I woke to find myself walking out onto the plateau. Onto the endless green where Phupten waited. I crossed the threshold. The veil parted. I beheld Leng.
The plateau spread to infinity before me, but it was bare and horrible, a squirming ocean beneath a gravelled skin, with splintered bones that tore up through the hide, rending the fleshy softness that heaved in a semblance of life. A trillion tendrils stirred upon its surface, antennae generating the illusion that protected it, configuring the veil. This was Leng. Is! A name and a place and a thing. Leng is what dreams at the roof of the world and sends its relentless imaginings to cover the planet. The light that shines here is not the violet and orange of twilight or dusk. It is the gray of a suffocating mist, a cloud of obscuring putrefaction, full of blind motes that cannot be called living yet swarm like flies and infest every pore with grasping hunger. A vastness starving and all-consuming that throws up ragged shadows like clots of tar to flap overhead in the form of the faceless winged creatures that wheel away from the plateau to snatch whatever hapless souls they find beyond the gates of nightmare and carry them back here, toward a pale gray haze of shriveled peaks so lofty that even though they rise at an infinite distance, still they dwarf everything. And having glimpsed the impossible temple upon those improbable peaks, I know I can never return. Even though I took but the one step across the threshold and then fell back, I cannot unsee what I have seen. There is no unknowing. The veil is forever rent. I cannot wake. And though I write these words because I am compelled, because Leng’s spell is such that others will read this and be drawn to it, I pray for an end to wakefulness and sleep. I cannot stop my ears or eyes or mind from knowing what waits. Leng’s vision for Earth is a blind and senseless cloud that spreads and infects and feeds only to spread, infect and feed. And its unearthly beauty—we are drawn to it like any lure. I pray you have not touched me. I pray the power has
About the Author
Marc Laidlaw is the author of six novels, including the International Horror Guild Award winner, The 37th Mandala. His short stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies since the 1970s. In 1997, he joined Valve Software as a writer and creator of Half-Life, which has become one of the most popular videogame series of all time. He lives in Washington State with his wife and two daughters, and continues to writes occasional short fiction between playing too many videogames.
Story Notes
Written as one of twenty-four tales for Ellen Datlow’s Lovecraft Unbound, Laidlaw’s “Leng” draws on both research—he’s written on Tibetan themes and settings before, most notably in his novel Neon Lotus (1988)—and experience (he visited Tibet in 2007). As for Lovecraft’s core principles, as Laidlaw writes, “ . . . we may eschew arbitrary tentacles and embrace his passion for the role of amateur in science . . . and remember that as he beat the twilit byways of New England, looking for insights which must remain nameless and ineffable, to be spied just beyond the limits of our capacity for knowledge, he found not only horror but beauty.”
TORN AWAY
JOE R. LANSDALE
He was a young man in an old black car, parked out by the railroad tracks near an oil well that still pumped, pulling up that East Texas crude. I got word of the car from Mrs. Roark, who lived on the far side of the tracks. She called my office and told me that car and man had been sitting there since late afternoon, and from her kitchen window she had seen the driver get out of the car once, while it was still light, and walk to the other side, probably to relieve himself. She said he was dressed in black and wore a black hat, and just the outfit spooked her.
Now, at midnight, the car was still there, though she hadn’t seen him in a quite a while, and she was worried about going to sleep, him being just across the tracks, and she wondered if I’d take a look and make sure he wasn’t a robber or killer or worse.
Being Chief of Police of a small town in East Texas can be more interesting than you might think. But, not my town. It had a population of about three hundred and was a lazy sort of place where the big news was someone putting a dead armadillo in the high school principal’s mailbox.
I had one deputy, and his was the night shift, but he had called in sick for a couple of days, and I knew good and well he was just spending a little extra time at home with his new bride. I didn’t tell him I knew, because I didn’t care. I had been married once, and happily, until my wife died suddenly in childbirth, losing the baby in the process.
Frankly, I’ve never gotten over it. The house seemed too large and the rooms too empty. Sometimes, late at night, I looked at her photograph and cried. Fact was, I preferred the night shift. I didn’t sleep much.
So, when Mrs. Roark called and told me about the car, I drove out there, and sure enough, the car was still there, and when I hit my lights on high, I saw that it looked like it had seen a lot of road. It was caked in dust, and the tires looked thin. I bumped the siren once, and saw someone sit up in the seat and position his hands on the steering wheel.
I left the light on to keep him a little blinded, got out, and went over and tapped on the glass. The driver rolled it down.
“Hello, sir,” I said. “May I see your license?”
He turned his face into my flashlight and blinked, and took out his wallet and pushed his license out to me. It said his name was Judah Wilson. The license was invalid by a couple of months, and the photo on it looked somewhat like him but it was faded and not reliable. I told him so.
