by Aaron French
The memory played itself out in his mind. A very pretty and obviously distressed young newscaster woman filled the television screen. She reported on confirmed assaults in a grocery store parking lot the previous evening. He could still sense the fear that laced her soft voice and blemished her attractive features. She was apparently accustomed to reporting on much more mundane stories.
He felt truly sorry for her; such sweet innocence hardly deserved to be subjected to the dark side of human nature, or worse... inhuman nature.
He remembered that her words became garbled, almost incoherent—no doubt due to the stress of her situation. A large screen directly behind her came to life with a grainy image from a surveillance camera situated on top of a building. It panned the parking lot from one side to the other.
At first all seemed normal with scattered customers casually strolling to and from their vehicles pushing shopping carts in front of them. Some had small children latched onto their sides. Jeff vividly recalled a small woman of foreign descent setting her bags down to fish her keys out of her purse. She was still rummaging when she became aware of someone... or something on the far side of her truck. In a flash the assailant was on her and easily overpowering her.
Jeff swallowed hard as he remembered seeing the poor woman fighting for her life with an enormous shadow. It was twisting its flabby bulk as it swung its mockery of a head from side to side. The memory of flailing tentacles from the thing’s head stung his sanity repeatedly, driving him closer to the edge.
The woman stood no chance against such a powerful adversary and was sucked bags and all into the thing’s loathsome abyss. Expansive wings sprouted from its back and within seconds it shot straight into the night sky.
Gone.
Yet frozen in his memory.
He twisted the wiper blade handle on and watched the damp windshield scraped clean. Strange, he thought, how with a simple gesture the state of something could be completely changed. One minute one way, the next minute another way.
The distant tree near the end of the street somehow caught his attention. It was large, perhaps an oak or a maple, and the shadows it cast on the snow-covered ground were impossible to ignore. Distorted, thin limbs jutted out from its trunk and stretched in every direction, like frantic children attempting to flee a kidnapper. The overall visage of it spawned yet another memory, which, like the previous ones, proved unpleasant and painful.
Images of being alone in his room as a young boy pouring over the literary giants he adored. Derleth, Lovecraft, Machen, and Clark Ashton Smith, all transposed their will of words upon his mind. He’d passed many midnights wandering helplessly in the nether regions of their minds, subject to their horrific whims and vulnerable to their nightmares.
The passages spawned in their imaginations littered his thoughts with frightening landscapes—which further contributed to, though without intent, his own twisted visions.
Visions of the Great Old Ones blotting out the sun with their malevolent bulk, seeking their prey relentlessly across waste-strewn fields. Terrible thoughts of the perverse deity Shub-Niggurath unleashing her Dark Young upon unsuspecting investigators, and the Crawling Chaos Nyarlathotep spreading a plague of confusion and madness across Egypt.
His parents had been too late in realizing their only son’s descent into the seemingly harmless realm of horror fiction. They had argued constantly about which educational direction their child was going to travel but never really addressed his creative and imaginative pursuits. Fiction, mainly horror, dominated his impressionable young mind and spurred his thoughts, for better or worse, to new heights. He would have hung posters of Cthulhu, Azathoth or Daoloth on his bedroom walls if it were not for the fact that his parents would’ve undoubtedly torn them down in an instant.
He sighed. Outside, the snow had abated considerably, reduced to a gentle dusting barely heavy enough to sustain the white groundcover. What caught his eye and tightened the already twisted knot in his stomach was what lay beneath the snow.
He focused on a small area off to the side of his car. The snow was gradually melting despite the temperature falling, revealing a viscous, black residue underneath. It was thick in consistency, loosely resembling old motor oil.
Only it wasn’t an ordinary shade of black. It was a deep, unyielding black, many times darker than any color on Earth. It was exposing itself at a rapid pace, swallowing all traces of snow and enveloping everything in its path.
Jeff pushed aside the memories that had been assaulting him and watched the surrealistic nightmare unfolding outside the car. An unconditional sea of the substance coated the ground as far as he could see. Its nature or purpose was as curious as it was frightening, and the consequences of its appearance chilled his blood.
His mother stood on the sidewalk. She gazed at him with her soft, baby blue eyes as if trying to convey her dire predicament to him. She looked exactly as she had on the day she died: frail, weary of life. Jeff remembered how much pain she had been in and was surprised and delighted to see that she didn’t seem to be in any now—despite her appearance. He wanted to leap out of the car and embrace her but thought better of it. He realized that the thing masquerading as his beloved mother was not human and most likely not friendly.
He forced himself to look away. The irrational feelings of turning his back on his dying mother instantly rushed into his head but he suppressed them successfully, content in the knowledge that it was the right thing to do.
Susie Peters was briskly making her way through the formless black sludge, staring hard at Jeff with piercing eyes. Specs of the black matter stained her strawberry blonde hair and flawless complexion, marring her soft features into a mockery of beauty. An anxious look smeared her face, not unlike a hyena standing over a freshly slaughtered gazelle. A sickening thought then entered his mind... he was the gazelle.
