Terror Scribes

by Adam Lowe

  He shivered at the accumulation of coldness that came from the group of dead people. It was so cold that a migraine began to arrive to his head. Then he noticed a young nurse arrive from the ward entrance, and at once the dead all vanished, as if in panic.

  ‘Ah, you’ve woken up, Mr Glade,’ the nurse remarked. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Tired,’ said Glade, rubbing at his eyes.’How long have I been here?’

  ‘Not long. The ambulance fetched you. Some girl was hit by a tram. Someone says you saved her?’

  Glade paused. He had to be careful how he responded to that one.

  ‘Sort of,’ he said. ‘I did nothing really. Some kind of miracle I think.’

  ‘Must have been,’ the nurse said. ‘Now you take it easy. You’ll be able to go home when you’re ready. I’ll be back soon.’

  She turned and trotted off to some other patient, and as she did so Glade noticed that Susan was standing in the doorway to the ward. When the nurse left she came over to him and sat on the chair next to the bed.

  She placed her arms around him and delivered an enormous hug.

  ‘You’re my hero,’ she told him. ‘I really love you.’

  With that she gave him a passionate kiss upon the lips.

  ‘You know I’ll do anything for you,’ said Glade, when the embrace was over.

  ‘That was more than enough. You don’t know how grateful I am.’

  ‘How is she now?’ asked Glade.

  ‘She’s doing well. In shock, but doing well. Thanks to you.’

  They held hands, and there was a silence around them for a few seconds. Glade welcomed it. Sometimes it was good to just wallow in each other’s company.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ Susan asked finally.

  ‘Exhausted. It took a lot out of me.’

  ‘I appreciate it. You know I do.’

  ‘How do you think it happened then?’ asked Glade.

  ‘I’m not sure. Haven’t had chance to ask her. She was just crossing the road and got hit.’

  ‘A bit scary.’

  ‘Yes, scary.’

  ‘Only the tram driver was saying she just stepped out into the front of the tram. Are you sure she’s alright?’

  Susan went quiet for a short while. Glade studied her. She appeared to be thinking hard, trying to get her head around it all. Eventually she responded.

  ‘You know it’s difficult right now,’ said Susan. ‘After mother died, and then father was killed in action. We are both finding it hard to cope.’

  Glade recalled what had happened with Susan’s parents. Not long after her mother had died of tubercolosis her father was killed in action somewhere in France. This had been hard to take, especially for someone as young as Amelia. Glade wished there was something he could do to help.

  He had already offered to bring her father back, but that wasn’t possible with his body being overseas. This was one dead person that was unable to contact him for help. He stared at Susan, who seemed lost in her own little world.

  ‘Susan?’ he asked.

  She snapped out of her trance. ‘Sorry, I was miles away,’ she replied.

  ‘Will you stay with me tonight?’

  Susan reached over and kissed him again. ‘Of course I will,’ she said.

  The following morning Glade awoke sharply to find Susan sobbing heavily into the pillow. Still half-asleep, he was not aware of the reason, and was instantly perturbed to find his love in such a state.

  ‘Susan?’ he pleaded, placing his arm around her. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

  At first she could not speak, such was her heavy weeping, but eventually she was able to tell him the cause of the misery.

  ‘It’s Amelia,’ she said. ‘I had another vision.’

  ‘Another vision?’

  ‘Yes. It was horrible.’

  ‘What was in the vision?’

  She could not answer right away. Glade was patient, gazing at her face as the morning sunlight beamed into the room. After some seconds she spoke.

  ‘Amelia was dead,’ she sobbed. ‘She had hung herself in the old barn she sometimes goes to. Peter, what am I going to do?’

  ‘I can save her!’ Glade reassured her. ‘Try not to worry. Let me know the time and I’ll be there.’

  ‘Peter, don’t you get it? She had hung herself. She had taken her own life!’

  Glade took a moment to reflect. He reckoned she was right. Susan had a big problem there, and more to the point, Amelia’s problem was even bigger. After all that had happened to that family recently it was no wonder that the poor girl was suicidal.

