by Unknown
The abbot was this novice’s polar opposite, a silver-haired little man whose face had all the wit and taut energy men associate with hawks and owls. When he inquired as to the purpose of my visit, I was relieved to discover he spoke near-perfect English.
“I have come on a matter urgent to myself,” I said, trying to convey the utmost respect, “but one which should not trouble you overmuch. I simply wish to research certain things in your library.”
When I said this, the man’s face darkened visibly, the many lines around his mouth hardening, as if to bar my way before he even spoke.
“We can no longer permit outsiders to enter our library. What proof do I have that you will not abuse our trust?”
I had no choice but to tell the abbot my sad tale and hope he did not consider me a lunatic. As I spoke, and told him of the book, I saw him grow more interested. By the time I finished telling him of the trail that had led me to his doorstep, his features had softened, and he seemed to regard me as a brother-in-arms.
“You have come a long and hard way, and I believe you are sincere, though your story is wild. You have three days within the library. I hope you find what you seek.”
Another monk led me to a tower at the back, which housed floor upon floor of books, most of which predated Gutenberg’s press. In earlier days, the sight would have provoked in me a feeling akin to religious joy. Now, with the dull scrabbling in my head growing ever more furious, I could find no joy, even in books.
I was not sure precisely what I was searching for, but my years of fanatical reading served me well. I devoured mythology, histories, mystical tracts and treatises on the bizarre. I hoped I would find my answers in medieval bestiaries and lexicons of the demons and devils that beset man, but found nothing of help.
The monks brought me food and water, and one helpful, silent brother brought a straw pallet so that I might sleep in the library as well. At night, among the books, I had the familiar dream, now stronger and more immediate. The garden no longer tried to entice me. In my dreams it was now a place of horrors, where men and women hung flayed of skin, the innermost secrets of their bodies laid bare by cruel instruments. And in the center of this ghastly scene stood my Catherine, dressed in white, and radiant.
“Let me love you, and never be alone again,” she said.
When I awoke, I thought I still heard the cries of agony echoing within the monastery. Always there was the presence, scratching at my mind. I did not have long to find the answers I sought, I felt, and the endless tomes detailing baleful witch cults and their alleged atrocities, and the innocent girls that were tortured and burned to assuage the popular hysteria, were taking a toll on me. It was with the hope of a few moments’ relief that I pulled Philoctetes of Thessaly’s Feasts of the Gods off the shelf. I expected to find no answers in an overview of ancient Grecian religious rites – only perhaps something charming to divert my mind back to the dreamy escape a book once represented to me.
It was in Philoctetes’ description of the Bacchae that I found my answer, and plunged yet further into the gulf of horror. Here is where I should include a note about the virtues of ignorance, and an admonition not to go looking in the dark places of the world, but if you are reading this, I suspect it is already too late for you. This is what I found in Philoctetes:
The Bacchae were worshippers of Dionysus, God of wine, whom they honored with wild, drunken rites of sexual excess and savage violence. The faithful, in their frenzy, could tear a live bull to pieces with their hands and teeth. They were accused of worse things: arson, murder, cannibalism; and their path was said to end in madness. Needless to say, they were hated and shunned by the rest of society. All of this was known to me already. But Philoctetes also described an ‘offshoot’ of the Dionysian tradition, though I am not sure if it can properly be called such. This cult, whose name was never fully established, was accused of abductions and various other crimes in cities throughout Greece. Their rites, held on hilltops beneath the moon or in secluded temples, were said to be quite calm, and free from orgies or revelry. Instead, they consisted of the slow and agonizing murder of a young man or woman, by first flaying the skin, then the muscle and viscera and so on until ‘hidden truths were laid bare.’ They did not worship Dionysus, but claimed their god came to them in dreams, and offered to open secrets for them, to reveal all and, ultimately, to lead them to a world of all-consuming love. The name of their god was secret, and members would not divulge it even under torture. In the accounts that Philoctetes referred to, the cultists were seen to share one mind, to act with one will, and those who attempted to stamp them out disappeared, or were driven mad by strange nightmares.
