The walk back home was as silent and somber as ever. Repeatedly, I found myself passing furtive glances back and forth between my father and my sister. What would happen to our family, I wondered, when my fathers transgressions were made public? It didn’t matter, I decided. Only the faith need be my concern. For my Lord, I would condemn every person that I know. I would burn a world, if He should so much as ask.
We entered our thin, cramped home with a sigh of resignation from each of us. My mother went to her and father's room, where she would rest, unveiled in a place of privacy. My sister went to hers, as well, to unburden herself from her Temple best. Her discomfort was always palpable, more so since her budding into womanhood. My father removed his coat and sat in our parlor, enjoying a few moments of silence before the rest of his day began. My brother and I skulked up the rickety, tight stairs to our shared room, and sat upon our respective beds.
The bed slats creaked beneath me as I settled onto my mattress. I wondered how much longer they would hold me.
In the afternoon, I would sneak away to try to find Father Whipple at the Temple. I would sit and talk with him for hours about my father and what should be done with him. In the end, his fate would be little different than that of Isle Phillips. Again, in praise to my sleeping Lord, I would drop the knife. In such a way, I would bring honor to my family, honor enough to cast aside the shame of being sired by a nonbeliever.
This was still hours, days, away, though. In my mind, I could see it all playing out, like a moving picture showing on the backs of my eyelids. I sat there in bed in the too-cramped room and listened. Listened to the air above me. I could hear the heavy footsteps of my grandmother in the attic. Stalking, heaving, ready to return to the sea.
A Better View
by
Brian Fatah Steele
The barn loft still smelled like hay even though there were only a few strands of it left in the corners. The scent was somehow comforting, one of the many things Emily liked about being up here. The rickety old lawn chair creaked beneath her as she shifted, still sturdy enough for her small frame. They had found it and some other junk in a pile in a corner of the barn, along with some lanterns and old tools. There was no way to tell how long ago the barn had been abandoned. Everything was abandoned in some way now.
October had come and brought its chill but the cold of the barn was far better than being in the farmhouse with all the muttered fears and pent up tensions. At least it was quiet out here. She laid the Remington .308 across the armrests of the chair and watched the sunlight fade through the big, square window cut high into the wall of the barn. From her vantage point in the loft, she could see far across an unattended field.
There had been some grumbling at first when Emily had taken the night watch in the loft but she was unarguably the best shot among them. Even though she was only seventeen, she had been hunting with her grandfather since she was ten. Besides, she had volunteered. For Emily, she couldn’t really stand to be around any of the other so-called survivors. The way they thought a few bullets were going to save them was laughable.
A rotating cast of people had been living in the farmhouse, currently a solid dozen including Emily. After the sky had broken open and the world had gone mad, the cities took it the worst. Things crawled down out of the night sky to meet other monstrosities burrowing up from the ground below. Some of the last news reports before the televisions flickered out showed the American east coast being ravaged by aquatic beasts lumbering onto shore. Internet accounts told of places like R’lyeh and Carcosa, locations of which she had never heard but had suddenly appeared. Other names and phrases were mentioned but everything went silent before anything could be explained or put into context. Any information they now received was highly suspect.
Nowhere had been spared. First the major world cities like New York, London, Delhi, Mexico City, and Tokyo were hit, and then the smaller areas. Someone had called them “Shoggoths,” although Emily had no idea why. Lumbering nightmares with tar-like flesh, too many appendages, and too many sets of eyes and teeth. They had torn through the metropolitan parts of Pennsylvania and Ohio and those who managed to remain alive fled in desperation. Emily had gotten separated from her parents in the mayhem and didn’t even know if they were still alive. That was four months ago. She had been with Trevor and his people at the farmhouse for the last three.
Three months. Three months of nothing. Trevor would say three months of surviving but to her it felt like slowly dying. The rest of the survivors would wring their hands all day, their jaws clenched, just waiting to be slaughtered. No sense of hope, no sense of tomorrow. The bleakness weighed on her, so Emily did all she could to stay away from them. Trevor’s sister Patty made it apparent that she thought Emily didn’t appreciate them taking her in. In a way, Emily didn’t.
A few weeks back, Emily had tried once again to play nice with the people in the house. Numerous scavenging parties had gone out to stock up on canned goods and there were traps lining the property to catch animals for meat. Trevor worried that any unnecessary gunshots might bring unwanted attention. She was fine with all of these measures but Trevor and Patty also still tried to have everyone sit down for a meal together, every night. Emily felt like it was a mockery of the life they all once had, like clinging onto a dead past. But still she sat down to a meal of canned corn and Vienna sausages, only for it to go downhill from there.
“There has to be a reason,” said Emily between mouthfuls. “Dimensional portal, alien invasion, whatever.”
“We don’t talk about these things at dinner,” snapped Patty.
“When do we talk about these things? It’s not just going to suddenly go away.”
An overweight man in his twenties named Colby snorted. “You let the menfolk worry about that.”
Emily stared at him. Colby was one of those misogynistic types, so extreme that he was almost a caricature. He still hadn’t gotten over the fact that a teenage girl had out-shot him.
