by Scott Hale
Amelia went to the room’s end and pushed past the place where the door should have been. Beyond, a hallway twisted crookedly through the earth, as though it had been screwed into place. Thick roots and strange plants grew out of every crack and crevice here, and more often than not, Amelia found herself clinging to them, for the slanted floor made walking a difficult feat.
Was this some unfinished part of the house? Numerous doorways lined the hallway. When she looked inside, she found bedrooms covered in skittering insects and great pits filled with pools of black water. Or is this the corpse of the old estate buried beneath the foundations of the new one?
Reaching the place where the hallway peeled back, Amelia covered her mouth. Malignant, pulsating veins, the very same she had seen all across Parish, snaked through naked earth and into the library ahead. She marched forward, the dagger in hand, ready to cut down anything that stood before her.
As her eyes followed the vermillion veins into the library, she noted how illogical the architecture of the room appeared. The ceiling was lopsided and the walls inconsistent in length; the floor buckled upward and downward, not from wear but design. And the books, of which there were many, were unreachable; they sat in shelves on the second floor, for which there was no staircase, ladder, or even a balcony to stand on to reach them.
A madman built this place, she thought, slowly making her way across the library. And by his madness, it was warped beyond repair.
Where the veins grew thicker, more tightly packed, Amelia went, for she was certain they would lead her to their source. After several storerooms and a garden, she stumbled into a kitchen whose floor was covered in thousands of small, gnawed-on bones. Her stomach plummeted as she waded through the ocean of the dead. Noticing a glint, she raised her lantern and then gasped. At the center of the kitchen, an old bathtub sat, and someone was sprawled out inside it, their back to her, running the rust-brown water over their pallid skin.
Amelia pushed into a dining room. Incomprehensible words rained down upon her. Looking through the busted ceiling, holding the lantern as far out as she could, she noticed dark shapes pacing back and forth in the rafters. Now was not the time to show fear, so she held the black dagger high for her tormentors to see. All at once, they were quieted. With that small victory, some of Amelia’s confidence was restored.
“I need to know,” she said aloud, wood shavings snowing around her.
“Did Amon lie to me?” She was speaking to the creatures now, to look stronger than she was.
She knelt down beside an engorged vermillion vein that wreathed the doorway. “Did It lie to him?”
She bit her lip and swung the dagger; the blade passed through with ease. Like a severed artery, the vein sputtered its wretched fluid at Amelia, drenching her gown in its unholy blood.
“Good enough,” she said, and thinking of Ruth and Edmund, pressed on.
The house stopped Amelia, for the house had nothing left to show her. She had reached the front. Beyond the threshold, a yawning chasm stretched, its rocky walls teeming with dense, impenetrable webs of the vermillion veins. Above the front door, just before the porch that mimicked the porch in the new house above, a large, black shape hung suspended in the air. To Amelia, it looked like a hardened heart or a malformed chrysalis. Stepping closer, she saw that it was held up by a membranous structure, much like an infected umbilical cord. She followed the swollen tube as it ran down the wall and across the floor, to the wall and the painting of a distant ancestor from which it had burst.
“What are you?” Amelia whispered, feeling the house breathe in and exhale, the chasm sucking in the air, creating a vacuum. She held the lantern up to the heart and set aglow its innards.
“Amelia,” a coarse voice called out.
Amelia spun around. A million fractured images stabbed into her mind, sending her to her knees. In gut-wrenching flashes, she watched Ruth and Edmund be cut into pieces and ripped apart.
“No!” she cried to the images, as the images coalesced into a crowd of people eager to eat the remains of her disemboweled children.
Reduced to a whimpering child, she cried out for Amon.
And then there he was, in her mind’s eye—gutted and gored, stripped of his clothes and his flesh.
Amelia covered her eyes and beat the dagger against her head. She saw her ex-husbands ripping through the mouths of her children. They shed Ruth’s and Edmund’s flesh. Then, with clubs made of teeth and muscle, they came after Amelia. Once they had her, they beat her until there was nothing left but red water.
