The Bones of the Earth- The Complete Collection

by Scott Hale

  But the heart of the Black Hour has shown itself to be surprisingly resilient. Throughout time, humanity has given the grotesque organ shelter. From images and writings, references have been discovered pertaining to the Black Hour’s heart and its protection within various timekeeping devices. Why the heart feels the need for such symbolic safeguards is not yet known. But it appears to thrive on planting itself directly within populaces, as though to invoke insanity and then absorb the new lunacies they spawn. From the Black Hour’s willingness to constantly place itself in the public’s eye, one can either assume that the heart cannot be destroyed, or that the tools to destroy it are not within our grasp; because the Black Hour’s heart is not of this world and, therefore, undefeatable. To excise it, one would have to uproot it from time itself, the very continuum from which it sups and usurps, and return it to whatever hell no longer wanted anything to do with it.

  Currently, for the last several hundred years, the Black Hour’s heart has taken residence in an object known as the Dread Clock. The Dread Clock was created by a group of nuns in an Eastern European convent who had discovered the heart. Using prayer and even the magic of the Membrane, the nuns wove the heart into the Dread Clock as a means of imprisoning it.

  They did not succeed. The Black Hour is dogmatic in its midnight desecrations, never diverging from that rigid, ritualistic schedule. But by their efforts and incantations, the powers of the Black Hour began to leak out of the heart, causing the organ to have an almost constant effect on those in its vicinity. It was bleeding chaos, and the only way the nuns believed they could stem the tide was to destroy themselves, from their flesh down to their souls, and lock themselves away inside the Dread Clock to hold the “demonic forces” at bay.

  Since the nuns’ failed attempts, the Dread Clock has traveled the world. It has a tendency to show itself at the worst moments in history, as though to be the first in line to feed on humanity’s suffering. From diseased villages to concentration camps, there is mounting evidence that the Dread Clock has been present, simultaneously creating evil, while feasting on it. To blame the Black Hour for man’s inhumanity to man would be foolish. But how much stronger was the Black Hour made by them?

  Below, you will find pictures and additional descriptions of the Dread Clock. If you believe you have seen the object, do not go near it, for still it bleeds chaos and despair. Those who stand in its presence stand to be undone. The heart is known to work quickly on those who are weak of will or at their rope’s end. Unlike other cursed or haunted objects, the Dread Clock is eager to mutilate, for time is forever and humanity many, and there are many miseries to gorge upon.

  Gemma flipped her shit. She scrolled to the top of Connor Prendergast’s website, the man who was supposed to have bought the Dread Clock initially, and read the history again. What was this? Was it real? She paced back and forth in front of the cave. There was sweat on her neck, behind her knees. Any other time, like any other person, she would have laughed off the story. But this was the very same clock she now had in her living room, in her house. The pictures proved it. And the crap about insanity and the way Gethin talked about it and… Midnight. Midnight had been when she thought she heard Mom come into her room, asking if she was okay. And then last night, when her parents went temporarily (or inevitably) insane, it had been between twelve and one.

  “Holy shit. Holy… holy shit.”

  She clicked through the website. There an article on ghouls, there an article on what appeared to be a doll held together by super glue.

  How do I contact him? She jabbed her phone, agitated. “Come on. Come on. Where’s your freaking email address, man?”

  Again, the phone buzzed in her clammy grip. She stumbled backward, sending a few rocks into the foaming sea. A text message popped up on her screen from Jen that read: Hey, girl. Addie is sleeping over tonight. Can you?

  Still morning, the sun was scorching hot. High in the sky, burning those that bumbled below, that fiery orb would be the thing most wouldn’t miss when evening rolled in. But Gemma would. As the day wore on and light gave way to dark, every minute that passed brought her and her family closer to that profaned Black Hour. She could try to get them to leave, go somewhere for the night. The festival at the fairgrounds, but crap, no, that didn’t start until Monday. Maybe if she showed them the website. Maybe if she told them what they made her watch…

  “Yeah, I should be able to,” Gemma said, texting the same to Jen. Her finger hovered over the send button. She needed out of the house. And it sounded nice to have the chance to bounce some hypotheticals off her friends. But could she leave her parents alone like that?

