Grotesquerie

by Richard Gavin

  Something in the way the main stairs creaked underfoot gave Sam pause. He came to question whether the house was truly abandoned after all. It must have been the echo of the groaning wood, but the sound managed to plant the idea that the upper floor was occupied.

  “Hello?” he called, only scarcely aware of the fact that his hand had begun fishing one of the contracts for location use out of his hip-bag. Drawing some absurd sense of security from the legal papers in his fist, Sam scaled the steps, praying they would not cave beneath him. He listened for noises that never managed to overpower the ones caused by his own motions.

  An investigation of the first two rooms revealed precious little beyond more dust, greater decay. Sam’s discovery of a dismantled crib in the front bedroom caused a lump to form in his throat. Why should he be so moved by so banal an image—slatted wood stacked in a corner? No doubt because he and Andrea would likely never have to do the same in their home.

  His emotions were running unbridled, a delayed response to his argument with Andrea. One last room and then home to see if his own desire for a family could be rescued or simply left to erode until his heart became as rotted and as hollow as this house.

  The final room sat behind a door that was either locked or merely stuck in a warped jamb. Amidst the gouges on its surface was a carving of a humanoid figure dancing upon what Sam assumed was intended to be a tomb. In place of a head the figure bore an insect with thin legs represented by jagged slashes in the door wood. Beneath this glyph the word SEPA had been scratched.

  Sam wriggled the iron doorknob until frustration and mounting curiosity impelled him to wrench it, slamming his weight against the door itself.

  If the owner had secured the door with a lock, it had snapped under Sam’s moderate force. Still, Sam allowed a quick pang of guilt to pass through and punish him for the damage he’d wrought on the house. But really, who would ever discover it?

  The window in the room was half-covered by planks, but poor workmanship did not allow the wood to block out the light or protect the grimy glass. A cursory glance led Sam to believe that this room has been used for storage, for there were more items here than in all the other rooms combined: a long table, a wall-mounted shelf upon which books and what looked to be little wooden toys or figurines had been set. There was even a thin cot mattress carpeting the far corner. Bulging black trash bags were heaped along one wall. Sam daringly peeked into one of the open hems, discovering a bundle of old clothing, men’s and women’s both, wadded up in a gender-melding tangle.

  All the items in the room suddenly quilted themselves together in Sam’s mind, forming a larger picture that suggested the house was someone’s home. He felt his bones go as cold and stiff as pipes in midwinter. Fear had bolted him to the spot. He listened, cursing himself for lumbering through the house so brazenly, so noisily.

  Ribbons of sunlight slipped in between the askew planks. Sam’s gaze followed them as they seemed to spotlight the coating of dust that covered the mattress, the rodent droppings that littered the brownish pillow. The table reposed under streamers of cobweb and the titles on the book spines were occulted by dirt. A bedroom or squatter’s den it might have been, but no longer. Sam exhaled loudly with relief.

  After three or four shots of the room he indulged himself by stealing a few pictures of the neglected items: first the grubby bed, then the desk, and finally the items that lined the bowing shelf.

  He regretted blowing on the row of books once the dust mushroomed up, flinging grit into his eyes and choking him. When the cloud settled Sam squinted his runny eyes at the spines: The Egyptian Book of the Dead, De Vermis Mysteriis, The Trail of the Many-Footed One. Leaning against these clothbound books was what looked to be a photo album or scrapbook. Sam carefully shifted this volume to face him and pulled back its plain brown leather cover.

  Photographs that looked to have been torn from entomology textbooks were sloppily pasted next to Egyptian papyri that, if the ugly handwritten footnotes were to be trusted, all dealt with an Egyptian funerary god named Sepa. There were also sepia-toned photographs of tiny churchyards. Some of the graves appeared upset. Misspelled margin notes repeatedly praised the Guardian of the Larvae of the Dead. Upon one of the pages was a poem in faded pencil scrawling:

  Arise O Lord of the Larvae of the Dead!

  Burrow! Squirm! Appear!