  ‘I think I was right about yesterday,’ said Glade, as he held his love up close. ‘Amelia definitely stepped in front of that tram on purpose. She wanted to kill herself.’

  ‘You’re right,’ said Susan. ‘Now she is trying again. Peter, will you save her please?’

  ‘You know I will,’ said Glade. ‘I will always save her, you know that. But let me put this to you. If I save her today, who’s to say she won’t try again tomorrow? And if I save her then again she might try the day after. And so on and so on. I could be saving her forever. And every time I do save her my own life will wilt away just a little. Each time I bring her back I will be killing myself. What do you think about that, Susan?’

  She went silent for a long time. Glade reckoned he had said the wrong thing. He was afraid that he may lose her if she did not help with Amelia. He wanted to help the girl, but thinking practically it would be detrimental to himself. It was indeed a dilemma.

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ said Susan. ‘I don’t want to lose you and I don’t want to lose Amelia. I shouldn’t expect you to save her each time, but if you don’t then I will lose her. But then I will lose you! Oh, what am I going to do?’

  Glade could not answer. He had no idea what she could do. It was her choice to make.

  Then Susan began to climb out of bed, and he allowed her to do so.

  ‘I must go,’ she said. ‘I have to see Amelia. I left her with Aunt Annie again. I have to be with her more. To keep an eye on her.’

  Glade tended to agree with what she said, as he watched her leave and go to the bathroom. It was a delicate situation. Only Susan was able to choose how to resolve it.

  He knew what he had to do. He waited all day for the moment when Amelia killed herself. He spent the day on the settee again, listening to the radio and psyching himself up for the task ahead.

  His thoughts were filled with notions of his life as Mister Death. He could not understand why they called him by that name. After all, he gave life, and not death. So according to him the name was incorrect. Yet he still had to live with it; Mister Death.

  The time arrived, and he got up, grabbing his coat before leaving the house. A hazy drizzle of rain was in the air as he walked up to where the secluded barns were located. It was a good spot that Amelia had chosen, he thought. A good spot to get away from it all.

  He was hesitant in entering the barn when he got there. He knew he was going to come across a horrid sight. Although he was used to confronting the dead when they pleaded with him for life, this was entirely different. So he took a deep breath and walked into the barn.

  He gasped when he looked inside, and his heart lurched greatly. He had expected to witness the sight of Amelia, which he did now see, the young girl dangling from a rope attached to one of the high beams of the barn. A grotesque expression was upon her face, and her head was tilted to one side, her eyes glaring, and yet a bizarre twisted smile also, her lips pulled horizontally taut into an insane grin of pleasure.

  However, he did not expect to see a second body, someone older, also hanging from the beam, a thick rope tight around the neck, obviously dead.

  It was Susan. She had made her choice.

  ‘No!’ yelled Glade, and he dashed forward to free the both of them, as though his swiftness would make them less dead than they were at that moment.

  He climbed the haystacks and set
them both free of the ropes that held them, laying them both across the hay. He was in panic. He did not wish for either of them to be gone from the world. So he went to work.

  He grabbed the cold form of the young girl first, placing his hand upon her forehead. Holding her up close and tight, he coaxed life into her, squeezing her to him, feeling the strain once more, the unpleasant sickness that occurred on such occasions, making him queasy and churning his stomach. He gagged horribly, and he was shivering as if in a weird fever, as the pulse of life transferred from his body to hers.

  In less than half a minute it was over. Amelia had come to life; yet Glade realised that she was not happy.

  ‘You again!’ she screamed. ‘You did it again! Leave me alone! Leave me alone!’

  With that, she turned and fled from the barn, her legs buckling under her at first, until her strength returned, and she ran off quickly into the rain.

  Glade did not have time to mull over all of that, he had a more pressing matter to attend to. He scrambled over to where Susan lay, and held her in his arms, his palm upon her head, which was cold to the touch. He urged life into her, his insides stirring up and causing him to vomit slightly, as he started to tremble and quiver, the fever coming to him again.

  ‘Come on, Susan!’ he urged.

