Black Wings of Cthulhu, Volume 4

by S. T. Joshi

  “Poetry benefits from madness, good sir. Let’s drink of lunacy together, now.”

  I could hear the waves of the encroaching sea. The sound of moving fabric filtered to me, as she began to dance once more, as one arm swung outward and hurled the bottle onto the rocks. She twirled and tittered, ignoring the murky shadow that formed over the place whereupon the bottle had smashed. I watched the thick wisps of blackness that coiled toward us, that enshrouded the entire pier. Her scent of lilacs was replaced with a stench of wretched death. I heard the disembodied moan that was not the horn of any vessel. The rotting wharf shuddered beneath our feet as ghostly tones vibrated in the helix of shadow, a masculine voice that uttered an old sea ditty that the Terrible Old Man and I used to croon to the bottles in times of happy drunkenness. I saw the pale and pretty face that moved toward me from the darkness, and so I called her name; but then I realized that, although it shared the young woman’s features, this was the visage of a young man. Sickly, he sang to me, and drifted to my face so as to kiss my eyes. I felt the wharf shudder more forcefully and heard it begin to break apart. Backing away, I raised my hands to the shadow in which I was sheathed and tried to find my way to land as waves began to sound more forcefully upon the rocks below us. The wood on which I staggered suddenly collapsed and I fell a second time that night, onto a bed of rocks, the sharp edge of one cutting into my forehead. I blinked through the tiny stream of blood that trickled into my eyes as the tide lapped at the legs that helped me creep to land.

  Shadow lifted, melting into moonlight. Gasping, groaning, I twisted my head to look at where the ancient wharf had stood, and saw that it had entirely collapsed and dropped onto the rocks. I saw its remnants, and the various sharp-edged boulders, and the waves that washed over the debris of stones and timber. That was all. Then my attention was caught by some shining things that shimmered at one spot beneath the waves, and I saw that they were a handful of gold doubloons that caught the sheen of moonlight. A rising wind eddied to me from the water, on which I could detect a faint fragrance of lilacs.

  The Rasping Absence

  RICHARD GAVIN

  Richard Gavin is regarded as a master of numinous horror fiction in the tradition of Machen, Blackwood, and Lovecraft. “The Rasping Absence” marks his third appearance in the Black Wings series. Richard has written four collections, including The Darkly Splendid Realm (Dark Regions Press, 2009) and At Fear’s Altar (Hippocampus Press, 2012), along with essays on the macabre and the esoteric. He lives in Ontario, Canada.

  TRENT FENNER COULDN’T GAUGE HIS SUPERVISOR’S reaction to the re-edited news segment. Upon the wall-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 wrong. This mysterious substance we call 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 of 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 they lowered the cage into the bowels of the mine. Trent’s face filled the screen. The sight of him 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. 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, the usual.”

  “You’re probably right,” Trent said. He wrestled with whether or not to vent some of the pressure that had been mounting within him. “I have to admit, this story kind of got to me.” He felt himself blushing.

  Lester offered a wry smile. “Kid, what have I always said about you? 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 you. Reporters have to be objective for more than just ethical reasons. If you make every story personal, you’ll crack.”

  Trent bit his lip.

  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 …”

  “The 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 summoned within Trent a warm, calming wave.

  “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 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 …”

  “You 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 coins, freshly burnished and carelessly tossed from above, as the hatchback approached the tiny hamlet, like some mechanized scarab racing to inter the ailing sun.

  * * *

  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.

  Trent tried to speak, but the sound that emerged was a coarse rasping, like a hacksaw dragging into wire. It echoed through the emptiness above him.

  He shot up in bed with a strangled cry. His terror had not disrupted the shallow tide of Melissa’s breathing.

  The ashen glow through the windows and the ache behind his eyelids established that it was too early to be awake. Not wishing to risk being dropped back into that nightmare lab, Trent slipped out from beneath the sheet and prepared for a run.

  Only the geriatric residents of Pine Bluffs seemed to be up and about at this hour. Their congenial waves or bids of good morning as Trent jogged past their storybook cottages brought a pleasant feeling.

  It was chillier along the shore, but Trent used this as motivation to run harder. The lake was the colour of caramel. Gulls alternated between circling the overcast sky and swooping down to peck at the vivid carrion of yesterday’s French fry cups and hamburger wrappers from The Snack Hut.

  He turned his attention to the impressive bluffs after which the village had been named. They formed an ambit at the shore, arcing into the water like a great bookend of sun-baked clay. Birches and pines spiked the incline’s face, lent teeth to its summit. It was evocative of a moon crater’s rim—a resemblance that made Trent uneasy.

  Movement in his periphery evidenced that Trent was not alone. He turned his head enough to see the beach’s only other sunrise visitor: a whip-thin man whose overtanned skin was the cast of shoe leather. He was dressed only in a gaudy pair of swimming trunks (Trent didn’t enjoy the way the Tiki mask pattern seemed to study his approach) and a dull metal medallion, which looked to be the Star of David, hanging from his spindly neck.

  The man was too absorbed in his task to give Trent even a nod. He appeared to be gathering sand from the hem where the bluffs melded with the shore. The man’s own slender hands were his only tools. He clawed up handful after handful of the wet granules, stockpiling them into a variety of plastic shopping bags.

