Dreams from the Witch House: Female Voices of Lovecraftian Horror

by Joyce Carol Oates

  So this is what I can tell you, these many years later, just as that old woman once told me: my daughter is alive, today, because of what I learned in the tsunami’s wake … her, or enough of her for me to love, at the very least. A tiny person riding a demon cricket, a rag and a bone and a hank of hair, snips and snails and puppy-dog tails; all of this or none of it, I can’t know for sure, and never will. But I find I don’t much care, either.

  This world is full of terrible things, you see, all over—some tiny, some immense, all hiding underneath the world’s face, like maggots inside a wound. They came from the places we don’t see. And they don’t care about us, about how deeply we care for each other; they have their own plans and schemes, great dark engines of vengeance already set spinning, stretching out far beyond anything we can imagine. And they probably wish us nothing but ill, if they wish us anything at all—but I don’t care about them, and you don’t have to, either. All I know, all I have clear and present proof of, is that when their wants intersect with ours, we can benefit, if we are brave. That whenever the things we do or allow to be done help them get closer to achieving their own needs, their hungers, then sometimes—because it amuses them—they’ll do the same for us.

  Because of them, I have my daughter back again, or close as makes no never-mind. Because of them, I … who once had nothing… now have something, at the very least. And that alone can be enough, that infinitesimally small comfort, if you only want it to be.

  The truth is, we don’t owe them anything, and we never did: not love, not fear, not even worship. All we ever have to do is give them what they want, and trust they’ll do the same.

  It’s like God, that way, but better. Because it’s real.

  §

  She went on and on like that, and by the end the measles-boy’s mom was just sitting there, letting her hold her, not crying anymore—eyes wide, mouth shut. Listening.

  “So you tell me,” the other woman asked her, why should he die of something that should have been wiped out twenty years ago, your boy, just because of other people’s selfishness? “Why shouldn’t you be selfish, too? Love always is, you know, down at its very core. It just wants what it wants, and to hell with everything—everybody—else.”

  Measles-boy’s mom shook her head. “Patient and kind,” she told her, “that’s what the Bible says. Love, it wants … what the other person wants.”

  “Are you telling me he wouldn’t want to live, then? To die and leave you behind, make you sad, leave you all alone? But no, you can’t tell me that; you’re his mother, after all. You know what’s best for him, always, better than he knows himself.”

  “But it wouldn’t be him. You told me so, just then. You told me—”

  “You couldn’t know, yes, that’s what I said. Just like I can’t tell it’s not, with my daughter. And you won’t care.”

  §

  You with me so far? You get what I’m saying? Okay, good.

  So there I am, listening in, and I’m wondering… well, what I should do, I guess. What I could do. Ask measles-boy’s mom if she was being bothered? Ask the other woman why she was there? It’s after 3:00 by now and the whole hospital’s as quiet as it ever gets, like it’s part of some kind of dream-world—everything faint and far away, the kind of echoing quiet that’s almost loud as noise. Smell of bleach everywhere, and antibacterial hand-soap, no matter what kind of spray you put on top of it afterward; doesn’t matter what time of year it is or what the weather might be outside, ’cause in here, it’s always cold enough that at the end of the night you can go home and stand under a shower for, like, fifteen minutes straight, but you still can’t get warm. I mean, it’s like, like…

  … the bottom of the sea.

  Then my radio goes off, gives this big squeal of feedback, and it’s the front desk, reminding me I have to do rounds. And neither woman looked ’round when it happened, but I jumped anyhow, like I’d been caught doing something I shouldn’t—got up real quick, hustled myself away. Did the circuit extra-slow and checked everything twice, just to make myself feel better.

  When I came back, finally, they were both gone: measles-boy’s mom, the other woman. The place was empty, and it didn’t start filling up again ’til maybe five in the morning.

  Neither of them came back at any point during that process, though, that I could see.

  So I booked off and signed out at 6:00, like I always do, and I went home and I went to bed. And I dreamed…

  §

  Okay, enough about that. I don’t think it matters what I dreamed.

