“What’s going on?” I stick the point of the knife into his neck lightly and break skin, draw blood.
“He had me, then denied me. I summoned him in preparation–”
“What are you talking about?”
I push the tip of the blade further in. He doesn’t react.
“A shade of Nyarlathotep; an echo of the Haunter. I summoned it through the dream machine for consul before using the trapezohedron to release its greater essence. It attacked me.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“It raped me–”
I pull the blade away from his neck.
“I lost control of the unclean spirit I placed inside of the woman... and it stole the trapezohedron.”
“Why do you have those pictures of me?”
“I picked the wrong location for the process... It needs to be further southeast. The ley lines and stars that unlock the deluge are underneath and above a ghost town named Table Rock...”
My blood’s rising. I slap him hard.
“The pictures!”
“The ceremony needed three born on the same day in the same year during the same hour. You were born to be a part of this.”
“You stalked me. You set this all up–”
“I’ve summoned the Haunter twice before... and it’s given me knowledge in exchange for blood sacrifice. I fed it what it needed so it brought me here. It needs to be released on this soil under these stars to herald in the new Aeon.”
“Who is she?”
“She’s a simple woman named Kathy. Her parents run a motel not too far from here. I befriended her family and took up residence. They didn’t care about her. She was their burden. Two nights ago I took her to the desert and placed a spirit of lust inside of her to seduce you. I commanded it to wait for us. For the ritual to be effective I needed both of you to physically consummate. Three in union, the cylinder seal lifted the veil, your penetration summoned the Shade; an avatar of Nyarlathotep, on this sphere to prepare for the final release of its greater essence...” He spits blood. “I was an idiot to think I could be their liaison. They’ll come as annihilators. The spirit I placed in the woman plans to open it. I lost control of the Succubus after I was attacked. She drained you, then slithered onto me. I couldn’t command it. I stabbed her but she still drained me and traveled to Table Rock in a sandstorm. I woke before you and walked to Boars Tusk... I was wrong to think I could be their liaison...”
He stares at me with eyes that look like cracked glass.
“There’s still time to escape to a place in death. Come kill yourself with me.”
“No.”
He stands up, nearly falls. I don’t help him.
“You caused all this. Can’t you stop it?”
“Not if she opens it. But I–”
“What?”
“If we catch her I can cast the spirit out so she’s no longer compelled–”
I look at the thing once called Blake.
“I can try,” he wheezes.
He glances down at the ground and picks up a small lizard. He snaps its neck and puts it in his pocket.
“She’s going to have to open the trapezohedron during the first hour of nightfall. After that time the stars will shift and the opportunity will pass.”
I grip the hilt of the hunting knife tightly as we walk toward Table Rock, sky growing darker.
When we see It sitting on top of the truck’s hood it stares at us lethargically like a lizard tanning itself on a rock. Its giant head rests impossibly on the neck of a small child’s body and though its face is vaguely human, the huge eyes have no iris and the way it positions itself is monstrous. It sits on its knees and absurdly long legs stretch back and curve, hanging over its head like two scorpion stingers. Its long black toenails are as sharp as knives and it flexes them rapidly, rubbing them lightly across its coarse white fur. The penis above its navel is erect, the slit underneath open and pulsating...
We freeze.
Its mouth opens and a grotesquely large tongue rolls out. It swings rapidly in every direction. The sound of ripping fabric and a muffled thunderclap boom behind the thing.
The creature bellows horrifically, and then its mucous voice is in our heads.
“Pledge. Appease Azathoth.”
Flesh is invisibly ripped from the palm of my hand. I scream.
“Forward.”
I begin walking toward it, knife in hand.
“Don’t!” Blake shrieks.
I’m a few inches away from the hood. I stare down at the soil and see the outline of an open book.
I want to place my bleeding palm down. The urge is stronger than hunger.
I’m struggling–
The creature’s tongue wraps around my arm and I slice it. It comes off and lands on the dirt. A huge thunderclap booms and It’s no longer on the hood. There’s only burnt sagebrush where its tongue writhed a moment before.
