Her feet thumped down, snapping and crushing dry sticks beneath her. A horrid thought coalesced in her mind. "Give me a candle!"
She stretched up for the flickering candle, swallowed, and then looked down. Bones. She stood in a pile of animal bones. They'd all been stripped clean of flesh and cracked open to get at the marrow. "Found your cows, Ewan. My sheep too.” As she looked around she realised that there were far too many bones. Some still glistened with viscous fluids, but most were old and brittle.
She slipped. The candle fell, snuffed out, plunging her into darkness. Her heart thudded with sudden panic. She heard noises in the cave, bones shifting. “Quick! Give me another candle.”
"I'm coming," Calum said, sliding down. In an attempt to keep his candle and sword from dropping, he landed awkwardly and fell into the pile of bones. He lurched upright, panting, face beaded with sweat, swinging his sword to face every shadow cast by the flickering candles.
Something caught on her boot. She reached down, hissed, snatching her hand back. A human skull gaped at her, the side caved in. It was still slick with juices.
“Oh, Lord,” Calum said, staring.
"Calm yourself, laddie," she said. "Take a deep breath. We'll not be leaving that poor wee lamb down here."
He took a deep shuddering breath. "I'll not have a Macpherson say they're braver than a Cameron!" he said, voice wavering with false bravado.
"You stay up there, Ewan," Morag said. "We'll use your stupidly long plaids as a rope to climb out. Seems you did have a lick of sense about you after all."
Ewan blustered and moaned, but faced with the practicalities there wasn't much he could do about it. "Ach. Fine," he said. "You take care of her, Calum."
Calum grunted. Morag swore she could have almost heard him mutter "The big ugly besom would be better taking care of me. Break an angry ram's neck, so she would." She didn't take offence. She'd never had a gaggle of men clamouring for her hand in marriage, and didn't care one bit, but she did take pride in being as tough as old boots. She'd stare down a hungry wolf to protect her sheep, and stave the beast's head in if she had to. And Calum Cameron knew that fine well.
His mouth twitched into a lopsided grin as lifted his sword in salute. "You coming?"
"Aye, I am,” she said. “You cheeky wee boy." Their joviality was forced, and dropped away as they picked their way down a narrow tunnel carpeted with bones, Calum having to stoop to avoid hitting his head. They followed the baby's infrequent cries deeper into the cave, wincing with each clatter and crunch of bone underfoot. Darkness eventually gave way to a sickly green half-light, phosphoresce emanating from some sort of rotting mould that grew up the walls and clustered in crevices like burst boils weeping pus. The tunnel finally opening up, allowing Calum to stand straight.
An eerie melodious crooning whispered on the air, coming from just around the next bend in the cave. Morag exchanged glances with Calum, wondering if she looked as frightened as he did. A baby giggled, and that singsong voice began to trill a wordless melody of haunting beauty that resonated in the very depths of her soul. Other voices joined in chorus.
Morag’s eyelids drooped closed. She listened for what seemed like an age, praying for the song to never end. It called to her on some primal level, a lullaby warmth to sooth her aches and fears, and bear her aloft on half-forgotten dreams. As the song’s pitch rose, the melody quickened and some sixth sense – maybe a tough old boot of a shepherdess’ instinctive sense of danger to her flock – wrenched open her eyes. Calum’s eyes had glazed over, his jaw hung slack and his sword lay forgotten on the floor – beside her own. Both candles lay dead and cold on the stone. He jerked as the unseen voices hit a high note, his whole body spasmed, and then he darted forward.
Morag made a grab for his sleeve, but she was groggy from the effects of that strange song, and far too slow. He slipped past her, round the bend and out of sight. She lifted a hand to her forehead, finding herself burning up as she tried to blink away bleary vision. It was hard to see straight, hard to think. So tempting just to lie down and drift away into dreams...
She sucked in her cheek and bit down hard. Pain scoured away the mental fog.
She picked up her sword and ran after Calum as the song reached a crescendo. Then it cut off. She found herself at the entrance to a grand gallery with massive spikes of pulsing crystalline growths hanging from darkened heights. A luminescent lake filled the centre, hidden tides making the water slosh and gurgle. Hundreds of holes pitted every wall – it was like she was inside some vast insect hive.
