At Fear's Altar

by Richard Gavin

  The September night felt unseasonably chilly. Colin’s shiver was enough to purge the vision. He wanted so much to tell Paula about the chapel, about what he had seen there. During dinner, when the tensions were nearing the breaking point, he had actually toyed with the idea of taking his daughter there, of showing her the true reason he had been so upset. Had he gotten lost this morning? Yes. But there was something in those woods, something . . . incorrect. Something that offended him. Perhaps, only perhaps, some primal faculty in Colin had perceived the incorrectness as soon as he’d stepped onto the paths, and it was this primal unease that had caused him to lose his bearings in woods that he’d lived near for the better part of six decades.

  As consoling as this theory was, it did nothing to detract from a profoundly upsetting fact: that somehow the woods had managed to hide a perverse structure from Colin, and presumably everyone else in the village, for who knows how many years. There had never been a chapel in those low-lying marshlands. Never.

  Though the moon had barely begun its ascent, Colin decided that it was best to turn in. Upon passing the closed door of the small bedroom his granddaughters shared during their visit, Colin overheard an exchange between the girls and their mother. Though muffled by wood, their words were still audible.

  “. . . then after I tried, like, to see if there was anyone else hiking who might help us, he made me stop and told me to stand there. Then he walked into the swamp, until the water was, like, up to his waist, and just stood there for, like, five minutes.” It was Toni’s voice, Colin was sure. He could even hear the wad of gum that she never seemed to be without smacking as she lied through her teeth. “Then he just ran off into the trees and we had to go after him.”

  “Did he say anything when he was standing in the water?” Paula this time.

  “He just kinda breathed loud, like when you feel surprised.” That Sara had joined the cabal was a fact that weighed heaviest of all on Colin’s heart. He shuffled to his room and undressed for bed in the dark.

  ***

  Autumn crept into the village overnight. The morning was bright and the breeze carried the first crisp portents of the coming season.

  Paula and the girls were still sleeping when Colin began scrambling the eggs for their breakfast. He waited until the first of his guests, Sara, emerged from her room before he poured the orange juice and called everyone to the table. Their meal was a pleasant counterpoint to last night’s rigid dinner. Colin was relieved to hear his granddaughters laughing. Even Paula seemed a little less on edge.

  After the meal, Paula loaded their luggage into the hatchback and the four of them stood on the driveway not saying much of anything.

  “Safe trip,” Colin said at last.

  The girls piled into the car. Paula ordered them to put on their seatbelts before urging Colin to take a few steps out of earshot.

  “I’d like to come back next weekend, Dad.”

  “Oh fine, fine. It will be nice to see you and the girls again.”

  Paula shook her head. “I’m going to see if Stan would be willing to bump up his weekend with the girls so that you and I can have some time to talk some things out.”

  Unable to react, Colin merely stood while his daughter informed him that she would be “making some calls this week” and would talk to him “real soon.” She leaned in for a cursory embrace, then drove off without so much as glancing at him.

  Colin stood on his lawn. A shape of lurid colours leaked into his periphery, and Colin craned his head to see Millie pretending to shower her rosebushes. He waved at her but Millie must not have noticed. Colin went inside and plopped down on an armchair.

  Feelings cascaded through him so swiftly Colin could barely register one before the next came racing along. He worried over Paula’s almost threatening promise to return in a few days. He pined for the days when his wife would unfailingly balm his anxious spirit. But chiefly, Colin thought about the chapel, specifically why his granddaughters had decided to omit the building from their recollections of yesterday. Perhaps they had merely sensed the incorrectness of the place and opted to will it out of their memories. If this was the case, Colin wished the girls would teach him how to do the same.

  But he had seen it, had even wandered its nave. Whatever havoc his flaking brain had been playing on him these last few months, the chapel was a different matter. It was palpable, visceral. Even if the crazy story Millie had told Paula was true, even if he had taken some wrong turns while walking with the girls, Colin was staunchly certain of what he had seen and felt inside that marshside temple.

