Ceremonies

by T E. D Klein

  With frenzied cries, the surrounding chickens pecked to death the glistening pink reptilian thing that emerged.

  The house, by this time, had a kind of shabby hominess for Freirs, as if the depressions in the sofa in the living room had come from him, the worn spots on the wooden armrests from his hands. He sat back in the rocker that stood near the fireplace and waited idly for lunch to be ready. Deborah had returned; he could hear her now in the kitchen but didn't have the energy to get up and go in.

  Poroth emerged from the cellar, a look of satisfaction on his face. He joined Freirs in the living room, ducking his head as he passed through the doorway.

  'Well,' he said, 'we've made a new start. By next week I'll bet the whole shelf s full of eggs again.' He stood thinking, arm propped on the mantel. 'And maybe by fall we'll have enough birds to eat.'

  Freirs imagined living beings trapped inside smothering shells, bent almost double with beaks between legs, struggling insanely to burst free. 'You know,' he said, 'until today I never held a fertilized egg, and I'm not sure I ever want to hold one again. It felt really weird. Reminded me of those earth tremors we had on Sunday.'

  Poroth smiled. 'A hole milder, surely.'

  'Oh, I don't know,' said Freirs. 'It's all a matter of scale. If that egg were the size of the earth, those movements we felt would have been worse than any quake in history.'

  'You may have a point.' Rubbing his chin, Poroth stared speculatively at the books occupying the lower half of the writing desk in the corner. 'Seems to me I've heard something like that before – the idea that the earth is one big egg. 'Twas a tale my mother told me when I was small. A kind of fairy tale. Or maybe it was just a dream she'd had.'

  'They say that myths and fairy tales are public dreams.'

  'Well, maybe so. In this one, I recall, a girl believes the earth is a dragon's egg – a dragon's egg just waiting to be hatched. 'Tis all symbolic, of course. A parable, just like in the Bible.'

  'Yes, I can see that,' said Freirs. 'And then what happens?' The other shrugged resignedly. 'What else? The world ends with the roar of a dragon.'

  Just beyond the doorway of the kitchen, Deborah added a dash more pepper to the pork patties sizzling on the gas range, then threw in another pinch of salt. Two spoonfuls of flour went into the mix, followed by a fresh patty glistening here and there with fat. It hissed as it settled in the pan, scattering drops of burning grease upon her fingers. She did not flinch. Taking an onion from the wicker basket on the counter, she carefully peeled off the larger leaves and dropped them in. There were no tears.

  In a shallow bowl she mixed the salad dressing, compounded of oil, lemon juice, vinegar, and garlic. Tasting the result from a finger dipped into it, she picked up the pepper mill once more and gave it three firm shakes over the mixture, then paused and tilted her head, almost catlike now, listening. Outside, the stillness of the yard was broken by the distant crowing of a rooster. From the next room came the sound of the two men in earnest conversation.

  Silently she crouched, reached beneath the counter, and drew forth a squat silver can. Prying off the heavy plastic top, she poured a measured amount of pale liquid into a bowl, adding a dash more of the liquid directly onto the sizzling meat. It smoked fiercely for a moment, bubbling with a new and shriller noise. Quickly pressing back the top, she slipped the can back into its hiding place, so that no one except her could possibly have seen the directions on it, or the brand name, or the warning, For Outdoor Use Only.

  Only four cats are left from the original seven, yet none of these survivors seem to feel the slightest sense of loss. Played with them for a while after lunch – or, rather, watched them chase insects, climb trees, doze in the sun. Spectator sport.

  Speaking of which, finally got around to going 'birding,' something I'd been meaning to do ever since I got here. Armed myself with Peterson guide amp; marched off into the fields. Saw a redwing blackbird, three starlings, amp; what may have been a grackle, then called it a day. Whole thing seems as pointless as tallying out-of-state license plates on a road trip.