A handful of paces to the right, a baby started shrieking from a hollow carved into a great altar of black basalt. His soft pink flesh was slick with grey slime, but otherwise blessedly unharmed. She started when the corner of her eye caught a glimpse of several large spindly shadows scuttling up the walls and into tunnels above.
Calum was on his knees at the feet of an emaciated, naked old woman. She bowed over him as if they were inexplicably kissing, faces hidden from view by the hag's waist-length curtain of tangled white hair. The hag's teats were shrivelled things against her protruding rib cage, but Calum's hands groped with disturbing gusto. An eerie song emanated from the old crone, her gnarled hands lifting to cup his face with cracked yellowed fingernails more like talons.
"Calum!" Morag gasped.
The hag's head lifted with a wet slurp, the ragged curtain of hair shifted aside. A single luminous, golden eye leered out at her from the centre of the woman's face. The crone straightened to her full height, Calum still on his knees, eyes closed, a look of sublime and complete joy on his face. Blood dribbled from a series of small puncture marks around his face.
The hair on the back of Morag's neck rose. "What in God's name are you?" Blood thumped in her ears as she advanced. "Get away from them, you foul creature."
The hag screeched, the sound feeling like a nail being driven into Morag's skull, then leapt forward, hair flying back to reveal a horror of a face. Below that single great eye, the thing had a boneless sack of hide that opened out into a cone of quivering flesh studded with hundreds of tiny razor-teeth. Its maw looked like it could strip the flesh from a bone in seconds, and now it was spread to envelop Morag's entire face.
Her broadsword whistled through the air. The thing's flesh moved like water, flowing and sliding out of the way. It darted out of range quick as any fish. Morag realised her right arm stung. She glanced down to find red furrows raked in her flesh. Numbness spread from the wounds.
It crouched down on all fours, face hidden behind matted hair, tilting its head to study her, crooning softly. Morag’s head spun. The sword clattered to the floor, her arm gone limp. The creature cackled in an all too human way and something wormed itself into Morag's mind, like cold fingers inside her skull.
Adbertos?
She knew that old Celtic word: it meant a sacrifice.
Morag purposely wobbled on her feet, made her eyes glaze over to exaggerate the effects of its poison. The thing crabbed towards her, and when she didn't react it stretched that huge maw open, leaned forward.
With her other hand, Morag pulled her dirk from her belt and rammed the iron blade through the thing's face-mouth. It squealed like a stuck pig, flesh hissing where iron touched flesh, then staggered back, pulling the blade from Morag's hand.
"I’ll give you a sacrifice, all right," Morag said, grabbing hold of the thing's hair. She yanked it forward to meet a head butt. Her forehead crushed its golden eye in a spray of ichor. A deathly shriek echoed through the cave, waking even Calum from his stupor. She let go and slammed a fist into it. “Your eye’s the sacrifice, you stinking old hag.”
The thing squealed, flesh bubbling and cracking. It twitched, loosed one last scream, then lay still.
From hidden crevices and the entrances to dark tunnels a hundred baleful golden eyes blinked into life. More of them crawled from dark crevices and ledges -- spindly limbs bending all wrong -- and scuttled down the walls. The wailing of uncountable i
nhuman voices echoed throughout the vast cavern, combining into a single hateful shriek that held nothing of that earlier lullaby beauty.
The luminous lake water churned and heaved, some leviathan stirring beneath. A stench of rotting flesh clogged her nose as writhing tentacles burst from the surface. She wanted to run and hide, to cry and curl up into a ball, but some instinctive animal horror rooted her to the spot as the waters sloughed off a vast and oozing body.
"Run!" Calum screamed, scooping up the sleeping baby and staggering towards her. She didn't need telling twice, tore her eyes away from the cavern boiling over with those ghastly things, and ran for her life.
As she lurched around the corner, Calum skidded to a stop. "Damnation," he cursed. "The sword!" He darted back.