  “If the Black Hour is real,” she said, pacing back and forth, “then what are they going to do tonight?”

  She stopped, squeezed the phone until the plastic made a cracking noise.

  “But the article said it freaking bleeds chaos. What am I supposed to do? I can’t leave, but I can’t stay.”

  She grabbed her hair and pulled it downward, crazed.

  “What the hell do I do? Am I being stupid? Could be coincidence. Maybe they’ve just lost it. Goddamn it. Grr.”

  Gemma pocketed her cell phone and started across the walkway towards the house. Now that she knew what she was looking for, she knew what to look for. All she had to do was to make sure she didn’t lose her mind in the process. This whole ‘them or her’ business didn’t sit well with her. She had spent so long trying to keep the family together, the last thing she wanted to do was turn her back on them. Whether or not the Dread Clock and the Black Hour were actually real, she still couldn’t honesty say. Mom and Dad were hurting, though, and now it was her job to heal them.

  TRENT GEMMA CAMILLA

  Camilla and Trent had busted out the beach chairs. They were sitting on the shore under a crooked umbrella, the water breaking on their feet. She dug her toes into the sand and poked the shells hidden underneath. A crab nipped at her nail, and she smiled. It was a beautiful day. Cloudless, with winds that blew so strongly it was as though they had their own nefarious intents. The heat was going to be hellish, but Camilla appreciated that. She liked sweating out her impurities during the day and going home drained but contented at night. She slept better that way, when she had no energy left to doubt herself for hours on end. If she couldn’t be ignorant, at least she could be exhausted.

  “This is nice,” Trent purred beside her. He put his hands behind his head. The huge, black shades he wore might have looked cool about twenty years ago, but now he just looked like a bug with a farmer’s tan. “We both needed this.” He popped open the cooler wedged into the sand. A few beers sat on the top, but he went for a bottle of water. “Want anything?”

  “One of those massive malts from… God, what was that place’s name?”

  Trent let out a laugh. “Oh, hell, what was that called?”

  Camilla pointed at him and shouted, “Dan’s Diabetes Dive.”

  “What? No. Really?” Eyes wide with realization, he said, “Shit, it was, wasn’t it? How did I forget? God, can you imagine a place being named that today?”

  Camilla bit her lip. All it took were a few seconds and she was back there, at that shack of a store with Trent. They were sixteen? Seventeen? He had more quarters than he did dollars, and more zits than both of those combined. He hadn’t always been the most attractive of guys, but he had a good heart. She remembered he’d spent all he had that day, which wasn’t much, to get her one of Dan’s famous jumbo malts.

  “I don’t even know if you could call it a malt,” Trent said.

  “No, that thing was a freaking feeding trough. A big old tub of sugar.”

  “You polished it off, though.”

  Camilla’s cheek quivered from smiling. “Nope.”

  “Killed it.” Trent opened his water, guzzled it. “I had never seen a girl so skinny eat so much.”

  “How did I not go into a diabetic coma?” Camilla leaned on the arm of the chair, closer to him.

  “H
ell if I know. We put ourselves through so much as kids. Now, if I turn the wrong way when I’m taking a shit, my back’s out of commission for the week.”

  Pelicans passed by overhead. A few sand pipers sped across the beach in search of meals too small to be seen.

  “You remember Paul Smith’s party in ’84?” Camilla went into the cooler, got a beer for herself. “You remember what we did?”

  Trent’s eyebrow arched. Coming out of his seat, he spun the chair around and dragged it nearer to Camilla. “I don’t know how I remember what we did.”

  “We both got drunk as hell.”

  “You did. I was sober.”

  Camilla twisted her mouth. “Yeah, okay, Trent.”

  “I was! How was I going to put my moves on you if I was drunker than a skunk?”