  Your tendrils drip with dew from the caverns of Hades,

  the jewelled filth from Catacombs of Ptolemais,

  & the great silent dark that holds fast between the worlds.

  Glut on the meat of the temporal realm so that I

  may gain yet one more day of life above the tombs!

  Sam closed the cover and wiped his fingers on his jacket. His attempt to return the scrapbook to its perch was made sloppy by his unsteady hand. Something fell from the shelf and landed on the table with a clunk. Not wanting to touch anything else in the room, Sam tugged his jacket sleeve down to protect his hand while he lifted the Mason jar from the tabletop. Whatever the brownish substance was inside, it certainly had heft. Sam rotated the jar slowly, trying to discern its contents despite not truly wanting the answer. He took a step toward the window. Through the boards he could see the capped well, looking much like an ugly coin lying within the weedy lawn.

  Holding the jar up to the light, Sam saw enough to suggest that what it held was indeed a wad of centipedes preserved in some sludgy liquid. His stomach heaved, and he quickly returned the jar to the shelf. Next to it Sam noticed what looked to be a wooden phallus. But this sexual aid was spiked with a number of toothpick legs. He did not bother to count them.

  Shock was the only force that retarded Sam. Had his brain not registered the sight of the closet door opening, had his eyes not caught the suggestion of the shape in the darkened alcove, he would have run wildly, been out of this house, been racing through the sunlit woods, his car keys in his fist.

  But the image of the seated cadaver was strange enough, stunning enough, to momentarily stifle Sam’s instinct to flee. Its flesh was the colour of fresh concrete, causing it to glow like grey, smouldering embers within the lightless closet. The legs were spindle-thin, and the chest was sunken. Its head was obscured by a cowl of some kind.

  What an awful way to be interred, Sam thought. He marveled at how the mind almost short-circuits when its limitations are exposed.

  When the figure suddenly rose and bounded into the room it was clear it had not been left to rot in some locked farmhouse room. It had been waiting in the closet, like an ascetic in a confessional. Its face was shaded by what looked to be a flowing habit of fringed brown leather that crackled as the figure advanced, sounding like something dry, something moulted.

  Sam wondered if he had stumbled into one of the improved scenes he’d been imagining.

  But in the movies the dead do not move this quickly.

  In a swift and seamless motion, the monkish figure reached into one of the piled trash bags, causing it to tip. The bones it held clattered out onto the dusty floor like queerly shaped dice. The skulls stared with grinning indifference as the figure clutched Sam with one hand, while the other raised the chunky femur and brought it down like a primitive club. Sam never even had time to scream.

  *

  The pain in the back of his skull woke Sam. It also played havoc with his perceptions. What else could explain the presence of the moon or the fact that everything else around him had been swallowed by darkness?

  He pressed his hands down on the cushiony surface beneath him and slowly, achingly, pushed himself upright before slumping right back down again. The air was frigid and damp. He could see his breath forming ghosts on the blackness. Confusion over where he was quickly gave way to a sharp panic as memories of the farmhouse shuffled their way back into Sam’s consciousness like cards being dealt: the tomes and the symbols and the terrible grey attacker.

  With an unsteady hand Sam prodded his trouser pockets, pleading silently that his Smartphone was still there
. It was, though its screen was cracked. He mashed at it with bloodless fingers, trying to connect with the world by any means possible. But the device’s only use was as a source of weak glowing light. Its graphics were but a smear of colour.

  Sam waved the phone about like a torch. What it illuminated was an upright tunnel of textured wood. Grubs and clumped soil dangled here and there. The atmosphere was uncomfortably moist.

  The well…

  Craning his aching head, Sam watched as clouds scuttled across the moon’s face and he wondered how long he had been down here. The light on his phone began to flicker like a guttering candle.

  A shadow suddenly blocked the moon. It was a human silhouette, one that swiftly stretched across the crude mouth of the well.

  The figure, now bent over the rim, made a gesture.

  Only after Sam had screamed out “Help me! Please!” did he conclude that this shadowy visitor must be the man who’d attacked him.