The shrieking stopped, plunging the cavern into abrupt silence. Something vast and heavy slammed into walls. The cave shuddered around her, causing her to lose her footing and clutch the wet and luminous rock for support. The sound of crashing water and a stinking warm gust of moist air washed over her. With it came a crushing presence in the back of her mind, like being plunged into an icy loch.
Calum screamed; half hysterical laughter, half gut-wrenching naked terror. He lurched round the corner, sword point scraping along the floor behind him. His jaw hung slack, quivering strings of drool hanging from his chin. His eyes were wide and staring, leaking tears.
He shook his head violently. "Guh, n-n-no, the writhing god. The t-thing in the lake..." He cackled and slammed his face against the rock wall, began sobbing. He scraped his face along the wall, leaving a bloody smear.
Morag grabbed him by the collar and pulled him away. He stared at her through bloody tears, eyes glazed and uncomprehending. "We have to get this wee baby back to his mother," she said.
He slowly looked down at the baby blinking sleepily in the crook of his arm. A hint of sanity flickered back into his eyes.
Some vast bulk shifted in the cavern, and a morbid impulse made her turn to look back. She tried to move past him, had to see.
He barred her way. "Don't." The horrified expression on his face buried any inclinations otherwise.
The hags began wailing again, and this time the stone drummed with hundreds of malformed feet. Morag and Calum ran for the pit, heads bowed low as they crunched through the carpet of bones. Morag snatched up Calum's discarded sword with her working hand. As old faerie lore said, iron was a bane to the things chasing them. The luminous glow gradually died away, leaving them plunging ahead into darkness. A rushing tide of slapping feet, clattering bone, and screeching voices filled the cave behind them.
Finally! Light! The warm welcoming glow of candlelight shone down from above.
"Ewan," she shouted, "Get us the hell out of here."
Calum ran to her, stuffed the baby down the front of her dress, wedged between belt and body.
"Get that wee one out," he said, grabbing her sword and moving back to block the cave. Blood ran freely down his chin where he'd bitten through his lower lip.
A length of plaid whipped down. She grabbed hold with her good hand. Sweat poured off her, the things were close, had to be only seconds away. "Pull, Ewan, pull," she screamed. Ewan heaved and she was up and over, back into the light.
"Get up here, laddie," Ewan said. But they were too late.
Calum spun, screaming, as a grey tide washed over him. He chopped and slashed, things hissing in pain at the slightest touch of steel. Ichor steamed from the blade as he severed grey clawed hands. "The iron grate!" he shouted, ribbons of flesh being flayed from his exposed flesh.
Morag grunted, heaving the rusted iron grate back over to the pit. It crumbled, bits coming away in her hand. She prayed it would hold. By the time she looked back Calum was being dragged backwards into the darkness. He looked up at her with terrified eyes, his face twisting in agony. With the last of his strength he plunged both swords point-first down into the mass of bone and debris. And then he was gone.
They tried to rush out after her, only to shy back from the blades that barred their path. They screamed in agony, disappeared back into the darkness.
"Mmooorrraaaggg," Calum's voice whispered from the darkness. "Don't leavvve me. Come save meee. I am hurt. The faerie have gone away. Quickquick."
Sobbing, Morag heaved the iron grate back over the pit. The things hissed angrily and golden eyes glimmered from the darkness beyond the upright swords.
They were imprisoned again.
But that grate was almost rusted through, and the swords wouldn’t hold them for long.
Big John swung the door open, his grin of relief stillborn at the sight of her - a bloody, bedraggled mess with a face like death. His gaze darted past Ewan, searching, then back to her. She shook her head and trudged into the bright warmth of the inn. The baby yawned and blinked in her arms.
Bessie shot to her feet, red eyes overflowing with tears. She kissed the cross that hung around her neck before taking the baby.
"Thank you," Bessie sobbed. "I don't know what I’d have done without my wee bairn." She clutched him to her chest. He started bawling his head off and struggling.
"What happened?" Big John said.
Ewan shuddered and buried his face in his hands. "There is something unholy living in caverns beneath the hill. Things that fear iron. The old myths..."