  He squeezed her close to him, but nothing was happening, she showed no signs of living, no pulse returning. She remained as cold as ever, as dead as she had been when he had entered the barn. She was resisting!

  ‘Susan, Susan, come on!’ he cried. ‘Come back to me!’

  She did not come back to him. She was relentless in her refusal to be revived, and the more Glade tried to bring her back the more useless it became. She was resisting so hard that he began to sob, tears streaming down his cheeks, and a terrible feeling of nausea arrived. She wasn’t coming back.

  Glade was unable to bring her back, especially when he succumbed to an unwelcome unconsciousness, falling down in a heap upon the hay.

  Glade did not like funerals. He did not think that he was different from anyone else in that. Yet now he had two funerals to face; one of his love Susan, and the other of her sister Amelia, who had leapt from the top of the church tower and died just one day following the episode at the barn.

  He had been correct all along. Amelia would find a way out in the end no matter what he or Susan did. Now Glade was attending that double funeral, standing some distance from the actual proceedings, a lone figure on the periphery.

  It was a sunny day, but a sad one. He had tried many times to revive Susan since that initial attempt in the barn, but all had been futile, and it had taken a lot out of him. He had fainted each time, as she resisted his efforts to bring her back. Her choice had been made and there was no changing that. Glade just felt utterly helpless.

  Eventually he watched the end of the funeral, as the small group of mourners slowly walked out of the cemetery, white handkerchiefs evident, all held to wipe away tears. He was going to miss Susan, there was no doubt about that.

  He just felt that life was not worth living any more, as he surveyed the cemetery, now silent following the funeral. Silent, yet filled with the lonesome figures of the dead, all standing next to their graves, staring his way. Hundreds of them, all eager for him to help them back into the land of the living. They were not calling out to him this time, merely pleading with their eyes, begging him to use his magic on them.

  So he began, striding past each grave, placing his magical palm upon each forehead, hugging each cold, dead figure up close, then moving on to the next. He did not miss any of them out; he made sure not to. He gave life to them all, and at the same time he lost a little of his own.

  Weaker and weaker he became, as he transferred life to those hundreds, until finally he came to the last one, and after the dreaded feeling of queasiness and nausea he lurched over and started to vomit violently on to the grass, after which he collapsed to the earth, and a smile came to his face as his last breath of life ebbed away, and he fell dead upon the cold, dank soil.

  Paul Bradshaw used to publish the small press magazine The Dream Zone from 1999 to 2003. He has had over 80 stories accepted for publication in various small press magazines and anthologies, and his short story collection The Reservoir of Dreams was published by BJM Press. He has been a Terror Scribe for over ten years.

  A Vision of Carcosa

  by John B. Ford

  Steve Lines

  I sat at the edge of the mist shrouded lake watching the slow fall of dusk. The grey ghosts of daylight faded steadily to shadow and, as I enjoyed the solitude, my mind turned to thoughts of dark infinity as I softly whispere. “Goodbye, Day.” Many were the evenings I had spent in this silent seclusion, with strange dreams and phantasies filling my head. It seemed to me that this time of twilight was created for me alone, (for I preferred the light of other suns to that of our own).

  As the twilight deepened a fathomless darkness filled the void above, until, one by one, the stars appeared; each twinkling light taking up its own preordained place in the majestic heavens. Seated by the lake I saw the swirling whirlpool of crystal tears which was the Milky Way reflected in its cold, dark waters and it seemed to me as if I floated alone in a limitless expanse of shimmering stars and eternal darkness, and, as I meditated thus, I experienced a longing; a craving for ultimate knowledge and this thought I uttered:

  “Forces of the infinite universe I challenge thee, enlighten me! Enrapture me with the gift of the knowledge of all. I seek understanding. I seek enlightenment. I seek truth!”

  Immediately I grew troubled, for perchance it was not meant that mankind should know all. Mayhap we are denied knowledge of the nature of all things to preserve our very sanity!