  Words came down the chute, ricocheting off the wooden walls. They were indecipherable, guttural, almost inhuman. Regardless of whether there was meaning to them or whether it was merely the vibration of the alien voice, the ground began to shift in response to the stimuli. And soon Sam felt himself being flung as the cushioned base upon which he’d been lying began to rise and scale the side of its den.

  It was immense. Sam foolishly wondered how long it must have taken his attacker to find a log large enough to shelter such a creature. By the moon’s pallid glow Sam could just see the man aboveground raising his arms to imitate the flailing mandibles of the great scuttling thing that bucked its head in mirror-perfect mimicry of its keeper’s gestures. The barbarous words were now being bellowed in a euphoric tone. Their rhythm matched the clacking of the thick stingers that parted and shut on the insect’s rump.

  Horror and irony besieged Sam in a great steely wave. He could only listen to the sound he’d so longed to hear: the patter of tiny feet. Only this time they were multiplied a hundredfold. Sam almost laughed, and a second later his light went out.

  The Rasping Absence

  Trent Fenner was unable to gauge his supervisor’s reaction to the re-edited news segment. Upon the mounted television, animated galaxies spun like tops within simulated space.

  “Astonishing as it sounds,” (Trent never liked the way his voice sounded on television, even after two years of reporting), “some physicists suspect that the longstanding model of reality, which suggests that our universe is made up of atoms, is in fact wrong. This mysterious substance that they are calling Dark Matter, along with a repulsive force dubbed Dark Energy, make up ninety-six percent of our universe. It seems that the universe is much darker than we suspected.

  “Dark Matter cannot be seen. It neither reflects nor deflects light, and it seems to be part of a reality completely distinct from our own. And yet, billions of Dark Matter particles surround us. As Dr. Douglas Newman of Newfoundland’s EXCEL physics laboratory put it, ‘Dark Matter represents the distinct possibility that our universe is a vast haunted house, where billions of these mysterious particles pass through the walls, and even our bodies, every day without our knowing or feeling it.’”

  Lester shifted in his seat as the image on the screen changed: Trent and Dr. Newman were entering the orange-painted cage of a mine elevator. The conveyor cables emitted a low hum as it lowered the cage into the bowels of the mine. Trent’s face filled the screen. The sight of him dressed in a hardhat made Lester chuckle.

  “Some of you might be wondering why physicists like Dr. Newman would go looking for Dark Matter some five hundred metres underground in this abandoned iron-ore mine here on Bell Island, Newfoundland, instead of looking up at the heavens. But in order to obtain a particle of Dark Matter that is untainted by cosmic rays and other contaminants, scientists have to go deep underground. It’s eerily appropriate that we’re going looking for the Dark within the dark…”

  “This is where Newman describes trying to catch Dark Matter particles, yes?” Lester asked, his finger held on the remote control’s Advance button.

  “Using frozen germanium plates, right,” replied Trent.

  Lester nodded. He paused the video on a simulacrum of Dark Matter, which the show’s animators designed as swarms of bluish-purple specks that swaddled our galaxy.

  “I like it,” Lester confessed. Perspiration caused his bare, pinkish scalp to glisten like a glazed ham.

  “The script I gave you for my new epilogue, was it okay? I tried to sound more reassuring in this version.”

  Lester dismissed Trent’s concerns with a sweep of his hand. “The closing speech works. I wouldn’t worry about viewers getting upset. This Dark Matter stuff might rattle their nerves until the next commercial break, but in the end Canadians are more concerned about brass tacks; government spending, gas prices, teachers’ strikes.”

  “You’re probably right,” said Trent. The tension that had been mounting within him ever since he first began his investigation on Dark Matter then reached a breaking point. He sighed roughly, releasing a bit of the mounting pressure. “I have to admit, this story kind of got to me.”

  Lester offered a wry smile. “Kid, what have I always said about you? That you’ve got a reporter’s nose but not his skin. Yours is too thin. This field will chew you up if you take every story inside of you. Reporters have to be objective for more than just ethical reasons. If you make every assignment personal, you’ll crack.”

