But that was the point of the Bhairavi Soci ety: “live as one dead, and death cannot truly take you.” We believed because we had seen it with our own eyes. And Mike swore that he knew the Way, and that it would be revealed to us as well if we implicitly trusted him.
Steve had been buried alive. Mike had somehow secured an oxygen tank which supposedly provided several hours’ worth of air. He had encased the air meter in black electrical tape so that no one could see if the (admittedly somewhat rustylooking) tank actually held anything. Steve dug his own grave one night in Chesterfield Woods just outside of town, lay down in it, and allowed us to fill it back in over him. Patting down the dark, musty soil with one of the shovels, knowing that Steve was down there, was bad enough; Mike insisted on placing a stone at the head of the gravesite and performing a brief ritual service that would “entomb his fear,” as he put it.
We waited, mostly in silence—too long, as far as I could tell. After a while, we began to think that Mike had no intention of rescuing Steve. “His fate is sealed,” was all Mike said when I inquired regarding when we should start exhuming him.
Julie, as usual, didn’t seem nervous at all. What did she know that I didn’t know?
As my anxiety reached a pitch, we began to notice the earth over Steve’s body shifting and moving. Mike became noticeably energized, and before long a muddy hand broke through the soil’s surface.
“He has been tested! He has passed the Ordeal!” Mike’s elation was shared by the rest of us—although, I suspected, not for the same reasons. If I recall correctly—the memory is somewhat obscured by my relief at not being accomplice to murder—Steve had smiled in a dazed way, shaking out filthy hair and clothes, and said: “Sure beats dinner and a movie.”
I was not certain what Julie’s Ordeal involved. Somehow, she “passed through” without an audience. Mike casually mentioned her successful “testing” weeks later during an otherwise typical meeting without giving any explicit details. Steve and I both knew not to ask questions of Mike, who would only make some obscure or clich´ed comment about things anyway.
But I kept waiting for the right moment to ask Julie herself.
“It was...really fucked up,” was all she told me, one night after the monthly meeting. “I’m not supposed to say anything more about it.”
“Or what?” I asked.
“Or one of us really dies.”
Given the circumstances, I didn’t press the issue or try to call anyone’s bluff. Mike might seem like a lot of talk at times, but when dealing with an undead lunatic, your first assumption should probably be that they’ve got nothing to lose by following through on threats.
Friday night, the Eve of All Hallows’ Eve, I took a walk, alone, through my neighborhood. Jack-o’-lanterns glared menacingly from porches. Fake cobwebs hung abundantly in trees above lawns decked out like graveyards with tombstones sporting clever epitaphs.
In my search/ For miraculous powers/ I trusted my life/ To Mike-Goddamned-Flowers!
Etc.
A cool autumn breeze blew skittering leaves across the sidewalks, and I breathed deep. I didn’t really think I was going to die. I felt strangely honored that I had been chosen to “descend,” as Mike had put it—something about my survival at the Brake Street house must have impressed him, although I felt that being buried alive had to have been worse.
Near the back of the neighborhood, I noticed a faint light playing about in the woods near the top of Chicken Hill. Flashlight? But that was near the Murk—who would be up there tonight...?
Mike. Preparing for tomorrow night? Was he planting something for me to find tomorrow? Was the Ordeal a blind, a fake, a magic trick? Were all of the Ordeals fakes?
I glanced about me, then chose a path between two houses and started up the hill. The going was not particularly easy, not by way of the route I planned on taking, but I felt confident that if I could stick to one of the thin, older paths that wound around the southern side of the hill, I might be able to catch a glance of whoever was up there. Luckily, the moon shone down clearly on the hillside. That did not, however, imply that I was able to pick my way across rubble and fallen branches with the utmost accuracy. All I could hope for was that “whoever it was” would still be up there by the time I arrived, and try to keep as silent as possible just before cresting the hill.
I did trip—once—but other than that I was able to keep pretty quiet. Having scaled this hill countless times, the going wasn’t all that bad. It was what I saw when I peeked over a fallen log and gazed into the darkness by the Murk that almost caused me to cry out and lose my advantage.
It was Mike, all right, but the thing with him appeared not only inhuman, but as close to a devil or demon as anything I’d ever imagined or seen in the movies.
“...as soon as you can. They have received the location and await the items.” Mike spoke to the thing, which towered over him by several feet, hunched back and mottled, reptilian skin glinting by the dim glow of Mike’s flashlight. Its head, which bore large black pits for eyes and something resembling a mouth, seemed too large for its thin, serpent-like neck, which curved like a vulture’s over a strangely flabby torso. Clawlike hands dwarfed thin arms which quivered occasionally, hanging evilly from sharply pointed shoulders.
The thing appeared to respond, but with no voice like any I’d ever heard. I could not make out anything of what it said—a dark, deep rumbling coupled with thunking clicks and moans were all it resembled.
“I have plans for her,” Mike said when the thing had paused. It lifted its head and opened wide its eyes, a rapid, low-pitched clicking emerging from its half-open mouth.
