by Aaron French
The same image that had awakened JP a few days before.
The thing suddenly stopped, turned its head. A faint recognition in its multifaceted eyes.
Then a ghoul reached down and gathered it up. Began to chew on its face.
The thing that had been JM hissed and howled in pain and desperation while JP fled in the dark.
A cackling distorted laugh stopped him. He turned, saw...
The mad nightgaunt loomed out of the shadows. Rose up before JP. Leered down at him.
With no face.
It was coming for JP. To take him away.
Soon. Very soon.
***
Four more days and nights had passed. Enough time for JP to take a rollicking ride into absolute madness. He lay on the floor and cackled at the ceiling. He lay across a dining room table and licked at rotting food. He clapped his hands and pranced in the nightgaunt’s corner. He howled and screamed and cackled and hissed and drooled. He pissed and shit himself, pissed in the corner, pissed in a paper cup and drank it. Ate shit in a hotdog bun.
Then the nightgaunt returned. Through the broken window.
In the Dark.
It paced the floor, scratched the walls, shredded the rug. It sniffed where JM’s blood had soaked into the rug and floor... if it could sniff.
It didn’t have a nose. It didn’t have a face.
JP never gave it a moment’s thought. He didn’t care. He was nuts. Mad as a jaybird. Certifiable loony.
He danced around in circles, howling gleefully, tearing pages out of the odd little book with the odd blue and gray cardboard cover, tossing the pages into the air. The Archer seemed to be laughing. But it was an image on a book cover. Just an image.
When emptied of its pages, JP tossed the book aside.
He scurried about the apartment, gathering up pages, setting them alight. Little crackling fires were everywhere. Dancing flames. Dancing to the mad music of the piping flutes.
JP danced.
Shadows danced.
JP cackled.
The nightgaunt cackled.
Hissed.
Howled.
But it had no mouth. No face.
Flames caught the rug, draperies, clothing. The fire roared.
JP howled.
The nightgaunt turned toward him, reached out a clawed hand.
JP knew. It was time to go.
The Vale of Pnath was waiting.
JP was waiting. He cackled. A mad cackle. Then laughed long and loud. Mad as a jaybird. Certifiable loony.
The nightgaunt would wait no longer. It shredded the clothing from JP’s body. Shoved him face first against a wall.
JP shrieked.
It was messy.
And obscene.
Looked like the thing was fucking JP before it pulled his arms off...
About the author: Robert Tangiers lives in a dark basement chamber with damp walls of mossy stone. He sits in the shadows, listening to dripping water from an unknown source while penning tales of terror. He claims to hear scratching noises and voices that call to him across time and space. While not putting pen to paper, he passes his spare time by reading Roald Dahl, talking with “Mister Legs” (a spider in a corner web), and cackling madly while claiming to be someone else. DREAMS AND NIGHTMARES, a collection of Tangiers’ horror, science fiction, and fantasy stories, is soon slated for release provided Mister Legs gets the manuscript out to the publisher.
Sister Guinevere
T. Patrick Rooney
The insistent banging on the door awakens her. She throws the massive brass bolt back and heaves the thick wooden bar from its slot and sets it to the side. She pulls on the door and it swings ponderously inward. The sky outside is black with the storm. In a flash of lightning, she sees a man on the steps in a crumpled mess of robes with spindly arms and a bald pate. He is soaked to the skin.
“Oh you poor man,” Sister Guinevere says, stooping to assist him.
She helps him up, his head hanging on his chest, for he is in the last stages of exhaustion. She leads him inside and into one of the guest rooms just beside the door, the furthest she can bring a man into the Convent. Sister Elizabeth hurries into the room; she is dry-washing her hands, her way of showing agitation.
“Calm down, sister, and please let’s go and bar the door once more, and then we shall endeavor to help this poor man,” Guinevere says, rising up and leading Elizabeth out by the arm.