He stared at Ewan, at the practical old man who had always scoffed at peasant superstitions. Then he took a good long look at the claw wounds in Morag's skin. His face paled.
"There was a rusted old grate covering the pit leading to their cavern," Morag said. "Father Ainsley must have moved it." She shivered and slumped into a chair. "But it’s almost rusted through. It won't last long. We need every bit of iron in the village."
Big John began piling up pots, pans, fire pokers, his lucky iron horseshoe that hung over the door, everything he possessed that could be pried loose. The noise must have disturbed the baby, for he started wailing at the top of his voice.
"Hush. Hush my beautiful wee bairn," Bessie murmured, rocking him in her arms. It didn't seem to help much. She clutched the cross at her throat, sending up a prayer of thanks as the baby screamed itself hoarse.
Ewan grabbed whatever he could carry. "We'll get this up there and, by God, we will stop those things ever seeing the light of day."
Bessie pulled the cross from around her neck and held it out to Morag. "Take it. It's good iron."
Morag nodded her thanks and went to add it to the growing pile. The baby ceased its wailing. She stiffened, swallowed, slowly turned back, held up the iron and stepped towards the child. The baby began to bawl again. She went cold, pinpricks all over her skin.
Cameron Johnston is a Scottish writer of fantasy and horror and lives in the city of Glasgow in Scotland. He is a student of Historical European Martial Arts, a member of the Glasgow Science Fiction Writers' Circle, and enjoys exploring ancient sites and camping out under the stars (when Scottish weather allows).
His fiction has appeared in Niteblade Magazine, with more tales out later this year in Stupefying Stories and Buzzymag.
His musings can be found at: https://twitter.com/CamJohnston
Story illustration by Dave Felton
Return to the table of contents
alligators
by Scott Nicolay
The dream returned to Russell on Easter: his dad diving, disappearing once more beneath the quarry’s green algal murk, ripples calling wide, silent echoes over the surface: “O, O, O,” loud, louder...fading...flattening to glass as all three kids stood staring openmouthed from the platform; his sisters suddenly yelling for real, not just yelling but flat out screaming: “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” until the pale bulk of his back breached, legs apart, arms out from his sides, everything but the head, the head they never found. And 10 year old Russell screaming now too, crying, thinking, “An alligator! An alligator got him!” Only there were no alligators in New Jersey. And he didn’t have any sisters. And none of the rest of it ever happened eit
her, except in that dream, the inexplicable nightmare that circled the nocturnal swamp of his subconscious for 26 years, mostly beneath the surface, but always rising to strike again in time.
He sat up in bed and planted his back against the wall, panting while the lingering images of his father’s headless body in the quarry pit dissipated. His breath came in shallow gasps, and he felt infinitely small and isolated. Wendy slept on beside him, face to the wall. He gripped her left bicep and rocked her gently, calling her name. A slow feline ripple ran the length of her body and she shifted further toward her side of the bed to shake free of his hand. He leaned over and latched onto her again, desperate for human company.
“What?” she mumbled, awake enough to express the maximum exasperation that one syllable could bear.
“I had that nightmare again. The one about my dad.”
She turned her head toward him, but the blue glow of the digital clock on his nightstand showed him that her eyes stayed closed. “You’re kidding, right? It’s been like two years since the last time. I thought we were finally through with that.”
“I know, I did, too, but it just came back. Bad. I’m kind of freaked out right now. Would you hold me? Please?”
“Give me a break. I’m trying to sleep.” But when he slid down beside her, she flopped her right arm lifelessly over his torso.
“Thanks. I just need to feel someone right now.”
“Yeah, well don’t get too feely. It’s too late for any of that.”
He stretched his left arm around her back and wiggled his right beneath the pillows under her neck, then tried to pull her closer. She didn’t resist, but she didn’t cooperate either, forcing him to drag her as dead weight. Only when he had her close enough that her breasts pressed his chest through her nightgown did she expel a sigh of resignation and shift her legs in his direction as well. But only close, not touching.
Lovecraft Ezine Mega-Issue 4 Rev1 Page 28