He closed his eyes so tightly they hurt. He concentrated on his memories, trying to find pleasant ones. Misty images of happier times floated about in his head like plump worms on a fishing line, dangling high above eager eyes. He strained to reach them but failed at every attempt. Less friendly ones clung to his mind, bustling to gain access to his consciousness, each a portal to a cold and possibly hostile environment.
The death of his old dog Dusty and when he had stumbled upon her rigid corpse in the kitchen. The doctor’s words informing him that his two lower discs in his back were completely gone and that major surgery was his only option. The disbelief he felt as he watched the tip of his bloody finger drift down into the dust, owing to his carelessness with the Brush Hog he’d been using.
All these memories and more clogged his mind and toyed with his strength. He had endured much sorrow and hardship in his life. They had sensed that in him. Perhaps it’s what attracted them in the first place. He was a portal, a link to another dimension, to another time where unimaginable things squirmed in eager anticipation to advance their malevolent plans.
The tree stretched out its sizeable limbs and efficiently swatted the mockeries of Jeff’s mother and Susie Peters aside. Lumbering its hugs bulk down the sidewalk, it crushed all objects in its path as it swung its ropy black tentacles from side to side.
The car was predictably unresponsive to his attempts at shifting it into gear and soon stalled out completely. He fondled the small caliber handgun on the seat next to him, debating whether to use it on the inhuman horrors outside the car, or on himself.
He recalled they were named Dark Young, evil servants of the Outer God Shub-Niggurath and spreaders of its faith. The smell of open graves permeated the interior of the car as the tree thing drew nearer. He instinctively rolled the window down and fired five quick shots at it, being sure to leave one bullet for himself. Although the attack had no effect whatsoever on the thing, it did offer a small amount of satisfaction.
He slumped back into the seat and concentrated on happier times. Times when the sun bathed the landscape in its warmth, times when flowers bloomed and wafted their
natural fragrance, times when other people were still alive; but these memories would not come easily, for more recent and considerably more frightening ones overwhelmed them.
Images of gigantic beings shambling across waste-strewn fields, destroying everything in their path. Innocent people being scooped up and devoured by forces and intellects beyond their comprehension. Entire cities being ravaged and plundered until nothing remained but charred, lifeless shells.
Jeff reached for the radio in a vain attempt to soften what he had already accepted as his final moments. He knew very well that nothing would come in, but he still twisted the knob several times; pure, irritating static filled his ears. He suppressed the feeling that he was somehow lucky. He was, after all, quite possibly the last human left alive on the planet. They had undoubtedly kept him around until they were finished with everyone else, allowing him extra time (which is more than anyone else had gotten).
He slowly opened his eyes and turned his head just as the tree-thing slung its huge limbs around the car. This time he knew no memories were going to save him.
About the author: Rick McQuiston is a forty-three year old father of two who loves anything horror-related. He’s had over 250 publications, including numerous anthologies, and a few contest placings as well. He’s written one novel (To See as a God Sees), five anthology books, one book of novellas, and edited an anthology of Michigan authors (Michigan Madman). They are all available on Lulu and Amazon. He’s also a guest author each year at Memphis Junior High School, and is currently working on his second novel (Where Things Might Walk), and his third novel (When only the Nightmare Remains).
What's in a Shell?
Nathalie Boisard-Beudin
I remember the whole thing.
It all started by Auntie Alice saying that she had brought us back something special from her trip in Russia. Now, considering her history of gift hunting, I’d rather deducted that something “special” was most likely to turn out being a hugely discounted trinket bought from a dingy store, or something she might have been bartering from an illegal street vendor.
Nonetheless, the set of Russian dolls she deposited on Jonathan’s bed seemed quite normal. Lovely even, delicately painted in the best tradition of miniatures: rosy cheeks, flowery head scarf and apron, big eyes.
Mind you, this was the first Christmas since Jo’s accident, so everybody brought all sorts of extravagant goodies to his room. He was cutting such a cute stricken-angel figure with his golden locks and big forget-me-not blue eyes that it was sometimes difficult to move about for the mass of gifts that well-wishers would shower him with.
However, a set of Russian dolls might have been thought of as being a strange choice for a boy’s gift and this is probably why the gift box bore my name as well, for once (Auntie being the famous penny pincher she is known – worldwide – to be, you’d figure that she would try to kill two birds with a single kopeck).
Now, I am a tad too old to really be playing with dolls but since, exceptionally, Auntie seemed not to have erred on the cheap side, I was not going to complain.
I was still a trifle skeptical, though: maybe the nice exterior was only there to fool punters. Perhaps, once we’d started to un-nest the various layers of matrioshka, we would find that they were not painted at all, or that they had bawdy motives – although tourists would probably pay more for these than for the political ones – or that instead of hiding a dozen or more smaller versions of the top doll, it would only contain four or five at best.
So, we set to open them with gusto and an inquisitive mind. They proved, however, difficult to undo, even with a screw-like motion, and it took us the best part of fifteen minutes to get to the second layer. It looked just as lovely as the top one, with maybe just a slight slant to the eyes, giving it a somewhat shifty look. I was about to get up close and personal with the new doll when Jo signaled me to pick up the first shell.