“When you find the menfolk, you let me know,” said Emily, before storming out of the room.
None of them seemed concerned about what had happened to the world or why. She understood making it through the day, she got that, but what was the point if nobody understood it? All of this destruction and death, all of this misery for those left alive. The bigger questions gnawed away at her.
Sitting in her lawn chair, she was still grappling with that murky bigger picture. The night was overcast, the darkness complete outside the barn window. While the forest embraced the barn and the farmhouse from the other three sides, Emily’s view across the field was clear. It must have been used once and she often wondered what had been grown there. Far off, the trees shot up again, almost a half mile away. She thought about those trees in the distance, about taking her pack, some supplies, stealing the Remington, and just leaving.
As she fantasized about a life elsewhere beyond those trees, she noticed movement. Sitting up and gripping the rifle tighter, she peered out into the night. She scanned the field and what she could of the nearby trees. Something was out there, she knew it.
The air was still but Emily saw the trees all the way at the end of the field sway. She took a step toward the window, placing a hand on the rough-hewn wooden sill. There was something out there amongst the tall pines, something massive and moving silently. Part of it could easily be made out, only a part of its full form, yet moving gracefully as it crossed in front of her. It was too dark to see it completely, but it was big, some type of leviathan unknown to earth’s natural creatures.
Emily watched it disappear with a sort of strange longing and she realized tears were rolling down her cheeks. She leaned halfway out of the window to catch some further sign of it, but it was gone. Collapsing back onto the lawn chair, she tried to wrap her head around what she had just witnessed.
The next morning, Colby came to relieve her as he did every morning. She was still shaken by what she had seen that night and did not want to deal with h
is little comments. She was coming down the ladder, gun slung over her back, when he strolled into the barn.
“Good to see you’re still alive. Surprised a little thing like you didn’t freeze to death up there last night.”
Emily made a face. Aside from the fact that she was female and only seventeen, the fact that she was only slightly over five feet tall didn’t help. More ammo for Colby’s comments as to why she wasn’t capable of anything in his eyes.
“I was fine. I’d ask if you need a blanket today but I see you already have your extra insulation,” she said, nodding to his rotund midsection.
Colby slammed a fist into the wooden support railings beside her head. “Somebody needs to put you in your place, girl.”
“Not gonna be you, Colby,” came Trevor’s voice from the barn doors.
Colby scowled, yanked the rifle out of Emily’s hand, and made his way up the ladder. She watched him go with a sigh, wondering why she bothered to engage him. For a moment, her emotions were at war, then she remembered what she had seen last night.
“Emily?”
She turned. Trevor had been calling her. She met him at the barn doors.
“Don’t mind Colby, he’s an ass. Did you see anything last night?”
Emily stared at Trevor for a moment. “Nope.”
As the days went by, she wondered why she had told Trevor that. Perhaps it was because, since the world had ended, it had been the only new experience that was truly hers. But as the days went by, and she searched the landscape beyond the window each night, Emily continued to see that same empty nothing. A fear crept into her, a nagging doubt that said she hadn’t really seen anything. For some reason, that thought depressed her beyond measure. There had to be more, a bigger picture no one got yet. She had seen the Shoggoth hordes butcher their way across her town, and in some ways, she had come to terms with that. But in her head, if beauty might’ve come along with the abominations, then maybe there could be a balance, a future.
She personally had unbalanced what little unity there had been in the farmhouse. Colby’s aggression was now at full odds with Trevor, both sides in a not-so cold war for control of the group. Emily felt bad for her part in it, but if Colby wrestled power away from Trevor, she’d be gone in an instant.
There were a lot of rumors and speculation about what was going on in the rest of the world. Their radio had occasionally picked up something more than static. Snippets about resistance groups and survivor camps made Colby want to fight. Stories about a yellow-masked entity slaughtering his way up South America made Trevor want to stay hidden. Some reports seemed outrageous, like a new small continent rising in the Pacific, or a slave labor factory being built that spanned the entire width of Asia. However, these unbelievable tales were better than when the radio simply sat silent for weeks.
A few people had come and gone since Emily had joined the Farmhouse, the last a couple in their early twenties. They had only stayed a week, on a trek from Boston to Dallas. They hadn’t really seen much, only burnt out cities and rotting corpses. Emily still regretted not leaving with them and wasn’t sure why she hadn’t. She hoped they were still alive.
Although her eyes were peering out of the window, her mind was on other places. It wasn’t until a shadow shifted at an impossible angle that she jumped in her chair and noticed that the scene in the field was off. The minimal light was folding, mimicking what she was supposed to see, an illusion of grass, trees, and sky. Shadows wrapped in light and painted to look like the landscape. Everything shifted again and Emily gasped.
The creature was massive, the size of a large dinosaur, but resembling something out of mythology. A griffin or a sphinx? Shiny black fur covered its feline body and enormous wings that would look at home on any raven but for their size sprouted from its back. A thick mane surrounded a smooth face that turned to examine Emily. It was utterly beautiful, at once somehow both masculine and feminine, and completely alien. The creature’s eyes were a truer gold than she had ever seen and its body was adorned with loose wrappings of crimson cloth along its legs.