  Trent attempted a smile.

  Perhaps sensing his tensions, Lester slapped his hand on his desk as a purging gesture (Bleakness be gone!). “You know what I think you need right about now? A vacation.”

  “Well, as luck would have it…”

  “This break will be good for you and the family. But isn’t it going to be kind of a whirlwind for you, just getting back from Newfoundland yesterday and heading up north tomorrow?”

  “We’re actually leaving tonight. Melissa’s packing as we speak.”

  “I bet the little one’s excited.”

  The very mention of Jasmine sent a calming wave through Trent’s mind.

  “You have no idea. Melissa told me Jasmine’s been talking nonstop about the holiday since I left for the east coast.”

  “You’ll all love Pine Bluffs,” Lester assured him.

  “I’m sure we will, Les. Thanks again for the use of your cottage.”

  “See you back here in two weeks?”

  Trent shook Lester’s offered hand. “In two weeks.”

  *

  Evening air gusting through the open car windows rejuvenated Trent as he followed the bias in the two-lane roadway. Toronto long behind him now, he strained to untangle the stress knots in his psyche.

  “Hello? Earth to Trent?”

  He glanced over. Melissa dangled a bottle of water between her fingers. Trent uttered an apology. Melissa uncapped the bottle and handed it to him.

  “You’ve been a million miles away all evening. Did something happen at the meeting today?”

  “No, Lester liked the recut footage. Well, as much as Lester likes anything.”

  “So what is it then? Your episode’s been approved and now you’re on a country holiday with your charming wife and beautiful daughter.”

  He glanced at her. Melissa winked.

  “Oh, I know,” Trent began, “believe me, I know. This is just what I need. Stupid as it sounds, this story got under my skin.”

  “That’s not stupid at all,” Melissa returned. “It’s a freaky subject. But it’s just a theory, isn’t it?”

  “Well, they do have evidence that Dark Matter is all over the universe, but it’s so alien they can’t figure out its purpose. It just blows me away that there is scientific evidence, proof, that everything we know about reality makes up only four percent of the universe. Four percent! For all our talk of colonizing Mars or beating cancer, we’re like one tiny candle guttering inside a massive cave. And the cave wasn’t designed by us. Or even for us. ”

  “Yo
u know what I think? Even if everything we know is only a little candle that’s going to be snuffed out a billion years from now, so be it. We’re here now, and that’s good enough for me. ”

  Trent brought her hand to his lips. “Me too,” he said through a kiss. How he wished that it was the truth.

  The last mottles of daylight appeared as burnished coins as the hatchback approached the tiny hamlet.

  *

  They were gobsmacked to discover that their holiday accommodations were nearer to a beachfront bungalow than a humble cottage. The cold supper they ate on the back deck seemed to nourish not only Trent’s body but also his spirit. At bedtime the three of them were lulled by the susurrus of the distant surf. All was right.

  Still the shadows managed to puncture this airtight calm.

  Dream spirited Trent back into the bowels of Bell Island. But now the laboratory was submerged in brackish water.

  Trent tried to swim but couldn’t. He felt shoed in weighted boots, which made all movement taxing. The liquid was thicker than mere H2O and seemed unwilling to part for him. Instead, it resisted with a pressure that threatened to fracture his bones. The fluid crowded his nostrils, sprang between his clenched teeth to seal his throat like caulking. He knew his only hope was to surface.

  He pushed off with a titanic effort. Bits of sediment rushed past him as he swam, yet he saw only black.

  As he wriggled upward, the texture of the liquid began to thicken. And this brought an epiphany: Trent was not swimming at all, nor was he about to break the surface of a quarry-like pool.

  He was being dragged up through the earth, punching through soil, sediment, and concrete, until at last the bed of all ages sought fit to birth him into a realm of unbearable light and warmth.

  Twitching, helpless, Trent could do little more than stare up at the men and women encircling him. Their hands gripped the lemon-yellow guard rails, their lab coats glowed like chalk lanterns. Strangers to a one, their expressions varied from utter disbelief to primal horror.