I gave it to him, thinking that he wanted to close it again, but he started to inspect the interior of the box instead. I climbed onto the bed to look over his shoulder and, amazingly enough, the inside of the doll had been painted as well, which probably accounted for the difficulty in opening them, as the wood had not been machined with that in mind. The painting was all over the interior and represented some star formations. We had been through a fury of astronomy two years before, so identifying the constellations should not have proved to be problematic and yet, we could not reconcile the patterns with our memories. I went out to my room to get the celestial maps but, even with this aid at hand, we had to admit after a while that we were not able to identify the stars represented there.
We waved it aside, agreeing that the artist had probably invented the formations: after all, what would a poor guy reduced to paint dolls for a living know – or care – about stars?
We therefore abandoned the constellation puzzle to focus again on the second doll and the boon she was meant to hide within.
Again, it was quite a struggle to unfasten it and I will confess that at one point I was tempted to use a spanner to wrench it open. In the end, I demurred: I could not face the damage that such a crude tool would have necessarily caused to the exquisite painting and my restraint paid off, for the two parts came away in the end, without any damage to the lacquer. The third doll was just as cute as the second or first ones and had a rather sarcastic smile on her cheery lips. This was a nice touch, I thought: an exact image reproduced at a smaller scale would have been rather boring. More traditional, surely, but boring nonetheless.
Jonathan reached for the open box again, and this time I had a look in myself before passing it on to him. Once more, the same starry night had been depicted inside the doll’s body, but although the constellations matched – we checked that – the design in the second matrioshka felt different, as if we could really see the stars glitter this time.
Jo complained about feeling cold and quickly put the bits away – after all, the star formation was just as indecipherable as the first one. We rubbed our hands a bit – I even went as far as to go and make tea, for it decidedly felt chilly all of a sudden – and we attacked the third doll.
Although she was slightly easier to open than her bigger sisters, she still put up a good fight, and I got irritated because it looked like her smile had become a smirk, and that she was mocking my efforts and sweat – that little exertion had got me warm all right. However, the feeling of aggravation must have spiced my twisting motion a trifle because she suddenly gave way, sending me flying from the edge of the bed where I had perched myself. Jo was mightily amused by my antics – despite the fall, it felt good to hear him laugh again after the accident that had killed his legs and left him alive but comatose for such a long time – and happy because the two halves of the open doll had landed in his lap.
I therefore examined the fourth-layer creature while he inspected the inside of her bigger avatar. She had the same sarcastic smile as the one before, but had a somewhat-darkened expression by extremely arched eyebrows that lent a rather diabolical air to her otherwise coy demeanour. I noticed that the flowery pattern on her shawl and apron had given way to a green, twirling motif that should have been innocuous, but somehow conveyed a feeling of chaos. It did not help that – by some optical trick surely – it looked like it was moving, reaching tendrils in the direction of the onlooker. Unsettling effect, although I did admire the skills of the maker.
I was getting cold again and reaching for my cup of tea when I spotted the look on Jonathan’s face. His huge blue eyes wide open, he seemed captivated by something hidden in the third doll’s cask. Maybe this time, the star pattern made sense or perhaps we were to be treated to a different design altogether? I was, however, disappointed to find, upon looking over his shoulder into the hollow, that it was again the same constellation showing.
At first, I could not fathom Jo’s fascination with it, but suddenly I thought I spotted something strange with the painting. Some type of dark cloud seemed to move over the twink
ling stars, obscuring them in a viscous way. A trick of the light upon the lacquer work, I thought, and yet it did disturb me more than was reasonable. The thing felt alive. And while I immediately shook the idea away as being thoroughly ludicrous, I gently wrestled the parts from my brother’s hands, placing a mug of tea between them instead. He let me do this rather absently, as he had in the months that had followed his accident, when he was there but not quite with us.
I supposed that the whole doll business had finally bored him into a stupor, but when I suggested that we put the matrioshkas away for the day, he violently insisted that we should go on and unveil all their mystery.
So, I opened the fourth doll – with only a little struggle this time – and uncovered her little sister. The creature was definitively impish, with what I thought was a rather cruel smile on her painted face. Her dimples held no genteel charms and she looked like she had been modelled from a rural version of Sacher-Masoch’s “Black Czarina.” Her shawl seemed richer, too, nearly pulsating with the design that had intrigued me before. The motif had become more intricate as a sort of wriggling maze made of emerald tentacles, this probably caused by the fact that the drawings of the previous doll had been kept in size and not scaled to fit a smaller body. It was fascinating and looked as if it was alive, as if giving an ominous throbbing sound as it twirled and reached. I dropped the doll, with a sudden sense of repulsion and fright – ludicrous impression; for all her diabolical sauciness, she was just as exquisite as the previous one – and noticed that the dull sound I had perceived was that of my own heartbeat, booming in my ears. My hands felt both cold and clammy.