  “Might have helped your moves, to be honest.”

  Trent waved her off. “We wandered around those woods for what seemed like forever. You fell—”

  “We fell,” Camilla corrected, “into that damn ditch.”

  “Busted my head and my ass pretty bad. I don’t know how I managed that.” Now, Trent grabbed a beer. He popped a few of the ice cubes it had been nestled in into his mouth. “I definitely copped a feel helping you out of that ditch.”

  “Did you?” Camilla laughed. She pretended to be repulsed as she pushed on his chair. It wobbled, but held. “Not surprised. You were always trying to cop a feel. Should have treated you like my class and made you sit on your hands during our dates.”

  “Probably wouldn’t have helped.”

  “Probably not.”

  Trent took a drink. Camilla noticed how he paused with the beer in his mouth, as though the taste no longer appealed to him. He looked at the bottle, wedged it into the sand, and went back to his water.

  “Remember that guy that beat you up?” Camilla continued to stare at the bottle in the sand.

  Leave it be, she thought. Don’t touch it again, and we’ll be okay. It was like she was pulling petals off dandelions, reciting, “He loves me. He loves me not.”

  Trent put up his hand, the way a politician might in a debate. Camilla thought back to how he had said he always wanted a job like that. One where he could make a difference. God damn, when had that dream died?

  “If I recall correctly,” Trent said, “we beat each other up.”

  “He busted your lip and gave you a black eye.”

  “What did I to him?”

  “I think you bit his arm.”

  Trent cringed. He closed his eyes and shook his head. Ashamed, he said, “I did, didn’t I? Didn’t I punch him?”

  “Maybe?” He hadn’t. “That guy came out of nowhere, though. From the other party going on in the field. He was pretty big. I mean, you remember how scrawny you were?”

  Trent rolled up his sleeve, flexing his non-existent muscle. “About as scrawny as I am now.” He jiggled his gut. “Minus the pooch. God.” Though it was day, Camilla could see the stars in his eyes. “I was not a fine specimen. How the hell did you ever settle on me?”

  “I loved you.” Camilla caught her breath. The words came out quicker than she expected. She dug her feet harder into the sand, embarrassed. All restraints and reservations had been lifted with the Dread Clock’s arrival. It made her feel young again.

  “You had a good heart. You were yourself, too. I never knew what I was getting into with other people, but you were always you.” She took a drink, lingered on the lip of the bottle before setting it down. Inside, she saw a black creature with tentacles at the bottom, marinating in the alcohol. “You were a little dweeby, but I set you straight.”

  Trent was chewing on his thumbnail. He slumped into his chair. Blood dribbled off the umbrella and down onto his chest. “I used to try so hard, though. I did. I mean, I was me. I wanted to do what I did.”

  He sighed, rubbed the blood into the hairs on his chest like a salve.

  “I used to try so hard, but not anymore. That’s where I went wrong with you and Gemma. I love you two more than anything in the world, but Jesus do I rarely show it. I don’t know how I got this way.” He closed his eyes. Tears struggled against his lids. “I’m so sorry, Camilla.”

  You used to be so much more, she thought, staring at him, his eyes still closed. We both did. If only you knew how badly I want to love you again. If you did, would you let me?

  Opening his eyes, he asked her nervously, “What went wrong with us?”

  TRENT GEMMA CAMILLA

  It was a question he had always wanted to ask, but was afraid to hear the answer to. Because, in his mind, he was what had gone wrong. He was the one who hadn’t followed through on the promises they made to one another. He was the one who had cheated first, the one who brought Gemma into their home and asked Camilla to be a mother to her. He took and took from her until there was nothing left. And what he couldn’t give she got elsewhere.

  “I’m sorry,” he quickly said. “I don’t want to ruin this—”

  “Everything went wrong,” Camilla said. “It wasn’t you or me. It was both of us.”

