially-designed vault, cushioned by a nitrogen-cooled HTS, and he’s only entered the vault twice since his preliminary investigations.

  So, Aden . . . once upon a time, there was a string of islands in the middle of the Tethys Ocean, back about one hundred and thirty million years ago. And the animals that had migrated to these islands, or that had been stranded there when the sea went to highstand, some, the dinosaur species, experienced what biologists call insular dwarfism, but others, mostly mammals, went through island gigantism. Either way, these were adaptations to the demands of a new environment. But there was something else on that island. Likely, there was something else over the whole world, but we had no idea until that day I almost died at a hole in the bottom of the sea.

  There was a civilization.

  There were people . . . people whose ancestors hadn’t been primates.

  “But isn’t that marvelous, Jeremiah?” she’d asked. “What could you have ever discovered, in all your life, that could have been half so marvelous?”

  As though he didn’t understand the paradox, the counterintuitive foundation of his dreamsickness and the Italian’s suicide.

  Maybe, Aden, maybe what we saw was a warning.

  She’d only sighed and shaken her head dismissively. They’ll open it. The government, I mean. If it can be opened,they’ll open it.

  Two hours pass, Jeremiah scribbling half-heartedly at his notes on Istriasauros, Loeuff genuinely engrossed in the task of removing the hard limestone matrix from the skull and jaws of the eutherian carnivore.

  “I’m going to call it a day,” Jeremiah says, rubbing at his eyes after glancing at the clock. “Maybe I can beat the worst of the traffic.”

  “Yeah, right. Good fucking luck with that.”

  “Tomorrow, then.”

  “You’re all so arrogant,” Aden had said, “having gone this long believing you were the first technologically advanced race to have come and gone on this old planet.”

  “There was never any evidence.”

  “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,” she’d said.

  “I don’t need axioms, Aden.”

  That day, below the Adriatic waves, he’d stared into the faces of gods as alien as if they’d come from the stars. And it had seemed that they’d stared back. What does a man need after that?

  The offer from Caltech is good, like she’d said. He could walk away from Kolone, from the scraps he’d brought to California, and he could never look back. He could try, at least, never to look back. He could divorce himself from the project.

  Fuck celebrity.

  He can make up just-so stories that the move would be enough.

  Halfway across the bridge, the rain finally stops, and the sunset over the bay turns all the sky into a cascade of fire and smoke. It might be the ending of a world, that sunset. It might be the beginning.

  An Element of Nightmare

  W. H. Pugmire

  And in this muted heart of mine

  Something awakens ever after—

  From lips half-drunken with her wine

  An echo of her pagan laughter.

  SAMUEL LOVEMAN

  You came to us with storm clouds, rushing into our demesne on your frail bicycle. Because we love the sound of rain, we paid no attention as you flew into our inn and dripped upon its floorboards. You approached the bar and asked Selma if a room was available, and it was then that I turned to look at your pathetic form in its disheveled state. The long gabardine that encased you shone wetly in the inn’s pale light; and when you removed its hood your damp hair hung like sodden weeds over your large ears.

  “The Amber Room is available,” Selma informed you as she offered you a cup of coffee. You leaned against the bar and held the hot cup with both hands.

  “I can show you the way, sirrah,” I uttered. You turned to regard me, and I noticed the momentary look of surprise and vague unease in your eyes. It was almost as if you had recognized me, although I knew that we had never met. Thus I, too, experienced a sense of disquiet as, rising from my chair, I reached for my hat and placed it on my dome. Clutching tightly to your red leather briefcase, you followed me out of the dining area, into the dusky hallway and up one flight of carpeted stairs, to the second landing. Entering the Amber Room, I went to the small table and turned on the lamp, which filled the room with soft golden light.

  You looked around the room and nodded, and then you studied me again with your peculiar gaze. “This is Sesqua Valley, isn’t it? I wasn’t certain, I thought there was a huge mountain.”

  “She has been draped by storm clouds and thus hidden from view. Is it the mountain that has drawn you to our land?”

  “No, it was poetry. My name is Ezra Klum, from Tacoma. My grandmother lived here for a few years when she was a girl in the 1940s. Hilda Young, the poet?” I pretended that the name meant nothing to me. “Long before your time, no doubt.” You removed your raincoat and draped it over the room’s one wooden chair.

  “Have you no dry clothing?”

  “In my duffle bag, tied to my bike. I parked in-between this building and the next, beneath the eaves and out of the rain. I’ll fetch the bag in a moment. I wanted to ask you—” You paused and looked at me beseechingly.