  Next day was my day off, a whole 24 hours—just enough time to fuck my schedule up completely, I always say—but the night after that I came back, at 6:00. Measles-boy’s mom and dad weren’t there and neither was the other lady. Around 8:00, I finally got up the courage to ask the doc on measles-boy’s case what’d happened and she said that the kid had gone home. Made an amazing recovery. Said the mom came back around nine that morning with “that friend of hers” and her friend’s kid, a little girl, and they went in and spent a couple minutes with him, and then all the machines went nuts, and when they charged in thinking he was flatlining, they found him sitting up in bed, eyes open, totally awake. By evening his rash was gone, and by the next morning all his panels were clear, so they let him go home.

  That’s amazing, I said, and the doc shrugged. It happens, she told me. Which kind of made the hairs on my neck go up, you know? Like Roald Dahl, asking that guy: she’s still warm, why is she still so warm? And him saying—

  Anyhow.

  The rest of that night I spent in the waiting room, off and on, surfing around on my phone. I checked out the polong and the pelesit, Wikipedia’d them, the whole thing. Not a lot about either, which happens, when it’s something from another culture. But I do remember I came across this thing in a forum somewhere, way down on some sub-thread I couldn’t find again, when I went back to look, about how this guy’s grandma told him that people with a polong and a pelesit inside them don’t get any older, because if they did the polong and pelesit would start to grow ’til they just… sloughed the whole person they’re inside off, I guess, like a skin. So they stay small, and the person stays the same age they were when it they came to live inside him or her, forever. Forever, or until what’s inside them moves on.

  ’Cause that’s the other part of it—this rumor somebody else had heard, that after a while, the polong and the pelesit can maybe start… subdividing, tearing down the middle, so there’s two of each. Like an amoeba. I mean, they still have to reproduce, right? ’Cause everything does. And if two polongs and two pelesits stay inside the same host, it’s bad, obviously. They might start to fight, eventually, ’cause there’s not enough room for them all. Might even kill each other, at which point the person they’re inside dies right along with them. So that’s when the head of the host’s family—might be the mother, the father, a sister or brother or aunt or uncle, whoever, the one who wrangles them, basically, so they can keep on being lucky for everyone else—that’s when this head goes out, and starts looking for a new… person. Host. Home.

  Somebody, anybody, who somebody else doesn’t want to let go.

  Sounds a whole lot like that other lady, to me—which kind of makes me wonder just how long ago that tsunami was, for her. How long her daughter’s been a little girl, exactly.

  §

  So this is more than three weeks ago by now, almost a month, like I said. And I’m trying to forget I ever heard about this stuff, though I can’t say it’s easy…

  … but last night, when I was on site, measles-boy comes back in for a check-up, to make sure he really was fully recovered: just him and his mom, no dad, plus that other woman, and what I guess must’ve been her own kid. Her creepy, creepy little—

  That’s not the worst part, though.

  So the other woman and her daughter sit there waiting, her stroking the girl’s hair while the girl reads some magazine or other. And then, after the check-up, the doc
tor, the boy and his mom come out—boy rushes over and grabs the girl’s hands, they go off to play in the corner or whatever, sit down next to each other, start gabbing away. And it’s time for me to do my rounds, but as I’m leaving the doctor says she needs to discuss some stuff with the mom, and the other woman opts to go in with her, so that’s happening just as I’m walking out.

  Got through the door, almost kept walking, but—something stopped me. I didn’t know what it was, at first, but then I realized: it was the quiet. Like the second the kids knew they were alone, they’d just… stopped. And even then I knew I didn’t want to go back, like, at all, but … I needed to go back. To see what was happening, when they thought nobody else was around to see. So I step to the right of the closed door, staying on my side, and peer back through the window into the waiting room.

  You want to know?

  Well, too bad. I’m gonna tell you anyways.

  They were just… sitting there. Next to each other, still, but not touching, not talking, not looking at each other. Not interacting at all. Inert.