  Trent squinted. Camilla’s chest, bare because of the blouse she wore, was glowing and slightly translucent. In a chamber of its own, between her ribs, a smaller version of the Dread Clock’s pendulum swayed.

  Camilla started. “We got married too fast. My career took off, and you were still trying college. My mom left this house to us, everything paid for and taken care of, and we never really learned how to live with each other. Had the apartment for what? Year and a half?”

  Trent nodded. “It was a good year and a half, but I see where you’re coming from. We dated a long time, and then rushed into everything else.”

  “I love Gemma.” Camilla paused, as though to gauge Trent’s reaction.

  He didn’t give her one.

  “I love Gemma. I love her so much. She may not be from me, but she’s as good as mine. It’s not her fault, but… Trent, you came home with another woman’s child. Another woman you slept with. She was a terrible human being, and never in a million years would I want Gemma back with her. But I don’t think I’ve ever gotten over that.”

  First year in this house, and you kicked me out. You spat in my face and threw a bottle at my head and told me never to come back.

  “I can’t even remember what started that fight,” Trent said, and that was the truth.

  Camilla shrugged. “Me neither.” But she looked as though she were lying.

  “Sometimes.” Trent stopped. Did he want to put this out there? After all these years? Would she think he was making it up? Would it even matter? The wounds had been made, scabbed over, and torn open time and time again. They were beyond repair.

  “What?”

  Too late. “Sometimes, I don’t know if Gemma is mine. I cheated, I did. But Gemma’s mother was with a few guys at the time. She gave up the baby as soon as she knew I thought it was mine, but—”

  “She looks like you, Trent.”

  “She does.” He nodded. “I know it doesn’t change what I did. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I brought it up.”

  “Do you speak to her?” Camilla’s voice was harsh.

  “No, not since I took Gemma.”

  “She was disgusting, Trent.”

  “Disgusting isn’t a strong enough word.” He rubbed his forehead.

  Gemma’s mother, Candice, had been about three hundred pounds, with a good ten percent of her weight being a combination of alcohol, heroin, and whatever other street corner shit she’d put in her body that week. Trent knew her from high school, and she had a tendency of finding him at the parties of mutual friends. Loud, rude, and selfish, there hadn’t been anything about Candice that Trent liked, except for the fact that she seemed to like him. The thing was, he couldn’t remember the night it happened. He assumed he’d had sex with her willingly, but sometimes, he wasn’t so sure. He had drunk too much and taken too many pills that night to be certain. It seemed like something he would do. After all, he had just cheated o
n Camilla with the girl at the 24/7 Quick-Stop. But maybe, maybe he—

  “Trent?” Camilla touched the top of his hand. “Hey, you alright?”

  “Sorry. I thought I heard the Dread Clock.” A lie, but now that he was thinking about the antique, he did start hearing whispers in his skull. “It’s wonderful, isn’t it?”

  Camilla squeezed his fingers. “It is.”

  “I don’t know where it’s going to take us.” He rubbed the bones of her wrist with his thumb. The simple things always made him feel so good. “But I’m glad it’s in our life.”

  “It took the sin out of us. We were hollow, Trent, and had nothing but sin.”

  “Now we can be ourselves again.” He imagined chewing Camilla’s face off and feeding her its sloppy regurgitations. “I don’t know where it’s going to take us, either. But if this is all we’ll get. Us here, talking again, on the beach, in the sun. That’s good enough for me. If I have to try my hardest to keep that, I will.”

  Camilla’s eyes glinted. She smiled and let his fingers go. The wind kicked up and blasted their umbrella, wrenching it out of the sand. “Oh shit!”

  Camilla jumped to her feet and scurried after it, before the gust took it too far. That was nice, that image. Her smiling, her running. Her running after something that wasn’t her car keys or another man. The nicest thing about it, though, was that he knew she would be back. Every day before this one, he never could tell how much time he had left with her. Their marriage’s problem had always been terminal, with a prognosis that neither their friends or family could agree on. Today felt different, though. He felt as though he could turn his back, and she would still be there.