All the while, she stood and watched, though her eyes weren’t fixed on the man who’d intended her harm; rather, it was the blood pooling on the deck that she fixed upon. I had other concerns, so put it from my mind as part of her condition.
Rawlins was first mate. A hard-bitten Canadian, he was Captain now. With Nils still pinned, the shock of mutiny did something to strengthen rather than tear the cord of authority he now held.
His decision was simple: “Lash him to the mast, high up as you can. A day and a night, and see if he lives.”
Later, with the girl sedated in sickbay and two men Rawlins trusted at the door, I watched Nils. He was so high it didn’t seem possible the ropes could hold him there.
“He won’t last the night, doctor,” the Captain reassured me.
The Swede had long ago screamed himself hoarse, but you could still catch rasps under the wind. I thought he was trying to say something, but it was impossible to say what.
“What about the woman?”
Rawlins smiled, seldom a good sign. “The order stands; she’s with you until we put in somewhere.”
The next day, we took Nils down.
His skin was burned raw from the ropes, wind, and salty spray. In truth, the man barely looked human anymore. It was clear he’d not see out the day. I was proved right, but before we carried him below, he raised a hand as best he could and pointed.
“You didn’t hear me…you couldn’t see…her,” he croaked.
Following the line of his upraised, crooked finger, we caught sight of what he’d seen from his enforced vantage point.
Two days it has followed us. The Bird the crew has dubbed it, lacking the energy for any other moniker.
Black and larger than a crow, it should not be able to follow us. So far from land, it should’ve fallen away to somewhere else long ago.
We took it for a shit eater to begin with; something waiting for us to leave scraps behind for it to gorge on. Only the woman seemed untroubled by it, and even less so when a second bird appeared next to the first and joined in pursuing us north.
Something told me she knew about it, but would never tell us what.
She slept well enough, given she was sharing a room with a corpse wrapped in sailcloth. I trusted the lateness of the hour to leave sickbay. I felt a strong need to clear my head and fought the urge to sample my own sedatives.
Not tonight, I thought. Not now. I made sure my pistol was loaded; a habit I would’ve preferred to forgo, but which was now very familiar to me.
I was not long on deck when I saw it. I would’ve passed it by, if not for the fact it was darker than the night enveloping us.
So close, the Bird was truly monstrous.
Had it taken the liking, I am sure it could’ve enfolded me in the span of its wings. A long beak caught what light the deck lamps threw out, as did its eyes, which fixed upon me with a keen intelligence. I have no memory of drawing the pistol, nor do I recall hearing the shot that must have followed.
The right side of its head was washed away in a cloud of smoke and blood.
Gunfire drew the men on watch, and there were a few tense moments where I only gradually became aware of their questions. After I explained, they seemed at ease.
The visions - I cannot say dreams, I know now they were more than that - came later in the night.
Visions of sacking, pillaging exposed coastline, and laying bare the women and men we found there. We made little distinction, though it was more about power than simple lust to spill our seed. The faces of the men with me were those of the crew, though our dress was ancient and rattling. The ship we sailed in was equally old; something more familiar to Nils and the stories he may have grown up with.
I woke with a start; sure I could taste blood in my mouth. She was gone, and a rush of footsteps on the deck above made me panic.
Running up top, I feared the worst, though I don’t know what I expected to do if confronted by it. One gun against the crew would do little good.
She was not there, though.
Instead, the crew was occupied with a dark shape circling us overhead in the early morning light. It was low and close, turning like a gyre around the mast.
“You only killed one,” Rawlins said. I’d come to his side among the crowd by chance. “She’s gone.”
“Damn fool,” he said and nodded forward to the prow.
A wall of fog rose ahead of us, and it seemed as if the black bird was guiding us towards it, though the sails caught no wind.
We watched it approach, with the ocean empty beneath us and the crew standing in silence. As the ship disappeared around us, and then one man from the other lost in the mist, we heard a sound that was not the wind. Wet and rancid, it breathed down at us without stirring the fog, and we knew we had come home for our sins.
No Light in August
My father used to tell me life is what you make it; it’s an old one, but it’s true. I know because my life is what I made it — mostly bad, with maybe a few moments of good in there, although the good is becoming harder and harder to remember these days. I don’t think the bourbon helps with that.
Things were better when Iris was with me. Even though she didn’t want to come out west with me — not at first anyway — but when she saw what Chicago was doing to me, she changed her mind.
It was good for a while, but then the land went bad and the dust storms kicked up. We tried to keep things together, but the darkening skies brought up something in me I’d tried to bury. Iris finally left when I struck her hard enough to give up on me. In a horrible way, I was thankful; it didn’t seem fair to drag her down with me. That’s no justification, but it’s all I have.
The storm hung in the west; a solid wall of black. I didn’t want to look at it, didn’t want to do much of anything except sit in the kitchen and drink. Thunder cracked in the distance and it froze my hand, stopping it short of the bottle with the fingers trembling slightly, almost within reach. Nothing for it.
I saw to the barn and rounded up the few animals I’d not sold or eaten — all the ones I and the dust had left unclaimed for the time being.