“I can feel its children moving in me,” Blake screeches. Blood pours out of his mouth and his stomach swells.
I toss him into the truck’s backseat. He hands me the keys and I start it up, hit the gas, and speed off toward the highway.
We’re pushing 80 when the GPS goes black. The Red Desert begins to resemble Iraq. I shake my head hard and I-50 comes back into focus.
“Keep your mind here with me,” Blake rattles, “or you’ll be off somewhere you don’t belong.”
We pass oil derrick after oil derrick and I can’t stop my mind from roaming back toward the Middle East. I feel things grow thinner again ... something snaps. I’m driving on a dirt road near the Tigris River. I stop the truck ... trying to regain my senses.
“Keep driving!”
I close my eyes, prepared to keep them that way until absolute darkness engulfs me.
“Mister, Mister, give me food.” I open my eyes. A dozen Iraqi children are gathered around the Ford. They put their small dirty hands up to their mouths to punctuate their demands.
“Drive!”
I snap out of it, accelerate ... as the truck moves they turn monstrous. They throw their bodies against the Ford. I hit 60 and can’t shake them. From the rearview mirror I see their faces tearing and peeling off. One launches itself into the passenger side window. The truck swerves dangerously from left to right and its almost completely inside of the truck now as the others chuck their small bodies at the side of the Ford in full stride; bouncing off and getting back up, bouncing off and getting back up –
Blake leaps forward and he’s wrestling with the thing, when I manage to steady the wheel and grab the knife off the dashboard – he yanks it out of my hand, stabs the creature square in its skeletal face –
It tumbles out of the window.
I look forward and the Iraqi child with the inverted Ankh is glaring at me in the middle of the highway. I accelerate. He disappears and drifts away like smoke. We crash into a sign that reads, “Table Rock Road.” I press down hard on the brakes... look into the rearview mirror. The swarm of dead children has disappeared. There’s an empty gas station fifty feet in front of us.
“We’re here.”
Blake throws up and the smell of blood fills the truck.
The sun is beginning to dip below the horizon as we pull into town. Underneath the decay and grime, an ideal suburban street frozen in its 80s Reagan-era glory. Lonely pieces of tumbleweed flitter across the cracked concrete as the dry wind pushes them past smashed windows and decrepit doors hanging off their hinges. We drive on past a sand-covered playground; sagebrush chokes a rusty swing set and a metallic slide has a hole the size of a bowling ball in it.
We see a skinny brown horse pacing back and forth in front of a very dilapidated house. It stops moving once it sees us.
Blake manages to sit up, wiping blood from his mouth.
“Are we going to have to search every building to find her?” I ask.
“No. The spirit in her will be compelled to find us so it can feed.”
Th
e horse ambles toward the truck. It starts jerking its head from left to right. We stare transfixed. It rears up on its hind legs and whinnies as its head rattles like a Diamondback’s tail. Front to back left to right, impossibly fast. It leans back, then lurches forward, all the while doing this weird dance. I put the truck in reverse. The horse abruptly stops after we hear a fearsome tear. Its head lashes violently one last time then slides off its neck and lands onto the concrete. At that moment we see her materialize in front of the broken down house.
“She’s carrying the trapezohedron,” Blake says.
She smiles at me.
“Stop staring into her eyes.”
I avert my gaze.
“The sun’s going down. We have to grab her.”
She walks into the house and leaves the door open behind her.
Blake spits into his hand.
“Close your eyes.”
I don’t blink.
“Try to trust me. Please...”
Something in his voice moves me. I’m reminded of the friend I once had many years ago. I catch déjà vu and see the hidden karmic thread laid bare – I try not to understand as I close my eyes. He spits and rubs his saliva over my eyelids. He chants briefly in a voice that doesn’t sound like his own.
“She won’t fascinate you as much now.”
We both get out of the truck and walk past the headless horse. The legs of its shadow kick at us. Blake picks up its head and takes the dead lizard out of his pocket. He drops it.
