“Show.”
“Sir?”
Dr. Hamilton could not understand this at first. He risked a look upward, and his muscles froze.
Mialai-thy'temai was not as Dr. Hamilton had left him. He was covered with great mottled streaks and lumps of light green and turquoise – he was, in fact, covered with his own four children. The infants adhered to his back and his stomach. Their tiny fingers and phalanges had found ridges and old barnacles in the surface of him, and latched flat and tight; their little mouths suckled peaceably at his hide.
The green-gold iris of the gentleman's eye swiveled in its socket, first the one and then the other, as he turned his head this way and that to regard Dr. Hamilton.
“You show me – healthy? Yes? Show his skin! All his skin! Now!”
Dr. Hamilton desperately fumbled at the infant's blankets, and this did indeed trigger its wailing. For a moment, he truly believed that they both would die, he and the child together, in some inexplicable fit of wrath from the creature that had fathered it.
Mialai-thy'temai snatched up the child as lightly as a dead bird. Dr. Hamilton could not focus his eyes on what was before him, on what was to happen to the child then at the hands of its father. But nothing did. Mialai-thy'temai made a deep clicking noise. It seemed all was to the gentleman's satisfaction.
He deposited the infant back into the damp wad of muslin in Dr. Hamilton's arms, and said,
“Well and well. You keep. I come back.”
Dr. Hamilton reflected on those words for many years.
The gentleman certainly had not lied. He did indeed come back, at the new moon of every month. He came back with gold, with a handful of long-sunken coins or jewelry that he threw on the floor. He came to hold the child at his great arm's length, to see if it was injured or neglected, to look it up and down with first one eye and then the other. Then he would shove the boy back into Dr. Hamilton's arms, and leave.
Two of the Morton boys, Jack and Bill, had come for Benjamin Morton's body, once Dr. Hamilton had sent word that he had passed. Dr. Hamilton had had Belinda lay him out and wrap him tightly in muslin, to present the most decent corpse that he might, and to head off any questions about how much smaller he was now. Jack and Bill, gray-faced and silent, did not behave as if they knew they were now uncles. Later, Dr. Hamilton considered how best to tell them, but he never did find the words.
Young Morton was seven months old before Dr. Hamilton dared inquire of his father when, in fact, the child was to be taken elsewhere. As it turned out, he had nothing to fear. The gentleman simply ignored him. Human speech interested Mialai-thy'temai not at all, no more than the meowing of a cat, unless it was in answer to a question of his. And he had no questions for Dr. Hamilton, other than whether the child was healthy. At last, Dr. Hamilton saw that the gentleman meant exactly what he had said, no more and no less: you will keep him, and I will come back.
After Dr. Francis Hamilton passed away in 1882, the youngest Dr. Hamilton had no notion of selling the practice. Indeed, he had carried it on for three years already, as the elder doctor had terrible arthritis, together with a number of nervous afflictions. The young doctor, a broad-shouldered, genial fellow, took good care of his uncle Hamilton, who had always taken such good care of him.
Dr. Morton Hamilton had taken courses by correspondence from the Medical College of New York, and had assisted in the doctor's study for many years, but he had attended no medical school in person. This was not because he lacked knowledge or diligence; he had a good deal of both, and he understood that it was wisest and best to stay close to home. In any case, no one had cause to complain of him. He remained in the house with Mrs. Hamilton, his Aunt Belinda, and looked after her, and after his family's business.
L.T. Patridge is originally from Greenville, Mississippi, and currently resides in the metro-Boston area. To the best of her knowledge, she is the only former Delta debutante who writes Lovecraftian fiction. She blogs at ltpatridge.wordpress.com.
Story illustration by Leslie Harker
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The Groaner in the Glen
by Eric Ian Steele
From a fragment found inside a manuscript entitled “Of the Romans in Brittania” by Marcus Appius translated by Father Ernesto Fabrizio and discovered buried in an unmarked grave in Proveglia, Italy, 1979 AD.