  Came back in here, opened my notebook, amp; sat down to reread 'Supernatural Horror in Literature' in the Lovecraft collection. Sort of a Poetics of the Horror Tale, amp; a marvelous guide; I've been using it as a summer reading list, trying to cover the material Lovecraft recommends. But it worries me to see how little I've actually accomplished this summer, and how far I still have to go. So many obscure authors I couldn't find at Voorhis, so many books I've never even heard of… Left me feeling depressed amp; tired. Took a nap for the rest of the afternoon.

  Deborah looked much better at dinner. Though she still did little talking, her features were more animated, she had good color – she's been spending time berry-picking in the woods, she says – amp; she seemed energetic amp; cheerful. Sarr, by contrast, was moody again. He picked at his food (beef stew, amp; like the pork at lunch, actually quite poor, though I was too polite to say anything) amp; kept asking her why she didn't eat more. When she brought out the blueberry pie he flatly declined to have any. 'How do I know the berries aren't poison?' he demanded. Both Deborah amp; I were scandalized that he'd even think such a thing, amp; I could see that, after all her work, the poor girl was very upset, so I had a huge extra slice. Deborah ate a lot too, no doubt just to show Sarr up.

  Sometimes I stay with them amp; talk, but didn't want to hang around tonight; can't get used to the changes in Sarr. He barely said a civil thing all evening. One exception, though: he told me he'd found out, in answer to my question, that there never were any McKinneys. Seems McKinney's Neck is actually taken from some old Indian word.

  Felt like rain when I came back out here; clouds massing in the night sky amp; the woods echoing with thunder. Little Absolom Troet seemed to smile at me from his photo when I turned on the light, as if glad to have me back.

  Still no rain. Read most of John Christopher's The Possessors. Pretty effective, drawing horror from the most fundamental question of human relations: How can we know that the person next to us is as human as we are? Then played a little game with myself for most of the evening, until I Jesus! I just had one hell of a shock. While writing the above I heard a soft tapping, like nervous fingers drumming on a table, amp; discovered an enormous spider, biggest of the summer, crawling only a few inches from my ankle. It must have been living behind the bureau next to this table.

  When you can hear a spider walk across the floor, you know it's time to keep your socks on! If only I could find the damned bug spray. Had to kill the thing by swatting it with my shoe, amp; think I'll just leave the shoe there on the floor until tomorrow morning, covering the grisly crushed remains. Don't feel like seeing what's underneath tonight, or checking to see if the shoe's still moving… Must get more insecticide.

  Oh, yeah, that game – the What if Game. The one Carol says Rosie taught her. For some reason I've been playing it ever since I got her letter. It's catching. (Vain attempt to enlarge the realm of the possible? Heighten my own sensitivity? Or merely work myself into an icy sweat?) I invent the most unlikely situations, then try to think of them as real. Really real. E. g., what if this glorified chicken coop I live in is sinking into quicksand? (Maybe not so unlikely.) What if the Poroths are getting tired of me? What if, as Poe was said to fear, I woke up inside my own coffin?

  What if Carol, right this minute, is falling in love with another man? What if her visit here this weekend proves an unmitigated disaster?

  What if I never see New York again?

  What if some stories in the horror books aren't fiction? If Machen told the truth? If there are White People out there, malevolent little faces grinning in the moonlight? Whispers in the grass? Poisonous things in the woods? Unsuspected evil in the world?

  Enough of this foolishness. Time for bed.

  Adrift – afloat – adream – he was spinning down the river on a narrow wooden raft, speeding toward the falls. He heard them ahead, a monstrous cataract of mist and white smoke and a rum
bling deeper than thunder. He was almost upon them now, the raft was tilting forward, he felt it rock frenziedly as the raging current caught it.

  And suddenly the raft tipped over and flipped him out of bed. He landed on the floor.

  And the floor itself was moving.

  Two miles down the road and a mile nearer town, Ham Stoudemire fought his way to the window and peered out, muttering snatches of prayer. His jaw fell. Outside in the moonlight the cornfield was rising, the land tilting as if from giant limbs beneath a patchwork quilt. 'Dear Lord,' he gasped, 'is it the Final Judgment?'