  The silence of those following seconds seemed as dark and deep as the silent lake before me. Then came a stirring of the breeze in the twisted branches of the nearby trees and a mist began to rise from the surface of the water and it was as if the rolling vapours danced to an evil, unheard threnody. A moment later, high within the mist above the gloomy water, there came a movement of clouds and beams of tainted moonlight fell upon the pallid fog, causing me to start with surprise, my reverie broken. For a second I laughed aloud in relief at the realisation that it was nothing but the moon and the mist—then I saw that the moonlight was illuminating a vague figure, a figure that seemed to be walking on, or above, the lake.

  A feeling of utter apprehension filled my heart as the figure began to move slowly towards me. I made to get to my feet, but unaccountably found myself unable to do so. As the uncanny figure approached, I beheld a death-white visage and realised it was a featureless mask of bleached bone. Two orbs of absolute darkness peered at me through the eye sockets and it seemed as if my very soul was very carefully and cruelly scrutinised. At length the figure, which was swathed in folds of pale yellow silk, reached the shore and stood above me.

  Then the figure spoke. “A million mysteries haunt your mind; black veils fall across your sight, silhouettes show against the light—yet still you know nothing! But soon the veils will lift, and you shall pass through measureless black lagoons of emptiness to the Place Where the Black Stars Hang and there you shall find what you seek.”

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “I am—Truth,” replied the stranger.

  “But what is your name?” I questioned.

  “I am Truth,” came his reply.

  “Truth?” I asked

  “Can you not accept the truth?” asked the stranger.

  “Truth is what I seek,” I replied, somewhat puzzled.

  “I am Truth.”

  I stared in awed wonderment at the blank, white visage of the stranger. Again he spoke. “You have all the mists of Hali in your brains. Did you not call to me? Summoned, I came. Do you not you hear the Hyades singing in the evening of the world? Dusk is dusk and the shadows of men’s thoughts grow long in the evening. Soon you shall know more than any mortal living for the Hour of Truth is at hand.�
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  “You will grant my desire?” I asked with barely concealed excitement. Then I knew doubt. “Do you speak the truth?” I asked.

  “It is the shadow of a truth,” was his enigmatic response. “I am the catalyst for all that was foreseen; I am the herald for all that shall be . . . ” His voice grew faint as he recited this litany and I realised his body was fading also, melting into the rolling clouds of mist. Soon his words became inaudible, his form merging with the night like the secret dreams of a cat. As he faded into the darkness so my consciousness ebbed away.

  When awareness returned to me I imagined that I still lay where I had swooned, by the shore of that misty lake, but as I got to my feet I realised that this was not so. I stood by a lake wreathed in rolling mist, it was true, but this was not the familiar mere: location of my nightly ponderings, but a far more sinister body of water. For a moment I gazed into its black, silent depths as the clouds of mist rolled about me. Then I gazed upwards at the heavens, hoping to achieve comfort in the knowledge that the stars still hung in their familiar patterns, but even this was denied me. In crimson skies shot with darkness hung alien stars, black and cold as the fathomless void: and they radiated nothing but the night. Unfamiliar moons wheeled across these skies of insanity and for a moment it seemed as if I stood alone at the centre of a kaleidoscopic maelstrom of chaos and entropy. I tore my eyes from this vision of madness and once more looked toward the brooding lake. Then, attempting to ignore the uncanny skies above, I turned away from the ominous lake and made my way towards the gates of a nearby city, a city unlike any other I had ever before seen. Ah, but then it came to me that resolution awaited within the walls of that strange metropolis; there I would find the solution to my burning desire for knowledge and truth, and to every question that Mankind has ever sought to answer.

  I entered the city.

  In time I came to a winding street of cobbled stones where the houses leered above me and towered drunkenly as though gathering together for comfort beneath those strange skies. Feeling suddenly fatigued, I looked about for any place of rest. With observation came a curious fact to my notice, for the entire street was lit by gas-lamps, yet the light from every lamp seemed to hardly penetrate the gloom. With still greater surprise I saw the houses of the street held not one sign of light or life. But this impression of lifelessness I soon knew to be false, for with a start, I heard the door of the house nearest me creak slowly open.