They push the door closed and as they do a great gust of wind from outside smashes it open again, knocking Elizabeth down on the unforgiving polished granite tiles of the vestibule. Guinevere steps over and helps her to her feet. As they turn, something brushes past. It is not something she can see with her eyes, but she feels it. Like the cold clammy hand of a dead man rubbing across her skin.
She shivers and Elizabeth starts as well with a high-pitched squeal of terror. From the corner of her eye she swears she sees something dash into the room. Shaking her head she grins at her own fears, and nodding to Elizabeth they turn back to the door.
There is a bellowing cry of gut-wrenching terror from the room, and the two nuns abandon their attempts to shut the door and run toward the sound.
Sister Anne dashes in on their heels. “What in the name of our Lord is going on in here?” the broad-shouldered Abbess asks, nearly knocking them over.
“I... I...” Elizabeth stammers, her eyes wide as she stares at the bed.
There lays the corpse of the man, clutching to its chest, with starvation-thin arms and nearly skeletal hands, a thick iron-bound tome. Of his head there is nothing, just a spreading pool of crimson coating the headboard and soaking the sheets and blankets.
“Dear Lord above, what is happening?” Sister Agnes asks as she hobbles into the room with the aid of her cane.
“There was a pounding at the door and it woke me up,” Guinevere says. “This poor gentleman was out there in the storm and I helped him in. Sister Elizabeth arrived and we both went out to shut the door, and then we returned to help the man.”
“Yet the door is still open...” Sister Agnes replies.
“Yes sister, we were in the process of closing it when a gust of wind from the storm blew it open once more and knocked poor Elizabeth down. I helped her back to her feet, and then I felt something brush past me.”
“I felt it as well,” Elizabeth says, her eyes shining with a queer light. “Something unseen moved past us and came here to this room. The man was fine when we left him to shut the door. Something must have come for him, something unholy.”
“No doubt something happened. I don’t care to think you would help a headless man into our house,” says Sister Anne.
“Sister, he died in this room. See the floor? There is no blood anywhere save on the bed,” Agnes says.
“I don’t doubt that, but what if someone really did follow him in and attacked him while these two good sisters were attempting to shut the door?”
“You mean…?” Elizabeth asks.
“Someone is in the house with us,” Anne replies.
Outside a massive flash of light from the lightning is followed immediately by the huge crashing wave of a thunderclap. They shiver in their habits and glance at each other.
“Foolishness, now you two go and shut that door,” the Abbess says. “Agnes, get some tea started please, I don’t believe I shall sleep again tonight.”
“Right away,” Agnes says, hobbling away.
“You don’t really believe there’s someone in here with us?” Guinevere asks.
“No, or rather I don’t know,” says Sister Anne. “But I don’t see that we can do anything about it at this point, do you?”
“Come along, Elizabeth,” Guinevere says.
They go back out to the vestibule and shut the massive door once more and laying the bar in, they throw the huge bolt home. That done, they’re just entering the room when they find Sister Anne laying the corpse’s hands on his chest. To her chest she clutches the book the man was
holding.
Another flash of light from the window, followed instantly by thunder; this time it shakes the foundation of the building. Sister Anne throws a blanket over the ruin that was once the man’s head.
“Now shall we go and sit and have a nice cup of tea? In the morning we shall have to...”
A scream cuts off the Abbess mid-sentence. The three nuns dash through the door at the back of the vestibule into a hallway that leads to the library on the one side and the chapel on the other, the furthest door leading to the kitchen. They rush as fast as they can in their habits and arrive in the kitchen, where they find Sister Agnes lying on the granite tiles in a pool of blood. The only light is from the candle on the table that Agnes had been carrying.
“What is happening?” Elizabeth screams.
Agnes moves her head at hearing them. Her eyes are unfocused and blood pumps from her torn-open chest.
“It was... it was...” Agnes says, then collapses to the floor.
Something brushes past Guinevere again. This time she feels the cold dead hand roughly clawing at her as it passes, raising goose-flesh along her entire body. The other two nuns startle as well and glance around as if trying to find someone who simply isn’t there.