My name is Gaius Atticus Germanicus, and if any other brave citizen of Rome reads these words, know that it was not for want of heart that our battle standard was stolen, our troops routed, and the campaign lost. Not for lack of skill or courage were we overcome by the savage hordes. Rather, blame that ancient curse from a dead queen’s lips that brought us to our knees. For this entire country fairly reeks with foul magic, filled as it is with noxious mists, sheer drops and rocky peaks. The trees are filled with whispering, and painted men bring swift death with silent spears.
I held the rank of First Spear, leading the other centurions of the glorious Hispania, the legion most famed in battle throughout the Empire. The legion had arisen, Phoenix-like, from defeat at the hands of the barbarian queen Boudica and her Iceni over forty years ago. At that ill-fated place, the barbarians crushed our ill-equipped troops before burning Verulamium and Londinium to the ground. But we put paid to that revolt. Boudica took poison and died uttering curses against Rome, and the legion had become the most feared fighting machine in the world.
I was proud to serve with the men under my command. They were a battle-hardened crew, having fought in Spain and Germany. Veterans the lot of them, our only weaknesses were the Junior Tribunes - young, wealthy men from Rome who knew nothing about warfare. Most had never seen so much as a skirmish. They had traded Rome’s privileged marble halls for what they thought was an easy commission, nurse-maiding a bunch of savages in a far flung corner of the Empire. Then they would return home, assume the purple robes of a senator, and tell stories about how they had braved the dread tribes of the North.
It was true that since the suppression of the Iceni we had enjoyed peace here in Brittania. However, trouble was always bubbling. The woods outside our camp were alive with strange comings and goings. The white-robed druids still had power over their people. The last conflict had ended with the defeat of the Brigantes, their bodies dumped in a huge mound of corpses called Mons Graupius in the foothills of Caledonia. Now the Eighth Legion rested secure in a huge fortress there named Eboracum.
Marcus Cassius Agricola was Second Spear; the centurion next in seniority to myself. He was loyal and experienced, but given to being too prudent. We joked sometimes that his cognomen was particular apt – meaning farmer – and that he should have stayed home to till the fields.
Antonius Quintus Affricus - who had earned his name in the deserts of Egypt and had lived to tell stories of elephants and gigantic obelisks built by a race of long-dead emperors – was my third in command. He was stout of heart, but too brave for his own good. Sometimes I was amazed he had lasted so long amid all the terrors he described. I wondered if he was not prone to exaggeration. I had never seen an elephantus or crocodilus, but I doubted whether anything could be larger than a full-grown ox.
The rest of the senior officers were solid commanders. There were six of us in total, each in charge of a cohort containing six centuries, each commanded by a junior officer. Our time in Colchester was pleasant enough. The peasants who lived within the encampment were for the most part obedient. There was rarely any trouble, except for a few wandering bands of Brigantes who delighted in burning barns then running off into the night.
Sometimes the locals would tell with bulging eyes tales of monsters, giants and serpents in the northern mountains of Caledonia, but we scoffed at them. The Roman Empire had spread to all four corners of the world, and had witnessed nothing it could not conquer. Yes, some inhabitants were fierce. But in time, they would know Roman civilization. We were very good at civilizing people.
We had been ordered by Marcus Appius Bradua - the governor of the
Isles himself - to march north and relieve the garrison at Eboracum. There were rumours of another uprising, and he wanted our strength and superior numbers to ward off any contemplation of revolt.
I still remember the long trek north. The legion marched along the Agricolan Way until it finally petered out among desolate moors. Grey clouds hung like shrouds over the unforgiving, empty land. Over the days, hills gave way to ever more rugged terrain. Going was slow. Great mountains rose to our left. The country grew colder and wilder, the wind passing right through a man’s armour to penetrate the ribcage beneath. When the rain came, it sheeted into the side of us. Even the horses protested. This was a place where a man could lose his mind. I longed for the pleasant summer scents of my own home on the outskirts of Rome, for any respite from the ceaseless pounding of metal shields and the shuffling of sandaled feet.