She yelled and struggled to her feet. Across her mind, she saw great, metal buildings rise and fall into massive clouds of dust. Surrounding the destruction were a congregation of cloaked followers. She glanced to her side and saw that she was sitting upon a vermillion throne. The congregation swarmed her; they bowed and spat coins at her feet, and offered their infants up for her services.
Amelia staggered across the front of the house, doubling back towards the heart. Again, in the images, she saw the congregation, but this time one stood out amongst the crowd: a man, elevated on broken hands and flayed shoulders, making his way towards her. And when he found her, she took him every which way she liked. In their bloody bliss, they smiled and spoke of their love; for each other, for Ruth and Edmund, and for all the others that had yet to be born from her blighted womb.
“Ruth… Edmund,” Amelia begged. She twisted the tip of the dagger into her temple, drawing blood, drawing pain. “Ruth…”
“We will take care of you,” the house whispered, its words wrapping around Amelia like warm sheets. “Let us take of care you. You deserve it.”
Amelia shook her head, shook beads of blood all over the floor from the small hole in her head.
“What else have you?” The house rumbled, took a deep breath; the chasm glowed red and something shifted in the shadows. “We’ve never wanted much, and you’ve never had enough.”
Amelia struggled to her feet; blood dribbling down her cheek, with all the anger the horror had given her, she drove the dagger into the umbilical cord and sliced outward. The appendage whipped back and forth, spewing glowing red fluid into the air. Without its support, the hardened heart a few feet above fell away, collapsing onto the ground. On its underside, there was a large hole, as though something had already broken through hours earlier.
Dizzy and nauseous, Amelia struggled to stay standing as the entryway swayed. Patch by patch, the vermillion veins turned black and brittle. And that’s when she realized they were the very bricks and mortar that kept the dead house together. Wiping the blood out of her eyes, she turned on her heels and retraced her steps. She had to escape before the estate plummeted into the void, into the very horror that had once elevated it so.
Fresh patches of wriggling veins were waiting for Amelia in the halls leading to the ballroom. They must have spawned sometime after she made her first pass through. It doesn’t matter, she told herself, their presence making her skin crawl. It’s over. I’m done.
Amelia tore through the dining room, where the beasts in the rafters above howled and yelped. She ignored them, and for some reason, they ignored her. She tightened her grip on the dagger until her hand started to go numb. She had killed the master; she would not be undone by its minions.
Amelia made her way to the kitchen and waded through the ocean of bones therein. Splintered femurs and ribs poked and broke through her skin, but she didn’t stop, or care. Feeling water on her feet, she looked to the center, where the bathtub was now tipped over, with whatever had been inside gone from it. Almost there, she told herself, thinking of Ruth and Edmund. This never happened. This never happened. This never happened.
Amelia burst into the twisted hallway. It heaved upward, and the floor snapped in half. She dropped the lantern and jumped from where she stood as the tiles fell away. She scrambled and cursed as she ran, crawled, and ran once more through the undulating hall. Her fingernails cracked and broke off as she struggled f
or purchase on the shivering walls. The upturned floor caught the toe of her foot. She flailed for something to hold onto. Her ankle twisted until it broke. Amelia screamed, but she did not stop, for ahead, in the swirling, deepening dark, she saw the ballroom and the dim light within it.
“Amon!” Amelia shouted. She dragged herself into the ballroom, making out her uncle’s features further on by the candle he held.
Without thinking, she lurched into him, dagger out, and then quickly pulled away. “I’m sorry. I didn’t hurt you did I?”
Amon lowered the candle to his stomach. He was bleeding, but more importantly, he was naked. His body looked wet as though he’d recently bathed. He smelled like an infant, soft and sweet. He moved his hand to the hole in his side and covered it.
“Uncle…”
As Amelia stepped backward, she noticed the patch of wriggling veins in which he was standing. They were attached to his feet and throbbed as though they were passing something into him.