“What is happening?” Elizabeth repeats, dropping to her knees beside Agnes. Her eyes shed tears which run glistening down her cheeks and her hands find her Rosary. She begins mumbling prayers over the now-deceased nun.
“It has been a bad enough year as it is,” Anne says. “The second relief act was only a few years ago. I mean, can you believe it is 1701, the first year of a new century? We are only now able to wear our habits out in public. And now this, a double murder. We shall be pulled through the streets and drawn and quartered. You understand that they will never believe we didn’t do this, right?”
“You cannot deny that you jumped just now,” Sister Guinevere says. “You felt it the same as Elizabeth and I, and you know something is here with us, something unseen.”
“Oh yes, I felt it, oh yes, I certainly did. But how will you explain it to the Pursuivants when they arrive?”
“We can only pray that we are delivered from this evil and survive the night,” says Guinevere.
“You are right of course.” Anne drops to her knees beside Elizabeth and begins to pray. “Besides, it is pouring rain outside and to walk the northern-moor of Dartmoor on a night such as this would be suicidal.”
There is a whistling noise as the water boils in the kettle on the stove, causing each of them to jump. They glance at each other, smiling slightly.
“Allow me,” Guinevere says, going to the stove.
She prepares three warm, steaming mugs of tea and hands them out, then takes a sip of hers and sighs with relief. Just the normalcy of a cup of tea is fortifying enough in and of itself, but hearing the Abbess and Elizabeth praying is a comfort like none other.
The Latin prayers roll off their tongues and Guinevere joins in, dropping to her knees on the other side of the body. Lightning strikes outside, once more shaking the whole building. Guinevere fancies she hears a noise mixed in with the prayers. Cracking her eye open, she stops praying instantly. The book Sister Anne had set down beside her is gone and so is Sister Elizabeth. Reaching out, Guinevere shakes Anne.
“Why would she do this?” Anne asks, noticing Elizabeth’s absence.
“I do not think she is the one responsible. I do, however, think she has determined to find out whatever is in that book. And I think we should stop her.”
“You are right of course,” Anne says. “We shall start by looking in the obvious place: her room.”
They get up and then light two more candles and walk swiftly down the hall from the kitchen to the stairs. Anne and Agnes’s rooms are behind the kitchen on the ground floor; as Abbess and Eldest, they share this privilege. But the rest of the nuns sleep on the second floor in tiny rooms along the hall at the top of the stairs. There are normally three other nuns in residence, but they took the wagon down to Newton Abbot to pick up supplies.
They pass Guinevere’s and several other rooms to get to the end of the hall, where they find Elizabeth’s door ajar. Sister Anne steps forward, pushes the door open, and screams as something reaches out of the darkness and grabs her, pulling her out of sight.
Guinevere backs away and emits a scream of her own as the sound of something tearing reaches her, along with the sound of Anne’s frantic panting.
Finally Anne screams again, but a snapping sound cuts her off.
Guinevere’s feet turn on their own and she runs for her life. All thoughts of bravery leave her in that instant. All her lifelong assurance that the cradling hand of the Lord would protect her flies away in a scream of pure horror.
She makes it down the stairs and runs along the hallways to the front door. It is swinging open, the bar tossed aside with the rain pouring in. Guinevere’s feet carry her through the door and out into the storm. She runs down the cobbled path to the road and hardly pauses as she turns north for the main road. Ahead she can see someone running a good distance before her. The rain is whipping into her face making it hard to see, but in the occasional flashes of lightning she descries a shadowy figure.
It must be Elizabeth, she determines. When the figure turns off the road and runs down a path onto the Moor, she follows.
At one point she thinks she sees the figure glance back at her. Its eyes are glowing in the storm-darkened gloom. Through flashes of lightning she keeps up with the runner, and eventually they come to the Tor.
There Guinevere sees Elizabeth turn and open the book she had been carrying; she places it on the rocks before her and begins to chant. Lightning smashes down all around them as the words echo in the distance, booming into the mist-shrouded darkness.