“As I said, I have plans for her. You can thank Laban for it, if we ever see him again.” The thing began nodding its head rapidly and lightly stomping its shaggy, goat-like legs. “Go, now. And give uncle my regards.”
The thing raised its head briefly as if in salute, then turned and skulked to the edge of the Murk. In the darkness, it appeared as if it melted into shadow and somehow funneled into the well.
Mike turned rapidly in my direction. I ducked behind the log, but heard nothing—no confrontation, no challenge. Slowly I raised my head and peeked over the log again.
Michael Flowers was gone without a trace.
Saturday morning. Halloween.
I awoke before sunrise, unable to sleep. I had descended the hill again the previous night in a daze, unsure if I had experienced some sort of anxiety dream at its crest. But I knew the circumstances too well to believe that for long. I wanted to contact Julie (the female Mike indicated in his discussion with the creature?) or Steve, but something kept me from it.
I had the strangest feeling that Mike had fully intended me to see everything that I had last night. But to what end? Part of the next Ordeal? To test my trustworthiness—again?
The day itself was dark. Burgeoning thunderclouds had amassed in the night and now threatened rain. I tried writing in my journal, but to no avail.
“So what’re your plans for tonight?” my mother asked when I finally came downstairs to search, aimlessly, through the cupboards. She was tending a miniature herb garden that sat in one of the windowsills.
I didn’t answer for a moment, pretending to study a can of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup. “Oh, maybe going to a party,” I finally responded. “You? A party?” My mother laughed. “When
was the last time you went to a party—first grade?” “Something like that,” I said, heading back upstairs with my consolation prize: a box of Triscuits.
“Where’s Dad?”
“He’s at the office again this weekend. They’re doing an audit.” She frowned, possibly at the stunted basil in the planter. “He’ll probably be back late tonight, which means I get to hand out candy. All by myself, if you’re going to a party.” She emphasized the last word and smiled up at him.
“Sorry,” I
said lamely.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll see if Nancy wants to come over and split a bottle of chardonnay.” She was thoughtful for a moment. “Why is it that your next-door neighbor seems to always have all the gossip? I mean, they’re right next door. Wouldn’t I basically hear everything that she does?”
I grunted and headed upstairs.
The conversation with my mother had depressed me sufficiently to set the box of Triscuits aside and lay back down in bed. My bedroom walls, covered in horror movie posters and shelves lined with science fiction and fantasy novels, still seemed to work their insulating magic on me. No outside world, no schedule, no goddamned Ordeal tonight... I awoke with a start in darkness. The sun appeared to be setting; a full moon had arisen on the other horizon, but dark clouds continued to mingle and menace in the distance. Perhaps there would be enough time for trick-or-treaters to amass their fortunes before a truly classic storm hit. I myself had just enough time to get changed and make my way over to the grotto behind the Brake Street house.
I ended up slowing down substantially as I walked down to Brake Street—what did I have to lose? They couldn’t start without me.
The moon loomed, wildly exaggerated, in the sky; kids in all varieties of Halloween costumes cavorted about, screaming and laughing and racing one another. Tonight I hoped to find out if the mask I wore, Charles Thomas Leland, possessed the level of resolve necessary to survive the weird, messy world that Fear Club was intent on uncovering.
I thought about the Ordeal.
Golem Creek legend held that the Murk had originally been a naturally occurring fissure in the earth, and was once supposedly a functional well. The property surrounding it had been purchased by Laban Black, a wealthy businessman of Welsh ancestry, upon his arrival in America in the eighteenseventies. Other than constructing an elaborate stone wall around the well itself—doubtless, in part, to keep from having to deal with lawsuits involving people accidentally falling to their deaths within—he hadn’t done much of anything else with it.
Laban Black had also built the house on Brake Street, some distance away—the house later occupied by the Flowers family—where he lived a sequestered and quiet life. In a sense, Laban Black had laid the foundation for most of the city of Honorius; in true rich-man fashion, it was his money that silently pulled the strings of politicians as he whiled away his time doing—well, that’s what no one was really quite sure of.
The legend of Laban Black implied that he’d been “gracefully” kicked out of Wales for some diabolical activities connected with the practice of witchcraft. Everyone had their opinion about it: some people claimed he was a murderer on the level of Bluebeard, others that he had simply engaged in one-too-many affairs with local ladies whose husbands were tired of the intrusions. In the latter case, these affairs were often attributed to some type of ritual magic which the ladies agreed to engage in at his request.
At any rate, the witchcraft connection ended up becoming part of the story behind the “enshrined” wishing well on Chicken Hill. Stories circulated of people in desperate circumstances tossing coins into the well on nights of the full moon, entreating whatever “spirits” dwelt within to answer their prayers. Upon tossing one’s coin in, so the story goes, “if nothing you hear, the spirits are near,” apparently meaning that your wish would be answered because the coin had been “caught” by a spirit rather than simply hitting the stone basin and echoing.
The oddest part of the entire legend surrounding the well is that, in many cases, it worked. Alternative explanations often strained credibility. The story of an old woman whose son had gone off to war, who had subsequently received notice of his death, with instructions regarding delivery of his body for burial, made a wish one night at the well. The very next day, her son, alive and well, returned home from overseas; everyone, including him, was utterly baffled by the “mistake” made on the part of the army processing service, and due apologies were not long in coming.