But always there was the guiding presence of Primus Quintillus, our camp prefect. His rasping voice sliced through gale and sleet, barking orders, keeping soldiers in line. With him in charge of the wagon train, no man dared mutter any words of discontent.
Finally, the harsh county levelled out into fields full of yellow flowers. The breeze grew stronger. Someone shouted that he could see the ocean. It was cold, grey and lifeless. Even the beaches were fit for nothing – blanketed in sharp rocks. It was the most inhospitable region. Even Antonius, usually up for anything, mumbled that he would rather be burning under the sun in Egypt than freezing in these desolate highlands.
I wrote many times to my wife, Cassia, back in Rome. I never got a chance to send my wax tablets, however, so I do not know if she ever received them. Hopefully she will one day read this – the last record of what befell us. My darling, my life, you must know that my last thoughts were of you.
Finally we reached Eboracum, a ramshackle hut of a fortress. The legionaries we relieved were weary and lice-ridden. They were glad to go. We stayed. For four months the night-time raids grew ever more frequent and bolder. I sent word to the governor by messenger. His response was swift: send a force out into the wilderness and crush them.
Back home, the Empire was in turmoil. Trajan was embroiled in a costly campaign in Parthia. The Emperor had himself left Rome to oversee the war effort. Things were not going well. That meant that Rome could not spare reinforcements, especially so far across the Empire. We were alone in our remote fortress. If we became mired in difficulties, there would be no one to help us. We had to quell any unrest before it had a chance to grow.
“What will you do, Gaius?” Marcus asked me one night in my quarters over a bottle of wine. Antonius was seated alongside him.
“What else can we do?” I replied. “We must go into the highlands and defeat them.”
“I don’t like it,” Marcus said. “We’re too exposed, with all those trees and glens. It’s perfect for an ambush.”
“I’d like to see the army that could ambush an entire Roman legion!” Antonius growled. “I say we take the whole damn lot of them – the cavalry too – and conquer this territory once and for all.”
“It’s a risk,” I conceded to Marcus. “But as Antonius says, we have five thousand seasoned men with shields and heavy spears. Surely we can put paid to a few hundred savages.”
“It’s not the barbarians that worry me,” Marcus darkened. “It’s those Druids of theirs. They’re in league with some kind of devil.”
Antonius scoffed.
“I tell you,” Marcus roared. The wine had gone to his head. “I’ve heard the locals speak of them. They stand over the battlefield, slicing themselves with swords, offering themselves as human sacrifices to their heathen gods. Then there are the other stories...”
“What other stories?” I asked, amused. Here was Marcus, an educated Roman, believing in old-wives’ tales. Romans had been everywhere. We had built the world. Our bridges and our roads spanned its circumference. There was nothing to fear from barbarians.
“There are tales, Gaius – laugh at me if you will – but there are tales of things in the woods. Things that eat men whole. They call them Anthropophagi - Grey Men. They can blend in with the trees without being seen. It is they who we hear muttering in the breeze, whispering to each other. The locals say the painted men are in league with them – that they both worship the same awful gods. Gods that would make all the Lemurs in Hades pale by comparison.”
I admit, talk of such beings unnerved me.
“These gods,” Antonius slurred, becoming drunk. “What are they called?”
“One is a terrible female, with snakes instead of hair,” Marcus said, ashen-faced. “Another is a gigantic, horned creature with the wings of a bat and a face filled with tentacles - so horrible it would kill a man to look upon it. The last of this trinity is a strange, ghostly creature that no man can see or feel.”
“Convenient,” Antonius laughed.
“Marcus, this is the stuff of nonsense. Do you really believe in any of it?” I asked.
He shuddered. “I saw a statue of one once, down in Londinium. All I know is, we had better be careful when we go up into those mountains.”
Next morning, we set off north into Caledonia. The sky hung overhead in a leaden pall, filled with the promise of more sleeting rain. Against the clouds, our golden eagle shone in stark contrast to the colourless heavens.
