Horror Library, Volume 5

by Boyd E. Harris R. J. Cavender

  Then the book slipped from under her arm, following gravity’s pull into the sludge.

  “Dammit!”

  But it didn’t matter. She left it where it was and moved on, noting that the silly pumpkin on the cover looked better with rain and mud smeared all over it than it had when she’d been given a copy back at the author’s palatial pad.

  She ran to keep up with him, until the gray, broken outline of a building came into focus out of the darkening horizon.

  Then she slowed to a trot, and her heart sank.

  The building was a shattered farm stand, teetering in a semi-circular, weed-blemished clearing some thirty feet from the road. Its symmetry had long ago given way to the elements, the large, cinder-block storage units to the left throwing into sharp relief the flimsy and decaying wooden façade of the stand itself. Where customers once stopped to chat with the local seller beneath a long, angular overhang of slats and shingles, now only broken boards and rotting beams remained. The windows of the working area behind the stand were dark sockets, holes punched by a nature that had no compunction, feelings, or agenda except to destroy.

  Beyond, Steph saw only shadows.

  She followed Josh under the overhang and found a spot on the concrete floor that was clear of leaks. With an upbeat gasp of relief, Josh slid the pack off his shoulder, shook his head, and ran a hand through his slick hair.

  “Boy, that was some torrent.”

  She looked at her magazines: ruined, spongy masses of color and print, fusing together into layers of paper-mache. Her dress, ruined as well. Dry clean only, it clung to her body like a coating of paint, soaked through and nearly transparent. Her underwear shone beneath like bones in an X-ray.

  “Jesus…” she mumbled in disgust, then looked up to find him leering at her. At her curves.

  He averted his gaze as if nothing had happened, but the afterimage of his hungry pupils bothered her.

  A stream of water trickled onto her head from the slats above, making her grimace and duck.

  “Come on.” He grabbed her by the wrist. “Let’s see if it’s any better inside.”

  He led her through the unlocked plywood and hinges that approximated a door into the back area of the stand–the working area, where employees must have sorted vegetables, made displays, and watched for new customers along the desolate road. It was dim here, and redolent of rotten wood, old apples, vinegar, and other things she couldn’t identify.

  She noticed a long conveyer belt positioned at hip height, running perpendicular to the entrance of the work area, and Josh tossed his pack on it with careless abandon.

  “Whew.” The low ceiling and wood beams absorbed his voice. “I wonder how long this place has been here. A real throwback to the old days, huh?”

  He slid his fingertips along the ridges of the conveyer belt.

  “This must’ve been where they collected the apples; probably put them into the bags, sorted them into bushels and pecks and stuff.” He pointed at a large metal container. “And I bet that’s the bin where they’d pour the whole lot out. If I remember, places like this used to float them in water, in big containers, then there’d be a machine to pour them onto the conveyer. We had a farm stand in my town when I was a kid. Pretty cool place to visit.”

  “I grew up in the city,” Steph mumbled.

  She lay down her pile of dripping magazines and looked around. Behind her, two horizontal windows peeked out at the selling area, the barren drive, and storm-soaked road. Nothing moved save the drapery of rain.

  “How in hell did a place like this stay in business?” she said.

  “Lots of ways. I read somewhere that apple farms sold in bulk to juice makers, schools, all sorts of places.” His voice was annoyingly chipper. “And back before the interstate was built, this road might have handled more tourist traffic. Sometimes we’d see tour busses stopping at stands like this when I was young.”

  He paused, peering around.

  “Hang tight. Lemme see if there’s power for a light, and maybe even a working phone.”

  He offered her a lame attempt at a reassuring nod, and rushed into the shadows.

  Something squeaked.

  “What was that?”

  “Probably just a rat. There might be more but they won’t bother us. They’re just after the dried up fruit that’s lying around.”

  She looked out the window, annoyed by Josh’s compulsion to seem upbeat and pretend everything was all right. The act couldn’t have been genuine. Things weren’t all right. She was soaked and cold. Her dress was ruined, and she didn’t have a change of clothes. Their only means of transportation was grounded hundreds of yards away, and open to the elements. They had no food; they had no heat. They had only each other to keep company, and that was a very dismal thing to consider.

  She leaned against a counter that faced the grubby windows, and thought about the reception. If she’d bothered to eat some of that ham, or beef, or whatever it was, she might not feel so hungry now.

  This was awful.

  “Hey, check this out,” he called from the darkness.

  With a sigh, she looked around, then headed into the gloom. She couldn’t see him clearly. Odd shapes slid by–unused crates and boxes, a hand-crank forklift, a doorway that seemed to lead into an office.

  When she found him, nearly fifty feet away and almost invisible in a patch of shadows, he was beaming.

  “Check it out.”

  “Did you find a phone?”

  “Nope.”

  “Power–a light?”

  “Nah. I don’t think this place has been tapping the grid for years. But I found something really cool.”

  She raised a brow. Unless it was a hot meal, a warm bath, and a change of clothes, she was less than enthusiastic.

  “A wardrobe?”

  “You’re funny, Steph. No, I found something bigger!”