Then, the cult abruptly vanished, and all discussion of it ceased. Many believed that they had been successfully wiped out, but others, Philoctetes among them, believed they had simply become better at hiding.
No sooner had I read these words than there came a knock on the door. It was the little old abbot, flanked by two other monks. He handed me a letter, addressed to me. I was taken aback by the sheer improbability of any letter reaching me here, in such a remote place. Though I was extremely suspicious, my curiosity got the better of me, so I read. It was from William Harrow, a fellow book collector and friend to Denton and me.
I am sorry to be the one to convey such news to you, Whatley, but events have transpired since your departure of a truly shocking nature.
I was quite alarmed to find a police constable in my office, asking me very pointed and peculiar questions about both you and your wife. It seems the young Mrs. Whatley, nee Denton, had gone to meet with her brother after you departed on business. Mrs. Whatley called on Denton at his family’s house, that much is certain. The day after she arrived, however, the maid came upon young Denton, or, shall I say, what was left of him. I hesitate to write this, or even think it, but Whatley – Denton was eviscerated. The constable said it was done slowly, by a hand as skilled as a master surgeon’s. The doctors believed it had taken poor Denton hours to die, and those hours were spent in the most profound of agonies.
Whatley, I pray you have heard something of the whereabouts of your wife, for she was no longer at the Denton household, and the police have been unable to locate her. Let us hope that she is all right, and that your love can guide her through so terrible a tragedy as has befallen her only brother.
Yours,
W.H.
As I looked up from the letter, my face drained of blood and my body wracked with chills, I saw the abbot smiling at me – such a terrible, hungry smile. I had seen it only once before.
“Do you see, now?” it said to me. “I love you. And I am everywhere you turn.”
The two monks lifted me swiftly from the table and bound me, dragging me through the monastery. They did not bother to cover my eyes, and as we passed I wondered how I could have been so foolish as to mistake this place for a house of Christian worship. In the depths of the monastery, weird and blasphemous symbols covered the walls. Paintings depicted landscapes that could not possibly exist, and beings that made me shudder and weep to catch sight of. In a black vault beneath the monastery, I discovered the source of the screaming I had earlier attributed to the echoes of my dreams.
Bloodstained tables filled a room like some nightmare hospital, along with horrible gibbets and other devices I dared not even contemplate the use of. All of them bore signs of use, however – some quite recent. I began trembling violently, fearing the monks that held me would strap me to one of these tables. Instead, they lowered me into a pit, and sealed an iron grating above me.
“Why not butcher me like the others?” I called up at the abbot, whose twinkling eyes I saw peering through the grating; eyes I had last seen peering out from the husk that was my Catherine.
“You are special.”
Its voice hummed in my ears like the buzzing of insects. When I blinked, the pit melted away and we were in the garden, beneath its alien sky. The thing addressing me wore Catherine’s form again. I could not bring myself to
look at her face, for fear of the look I would find there.
“Most require an extreme stimulus before they are in a state to receive me, and they do not last long after that. But you … your mind called out to me, desperate for what I, too, seek in my way. Catherine’s did as well, once you had provided me introduction. I love you, Albert Whatley, and it will only be a matter of time before you receive me.”
“What are you?”
“Someone who loves you. Someone who would do anything to possess you.”
“Why? Why us?”
“You gave me form – your little species. I have waited quite a long time, in the lonely place I live. So long I thought I was alone. One day, one talking ape wrote a story with crude marks, and another read that story, and something happened, greater than the sum of their feeble brains, something more than simple reading or writing; something … in-between. It is hard to explain, but for a moment you go somewhere that does not exist. Somewhere where I live. It was like a window opened on my dreary world, after a solitude longer than your species can comprehend. I knew I had to have more, but so few called to me. You were one such, whose sweet thoughts reached me through the book. That, Albert, is why I will always love you. I will never let you go.”