“I was going to use the lizard to trap the spirit, but the horse’s head will be better.” I nod absently at that as we enter the house, hot desert wind pushing us forward.
The thick scent of lilac disguising decay: still bright enough to make out a staircase leading up to a second floor, some dusty half broken furniture in the large living room.
My heart’s thudding in my chest. Framed pictures on a bureau. I pick one up to see Kathy standing with her sullen parents in front of this house. I place the frame face down and I’m instantaneously hit with a surge of arousal. She’s inches away from me.
“Hold her!”
Her huge blue eyes try to pull me but I back away. Her face morphs, the feeling disappears.
“Hold her!”
I stare at her uncomprehending face. I can’t hurt her... she looks so lost. Her eyes suddenly spark electric blue again... the same pull, more intense than ever. I can’t help myself – I’m on top of her, kissing her mouth, rolling my tongue over her jagged teeth. She’s ripping my pants off, desperately trying to feed –
I hear Blake chanting loudly behind me.
My legs get weak. She’s killing me... I fall backwards, still holding onto her hands. I yank and she tumbles forward, lands hard on her chest.
“Pin it!”
I jump onto her back and pull her head up. Blake takes the horse’s head, places it next to hers and chants. The horse’s face become animate, its eye-color changes from brown to electric blue. Blake hurls it across the living room. Kathy sits up and starts to sob. She rocks back and forth, crawls into a tight ball, then goes silent.
For a moment there is an absolute stillness as darkness descends upon Table Rock.
I notice the small yellow box lying next to the couch a moment after Blake does. He shakes violently and screams like he’s splintering in half. I know at that moment the person once called Robert Blake is now completely gone. It scrambles toward the couch and picks up the box. Rips the top open, takes the trapezohedron out, gazes into it...
I feel it rip into this world. The heavy thud of flapping wings above the house as certain as the panicked heart beating in my chest...
Blake begins to jerk about violently and he drops the trapezohedron... His stomach swells and he begins to give birth to his children. The camel spiders cascade out of his mouth by the dozens... He picks them up and tries to shove them back in. Blake drops and hundreds of the disgusting things pour out of his carcass. My mind nearly breaks as the smell of the Haunter infiltrates the house... The beating wings growing louder all the while.
I need to close the box
I rush over to Blake as the camel spiders crunch under foot.
I need to close the box –
I grab the filthy thing from his hand but... I can’t help myself...
I look into the black stone and see...
Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos, whom in antique and shadowy Khem took the form of man along with all of the infernal domains of the Great Old Ones. I feel them stirring from their long sleep. Umr At-Tawil The Ancient One, Hastur The Unspeakable, his wife Shub-Niggurath, Cthulhu Lord Of Rlyeh and Yog-Sothoth The Lurker At The Threshold all awaken as I struggle to know my own mind but can’t, it’s no longer mine as the deafening sound of Azathoth’s flute reverberates through my center...The beating of its wings becomes the thud of my heartbeat, its madness my overpowering logic. I drop the trapezohedron and sprint past Blake’s corpse and poor, lost Kathy. I burst out of the house running at a full tilt, as the beating of its wings grow louder. There’s a great thunderclap, a huge tear of fabric as the moon’s light fades from the sky completely. I run until I collapse near the town’s deserted road. I stare up at the now alien sky. The stars blotted out with a hatred nurtured on the other side of creation... The others will appear soon now, after this Messenger. I screw my eyes tight and chant an empty prayer to a lesser god as final darkness descends on Table Rock Road.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Emma Bunn was born to hippy parents in the 1970s. Raised in Lowestoft, Suffolk on a literary diet of things that go bump in the night, she has always enjoyed writing. She is a Mother, Librarian and mad cat lady. ‘The Curse of the Frasers’ is the first of many stories that she has written. Emma currently has several stories submitted to numerous anthologies and she anticipates more of her stories will see print in these anthologies over the course of the next year.