  Adam Verdock had been sleeping on a cot beside his wife's bed. He dreamed his daughter Minna was shaking him, and felt a sudden half-formed hope, he was to say afterward, that she had good news of Lise. But Minna was nowhere about when he awoke, and Lise's eyes were closed, and he felt himself tossed around the little bedroom -'like a terrier shaking a rat' was how he'd put it later. And still his wife's eyes failed to open.

  Deborah's eyes were open. Sarr awakened with a start to find her shoved roughly against him in the bed. He heard the sound of glass breaking somewhere below. The walls of the house were bending and creaking like the masts of a ship in a storm. 'Honey,' he said, 'come on, we've got to get out!'

  She stared at him glassy-eyed; perhaps she was dreaming with her eyes open. She seemed not to hear.

  'Honey,' he said, voice rising now, 'come on, 'tis another quake.' He lifted her from the bed, the two of them in their nightgowns, and started toward the stairs.

  Shem Fenchel, dead drunk, slept through it all.

  In the darkness of the woods, by the tiny mud-packed altar at the margins of the swamp, the thundering vibrations tore the forest floor and threw up great jagged chunks of rock. Part of the ground trembled and gave way, swallowing up all that remained of the fire-blackened cottonwood and the tiny mound of mud. Animals fled the area in terror. Trees still standing bent as from a violent storm. With an awesome cracking sound the earth split, bulged, and lifted, as if from some immense form pressing upward from beneath, straining toward the moon.

  Gradually the trembling subsided, the land settling back upon itself. Ham Stoudemire saw his field grow still, the giant asleep again beneath its coverlet. Sarr, carrying Deborah's stiff form down the stairs, felt the tremors stop; Freirs picked himself nervously from the floor. They walked out to the yard and stood with relief upon the firm ground, and the two men talked until the rain came.

  And in the forest a gigantic shape, furred with foliage and humped like the back of some huge animal, stood upreared against the stars.

  The next morning, in the drizzle, they picked up the pieces. Bert and Amelia Steegler walked up and down the aisles of their store sweeping up the broken shards of bottles. A grieving Adam Verdock roamed through the countryside rounding up his cattle, which had kicked down their already damaged stalls. Old Bethuel Reid, summoning his courage, brandished a rake and chased the snakes that swarmed over his land into the forest.

  And young Raymond Trudel, while searching the swampy region of the woods for an escaped hog, came upon the scene of the worst devastation and went running back to his family's farm, screaming in terror about the monstrous hill that had risen in McKinney's Neck during the night.

  Book Ten: The Scarlet Ceremony

  There are the White Ceremonies, and the Green Ceremonies and the Scarlet Ceremonies. The Scarlet Ceremonies are the best.

  Machen, The White People

  July Twenty-eighth

  Rain spatters the sidewalk; the morning sun glows dimly behind a veil of cloud. Poised between the twin spires of a cathedral, the gibbous moon, just three days short of full, is a blob of smoke against the greying sky. As he wanders through the city, peering from beneath his black umbrella as he catalogues all that will be gone, the Old One perceives the moon's true meaning:

  It is a portent of imminent completion.

  The two initial Ceremonies are behind him, the woman has been tested and found ready, the Dhol lives clothed in human form… Yet a single step remains now, one last transformation, and the final act, the Voola'teine, can be performed.

  All that's needed now is one more body, that of the man; and watching the fall of rainwater from a spout shaped like a gargoyle's mouth above him to an oil-rainbowed puddle at his feet, he is suddenly filled with certainty that the man will meet his end this very day – and with a vision of how that end will come about.

  He can see it. It is as real as the rain upon the grimy streets around him.

  Death by water.

  He awoke to the patter of rain on the already wet grass, as if last night's cataclysm had been, in truth, just thunder and a vivid, violent dream. But no, he recalled, it had been more than that; there really had been a quake of some sort… The memory made this morning's rain seem a kind of absolution, something that would turn the earth into mud which, like mortar, would seal all last night's cracks.

  He lay on his bed for a few more minutes, lulled by the sound, but gradually became aware that he was cold. The air was damp today, and a cool wind had sprung up. Across the lawn the house looked dry and cheerful. His watch said ten thirty. He roused himself and hurried out, keeping beneath the nearest line of trees for as much of the way as he could.