Catherine’s arms reached out for me, her eyes flashed with inhuman lusts beneath the auburn curls I had loved. Her smile… God … her smile was sick with the cruelty of desire. I screamed, and when I opened my eyes I was screaming alone, at the bottom of the pit.
It left me with that. Or rather, it did not. The scrabbling and scratching at my mind has only grown stronger, and each minute I lose the will to fight. The monks still bring me food and water, and they have even given me paper and a pen. I have written this account to focus my thoughts. Perhaps you chanced to find it, pressed into the crack between two loose stones in this dismal pit. Perhaps you too are a prisoner here. If you have seen someone with my body, with my face, who tells you he is Albert Whatley, he is the foulest of liars. Even now, I feel it wearing away at my mind, at all I hold dear of myself. The garden is ever before my eyes, with its many torments and delights. I can no longer turn away from it. Something impossibly vast, a void, a thing that is and is not, engulfs me now, and I am loved. I can feel it, licking at my thoughts and memories… Let the veil fall away, and the true Love enter … all praise… Love is a horror … all praise its name…
DEMONS
BY C. S. FUQUA
The needle of light winks. Machinery rumbles, and he cowers against the dirt wall. Something brushes against his leg as a shadow scuttles into a corner. He kicks, and bone and flesh give way under his boot. He takes the rat into his hands and lifts the carcass to his lips, but then his shoulders sink. He drops his hands to his lap, weary of the struggle.
The light winks again. The door rattles. This time he will make them shoot.
Randy worked the screwdriver diligently between two bricks, flaking out grout. He wiped sweat from his face with his shoulder as the screwdriver broke through. Light stabbed into the space beyond. A glint of eyes? He edged closer but saw nothing – perhaps a trick of the light. From what he could tell, several feet of space lay on the other side, apparently without access. He pulled back abruptly, sickened by the sudden rancid stench from the hole. His hands began to tremble, and the screwdriver slipped from his grasp, clinking to the cement floor.
Randy had awakened two nights earlier to a faint, persistent scratching. He sat up, heart racing, confused, believing he was back in that hole. But light blazed around him, and his chest hitched with the realization that the nightmare was only a nightmare, the darkness a bad memory. He lay back and pondered the silence of the house, the light, the patience of time, until his eyes closed, his breathing calmed, and he began to drift once again toward the hole in the desert.
Scratching.
He twisted up on the bedside and cocked his head, listening. Muted, determined, real. He retrieved the pistol from the nightstand and eased down the hallway, room to room, quietly, until the sound drew him to the kitchen and its common wall with the utility room that was accessed from the back patio. He pressed his ear to the wall, and the scratching stopped. Randy listened for a good minute or more, long enough to wonder again if he’d imagined it. He closed his eyes, and darkness settled around him, forgotten by god and country, forever a prisoner. The gun’s barrel rested against his forehead, the trigger taut against his finger. Escape. Once and for all. A sad smile came to his lips. He sighed heavily and went back to bed.
Randy had been in the house for about a month, but not until the day following the scratching did he notice that the utility room’s exterior appeared several feet longer than its interior. He tapped a hammer against the interior’s end wall and thought he heard a rattle on the other side. Rattle or not, the wall shouldn’t be there.
The real estate agent had said the previous owners divorced shortly after the birth of their child nearly two years earlier, that neither had made payments on the house, leading finally to foreclosure. Saps down on their luck, thus, an opportunity for Randy, but he didn’t care. He hadn’t wanted this or any other house. That had been Claire, insisting it’d be the first step in reclaiming his life. Whatever. He didn’t argue. In a house, at least, he wouldn’t have to face the random encounters with apartment complex tenants. The only time he’d have to see anyone would be to cash his VA check or buy groceries. So he’d let Claire take care of the details. Since then, his steps had worn a path in the carpet, out the bedroom, down the hall, around the living room, and back, over and over.