Emily began to weep at its majesty. The creature opened its mouth, as if to speak, when she heard a shriek from down below. She craned her neck out of the window to see that Colby had just rounded the corner of the barn. Eyes-wide and maniacally swearing, he was fumbling for his pistol. The creature reared back, seeming to realize the threat.
Emily didn’t even think. She took aim and fired. Colby fell without a sound.
For a moment there was nothing. No sound, no movement. Then the creature moved closer to the window and placed its paw on the sill. Emily tentatively reached out and touched its fur. She felt a peace, deeper than any she had ever known. Somehow she knew that no one inside the farmhouse had heard anything. Somehow she knew that Colby’s body would never be found. Somehow she knew it would be alright.
The next day, everyone assumed that Colby had finally had enough and left in a fit. That was half true, that was what he was planning. Emily didn’t say anything otherwise. She knew that she had buried his backpack deep enough in the woods.
Days went by and the farmhouse returned to its usual state of quiet dread. Emily, however, wouldn’t leave the barn. She used Colby’s disappearance as an excuse, saying that she felt responsible, that she didn’t see him slipping away. No one really said anything, no one really cared. She stayed in the barn now almost continuously, on constant vigil for the creature. Something glorious had come down with all of the atrocities, something magnificent. She had seen it twice now, felt its presence, and she wanted that experience again. Needed it. Her home was destroyed, her family and friends all likely dead, and Emily needed to understand. Her loss had to matter. Clinging onto that gave her a purpose. Without it, just accepting that it was all chaos, made her no better than the people in the farmhouse.
More days passed. Emily still refused to leave her place by the window. One night she thought she saw movement out across the field. She lurched out of her chair, straining her eyes to pick up anything out in the darkness. They found nothing but emptiness. The peace with which she had once been filled was now just an aching void, a void that was now starting to fill with despair.
Trevor was growing concerned. She wasn’t eating, wasn’t talking to anyone. He’d bring food out to her at least three times a day only to find the previous meal barely touched. She was already petite and growing smaller. She ignored his requests to spend a night inside the farmhouse, even after he had placed someone out there with her for two nights. On the third night, she was alone again. He worried about her health, physically and mentally, but outside of forcing her down from the loft, there was nothing he could do.
“Is there anything I can get you?” Trevor asked.
Emily shook her head, her eyes never leaving the window.
He laid a thick comforter over her legs and sat a thermos of soup beside the lawn chair. Her blonde hair had become greasy and stringy, but he didn’t say anything. Trevor started walking toward the ladder when he turned back.
“Please eat,” he added.
“Okay.”
The cold had grown acute, frost crackling along the grass overnight as it rounded into the last bits of darkness. It was eating through the four layers of clothing Emily wore and the comforter she had draped over her. A stray thought occurred to her that she really should thank Trevor for the extra layer of warmth. The sky was taking on that strange dark yellowish-gray of the early morning and she was ready to concede another night of defeat. She was having a hard enough time just keeping her eyes open.
A sound came to her, like a sigh, and she raised her eyelids. Peeking around the corner of the window was that face, as large as the opening and more extraordinary than words. Emily could barely take in a breath as it blinked at her with long, thick lashes and tilted its head. She leaned forward, examining its features. The smooth chocolate skin was flawless and very human-like. Large, almond-shaped eyes glittered gold. The narrow nose, thick lips and promin
ent cheekbones all gave it the composition of a sculpted face. Depending on which way it turned in the light, it could appear as either masculine or feminine in a moment. Something wasn’t quite right with the proportions, but it was achingly beautiful regardless. A smile, one almost shy, graced its mouth and it tilted its head once again. Emily threw off her blanket, dropped the rifle, and climbed down the ladder.
As she raced around the barn to meet the creature, she heard commotion back at the farmhouse, but ignored it. Dawn was coming quickly and perhaps Trevor and his people would be less inclined to shoot if they saw it in the daylight. And how could they shoot? This creature wasn’t some monster laying waste to humanity, it was… it was hope.
Emily turned the corner of the barn and stopped only feet away from it. Just being this close felt magical. She felt enveloped by it, its peace and nobility. The screams coming from only a short distance away didn’t even register in her ears.
“What are you?” she asked, her hand shaking as she reached out to pet its fur again.
The face smiled down at her, benevolent, and a series of thoughts entered her mind. They were complex and sharp, the angles filling in her psyche where they needed to in order to tell a story. A story she wanted to hear.
“The Nyarlat,” she said out loud, repeating what was in her head. “The Hotep of the Old Ones.”
So overcome, she didn’t realize the screams had grown louder, didn’t hear the gunshots. She didn’t realize that Patty and two others from the farmhouse had escaped the Shoggoth horde that was now butchering its way through the rest of the survivors and had stumbled over to the back of the barn. Patty fell to her knees and wailed when she saw the giant aberration Emily was lovingly petting. A colossal horror, which they saw as a blackened, skinless thing with batwings, too many limbs, and tentacles for a head. The thickest tentacle in the center ripped open to reveal a mouth full of teeth. As it moved, so did Emily’s mouth.
The Idolaters of Cthulhu Page 20