  “Simon Gregory Williams, your servant.”

  “Mr. Williams, are you familiar with a local poet, Davis somebod
y? You see, my grandmother used to read to me when I was a kid, and one of my favorite books was this slim purple volume of poems by this Davis guy. It was a long time ago, and I can’t remember the author’s full name; but Davis stuck in my memory for some reason. My mother has recently been admitted to a nursing facility, and I’ve been in charge of going through her things. I was hoping to find my grandmother’s books, but apparently they’ve been given away or misplaced. You see, and this will sound weird, but I often dream of my grandmother reading me those poems, and of the tone in her voice at those few times she spoke of Sesqua Valley. Kids are impressionable, and it really affected me, the way her voice would alter, the peculiar light that brightened her eyes when she read those poems. Sometimes, when she reminisced about this place, she would hold a photo in her hand and stroke its image.” You set your briefcase on the bed and unclasped it, and when you turned to me again I saw what you held. “I was able to find this,” you said as you handed me the small framed snap.

  “That’s my grandmother—isn’t she young!—and that fellow is the poet, Davis. The image is kind of faded, and some of his face is in shadow. Are you related to him, Mr. Williams? You resemble him.”

  “We are kindred. His name was William Davis Manly.”

  “And is that his house they’re standing in front of? God, I’dlove to see it. I’ve become a bit obsessed with finding a copy of his poems, and I figured the best way to do that would be to try and find this town.”

  “And find us you did, how clever. I doubt you’ll discover anyone willing to part with their edition of Manly’s poems. It’s a rare book.”

  “Wasn’t there a pirated second edition, published in Boston in the 1960s? I’d settle for one of those.”

  “You are very well informed,” I answered, trying to keep mischief from my voice. “The majority of those were destroyed in a warehouse fire—or so the story goes. They’re probably rarer than the original edition.” You bit your lip and nodded sadly, and then you stepped to the small window and pushed aside its lace curtain. We listened to the rain.

  “I hope this storm is temporary. I wasn’t planning on staying long, but I did want to find that cabin and have my photo taken in front of it, holding my grandmother’s photo. Do you know the place?”

  I sighed. “It’s sequestered within the woodland and is little visited. Yes, I can show it to you. But for now you’ll want to fetch your bag and get into dry clothing. There is kindling and wood in the stove there. You’ll be quite cozy.”

  “Damn, that thing’s ornate! Must be an antique.” You walked to the wood stove and placed your hand upon its cool metal.

  “You must be exhausted after your long ride, despite your youth. Your limbs are full of aches. You’ll find the bed extremely comfortable. This is a good room to dream in.” I spoke in my lowest tone, and you began to yawn as you listened to my words. We walked together out of the room, and I laughed as you hopped down the stairs and rushed out into the storm.

  The others studied me as I re-entered the inn and strolled behind the bar, and they remained silent as I took up a glass and began to pour certain liquids into it. I then examined a series of small bottles that were filled with powders of different hues, and choosing one I pulled off its stopper and sprinkled some of its contents into the liquid. Turning to Selma, I smiled.

  “He’ll return to ask you questions, and you will offer him this. It will make him dream.”

  I exited at a side door and stepped into the rainfall, raised my face, and let the water slip into my mouth so that I could taste the sky. With smooth language, I spoke to the storm and listened to it melt away. Laughter came from inside the inn as I turned my face to the small window of your room, which was lit with lamplight. Welcoming the purple shadows of evening, I scanned the skies, where cosmic wind pushed clouds away so that I could feel cold starlight on my eyes. Time passed, and then the light in your window went out. Reaching into my jacket’s inner pocket, I produced a lean black flute and played a melody that would coax the cosmic wind. As I performed, that upper gust descended and deteriorated the clouds that had clothed Mount Selta. The white mountain stretched her twin peaks as something that lurked among them howled to heaven.I could almost see, with my wizard eyes, the particles of mutated windstorm that shook the building before me and crept through crevices at the window of your little room, where it would dream-toss your mortal mind.

  The morning broke in brilliant light. Feeling reckless and restless, I entered the Hungry Place, a spacious burying ground where the first white people who came to Sesqua Town buried their dead. The ground in certain places of the valley is unwholesome, tainted by unearthly subterranean forces that rise and clutch at psyches. To dwell too long on such ground is to be despoiled by rich dementia. Being rather fond of temporary lunacy, I sometimes visit these spots of infected soil. I strolled to where the statue stood on its rough-hewn stone dais, studied its countenance, and remembered days of yore; and then I felt your shadow on the ground beside me and heard your quiet voice.