  He startled her by yanking her hand and leading her around a short corner to where the corridor ended in even more conspicuous darkness. A gleam of metal shone out of the black, hovering at waist height.

  “It’s a cooler.”

  “A cooler?”

  “Yeah! This is where they used to store the apples in huge crates. Thousands of pounds of ‘em, all picked by hand, by migrant workers from Jamaica and Haiti. They probably mixed the oxygen with a bit of nitrogen to help the fruit keep longer–to help retard decay.”

  He looked at her, eyes hinting at something.

  “Wanna look inside?”

  For a moment, she felt a strange chill, then violently pulled her arm out of his grasp.

  “Fuck you.”

  “What?”

  “Stay away from me, you fuckin’ weirdo. You get us stuck here, without power or heat or a goddamn phone, and now you want me to go exploring with you, and what? You think I’m gonna make out with you in a fucking cooler?”

  He lowered his head.

  “You’re right, Steph. I’m sorry. I really screwed up. Let’s go back where there’s more light, and I’ll think about how I can make the situation better for you.”

  She felt his hand on the base of her back, slapped it away.

  “Get off me! You wanna know how you can make it better? I’m hungry. Find us some food. I’m cold. Build us a fire. Drop the sophisticate bullshit and be a fucking man for once, will you?”

  They walked back to the entrance.

  “Right. I’ll go gather some loose boards and paper. You just sit tight.”

  She perched on the counter, leaning on her elbows as he rummaged in the recesses of the forlorn place. In a few minutes, he returned with a bundle of broken boards, newspapers, and dowels, and set them on the stand side of the swinging door.

  “This oughta do,” he said. “And maybe it’ll act as a kind of beacon to people traveling along the road–make ‘em curious enough to check inside.”

  He stuffed newspaper under the pile of kindling.

  “I had a thought, too,” he added.

  �
��Oh, did you?”

  “Yeah, well…” He hesitated, cleared his throat. “Yeah. I bet at an old farm stand like this, they have apple trees out back. Even though no one’s been picking them for a long time, they’ll still be bearing fruit. Once I get this started, I can pick you some. It is harvest time, after all.”

  “I hate apples, Josh. My last foster mom used to make me eat one every goddamn day.”

  As usual, he wasn’t listening. He was flicking the lighter he’d produced from his jacket pocket. It would spark, but nothing more. With each new attempt, his face grew more nervous and tense.

  “Come on,” he whispered.

  “I said I fucking hate apples, Josh.”

  He ignored her, continuing to click the lighter. “And while I’m gone, you can settle in by the fire and read your new book.”

  “Give me a fucking break, Josh. Get out of the way.”

  She snatched the lighter from his useless fingers and set it to the paper.

  “Can you possibly do one thing right? Jesus Christ, you’re a walking disaster zone. I told you I don’t like apples, so I guess that means we’ll be here starving all night long, staring at this shitty pile of wood unless I can get it lit. And I didn’t bring the fucking book, you asshole, because it fell in the mud and I left it there.”

  He got to his feet, features changing, gaze suddenly intense. “You know what, Steph?” His voice quivered with anger. “Are you familiar with the word termagant?”

  “Don’t talk down to me, prick.”

  “Oh, yeah, I know. You grew up on the streets. You educated yourself. You got great scores on the SATs but couldn’t pay for college. You’ve only reminded me about ten times.”

  He leaned toward her, damp hair falling over his forehead.

  “Well in case you didn’t know, a termagant is a constant complainer, an always-angry bitch who never gives anyone a break. And that’s you. I know where you come from. I know you’ve had hard knocks and worked your way out of it, and you’d like to see what success is like. So I took you out to one of my best friend’s big parties, attended by some of the wealthiest people in Connecticut. I escorted you into a beautiful apartment gathering, filled with food cooked by my friend’s wife, and you never once showed any interest in the food, or my friends, or the book at all. You didn’t bother asking about it on the way over, didn’t even listen to the rest of the discussion about it after Fred gave his reading. I bet you don’t even remember the title.”

  She smirked. “It’s called Squash, or something.”

  “It’s called Gourd.”

  He rushed to his pack and unzipped the main compartment, pulling out a copy of the hardcover with the strange picture of the pumpkin. Then he slid it back, and tossed the pack onto the floor near her feet.

  “Take a look while I’m out getting you some apples, Steph. You might learn a thing or two before I return.” He strode away, heading into the shadows of the stand. “And perhaps you can make an effort, just an effort, to look less shallow next time we go out. IF we go out.”

  She watched him walk off, wondering if there was a back exit, or if he was just so flustered, he would wander around in there and eventually come whimpering back like a puppy.

  Then she knelt and tried again to light the fire.

  After five minutes, she’d had enough. She swore under her breath, and almost as a reflex, flicked the lighter one last time. A flame appeared. She grabbed a corner of newspaper and torched it, stuffing it under the kindling Josh had piled into the semblance of an upside-down cone. Putrid, gray smoke poured out. Thousands of useless words written by unknown reporters and ad copy executives went up, spreading their flame to the wood, making her cough and pull back. She looked at the roof, wondering if Josh had put the pile far enough under the threadbare slats to allow the smoke to escape, but her anxiety was allayed. The fire burned, and she knelt next to it, hugging and warming herself in the heat.