“Oh,” he said. “I should have noticed it was out of date.”
“This is your picture, here?” I asked.
He nodded.
I thought about giving him a ticket for the problem with the license and sending him on his way, but there was something about him that made me suspicious; the photo not being quite right. I said, “I tell you what, Mr. Wilson. You follow me to the station and we can talk there.”
“Is that necessary?” he said.
“I’m afraid so,” I said.
At the station, I found myself a little nervous, because the man was over six feet tall and well built and looked as if he could be trouble. His hat and suit were a bit worn, and out of style, but had at one time been of good quality. His shoes needed a shine. But so did mine. I had him seat himself in front of my desk and I went around to my chair and, without thinking about it, unfastened my holster flap where he couldn’t see me do it. I studied the photo. I said, “This looks like you, but . . . not quite.”
“It’s me,” he said. “I’m older by a few years. A few years can make a difference.”
“I just need to make a call,” I said. I wasn’t able to go somewhere private and call, since I was the only one there, and yet I was not in a position where I felt comfortable locking him up. I made the call and he listened, and when I finished, I said, “I guess you heard that?”
“The owner of the license is dead?”
“That’s right. That means you have another man’s out-of-date license.
He sighed. “Well, it wasn’t out of date when I first got it and it’s not another man. Exactly. It’s just that I can’t duplicate another person completely, and some less than others, and this man was one of the hard ones. I don’t know what the difference is with one and then another, but there’s sometimes a difference. Like you buy a knockoff product that has the same general appearance, but on closer inspection you can tell it’s not the real deal.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” I said, “but I’m going to ask you to stand up and walk over to the wall there, and put your hands on it, spread your legs for a pat down. I got reason to hold you.”
He did what I asked, sighing as he did. I gave him his Miranda rights. He listened and said he understood. I marched him to one of the two cages we had in the back. I put him in one and locked the door.
“You really ought not do this,” he said.
“Is that a threat?”
“No, it’s a warning.”
“You’re behind bars, sir, not me.”
&nb
sp; “I know,” he said, and went and sat on the bunk and looked at a space between his shoes.
I was about to walk away, when he said, “Watch this.”
I turned, and his body shifted, as if there was something inside him trying to get out, and then his face popped and crawled, and I let out a gasp. He lifted his chin and looked up. Inside his black suit, under his black hat, he looked almost exactly like me.
I felt weak in the knees and grabbed the bars for support. He said, ”Don’t worry, I can shift the way I look because I do not have a core, but I can’t turn to smoke and flow through the bars. You’ve got me. And that ought to worry you.”
There was a bench on the outside of the bars for visitors to sit and talk to their friends or loved ones on the other side, and I sat down there and tried to get my breath. I kept staring at him, seeing my face under that black hat. It wasn’t quite right. There was something missing in the face, same as the one he had before, but it was close enough.
A long moment passed before he spoke. “Now watch.”
He closed his eyes and tightened his mouth, shifted back, and looked the way he had before, like Wilson. Or almost like Wilson.
“It’s best you let me out,” he said.
I shook my head.
He sighed. “I’m not like anyone you’ve dealt with before.”
“I don’t doubt that,” I said, and took my pistol out of its holster and laid it on my knee. He was behind bars, but the whole thing with his face, the way his body shifted under his suit, I couldn’t help but think I might have to shoot him. I thought I ought to call my deputy and have him come in, but I wasn’t sure what he could do. I wanted to call someone, but I couldn’t think of anyone to call. I felt as if every thought I had ever possessed was jumbled up inside my head, knotted up and as confused as Alexander’s Gordian knot.
I made myself breathe slowly and deeply.
He took off his hat and placed it on the bunk beside him and stared at me.
I said, “Tell me who you really are. What you are. Why you’re here.”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
“It wouldn’t make any difference,” he said, and smiled at me. The smile had about as much warmth as a hotel ice machine.
“Are you . . . are you from somewhere else?”
“You mean am I from Mars? From somewhere out there?” He pointed up to give his words emphasis.
“Yes.”
“No. I’m not. I’m from right here on earth, and I am a human being. Or at least I once was.”
I bent forward, overwhelmed, feeling light-headed and strange.
“What I can tell you is there is something coming, and when it gets here, you won’t like it. Let me out.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Because I’m not who I say I am?”
I nodded. “And because the man you look like is dead.”
“Don’t worry. I didn’t kill him. He died and I took his identity. It was simple, really. I was in the hospital, for a badly sprained wrist; had to have a kind of support cast. Accident. Silly, really. I fell off a ladder working in a bookstore. But I was there, and Wilson died because of a car accident. It was time for me to move on anyway. I can’t stay anywhere very long, because it’ll find me.”