  Yet he’d also been certain of his ability to navigate the footpaths, and how to pour himself a rye-and-ginger, and the myriad other minutiae that were becoming more tedious and fleeting with each passing day. And if Paula doubted these tiny day-to-day trivialities, what would she do to him if he told her of a lascivious church?

  He needed proof, if for no other reason than to pacify himself. And he knew precisely how he might obtain it.

  The Polaroid camera Bev had once given him as a birthday gift was still on the closet shelf where he’d stored it, some twenty years ago now. He was pleasantly surprised to find that he still had some film left on a cartridge, but was sceptical about the device’s working ability after so many years in storage. Nevertheless, the thin possibility was enough to inspire Colin to don his puffer vest and his hiking boots.

  Even after filling a hip-bag with a good deal of water and food, he found himself unwilling to depart for the paths just yet. He stood rigid in the centre of the living room, the heat rising around him, wondering if he could bring himself to face those woods again so soon. But Colin had always been a man of strong resolve. He knew that not facing the mystery that had swayed him from his accepted course would cause him to lose faith. He set off.

  He felt like a mischievous child as he skulked past Millie’s house, out of view of her windows. His passing by a young couple stirred another flash of panic in Colin, but this too passed once he stepped onto the path and began to hike.

  The natural layout of the footways seemed to have been restored, for Colin discovered that the lanes invariably led to the familiar groves, and in no time at all he found himself back at the main road, having cleared the route that was his daily wont, the selfsame route that had just yesterday played puckish games with him. Colin ate some of the food he’d brought and took a long draught from his canteen before concluding that he would try the paths again, this time making deliberate changes to his choice of crossroads, this time doing his best to get lost.

  He once more took to the paths, zigging where he had previously zagged, cobbling together ever stranger combinations of paths. Every bend of the trail stoked his eagerness that he would soon feel the cool basement drafts creeping out from the reeds like luring fingers, but to no avail. Even shutting his eyes and roaming with literal blindness did not bring Colin any nearer to the marsh or the chapel.

  Though his tricks had not accomplished Colin’s goal, they did manage to get him to the rim of the woods that was farthest from his home. Weary and overheated, he slumped down on a log and fished out his all-but-drained canteen. He was afraid. Not only had he been unsuccessful at relocating the church, but now even his memories of the place were growing muddied and ephemeral. Had his granddaughters’ version of yesterday been the bona fide one? The implications of this possibility left Colin cold. Perhaps Paula and Millie and whoever else were correct in their theories. He was, unbeknownst to himself, slipping.

  He had almost mired himself fully in newfound woe when he spotted a horrible face in the brush, a face that lent immediate and shocking validation to his crooked memories of the chapel in the reeds.

  The features were amorphous, but the presence was undeniable. Having been mined of its eyes, what stared out at Colin were two black pits. Colin dropped his canteen and marched over the stony path to get nearer to the object. The pair of hollow sockets was the only detail that was clearly visible. The rest of the fac
e was mummified in a great webworm nest, which had been spun over the thin branches of a young maple. Colin stood a mere foot from the nest, watching as a few of its inhabitants squirmed over the dark face’s cheekbones or nestled into the great gape of its mouth. He couldn’t help but wonder whether the effigy had been carefully inserted into the nest or whether the bugs had spun it themselves. Perhaps they had woven their whitish gauze around the face to claim it as their own.

  The complexion was dark, as though it had been hewn from a leadwood tree. Thorns from the effigy’s crown punctured the murky threads, allowing Colin to identify what it was he was looking at. Before he was even aware of what he was doing, he reached his hands into the openings where the nest sagged. He wriggled the thorns loose and then began the careful extraction. Webworms muscled across Colin’s fingers. He wondered if they were attempting to fight for what was theirs.