  “I can’t believe this.”

  When her still-damp front torso had become too hot to stand, she turned around, exposing her bare back to the fire. It felt good. Not as good as a warm tub or a sauna might feel, but good, nonetheless. The fire crackled, heated gas burst from hidden seams, and she began to relax. After a few minutes, she sat down, stretched out her legs, and idly poked her left foot against Josh’s backpack.

  Stupid Josh.

  Frederick Smith’s Gourd peeked out, the orange pumpkin bright in the shadows.

  She picked it up.

  The book was heavy, published with an uneven page cut evocative of old-time novels. She checked the back cover to see the blurbs by other authors.

  “A Festival of Fright,” was the first, written by some unknown doofus named Deniz Younger.

  “Elicits feelings of true fear… I’m glad I kept the light on,” wrote another hack named Rob Tek. Mr. Tek just happened to be the author of the bestselling novels Dime Store, New Race, and Xeno Beach. He also didn’t seem to understand that you kind of needed a light on to read the stupid book.

  She gave the remaining blurbs a cursory glance as she scanned to the bottom of the cover and caught the company’s logo and tag line. “The Brotherhood of al-Wazah, We’re Everywhere You Are” was emblazoned in gold lettering in a semi-circle above two strange moons that cast their light on a bizarre cityscape of broken towers and freakish trees. Beneath that it said, “Join the Brotherhood, at Better Booksellers Everywhere.”

  Smirking, she opened it and read the preface.

  This book might be seen as a work of fiction. Be certain that it is not. The power described is real. The people who thirst and work for its release are real, and you had best be prepared. The events depicted herein all occurred over the course of two years in rural New England. Had the rituals not been cut short by the intervention of observant villagers and skeptical authorities, “the arrival” would have been achieved. I leave you to consider what the world would be like if they had succeeded.

  Spooky.

  The inner sleeve struck much the same chord.

  It began quietly in a small Connecticut county. People’s pets went missing. Dogs, cats, exotic birds, pigs, and goats started to disappear. No one noticed the pattern. No one tied it together…until people themselves could not be found.

  Even then, how could the residents of rural Beaumont, Connecticut and its sparsely populated neighbors ever connect the crimes to such an innocuous place as a local farm? How could they suspect that the quaint, rustic icon of rural life could host a perverse cult fanatically dedicated to the evil rival of God, a cabal of plotters who worshipped destruction and corruption, who reveled in pain and torture, who danced to the unheard music of the insane as they practiced ancient rituals that would finally, apocalyptically–

  –Open the gateway and ask the eternal malevolence to rule all creation…

  She paused for a moment. The encapsulation was overwrought, but effective. This would never make the Oprah list, but then again, neither would Shakespeare.

  When police lieutenant Ashley Winters first investigated the growing files of “Missing Persons” cases, she thought she had come across the answer: visiting migrant workers from Haiti and Jamaica. Their lives were transient, their religions unusual and tied to shadowy voodoo rites. But something didn’t make sense.

  The victims were connected to child welfare facilities. Even the adults who’d disappeared had been orphans, linked to three major homes over the course of ten years.

  When the clues brought her to a dead end, she had to reassess the information, and face the horrible truth: some of her own neighbors were behind it. They harbored secrets and an evil that was ready to strike one final time. Children had been targeted for years, and the cult was ready to engage in its last sacrifice to change the world…

  It was ready to Harvest something growing in the fields of Poroth Farms–

  Steph stopped reading and turned to the title page.

  To Josh,

  We did it! After so many years and
countless hours, it’s almost Harvest Time, my friend. This book is dedicated to you, and the future you’ve secured.

  Yours in Brotherhood,

  Fred

  PS– She’s truly a bitch! Can’t wait to see how she looks in the end.

  What the Hell?

  She stared at the words, then noticed an envelope lodged between the pages farther inside the book. The container was small, unsealed, marked with Smith’s handwriting and addressed to Josh. She opened it without hesitation.

  Inside, there was a piece of old newspaper, folded into four sections. It opened like an ancient work of origami, revealing the front page of a publication called The Beaumont Times. The town did exist, but what came next quickly pushed that realization from her mind.

  There were headlines, bold and stark:

  Local Farmers Suspected of Mass Murder

  Poroth Family Remains Mum as Authorities Scour Popular Tourist Stand

  Beneath, there was a lengthy story about animal sacrifices, headless human corpses, and children found stripped of their skin, about how the detective in charge of the case initially suspected migrant workers, but had been led to arrest the owners of the farm. It was all tied to some bizarre cult, a dark religion that had existed in Connecticut for centuries.

  In some of the more grisly attacks, the barely-living victims had seen their extremities clipped off with garden tools, and re-attached to their faces, creating horrifying facsimiles of the “angels” of this religion. Faces with ten fingers dangling from their cheeks to represent tentacles, and back flesh torn apart to recreate wings–all were found on what was left of the bodies.