“Get away from me.” She raised the dagger, Amon’s imitation’s blood already coagulated on its tip. “Get the hell away from me.”
“We’ve no need for your line any longer,” the imitation said, stepping closer to Amelia. “It took a very long time, but I was able to give us the confidence to move forward.”
Amelia stabbed forwards, almost catching the imitation in the neck. “Move. Where’s Ruth? Where’s Edmund?”
The imitation smiled—teeth were still breaking through its gums. “With the house. I hope you don’t mind me taking your uncle’s appearance. I promise you won’t even know the difference after a while. I knew him very well.”
The dead house continued to shake from its death rattle. In another few minutes, if they didn’t go topside, they would be buried down here amongst the corpses of her ancestors and the spoils of the atrocities they had committed.
“We’ve been waiting a long time, Amelia. We’ve been growing a long time.”
In a flash, the imitation had the arm that held the dagger. It twisted her arm until she dropped the weapon. The dagger fell into the patch of veins. Immediately, they turned to ash.
“You deserve so much more than life has given you. Help us, and you and your children will never want again. No contract, commitment. We are not cruel, Amelia. We only wish to make this world a better place.”
Amelia spat in the imitation’s face. She contorted her body, trying to break free of its grip. Her defiance, though it had not been her intention, had given the house her decision.
“So be it,” the imitation said. It broke her arm and pushed her down to the ground. “Death tends to make most things more agreeable, so close your eyes if you’d like, because I’m going to kill you now. Then we’ll talk.”
THAT WHICH WALKS BEHIND THE GRAVES
“Envious am I of those who do not wake to screaming. It has been three days since I’ve had a full night’s sleep. The townspeople have agreed to send the children away, and for this I am grateful.
“It will take years to wash the blood from the headstones.”
IN THE YEAR OF THEIR LORD 189X
Entry One
I, Herbert North, should have realized that something was amiss the moment Seth offered me a drink. The longest we’d ever been away from one another were those nine months spent in the wombs of our respective mothers, so you must believe me when I say that Seth is a penny-pinching bastard.
“England or the United States?” Seth asked as we quickly claimed two seats that had opened up at the back of the bar.
I eyed him like a harlot hoping to find a home for the night. Thinking I’d figured my friend out, I said the opposite of what I thought he wanted to hear. “Europe,” I slurred, the alcohol on my breath killing two flies mid-flight.
“Then I’ll take the States job,” Seth concluded.
“What are you talking about?” I set down my cup and rubbed at my eyes. “What did you say?”
“Try to keep up, Herbert,” he said smugly. “There are two villages, one in Europe and one here, which are having some difficulty with our friends.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call them friends,” I said, staring down my drink in the same way the judged stare down the guillotine. “Oh,” I said, nodding my head like a psychiatric patient, “I see what you mean.”
Seth gave me the thumbs up, leaned over the table, patted me on the back, and then whispered into my ear, “There’s a woman reportedly stealing children in the States and drowning them in lakes. I’ll see to her.”
“What am I to do then?” I asked. I noted the faint presence of my favorite cologne upon his person.
“You’re to go to Europe and find out who keeps putting all the freshly dead atop the village graves.” Seth smiled and fell back into his seat. A chair leg flew past his head as a brawl broke out at the center of the bar. “How’s that sound?”
I remember shrugging, finishing my drink, and remarking to myself how comfortable the surface of the table looked.
An hour later, I peeled my face from the sticky hardwood finish and moaned like the dead for a glass of water. Seth had been conversing with the bartender about, presumably, business—we’d recently rid the fat man of a bone-eating pest—and was paying no attention to my pleas for the substance of life. Defeated by dehydration and feeling histrionic, I smoothed out my hair, straightened my collar, and slid my hands into my coat pocket, convinced that if these were my final moments on this lonely sphere, then at least I should die looking damn good.