  I watched them for a while, just like that, and nothing changed, ever: seconds ticking by on the clock, smell of bleach, distant echo. Nothing else, until—

  I took a breath and stepped back through the door, and both their sets of eyes flicked over, locked on me, like they were drawn by my movement. Followed me around the room, heads staying exactly where they already were. And when I stopped a couple of feet away, making like I was checking something… when I stayed real still, listened real hard, without even knowing I was doing it…

  That’s when I heard it. That little, tiny—noise going back and forth between them, each to each. Like crickets tuning up. Like mosquitos: that whine, that trill. That… chittering.

  I heard it. I still hear it.

  Coming from deep inside their throats.

  §

  So that’s the story.

  I mean, I guess I could ask for another site, try to get a transfer, if it bothers me so much, right? And it’s not like they’re coming back, probably. But I don’t know. I never will. And everything just… reminds me of that, every time I go in to work. All night. Almost every night.

  This’s gonna help, though. I’m almost sure.

  I do keep on having these dreams, still. The ones I didn’t want to tell you about. Like I’m at the bottom of the ocean, but not really really far down, because there’s still light enough to see by, at least: blue-white sand underneath me, blue water up above, black cliff falling away behind, like I’m floating above the Marianas Trench or something. And stuff is… falling, gently. Not down on top of me, no. It’s falling up, from all around, like gravity’s reversed. Like it’s got somewhere else it wants to be.

  Little green somethings, all legs and wings and antennae, all multi-lensed eyes. Little green arms and legs, webbed hands and feet, eyes without eyelids, fixed gills. The pelesit and the polong, together as always: schools of them eddying surfaceward, like fish, like krill. Ignoring me completely.

  Leaving me there, so cold and alone.

  And I know, I know, without having seen, without understanding how: just know, that’s all. How above me is a door, a watery blue lid, and below me is a door, white sand made from ground-fine bone. A door behind me. A door on either side. A door in front of me, opening.

  Nothing but doors, is what I’m saying. That’s our world, not that we can ever see it, unless we’re somehow made to; doors everywhere, and all of ‘em locked, until they’re open. Because none of us have the keys—we’re not important enough for that, oh no. The hinges are rusted shut. So we can knock and knock if we want, if we know to, pound and scream and weep and moan for entry, but it’s only ever what’s on the other side that gets to turn the handle. And only if we’ve paid enough for it—whatever the hell they think is enough.

  But it never is enough, is it? Not in the end.

  That’s how it seems to me, anyways. But I don’t want to think about it anymore, so I’m not going to. You’ll have to instead, from now on, and they’ll just have to be satisfied with that, or go begging.

  Why do you think I told you this whole damn story, in the first place?

  I’m hanging up now.

  But Only Because I Love You

  Molly Tanzer

  The sky above is impossibly blue, striped with bright bands of clouds tinged pink and orange with the coming sunrise. There are a few stars still sparkling in the heavens, and the moon, bigger than it looks beyond the borders of this land, hangs low and near.

  The pack of spotted jackals is also near. Their baying is a goad. If we do not find some shelter, some escape, we are done for. The wind whips our scent into their long noses, maddening them. They will tear us to pieces if they catch us.

  I am not worried. I have no reason to be. Not yet.

  We are all gasping as we run up the side of a low hillock, even me, long used to ascents. I am weighted down with most of our gear and our water reserve, and that, I am less used to, though the last month has hardened me considerably.

  “Come on, Bridget!” shouts Dr. Sangare, pelting pell-mell down the side of the hill, nearly slipping on the waving grasses. One hand keeps her tattered, dusty bowler in place against the gusts, the other windmills her back into balance as her pack slams hard on her hip. Her tweed jacket flies open, revealing the knives strapped across her chest. She is good with them, but not good enough to stop a pack of ravenous dogs from rending us limb from limb. “We must get to that… thingy!”