The storm seemed to stretch across the horizon, churning across the border. It was hard not take it personally; it felt as if it was coming only for me. A stupid idea, but it wasn’t the first one I’d ever had in my life.
The air was already dry — whatever moisture was left was being taken by the oncoming dust. It was cold, and charged too, and the cloud — closer now — looked to be tinged a sickly shade of mustard yellow in places.
I saw the dust plume before I heard the car. Soon enough, I saw its black beetle shape trundling along the dirt road towards the house.
It was Sam Carlisle. He was about the only man around with a car, or at least the only one who’d visit me. I looked at the car and back at the cloud. He’d never make it back to his place before the storm came down, so I opened the barn door again. Figured it’d be safe enough in there for a spell, even if the storm lasted the rest of the day.
Sam was a jovial sort, different from most lawmen. Officially, Beacon wasn’t a town, but an unincorporated parish. Still, it needed a sheriff, and everyone knew Sam. He was steady and a good man. Sometimes that’s enough. I hadn’t carried a badge for a good few years, but he still saw it on me. It was a mark or sign that would never come off.
His usual smile was absent when he got out of the car, replaced by a hard set that was ill- suited to his soft features.
“Sam, what brings you out here?”
“Dunno where to start, Jim.” He sounded tired, and for a minute, it was hard to equate the man in front of me with the man I knew. “Michael Cameron’s dead; so are all his folk,” he said, not meeting my eye as he spoke.
I stood there for a moment, taking in what he’d said. I knew the Camerons. Michael, his wife Sarah, and their two children; Iris watched the kids sometimes.
Behind Sam, the cloud loomed larger, though that hardly seemed possible. A dusting of gri
t was already falling, covering everything in a fine grey layer.
“Best see to the car and come inside, storm’s coming down.”
I poured two glasses of whiskey and set them down on the kitchen table. Outside, the storm blew itself hoarse and darkened the room enough that I needed to light one of the oil lamps.
“How?” I asked as I lit a cigarette and gave one to Sam. He accepted, lit it, and dragged in a deep lungful, and only after a long sigh where almost no smoke came out did he reach for his drink. “Shot. Looks as if Michael did it while they was at dinner last night.”
His words pulled at something, hauling it up until it came to me. “There was something on the wall or on the table where it happened.”
Sam looked at me like he didn’t know me. He didn’t, not really. Reaching into his pocket, he laid a folded scrap of paper on the table.
He didn’t need to unfold it for me to know what I’d see. Some things follow you, no matter how hard you try to shake them off. Even if the past doesn’t weigh you down, it never really goes anywhere.
After some hours, the storm passed. Lucky, I thought; all show and little substance. I saw to the animals and went with Sam.
I didn’t need to go; didn’t want to. I knew what I’d see there, but it was either that or stay in the house and keep drinking. The latter was more attractive, but only insofar as it was my routine and I’m a man of habit. The former got its teeth into me — sinking into the old wounds, and opening them up again.
“Some call it witch’s foot or the broken cross,” I said, holding the piece of paper in both hands — more to stop the shakes than anything else.
“You saw it before?” “A long time ago.”
Sam didn’t press anymore; he was good like that. I can’t say if I would’ve put up much of a fight if he did. Something was wearing down inside me, crumbling with the trundling of the wheels. The bourbon had eroded the old walls, so there wasn’t much left to hold it in place.
They’d been dead a while before anyone found them — not the Camerons, but another family in another place. It was in the meat-packing district; they were as Polish as it gets, but that wasn’t anything special. No one else wanted it, so they gave it to me.
As bad ones go, it was pretty bad. The father was in his place at the top of the table; his head leaning back across the chair rest so far that his neck looked fit to snap. His mouth was frozen in a smile, almost too wide for his mouth to hold; you might have thought he was happily drunk, if not for the black pits where his eyes used to be.
His wife was to his left, facedown across the table in a pool of congealed blood.
I looked at each of the children, but tried my best not to take in the details. The flies helped with that. They were so thick and fat you had to squint and cover your mouth in case one or a dozen found their way in. Left alone to gorge for so long, they treated us like intruders to a meal, which I suppose we were.
It was open and shut; the gun was on the floor near the father’s chair, lying beneath his limp hand. His other held the knife he’d used on himself, most likely after. The only odd thing was the symbol carved onto the table in front of him.
I figured they were religious types — or at least he was, and he’d snapped. Wasn’t the first time I’d seen something like it. People seek solace in something familiar and sure when they’re confronted with the reality of modern life. The uncaring nature of a city and the relentless pursuit of money by any means breed a kind of mania that can only be equaled by religious devotion.
It didn’t end there, but at the time, I didn’t know it.
They’d come from an old place across the sea, and it never occurred to me until later that something else might have come with them.
If someone wanted to recreate a crime scene from memory — from my memory — then they’d done a good job of it with the Camerons at their own table. Like for like, it could’ve been taken from any of the scene photographs or notes. Seeing it from the threshold of the door, I fought the urge to scream or run.