“Yog-Sothoth, Ithaqua and Zhar, Yog-Sothoth, Ithaqua and Zhar, Yog-Sothoth, Ithaqua and Zhar. Send me a servant in my hour of need,” Elizabeth screams into the roiling clouds.
Guinevere is knocked from her feet as the Tor shudders beneath her. There is a sharp sound of rocks sliding and earth shifting. A shadow rises up into the night behind Elizabeth. It towers over her and raises its arms to the heavens, basking in the lightning that spears it again and again.
The lightning gathers to form two huge luminous eyes, which cast forth beams of light that blast into Guinevere’s mind. Something she read, something on the tip of her tongue. She cannot remember what it is, but she knows it is important. It all becomes clear to her—if she can only put the pieces together and recall what just got flashed to her from the deepest recesses of her memory—she might then be safe.
The eyes find her as she backs away toward the path up the Tor. The light blinds her and she turns and runs back the way she came. There is a ponderous stomping noise behind her as she runs. In a flash of lightning she can see the road up ahead. Once there she knows she can turn north and hit the main road and be at the safety of the town in just a few miles.
She gets about twenty paces from the road before something huge smashes into her back, knocking her to the ground. She blacks out for a moment and experiences the brief memory of floating up a hill in the rain. Then her eyes open as she is tied to the Tor. Elizabeth is standing over her with a strange knife wrought of bronze; it gleams wickedly in the constantly flashing lightning. There is a deep, intense pain and then...
...nothingness.
About the author: T. Patrick Rooney, his wife Laura, and daughter Isabelle currently live in Irving, Texas and he continues to write each and everyday. He has appeared in such anthologies as Zombology, Zombonauts, The Wolves of War, Letters from the Dead and the Zombist. He also edited, along with Kody Boye, the mummy anthology, The Scroll of Anubis, and penned a zombie novel titled The Curse of R’lyeh which should be published in late 2011.
Alone in the Cataloochee Valley
Lee Clark Zumpe
...the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty.
—Psalms 74:20
Joe s
tared up into the night sky while the balsams bowed to an early autumn breeze. Tonight would be cooler than last night; tomorrow night would bring frost to the higher elevations. A Cherokee had warned him this would be a bad winter. He felt it now, too.
Joe watched the last few fingers of flame shilly-shally amidst the charred remnants of knotty logs. He would let the campfire wane, knowing the cinders would stay warm through the chill of the backcountry night.
Far behind him, Fort Caswell seemed a distant, fading memory. His abrupt departure ended a promising military career; but, under the circumstances, he doubted anyone would fault him for it – the Great War had ended almost a year earlier, and the need for soldiers and officers had been diminished. His superiors did not question his decision.
His long trek had taken him from the Carolina lowlands all the way up through Maggie Valley and across the Cataloochee Divide. The rough and rutted mountain roads crept sluggishly over the landscape, twisting and turning like a wounded copperhead writhing in agony. Sprinkled along the route he found only a few marks of civilization: a wide array of trading posts, logging camps, and remote pastoral communities carved out of the bitter and implacable Appalachian backdrop. The land never seemed willing to surrender itself, and it grudged every inch it lost to ranchers and loggers.
The forests grew thickest along the perimeter of each tiny village, as if mounting resistance to force the pioneers out of the mountains and back into the foothills.
Half a world away, the war left a different countryside scarred and defaced. Armies had gutted the ancient fields and primeval forests of Europe. Fierce combat had fouled the air with mustard gas, and with the screams of the dying. Joe had not seen it for himself – but he had lost his two brothers in the trenches of France.
Sometimes Joe found it difficult to believe they were gone.
News of their deaths at the Battle of Cantigny had arrived almost simultaneously. The heartache proved too much for his mother to bear. The doctors watched impotently as the color drained from her face, the courage from her voice, the vigor from her breath. In the end, she had shriveled like wilting trillium, curling up into herself – her once soft skin yellow and desiccated.