“What the hell?” I remembered myself saying as my fingers closed around what felt like a piece of paper. I removed the ragged square of folded parchment from my pocket and held it in my shaking hands. It felt strange to the touch and pricked my flesh as I ran my fingertips over its yellowy surface. I thought for a moment I’d seen a glimmer deep within its fibers, but then it occurred to me I was still drunk, and I would probably see a unicorn in a horse if one were to gallop through the front door.
“Don’t open that,” Seth said, leaning away from the bar, hand anchored to a glass of whiskey.
“It might be a love letter,” I said, holding it up above the cloud of smoke that had coiled around our table.
Seth groaned as he relinquished his grip on the amber drink and stumbled toward me. “It’s a curse. If you read it, you’ll be cursed,” he said plainly.
“Now, that’s no way to look at love,” I said, suppressing a hiccup and setting the piece of paper on the table. “Did you catch the culprit?”
Seth nodded. He took with one hand the note and produced with the other his pocket watch and said, “It’s getting late, and you’ve a boat to catch.”
Entry Two
The bowels of the ship smelled as you might’ve expected when you give them a name like that. Because of Seth’s frugal nature, I suppose I was fortunate in that the space provided to me seemed only mildly infested with spiders. I saw a particularly large one trying to carry off my hat during supper, but after some coaxing, the fellow returned it promptly.
I’m surrounded by people I do not care to converse with, but who seem to be doing their damndest to ensure that I do. There is a man in a brown trench coat who trails me wherever I go, with a beard that seems to suggest he thinks himself to be a certain desert-dwelling deity. Unfortunately, if he does believe this, then he keeps it to himself, for the conversations he brings to me are drier than the desert he thinks he hails from.
“Where are you headed?” the man finally asked, cornering me at the bow.
I gritted my teeth as the man spoke, the cold wind gnawing at the back of my neck. “England,” I said, “the countryside.”
The man in the brown trench coat nodded, reached into a pocket, and produced a flask. He choked down the drink and offered to let me have a taste. “It’ll keep you warm.”
Tempted, I refused out of fear that I may wake the following morning in his quarters with a few parts of my person missing. “I’ll manage,” I said, watching as he drained the flask and d
ropped it back into its well-worn home.
“Are you on holiday?” The man stifled a belch with his arm; he backed away as the sea threw itself against the side of the ship. “What’s the countryside hold for you?”
“I’m an investigator, and I’ve something to investigate there.” I looked at the man in the brown trench coat and wondered childishly what he would do if I were to suddenly shave off his precious beard.
The man took a step back and scratched his nose. His eyes widened with excitement. “You’re not going to the Ashcroft estate are you?”
It took me a moment to answer the man’s question, for the time between the bar and the boat had been a bit of a blur. I shook my head and said, “Cairn—that’s where I’m headed. Now, if you don’t mind…”
The man in the brown trench coat stroked his beard. He followed me as I retreated into the ship, the sound of my chattering teeth echoing around us. Annoyed, with my patience frozen by the cold, I wondered how hard I would have to hit the man to ensure he didn’t wake until we reached our destination.
“The Ashcroft estate and Cairn sit upon the same marsh, a day’s journey from one another. I’m no investigator, but I cannot help but notice a connection when I see one.”
“Nor can I,” I snapped, “but since I have absolutely no idea what you’re going on about…” I paused and took a breath. “Get on with it.”
The man in the brown trench coat’s eyes began to water, as though I’d offended him. He shoved his veiny hands into his pockets, spun in place. He seemed uncertain as to whether he wanted to make a scene or excuse himself quietly. He sniffled and wiped his nose, looking like an overgrown infant that had crawled into its father’s hand-me-downs. At this point, I would’ve hit him just to see what he’d do with the pain.
“You are very rude,” he said bluntly. He turned and pushed open the door to the bow, where the wind howled loudly with the secret song of the drowned dead. “A day’s journey from the Ashcroft estate is Parish,” the bearded baby said reluctantly. “People seldom travel to that part of the country, and talk of it even less.”