There were darker circumstances, too. Other than improbable deaths occurring as a result of vengeance wishes made at the well, stories of “things” occasionally seen coming out of the well had been rumored. One man, whose dog had gone missing, sought him one evening in the Murk’s environs, and was beset by the presence of “a figure so dark as to be made of black smoke, with great wings like those of a bat’s spreading out behind it,” holding the dog and retreating into the well’s depths. The dog’s barking could be heard briefly from within as the man cautiously approached the Murk’s edge, then abandoned his search in terror. All this passed through my mind as I approached the ramshackle property on Brake Street. Someone, probably Steve, had set a jack-o’-lantern glowing in the window of the shed out back. Its fanged teeth leered at me as I stepped inside, thunder rolling distinctly in the distance.
I didn’t even bother to concern myself with the strength of the rope or anything practical like that. Just get in and get out, I thought to myself. If there’s something down there, whatever the hell it is, just look it dead in the eyes. Punch it in the nose if you have to.
As usual, Mike didn’t give me any pointers on what to do once I got down there.
“Follow your instincts,” he said. “The Chaos Lords will guide you if you are strong.”
“And if I’m weak?” I asked, only half in jest.
Mike smiled. “They will guide you if you are strong,” was all he said.
The rope was attached with carabiners to a harness encircling my torso. Steve patted me on the back as I got up onto the lip of the well. “Give ’em hell, Charley-boy!” he said confidently. “Er, I guess, give ’em—something. Whatever.”
“Good luck, Charles,” Julie chimed in. She lit two cigarettes and offered me one. I shook my head and Steve grabbed it from her, taking a huge drag and inhaling deeply.
“He doesn’t need any luck, Julius Caesar!” Steve asserted. I noted that the T-shirt he wore under his denim jacket bore the words “Fuck the XP” beneath an image of a frowning dwarf holding a battleaxe.
Mike had retreated a few paces to a small stone altar set up several feet from the well opening. “Leave him,” he said as he lit two black candles.
Julie and Steve maneuvered themselves beside Mike.
“Zod manas zi ba! ” Mike intoned, eyes closed, hands held out toward the sky. “Zazas! Zazas! Nasatanada zazas! ” He opened his eyes and gazed at me. I could almost believe that they had become pits of black fire blazing in the midst of his angular, vampiric face.
I saluted once and sidled off the edge, into the darkness below.
The story that fascinated me the most about old Laban Black was the one about his death.
He had embarked (at the incredible age of eighty-six, no less!) upon what was to be a monthlong trip back to his native Wales, ostensibly to oversee the excavation of some ruins once owned by his family. While there, during a visit to the site, a portion of the ruins he had been investigating caved in, causing a general collapse of the old fortress’s infrastructure. A complete cave-in ensued, burying Laban alive under several tons of compromised stonework.
“Death by misadventure,” one might say. But there were rumors that his death had been precipitated by several individuals who were not at all pleased that Laban had returned to Wales, much less that he perhaps intended to return for good.
His body was never recovered, adding plenty of fuel to the fire of fable surrounding him. His properties in America were promptly swallowed up by several investment firms—all but the properties in and around Golem Creek, which, by some financial trick or other, Laban had managed to make untouchable by any but his closest trusted relative: Mike’s great-granduncle, Curwen Flowers.
And so the house on Brake Street was inhabited by several generations of Mike’s family, and would be so to this day, had not Mike’s own death two years ago prompted an emergency return of his family to England. For whatever reason, the
taxes keep getting paid and general upkeep of the house continues, but whether Mike’s family will ever inhabit the place again remains to be seen.
That is, of course, if you don’t count Mike Flowers himself, whose “cover” is handled (rather deftly, I might add) by the only three people who know that he still exists.
These things I thought or reconsidered as I rappeled down, down, down into darkness.
Mike had allowed me a few items in his untoward grace: a backpack (ostensibly for retrieving any important items I might discover), a miner’s flashlight helmet with a spare set of batteries, some strike-anywhere matches, and a compass. I did not intend on remaining down there much longer than it took to (a) realize that it was scary and (b) gather something and then tug three times on the rope to have them haul me back up.
It began to rain during my descent—just a light pattering of rain at first, which gradually increased in volume. So far as I knew, water never seemed to accumulate in the Murk—for that, at least, I felt thankful.
About halfway down, I began to notice the echo of my own footfalls against the smooth stone of the interior well wall. The darkness became substantial enough that I decided to pause briefly and turn on the flashlight helmet. A dull, yellowish glow illuminated the mossy stone and blackness beneath me for a radius of about fifteen feet. If anything, the glow actually seemed to make the descent creepier.
Probably got this damned thing the same place he got that air tank for Steve, I thought.
I glanced upward, and paused again briefly. The dull purplish glow of stormclouds delimited by the circular entrance of the well appeared; a brief flash of lightning illuminated the sky, as if to wish me luck.
Fear Club- A Confession Page 2