  “Floodwall?” Trent asked with a smile. When the man did not react, Trent repeated himself, assuming that his own lack of breath had made the question inaudible.

  A great mantis in both posture and movement, the old man collected his bagged sand. Several of the bags had already begun to split under their own cargo; clumps and granules hemorrhaging back onto the ground as the man tied them to an almost comical-looking bicycle half-digested by rust. Trent was now near enough to observe that the medallion, which seemed to weigh the man like a ship anchor, was not a Star of David, but a symbol far more cryptic. The bauble was obviously handmade, and crudely at that. Trident spokes and leaf-like curlicues jutted out every which way. And at their point of convergence, was that a rudimentary face?

  The stranger straddled his bicycle and began to pedal. He nearly toppled, the sight of which caused Trent to gasp and reach feebly. Velocity righted the cycle, and soon the pack mule of a man reached the dirt road and was gone.

  A sneaker wave crashed down, its reach broad enough to wash Trent’s feet. He looked over as the foamy wake ebbed, revealing the pit dug by the old man. The hole was now filled with frothy swirling water, which gave it the appearance of an inhumed cauldron.

  … toil and trouble …

  He reversed his course and began back to the cottage, walking at first, then, inexplicably, breaking into a wild run.

  Seeing Melissa carrying a breakfast tray out onto the back deck brought not relief, but greater panic, for Trent now saw what he stood to lose if he didn’t reach safety in time.

  His imaginary pursuit ended with his rambling up the wooden steps and all but collapsing into one of the Adirondack chairs.

  “Hi, Daddy!”

  Trent hadn’t even noticed Jasmine seated in one of the great chairs until he heard her birdsong voice. Her tiny hand was patting the sanded plank of the chair arm. She leaned forward, her heart-shaped plastic sunglasses darkening her eyes, a smile brightening her already cherubic face.

  “Good morning, sweet-pea,” Trent huffed. “Did you sleep well?”

  “Yep!”

  “Me too.”

  Melissa gave him a peck and a mug of coffee-with-cream. “How was your run?”

  Trent nodded. “This is a nice place.”

  “Beautiful,” Melissa corrected.

  “When can we go swimming?” Jasmine asked.

  “We’ll see,” Trent replied. His gaze snagged on a brooding cloud in the east. “We may be in for a storm.”

  * * *

  The storm didn’t come that day. By noon the sun had burnt through the steely padding of clouds.

  Trent returned to the beach, this time with his family, and this time it was now a hive of activity: voices, plashing, a cacophony of radio music; the air fragrant with birch wood and grilling meat.

  Trent, Melissa, and Jasmine staked their claim by laying out beach towels on a little patch of sand.

  “C’mon, you guys!” Jasmine cried, her chubby feet stomping divots into the sand. Trent took her hand and she tugged him toward the water. The bluffs darkened the edge of his field of vision, but Trent refused to acknowledge them.

  The sight of Jasmine so enraptured by the rustic pleasures of sun and surf soothed him. After a while Melissa took over watching Jasmine to allow Trent some swimming time.

  Trent submerged himself beneath the waves. The cool dimness, the isolation, the air held tight in his lungs: he felt he had somehow slipped back into his dream.

  His surfacing was dramatic, or so he believed. For one awful instant he wondered whether he had indeed bec
ome the shrieking thing. But none of the other bathers seemed aware of his existence.

  The undertow must have been stronger than Trent realized, for it had whisked him several metres nearer to the bluffs. He was facing them full-on now.

  They were the antithesis of the beach, with its all its life and noise and ceaseless motion. The bluffs were austere and silent and staid. Even its trees appeared unwavering. Such stillness made it very easy for Trent to spot the tiny figure traipsing along the top of the bluffs.

  Trent cupped his hands and splashed some water on his face in the thin hope this would cleanse the apparition. When it didn’t, he made his way back to shore.

  Melissa and Jasmine were huddled under the meagre shade of a staked umbrella.

  “Jasmine’s shoulders were getting a little pink,” Melissa explained.

  “Why don’t we head back now? I’ll drive into town for more groceries.”

  “Aw, I don’t wanna go!” Jasmine cried.

  “We’ll come back tomorrow, sweet-pea. Besides, I need you to pick out the ice cream for dessert.”

  It was all the incentive Jasmine required. They returned to the cottage just long enough for Trent to fetch his car keys, and then they piled into the hatchback and drove to the barn-like grocery outlet they’d spotted on their way in.

  Cornucopia was its name; a co-op that looked to be run by survivors of the Age of Aquarius. The cashier was congenial, chatting up Trent while she tallied their bill. Melissa and Jasmine took the bags to the car while Trent finished the transaction.

  “Oh,” the cashier blurted, her eyes locked on something beyond their large show window, “here comes old Isaac. Have you seen him pedalling around the village yet?”

  Trent heard the copper pipe chimes above the entrance begin to clang. He shook his head but could not bring himself to turn around.

  The cashier spoke sotto voce: “Comes in here every afternoon without fail. And he always buys the same stuff. Canned goods mostly; soup, lentils, that sort of thing. I kid him about stockpiling for Doomsday, but I don’t think Isaac gets the joke.”