“It?”
“Just listen. His family was in his room, and when they left out to do what was needed to be done about having the body dismissed, I went in and found his pants and looked through his pockets and took his wallet. I pulled back the sheet and studied his face. I became him. It was okay until tonight, long as I kept on the move and didn’t have trouble with the law. But tonight, me being tired and you checking me out . . . It’s come to an end.”
“You could be me if you wanted to?”
“I could. If I killed you and hid the body, I could go right on being you. But not here. I wouldn’t know your ways, your mannerisms, your experiences, but I could use the face and body and move on; become you somewhere else. Or use the face and not the name. There’s all kinds of ways to play it. But I’m behind bars and you’re out there, so you’ve got no worries. Besides, I don’t kill. I’m not a murderer. Thing is, none of it matters now; I’ve lost time and I’ve lost ground. It’s coming and I need to put enough miles between me and it to give myself time to truly rest.”
“You’re crazy.”
“You saw me change.”
“I saw something.”
“You know what you saw.”
I nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.” I got up and slipped the gun into its holster and took hold of the bars and said, “Tell me about yourself. Tell me now.”
“If I do, will you let me out?”
For a moment I didn’t know what to say to that. Finally I said, “Maybe.”
“Ha. You’re pulling my leg. You’re the law. You’re dedicated.”
“I don’t know if the law covers this,” I said. “I don’t know what I might do. I know this: what you got is a story, and I got a gun and you behind bars, and you say something’s coming, so it seems the problem is yours.”
“Something is coming all right, and if you’re in the way, it could bother you. It could do more than just bother. Look here. Listen up.” He stood up and spread his arms and stood under the light on the ceiling.
“What do you see?”
“A man.”
“Yes. But what is missing? What do you not see?”
I shook my head.
“Look at the floor where you stand. What do you see?”
I looked. I saw nothing, and said as much.
“No. You see something all right. Think about it . . . Here. Listen. Move to your right.”
I stepped to my right.
“What moved with you?” he asked.
“Nothing moved with me.”
“Look at me.”
I looked. He stepped right. “Look on the ground. What do you see?”
“Nothing.”
“Correct. Now follow me when I step left.”
He stepped left. “What do you see now?”
“Still nothing.”
He nodded. “Look at your feet again. Step left.”
I did.
“Step right.”
I did . . . and then I got it. I had a shadow and it moved with me. I jerked my head toward him and saw that where he had stood there was nothing. No shadow.
He stepped right, then left. He spun about like a top.
“My husk is empty,” he said. “I am without shadow.”
I took hold of the bars again, stood there trembling. I said, “Tell me.”
“Will it matter? Will you help me out?”
“Perhaps. Tell me.”
He sat down on the bunk again. “All right,” he said. “I will.”
“My troubles began during the War Between the States. For me that was a year or two after the war started. Eighteen sixty-two.”
“The Civil War?”
“That’s what I said.”
“You’re a time traveler?”
“In a way we all are time travelers. We travel from our date of birth until our date of death. We travel through time as it happens. Not around it, but through it. I am like that, same as you. But I have traveled farther and longer. I was born in 1840. I fought in the Civil War. I was killed in 1864.”
“Killed?” I said.
“I was struck by a musket ball, during . . . Never mind. The where and how of it is unimportant. But I was struck dead and laid down in a shallow grave, and I was uncovered by wild dogs who meant to tear at my flesh. I know this because she told me.”
I took my seat on the bench again. I didn’t know what to think. What to feel.
“An old woman chased the dogs away and finished digging me up and took me home and I came alive again on her kitchen table, stretched out there naked as the day I was born, my chest and legs covered in designs made in chicken blood. Standing by the table with a big fruit jar full of something dark was the old
woman. And she told me then I was hers. She was a witch. A real witch. She had rescued me from death and brought me to life with a spell, but she had kept my shadow; had torn it away from me with her enchantments. If I had it back, she said, after being brought back from the dead, I would die as others die, and I would not have the powers that I have now.”
“The shape changing?” I said.
Wilson, for I knew no other name by which to call him, nodded. “That, and my ability to live on and on and on.”
“And the jar of shadow?”
“She kept it on a shelf. My shadow was small at first, minuscule, like a piece of folded cloth. As time went on, it swelled and filled the jar. The jar could only hold my shadow for so long, and when it swelled enough, the jar would break, unless moved to some larger container, but once it was free, it could never be contained again. Even then, as long as I stayed away from it, I would remain ageless, be able to change my shape. But, if it found me, it would take me and I would age the way I should have aged; all the years that had passed would collect inside me, turn me inside out.”
The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror, 2010 Page 42