  Worms had crawled out of the grass and were wriggling like drunken things on the flagstones as he dashed up the walk toward the porch. To his left the cornfield looked drenched, the thinner stalks drooping wearily in the mud. Hard to believe, on such a day as this, that the sky above the farm had ever been sunny.

  The radio in the kitchen was tuned to a religious station. Sarr and Deborah were sitting across the table glaring into one another's eyes, like two card players suspecting each other of cheating and waiting to see who would draw first. Freirs could feel the tension break as he came in. Deborah smiled with obvious relief. Rising, she switched off the radio and went to the stove. 'We've no milk today,' she said -her voice had improved dramatically overnight – 'and no new eggs from any of the hens, and the two downstairs were broken when the shelf collapsed last night. So unless my husband-'

  'I'm going,' Sarr said loudly. 'I'm going into town this afternoon, to see about the damage and how Aunt Lise is doing, and when I'm there, I told you, I'll stop at the Co-op and buy whatever we need.'

  'Why don't you go now? Before it's all gone?'

  He snorted with annoyance. 'I told you, I'll not be panicked by what happened last night, and I'll not have it look to the community, when I march into the store and ask for credit to buy powdered milk and eggs and other provisions, that I tried to get there first. Besides, I want to get that broken glass cleared from the cellar.'

  'Well, why don't you?'

  'I am.' He stood and headed for the cellar.

  'Let me know when you're going into town,' said Freirs, 'and I'll come along.'

  The other looked dubious. 'You're sure you want to come and see Aunt Lise? I don't think that would be wise.'

  Freirs shrugged. 'Maybe, but there are a few things I'd like to pick up before Carol and her friend come out – and I'll be glad to chip in on the rest.'

  Sarr nodded morosely. 'I'll not say no to help like that,' he said. 'Thanks.' He left the room; they heard him descending the cellar steps, and then the clatter of broken glass.

  'It's a shambles down there,' said Deborah. 'An unholy shambles. Even the things that weren't in jars got spoiled somehow. I did manage to save the bacon and potatoes, though. Why don't I add some to last night's stew – there was a lot left over. Sarr's been off his feed lately.'

  'Great. Never let it be said that I require milk and cereal for breakfast.' He ate heartily, not minding that, like last night, it didn't taste up to Deborah's usual standard. She, too, must be a little off her feed.

  Afterward, he went to the living room and watched the cats at play; the four had moved inside this morning, away from the cold drizzle and the breeze. But the animals and their ceaseless quest for amusement now depressed him. A moving so
ck, the sound of a slither or scrape – anything seemed to excite them for a moment, then ultimately bore them. He, too, felt bored. Borrowing the radio and holding it under his shirt, he walked back to his room. He reopened The Possessors and came close to completing it, but soon his mind began to wander to all the books he hadn't yet read that summer, and the thought of them all so depressed and tired him that he laid aside the novel and turned on the radio. He found a New York news station, but though he listened for half an hour, there was once again no mention of the previous night's earthquake. We're too small to count out here, he decided. He felt abandoned. He switched to a local station, but it was the old religious bit. Maybe, though, they would give the news; weren't they required by law to do so every hour?

  He listened for a few minutes, trying sporadically to read amid the usual half-heard biblical injunctions, but his mind drifted. 'There is none beside me,' the radio was thundering. 'I am the Lord, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil. I the Lord do all these things.'

  In that case, Freirs thought dully, you certainly aren't much use to anyone – and drifted off to sleep.

  The rain, for the moment, had let up. Tiptoeing down the back steps, Poroth slogged through the drenched grass and peered in the window of the outbuilding. Freirs was asleep. Just as well; he hadn't wanted anyone to come with him. His plans today were secret. Silently he moved toward the barn.

  Slamming the door of the truck, he twisted the ignition key and jammed his foot on the gas pedal. The engine ticked over once, twice, three times, and died. The next time, it caught. He pulled out of the barn and over the swampy grass, circling around the side of the house and down the dirt road now turned to mud, truck wheels sinking into the water-lined ruts.