“Bad, isn’t it?” Sam asked when he saw my face and reluctance to move any further. “Yeah,” I said, swallowed, and stepped forward.
“Can’t figure Michael to be capable of this.”
He wasn’t. He was a churchgoer, but not the kind who worked himself into a frenzy when the dust darkens the sky — not like some around here, anyway.
The gun was below his limp hand, the left rather than his right as happened with the Polish family. Sarah was facedown in a pool of blood, and the children were too. Michael had the same leering grin plastered to his face; the same black pits for eyes.
Sam was bearing it pretty well, though his face had gone a kind of pasty, waxy white. Sweat, no doubt cold, beaded his forehead and cheeks.
“You found his eyes?” I asked. If Sam thought the question indelicate, he gave no sign. “No, figured he’d pulped them.” He swallowed and dabbed his face with the back of his hand.
“No. When the examiner gets here, you’ll see they’re gone like they were never there.” “Jesus.”
I looked around the room, my eyes lighting on the carpet and floor. “Place was locked up when you came in?”
“Tight as a button.”
Squatting, I looked at the patterns of dust on the floor. Everyone drags it in with them, can’t help it. There were prints enough for the family, smears and scuff marks from where they traipsed in and out.
“Look here,” I said. Sam came up behind me and leaned over my shoulder. “Not Michael’s?”
The print was new as evidenced by its shape and size. Could’ve been nothing; wasn’t like I knew the shoe size of anyone around here, but there was an odd slant to the toe and heel. Something was odd about the turn of the instep, and when I looked around the table, I saw more.
“He walked around as they sat,” I said, Sam following the line of my finger as I traced the path.
There was no dust in the last place, nothing to give away if anyone else might have been in the apartment. I wasn’t sure if this was good or bad, but it gave Sam something to go on.
He sucked in a breath through his teeth. “Jim, I know it’s a lot to ask…”
“I’ll do it. Fuck knows you’ll need help, and the way things are around here, I might be all you have.” I pitied him his situation.
After they carted the bodies away, I stuck around and decided to talk to the Polish family’s neighbors. I didn’t think it would do any good, but it’s a habit and they’re hard to break at the best of times.
Most of the tenants didn’t know the family so well except to say hello. They were Polish in a mixed block of Hungarians and Czechs, for the most part. I didn’t get the sense of any bad blood between them, more apathy, which was worse in many ways. Hate I can understand, it’s uncaring I can’t get my head around.
The elevator was broken, if it ever worked in the first place, so I took the stairs. The place smelled of sweat and boiled cabbage, and I thought if I stayed any longer, I’d claw off my own skin to get the smell out.
On the floor below the family’s apartment, a little girl in a stained dress with no shoes on her dirty feet waved to me. I waved back, but she kept on doing it, until I realized she wasn’t waving, but beckoning me. I bent down so I could hear her; there was something conspiratorial about her.
“You’re a policeman?”
Her English was good, almost no accent. She’d most likely grown up here, learning English at school, which was something.
“Yes, I am. Did you know the family upstairs?”
She waved, almost fanning her face, and started walking down the corridor. I followed, thinking there was no harm in it. At that point, anything anyone could show me was important, even if it proved otherwise.
She led me to an apartment in the middle of the corridor, pulling the door’s old handle with both hands and nudging it with her shoulder. Inside was dim, but the apartment itself was clean and well-kept compared to what most would expect. The person who
lived here knew they didn’t have much, but made the best of it.
“Čo je to, Janna?” It was an old woman’s voice and the language sounded Polish, but it wasn’t. The accent was different — the stresses in the syllables subtly melodic.
“Babička,” Janna said and guided me through the small hall into the apartment’s living room. Small and cramped, it was taken up with an old sofa on which sat an old woman stirring a spoon in a cup.
She could’ve been sixty or eighty; her face had a kind of indeterminate quality to it, frozen between old and truly ancient. A shawl was tied around her head, and what hair I could see was snow white. Her eyes were dark and inquisitive without being nosey. The kind of old woman, I thought, who sees a lot without really trying to do so.
“Miss? This little girl brought me here, do you have anything to tell me?”
She looked down into her cup and continued to use the spoon for a moment or two more before tapping it out and setting it down to one side.
“Please, sit.”
Her accent was heavier than the girl’s, but clear and clipped. She gestured to an empty chair opposite, which I took, easing myself into the worn wicker. Janna walked around the table and planted herself on the floor near the old woman’s leg. I took her to be Janna’s grandmother, and she began to play absently with the girl’s hair while she used her free hand to drink.
“I was telling her to wait,” she said, flicking her eyes to Janna. “That she should be standing for someone to come.” She spoke better than I would’ve credited a woman of her age. I wondered what she might have been in a former life to have picked up English like she had.
“Did you know the family upstairs?”
“Such and much.” I was tired and fought the urge to correct her. She was trying, which was more than most of her neighbors did. “Good persons.”
“You’re not from the same country?” She shook her head. “Czechoslovakia.” “Did you hear anything? See anything?”
No Light in August: Tales From Carcosa & the Borderland (Digital Horror Fiction Author Collection) Page 3