The drum-beaters struck up a march, and the long column headed out through the wooden gates of the fort at a steady pace. Only a skeleton crew was left behind. A full four thousand soldiers left Eboracum that day, along with one hundred horsemen and a supply train of mules - hardy animals that could withstand the rocky slopes of Vesuvius itself. I reassured myself that they should be more than a match for this godforsaken isle.
The next three days were gruelling. We crossed miles of open marshland. Bitter winds tore at us. Several of the horses died from exposure. Snow-capped mountains hung in the distance beyond a veil of fog. Every so often we would hear a distant screech of an eagle, or some other bird.
By the fourth day we had reached the wooded hills. The pines lay thick, festooned with ancient moss. They hemmed us in on all sides. The sun did not show itself through the clouds to be our guide.
Our scouts told us the Picts had villages hidden in the glens – those narrow canyons between the mountains. Yet we saw and heard nothing, save for the constant whispering in the undergrowth that appeared to be bodiless. Once a soldier cried out that he saw a pair of red eyes. But we dismissed this as wild imagining.
On the fifth day, one of the men developed a fever. By the end of the sixth day, twenty men had succumbed, and more were feeling weak. Among them was Marcus. We had filled our water bottles from streams that ran down the slopes of the mountainside. Now we feared to touch them. Sometime later we found a rotted sheep’s carcass at the head of a stream. The Picts had poisoned us. I slung my water bottle aside and cursed the hills.
That night, they attacked. They came from nowhere. It was impossible to count their numbers in the firelight. They came and went, darting in and out, dressed in wolf skins. At the last minute, they would cast off their cloaks, reveal their pale, tattooed skin, and slice a soldier’s throat. They wore the night as their armour, and we could do nothing but rally our troops into a tight circle. We heard but never saw horses. Once in a while a burning brand would be hurled out of the dark to separate the men, and the Picts would attack again.
The battle ended with a ghostly howl that even the Picts seemed to fear. The sound echoed around the hills. Within seconds, our attackers had fled.
We lost a hundred men that night, as well as the mules and a dozen horses. We were now forced to carry our own provisions.
The next night, the same thing happened. They came wielding great axes, chanting oaths in their strange, harsh language. This time, the attack was more sustained. We slew some of them. By morning light, the body count revealed no more than a few dozen, while we had lost another hundred men.
The fever had taken its toll on us by now. Nearly two hundre
d, the same number that had been slain, were down with fever. That meant four hundred men were occupied with ferrying the wounded and the sick. The rest had to carry their possessions on their backs.
“It doesn’t bode well, Gaius,” Antonius said. He had just ridden back from speaking to Marcus, who lay on a litter. “More men are sickening all the time.”
Just then the horses froze under us. The front century halted without a command. Antonius shared a concerned look with me.
A groan came straight out of the fog. It boomed down the mountainside, rising from a low growl into a high shriek that chilled the blood in my veins.
“What is it, Gaius?” Antonius asked. His face was white.
“Just the wind groaning through the glens.” I raised my voice so that others would hear. We had enough problems without adding superstition to the mix. “The steep hills funnel the breeze. It must be what frightened the Picts.”
We pressed on.
Before us, the forest path dwindled into a great bank of mist. Nothing beyond was visible. The trees rose out of the fogbank like ragged claws, beckoning us to our own doom. Trees hemmed us in on all sides of the steep-banked glen. That strange whispering sound rose in volume around us. I realized we were in the middle of a long, thin canyon. If there was an ambush now, we would have no chance to leave.
Then we saw them, my sweet Cassia, coming out of the fog. Great tall things that were not men, with arms the size of tree trunks and no heads on their shoulders. The men screamed as the things descended. They wielded dreadful axes that hacked men to bloody chunks with one blow, propelling the pieces up into the air.
I saw one of the beasts with sickening clarity. Its head was in its chest. Its features were distorted, horrible. Its mouth wide and cavernous where its organs should have been. Its teeth were as sharp as a bear’s. It grabbed a soldier, stuffed his leg into its mouth, biting down so hard that it tore the limb off. The unfortunate man fell to the ground to bleed to death.
Lovecraft Ezine Mega-Issue 4 Rev1 Page 9