Theresa Derwin was born and bred in Birmingham and her career has been pretty varied; from Warehouse Packer, then bar work, to being a crap waitress then swiftly into retail, admin, professional student and dosser until finally entering the Civil Service in 1999. She left the service in 2012 to pursue a career as a writer. Theresa writes humorous fiction including SF, Urban Fantasy & Horror. She has thirteen anthology acceptances behind her. She also writes a number of book reviews and at her site terror-tree.co.uk. Her collection of short stories, Monsters Anonymous, was released from Anarchy Books Sept 2012. She has loved horror, fantasy and SF all her life, thanks to her father who raised her on 1950s Sci-Fi Universal Monsters, tango and popcorn. Her love of the bizarre, (including her Dad) remains constant, to this day. She also owes a great debt to Rog Peyton from the BSFG who introduced her to alternative fiction at the tender the age of 14. You can follow Theresa on Twitter @BarbarellaFem or find out more about her work at theresa-derwin.co.uk.
Born in Texas and currently living in Utah, David Dunwoody writes subversive horror fiction, including the Empire zombie series and the collections Dark Entities and Unbound & Other Tales. Most recent is his post-apocalyptic novel The Harvest Cycle. His short stories have been or will be published by outfits such as Permuted, Chaosium, Shroud, Twisted Library, Belfire and Dark Regions. Favorite authors include Lovecraft, King and Barker. More info and free fiction at daviddunwoody.com.
A child of the wild and heady 80s, Chip Fehd was raised on a steady diet of cheesy horror movies and novels that, honestly, continues to this very day. The bastard love child of Stephen King and Milton Berle, he has contributed stories to other Knightwatch Press anthologies, and he is a contributing writer to buyzombie.com. He is currently writing his first novel.
Sam Gafford has been a devotee of H. P. Lovecraft since finding a hardcover copy of Haunter in the Dark in his high school library. Since then, Gafford has been a member of the Esoteric Order of Dagon apa, published in Lovecraft Studies and Crypt of Cthulhu as well as fiction in Black Wings, Dark Corridor, Fungi Quarterly and others. During the 1990s Gaf
ford ran his own small press which reprinted many classic horror fiction by William Hope Hodgson, Arthur Machen and many others. He was a founding member of the NecronomiCON Mythos convention in New England and is currently working on a novel about Jack the Ripper and Arthur Machen.
Prior to becoming a published author of fiction, Geoff Gander was heavily involved in the roleplaying community, and wrote many game products. His first short novel, The Tunnelers, was published in 2011 by Solstice Publishing. He has since been published by Metahuman Press, AE SciFi, Exile Editions, McGraw-Hill, and Expeditious Retreat Press. He primarily writes horror, but is willing to give anything a whirl. When he isn’t writing or toiling on a cube farm, Geoff spends his time reading, entertaining his two boys, watching British comedies, playing roleplaying games, and travelling. Not at the same time. Geoff divides his time between Ottawa and South Mountain, where a lovely and captivating stone-carving, bagpipe-playing witch resides.
Tarl Hoch resides in Alberta, Canada where he spends any time he has writing. In the off time when he’s not writing, he can be found walking, reading a number of books at once, and avoiding the cowboy plague that is the Calgary Stampede. His books can be found on Goodreads at goodreads.com/author/show/5759304.Tarl_Voice_Hoch and on Twitter @tarl_writer.
Kelly M Hudson is the author of over two dozen published short stories as well as the zombie novel The Turning and the supernatural horror novel The Men of Perdition, both available on Amazon.com. If you would like more info on Kelly and his work, please visit his website kellymhudson.com.
Kirk Jones is an assistant instructor of humanities for the State University of New York. His work has appeared in, or will be appearing in, Amazing Stories of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Technicolor Tentacles, The New Flesh: Episode I, Hacked-Up Holiday Massacre, Told You So, Winter Chills and more. Additional fiction appears online at the following sites: Unicorn Knife Fight, The New Flesh, and Flashes in the Dark. His first book, Uncle Sam’s Carnival of Copulating Inanimals, was released in 2010 by Eraserhead Press imprint, NBAS. Free fiction and additional information available at bizarrojones.com.
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