  He freed the head without causing any major damage to the nest. Cradling it in his palms, feeling the sickening heft and studying the hideous features, Colin’s hands began to quake. The expression on the face was not one of pious suffering, or even of hurt; instead, it was an emblem of rancour, of unfathomable malice. The mouth was a carved maw. The lips curled back to reveal thick, misshapen teeth. Deep furrows had been gouged along the brow and around the pitted eyes, suggesting flesh stretched tight across bone. Fire seemed to have reduced the whole carving to carbon. Some of the darkness stained Colin’s hands. He glanced shamefully over either shoulder, sickened at the thought of anyone seeing him there, cradling such an awful thing. He prepared to return it to its nest but halted halfway.

  The pocket of his puffer vest was unzipped before Colin even realized he had reached for it. He extracted the pair of coins that he had spotted yesterday morning. Something guided his hand and instructed him to plunk each silvery disc into the Messiah’s hollowed eyes. His payment for the Ferryman now in place, Colin delicately replaced the head in its nest, watching as the bugs writhed over it in delight.

  An instant stark terror shot through him. All Colin could think was ‘What have I done?’

  The old man began to run. The paths held their form, enabling Colin’s race back to the main road to be a thoughtless one. He narrowly missed being struck by a truck that was barrelling down the main road. The driver must have spotted Colin at the last instant, affording him just enough time to swerve and stir up a great fog of dust. The driver laid on his horn and screamed something as he sped on.

  Winded and drenched with sweat, Colin did his best to run for the remainder of the trek. He barely noted that a pale woman was gently rocking on her porch swing as he passed by her home. He shouted something to get her to stop staring at him, then jabbed his key into the front door. After several fumbling attempts he finally managed to gain entry and immediately locked the door and then drew every shade over every window. In that dim, impregnable cottage he hunched down and trembled. Much like yesterday morning, everything seemed to be moving with dizzying swiftness. Colin wondered if he would ever again feel centered, placed in the world.

  He had almost managed to calm himself when a knock at his front door caused him to shriek. He scuttled against the wall, unable even to entertain the thought of opening the door.

  A woman’s voice called out “Hello?” Though the words were muffled by wood, Colin was certain that the woman was now calling his name. Another knock. Colin held his breath. He could then hear the soft grinding sound of someone walking on his gravel driveway.

  A silhouette darkened the blind. Again his name was spoken. Colin began to scream, unsure whether what was emerging from his throat were even words or just some animal reflex to scare off his stalker. Perhaps he was simply trying to drown out the awful voice.

  When the shadow regressed and the noises ceased Colin almost wept with relief. It was only late afternoon, but he was exhausted by the day’s activities and decided to retire early. He undressed and crawled under the sheet, leaving the ceiling light on like a nyctophobic child.

  Anxious that his dreams might drag him back to the paths or, God help him, someplace even worse, Colin slipped into sleep with remarkable ease.

  He might have slept soundly until the following morning had it not been for a disruption that not only roused him, but petrified him to the point where he felt his bowels vacating.

  The disruption had begun as noises; once again of someone prowling around his property. It was dark outside, and under the stark glow of his bedroom light Colin felt all the more vulnerable and exposed. He was sure that the defilers of the church had tracked him down. They had somehow intuited that he had breached their temple, had discovered the awful secrets of their faith.

  Colin slithered out from beneath the soiled sheets, taking care to hunch out of sight of his open doorway.

  From the front of the house came the telltale sound of his door opening.

  Colin charged for the bedroom window. It was open to admit the cooling breeze, but he still had to plunge his naked frame right through the mesh screen. He landed in Bev’s fallow flowerbed with a thud that made his back and jaw ache. Scrabbling like some weird arachnid across the lawn, Colin bolted ahead, oblivious to where he might be headed.

  A vehicle was parked in his driveway, and a passing impression of another figure on his lawn whipped past Colin’s periphery as he ran. He heard a woman screaming behind him. He raced across the road. Panicked, filthy, and stark naked, Colin charged on. If he could just make it around the main bend in the road, just enough to get out of sight, he could hide for a few seconds and collect his thoughts.