Randy pored over the sale and mortgage documents and found the names of the previous owners. Five minutes on the internet provided him with a telephone number. The line rang. A male voice answered. “May I speak to Jeremy please?”
“Who’s calling?” came the voice.
“Randall Langford. I bought the house… ”
“You have the wrong number.” The line disengaged.
Randy redialed, but it rang unanswered. The following day, the number was no longer valid.
Randy pried the screwdriver into the hole to break out more grout. A voice startled him, and he spun to find Claire in the doorway of the utility room, chocolate brown hair brushing her shoulders, framing a faintly cherubic face, accented with deep, penetrating eyes, the only trait common to the sister and brother. Otherwise, Randy’s lanky frame, his timid demeanor, and his sandy-colored hair made him look like little more than an uncomfortable acquaintance in her presence.
Claire grinned. “Remodeling?”
“Listen,” he said softly.
Claire took a step in. “What am I lis…?”
“There,” he said, turning halfway back to the wall. “Hear that?”
Claire listened intently for several moments before pressing the back of her fingers gently against his forehead. “You don’t feel feverish,” she teased.
Randy motioned toward the small hole. “Look in there.”
Claire frowned irritation, but she squinted an eye close to the hole as directed, peered in, and shrugged. “It’s dark,” she said, and then backed suddenly away, her face twisted in disgust. “And it stinks.”
“Exactly,” Randy said. “According to the floor plan, this wall doesn’t exist, and something’s causing that smell.” He led her outside and showed her how the exterior wall extended several feet further than the interior.
“Another example of contractor expertise. Look, honey…” she flashed an impatient grin and kissed his cheek. “I just wanted to stop by and check on you. I need to drop some supplies at church for Pastor Baggett. Wanna come?”
“Old subject, Claire.”
“One day, I’m just going to bring the pastor here.”
Randy didn’t bite.
Claire sighed. “You want to go for dinner later?”
He shrugged.
Claire motioned toward the utility room. “If the wall bugs you so much, knock it down. And fumigate.”
A flash.
<
br /> The concussion hurls him several yards through the air. He hits, groans, faintly aware of screams within the roar. He gropes to see if his legs are still there. He rolls, pushes himself up with quavering arms. Two gun-toting figures emerge from the roiling dust, their heads and half their faces hidden by traditional cover. Randy moans as hands grasp him under the arms and yank him up. They throw him into the back of a sedan. He tries to pull himself up, but a rifle butt puts him down.
Randy raised his face to the sky, eyes closed, the sun warm and clean. Claire had made him feel silly enough to give it up the day before, but then came the night and more scratching. He’d entered the utility room around 2 a.m. and pressed his ear to the hole. Something metallic clicked within, and he felt a faint breath of air. He’d backed out of the room and returned to his bed where he lay awake for hours, staring at the ceiling, the gun nestled on his chest, the barrel nuzzled under his chin, the scratching intermittent, but determined.
Now, with his face flushed by the sun’s warmth, Randy sighed and went back to the utility room, determined to lay the mystery to rest. He placed the pistol on the floor near the sidewall. He picked up the hammer and screwdriver and chipped the grout from around two bricks where he’d worked the day before. Minutes later, he pushed the bricks through to the other side. They crashed to the concrete floor beyond, and vague light seeped into the space. Something hissed, and the sudden rush of stench brought bile to Randy’s throat.
Randy retrieved a flashlight from the kitchen, switched it on, and slipped the barrel in through the hole. As he’d guessed, the space beyond the wall extended a good four feet.
The light winks. A voice on the other side calls, “Anyone in there?” Tears threaten. Dust swirls like a million mini-snowflakes in the shaft of dazzling light. Another voice calls in English.
“In here,” he rasps.
The trapdoor rises, and two men glare down at him, their faces betraying disgust. He follows their gaze to his bloodstained hands, the filth that covers him, the dead rat. His fingers touch his face, the thick beard, the sallow eyes, the sunken cheeks. He looks up at them and reaches out with quivering hands.