  The thingy is a rocky prominence in the distance. If we were closer to home, I would think it was a cairn to mark the path for travelers. But we are not close to home, and here there are no marked paths. Or travelers, for that matter.

  “I don’t think,” gasps Bridget, “we’ll make it.” She is struggling too, nearly tripping as her skirts whip and snap around her ankles like a prayer flag. The leather-and-bronze hip holster glimmers bright as her flaming hair; she is an excellent shot, but the dogs are too many, too quick to make her superb marksmanship useful.

  “We must make it,” says Dr. Sangare. Her fierce determination steadies Bridget. They are a good team, they complement one another.

  Neither calls to me. Why should they? I have proven myself strong and reliable time and again, and besides, I cannot return their encouragement. Anyway, I was not hired to cheer them onward. I was hired to carry into Leng what they could not manage by themselves, and haul back what they raided from the barrows of her ancient queens.

  As we keep running, the spire in the distance takes on new details. To my surprise, it does appear to be a cairn—but an enormous one. Vaguely pyramidal in shape, wind and rain has smoothed away the rougher edges of the piled boulders; some have tumbled from the heights and lie scattered about the base.

  “It’s too far.” Bridget is lagging behind her companion, I can see her legs are shaking with fatigue. “Dily… I… I don’t think we’ll be dying rich.”

  “What’s our plan once we’re there?”

  Dr. Sangare’s question distracts Bridget from her worries; she is already assessing the tactical possibilities, and runs the faster for it. “To the top,” she says. “High ground. We’ll each take up a station, pick off as many as we can with boulders, rocks, my pistol, whatever we can find. Maybe if we keep them at bay for long enough they’ll get bored.”

  “All right,” says Dr. Sangare. Sweat gleams on her dark forehead, it glistens like stars against the night sky. “Got that, Krishna?”

  She looks back. I nod.

  “He’s smiling,” observes Bridget, as we redouble our pace. “The fuck is he smiling about? Doesn’t he know we’re in danger?”

  “Try asking him,” says Dr. Sangare.

  “Right,” says Bridget.

  If I could, I would tell them that we are in danger… but not in danger of dying. I would know. But I cannot tell them, so I do not, and we run on in silence.

  Though they carry less than I, they have more trouble climbin
g up the slippery rocks when we reach them. Well, neither grew up trekking from village to village over dangerous passes, or scrambling up escarpments to get at berries or birds’ eggs.

  As the jackals bound closer, a slavering, yipping, howling mass of furry, toothy hunger, Bridget slips a second time. I sling off my pack and go down to help her up.

  “Thanks, Krishna,” she wheezes, as she clambers up beside me, now marginally safer.

  Unlike many visitors to my home village, Bridget and Dr. Sangare have always been polite. I nod in response to her thanks, and shouldering the pack, I point higher.

  Dr. Sangare has gotten above us, squatting on the top of the rock pile. The sun has risen, and she tips up the brim of her bowler, squinting in the dawn light.

  “There’s an awful lot of them,” she observes.

  “We’ll do what we can. I mean, we’ve made it this far.” Bridget hauls herself onto a flattish boulder and sets to looking over her pistol. “Krishna, anything to add?”

  I shrug.

  “Even facing down death, still silent as the grave?” Bridget shakes her head. The handful of ruddy curls that have escaped her tight bun bounce.

  “Here they come,” says Dr. Sangare. Her black eyes glint as she raises a boulder the size of my head over her own. Hurling it down upon the jackals, it bounces once, twice, then strikes one in the face. Its jaw is torn off and the resulting red spray mists those next to it. The jawless jackal runs another step, then falls over twitching.

  The dead jackal’s companions pause for a moment to look at the ruined corpse of their companion, then turn to look at us. One growls.

  “Woo!” cries Dr. Sangare, pointing at the dogs. “That’s right, you mangy mongrels!”

  Dr. Sangare turns around, looking this way and that for another rock. She spies a candidate, resting at the meeting point of two large boulders. She steps out onto the flatter, lower of the two. It wobbles beneath her foot, and tips inward.