  But his name was continually being shouted, and the terribleness of it made Colin run even harder.

  He was in the woods now. It was dark, but at least the blackness occulted his shameful condition. He didn’t dare stop, not until he was deep enough to be totally out of sight of the main path. The earth was clammy and cold against his bare soles. The air was gelid and raw.

  Finally, his throat constricted and his lungs raw, Colin collapsed among some dew-soaked greenery. He listened while the crickets and the toads lent a score to the night.

  A woman called his name again, and Colin scrambled to his feet. He pivoted on one heel and then immediately fell down again.

  The chapel was there.

  It must have sprouted overnight like some weird mushroom. It was precisely as it had been when he’d first encountered it, save for one alteration: its front doors were now parted widely, welcomingly.

  A flood of thoughts claimed Colin, questioning whether or not this was some kind of trap, or just maybe a sign of beckoning. He was still waffling about whether he dared enter the church when the figure came into view.

  It stepped languidly from the chapel’s darkened hull until its frame was just barely visible in the moonlight. It paused in the archway, stretched its ropy arms outward to clutch either side of the doorframe. It held its crucified pose; an artist’s model who welcomed the attentive eye of its master.

  The body was every bit as grey and firm as it had been when it was pinioned to its cross, but several new developments lunged at Colin and caused him to reel.

  To begin with, the Messiah’s gender had changed, or perhaps Colin had simply never noticed that the graven image had full breasts. The grubby loincloth had also been stripped away, rendering the once chastely hidden cleft exposed. Also boldly uncovered were the scaly patches of stretch marks and the bountiful wrinkles of old age.

  Only after he had noted these details did Colin’s eyes tilt hesitantly upward. If he were to see this shape moving without a head it would have been too much to bear. He was certain that such an aberration would have broken him. But the figure’s head had been restored. Had he played a part in this miracle, this weird resurrection? Perhaps by leaving the coined head to drift down the Styx Colin had unwittingly played a profound role in a rite that was utterly obscure to him.

  The face was masked in the grubby linen that had once served as the loincloth. The fabric had been wound
and rewound over the head, as elegantly as mummy wrappings, as tautly as the dressing of a head trauma victim. The eyes were clearly visible and were a vibrant electric blue that practically illuminated the forest. The mouth and the nose were swathed. As the shape stepped nearer, Colin could see the fabric that was stretched across the mouth pulsing in and out like a tiny heart as the creature drew breath in and out.

  She was soon near enough for him to touch her, but Colin dared not. He recognized the liver spots and moles that darkened the pale flesh like dollops of sludge. Yes, the shrivelled wood-skin was indeed familiar to him. The couple simply stood, as innocent as the primal betrothed marvelling at their Garden.

  But Colin’s Eve swiftly departed. She began to run, stealthy as a frightened doe.

  He set off after her. No longer concerned about his pursuers finding him, Colin called out to the woman, called out to her by using Beverly’s name. Her passage through the starlit mire was a graceful, noiseless cascade; the antithesis to his stumbling, sloshing maraud.

  Then all at once she stopped and turned about to face him. She raised her arms and Colin did the same, feeling himself growing erect at the possibility of her touch.

  With stigmata hands the figure clawed the loincloth from her head. The mask unravelled and sank into the swamp. Colin was at last able to see what it was he had been chasing.

  The woods called his name. Another distant voice cried “Dad?!”

  He answered by screeching and running harder than he had ever known possible. He thundered wildly ahead; a beast without reins, a being with no boundaries. But as fast as he was moving, Colin felt as though the world was spinning faster still.

  Form and structure and meaning were pulled to bits and scattered every which way, so great was the world’s new velocity. He could still hear the pounding of feet close behind him, and the distant sound of his name ringing through the trees. He was lost in the night that was swallowing him, lost in the night inside his head.