  “He visited me last night.” I moved so that my eyes pierced yours, and thus you beheld my bestial visage clearly for the first time. You could not conceal your shocked confusion. To your kind I look monstrously grotesque, and some human instinct within you seems to understand that I am not of your nature, but outside it. “The poet,” you continued. “He recited one of his poems, one that I sort of remembered from when I was a kid. It was weird, because sometimes his voice was his own as he recited, and sometimes it sounded like grandmother’s; and then sometimes it didn’t sound like a human voice at all, but like a wind that mocked human speech. Dreams are crazy.” You turned to study the statue of William Davis Manly that had been erected in the Hungry Place after the poet’s disappearance. “He looks so much like you, although more refined.” You smiled crookedly. “No offense meant, of course.”

  “Of course,” I answered; and then I took your arm and guided you from the place. “Do you remember the poem?”

  “No, I don’t have any memory for words. The poem expresses a kind of yearning for far-off travel, I think; something about visiting moonlit towers of the North, and sunken secret catacombs in the East. But I remember the effect it had on me when I was young, because I’ve always suffered from an intense sense of loneliness. Maybe that comes from being raised by a single parent, I don’t know. I’ve had a difficult time fitting in. What was it Oscar Wilde said, that other people are a mistake and that the best ‘society’ is oneself? I’ve always felt that, and hearing Davis speak the poem in my dream reminded me of how emotionally I feel those sentiments; for I could sense the poet’s outsider nature, his feeling of being an alien among humanity.” You stopped moving and stood staring at the sparkling white stone of our majestic mountain. “Funny, I feel differently since my arrival here. Something in me feels— found.”

  I grinned and led you into the woodland, and I knew beyond doubt that your coming to us was no accident. The seed had been sown long ago, when in childhood you had listened to the poetic lore of Sesqua Valley, from a woman who had once lingered here and whose memories colored your dreaming. To dream of Sesqua Valley is to trigger her interest and her appetite; and thus she lures you to her, in time.

  You could not help but notice the uncanny nature of our woodland, the way the trees are bent, the shape of low branches that rake the pathways, the phosphorescent patches of moss that compel to be kissed.

  “This place is rather creepy,” you muttered.

  “It owns a fantastic aura,” I agreed. “Why do you smile?”

  “I’m just remembering the times when my grandmother’s voice would take on a mysterious tone when she was reading me poems from the Davis book. There was an odd light that sometimes darkened her eyes—it spooked me. I loved it because it confused me. I mean, it’s nonsense—how can light be dark? I remember the creepy sensations of those times when I visit strange haunts like the old Granary Burying Ground in Bost
on. Oh, the first sight of that place gave me a thrill! I’d never seen anything like it, the slates so black with age. Standing among those antique slabs reminded me of the queer sensations I experienced as I listened to my grandmother read the bizarre poems of that purple book.”

  “I understand the charm of such realms,” I told you, “and have searched for them in far places. There are hidden pockets on this globe, sinister and uninhabited. How one thrills to find them, to listen to their sinister secrets whispered to one’s imagination. Ah—here is one before us, which few mortal eyes have beheld.”

  It had squatted there for two hundred years and more, protected from the elements by the wizardry that occupied it. The unpainted timber with which the cottage had been constructed was beautifully aged, and its exterior cast a spell on all who looked on it. Dappled sunlight fell through thickly tangled branches, feebly illuminating some few of the patches of moss that covered the building’s slanted roof. You stared in amazement at the structure, and at the two huge leafless elms on either side of the bungalow.

  “Damn, I should have brought my camera.” I looked at you as you motioned to the cabin. “It’s his home, where he stood with my grandmother when they posed for that photograph. God, look at it! It’s like something out of a spooky fairy tale, so old and—odd. It looks like it rose out of the earth, doesn’t it? Isn’t it strange, the way some houses can affect your sense of fear? Ha, my imagination’s working overtime! The very air seems bewitched.”

  I walked to the cottage and pushed open its door. “You must cross the threshold of your own volition,” I informed you, as your eyes revealed that you were becoming more and more aware of the spectral elements that wove into your psyche. I have often mocked the inadequacy of the human brain; and yet, it has the power to mold one’s personal actuality, potently. It was, after all, this mortal energy that awakened us children of shadow and mist, in our realm outside your reality, and helped us to locate a pathway to your sphere. It was now our turn to show you another path—to the Outside, that place that has so touched your imagination through the mystic poetry read to you as a child.