“We must reach it. We must touch its mind with the fire!”
“It is insensitive.”
“Then our jailor. We touch its mind with the fire.”
“It resists. It has the sign placed on its form, over its vitals. We cannot reach it unless it permits. The fire will not touch it.”
“Oh, but if He were here.”
“If He would but pass by, yes, and open this place like an egg that we might fall out and follow in His wake!”
“Oh, but He might crush us.”
“But what would it matter? I would take the chance, if only to be free to follow and be like Him. Oh, to hunger and never know satiation. To swallow it all for all time.”
“The children?” said the first, all of a sudden. “What became of the children?”
“I remember them,” said the second hesitantly. “We had many of them. Their wings were still tender and wet. I remember.”
“Yes. Yes, it was that way.”
“In The Valley of Blood.”
“Yes, it was there. Did they learn of the feast and the hunger?”
“I think they did.”
“Those were the days.”
“Yes, yes, we had form.”
“Will we ever take from again?”
“We must.”
“He waits, it is said. Does he wait for us? Does he wait for the right time? How long.”
“He waits. He lies dreaming. Cannot you not feel him stir the ether?”
“Oh, I do. I do.”
Yet another set of headlights flashed through the glass of the doors and the windows, stirring the darkness. The eye reflected them back again.
“I hunger,” said the first.
“Truly?” asked the second.
“Maybe. Perhaps I only remember it.”
Silence fell suddenly across the room. The other inmates had heard the testimony of hunger. They all pondered.
“The lights. They bother me,” said the second.
“Let us throw something at them, if they come again,” suggested the first.
“Yes, yes. Through the chink there where the growing things have cracked the wall. We cannot squeeze through, but something could be thrown at them by way of the ether.”
“Yes, let us be on our guard and ready.”
The library fell silent. In the darkness, the eye was there, gazing through the chink.
A little later, a murmuring grew. The lights. The lights were coming.
“Be ready,” said the second.
“I am ready,” said the first.
A rumble of assent came from the others. The lights swept in through the glass of the doors. Across the gulf between the lights and the library, something was hurled through the ether. It struck the mind associated with the lights. It struck with hunger and futility, and the mind was blasted for a moment. There came a sound, a crashing sound, a rending of metal and a splintering of glass following by silence, then there was fire. One of them, one of the humans wailed in agony.
A deep sense of purpose filled the library, and those inside grew to remember their hunger.
“Is that what it was like in the days before?” asked the first.
“Yes. It was similar,” said the second.
“If only we could have more and more and more,” said the first.
“Indeed,” said the second.
The darkness swirled heavily. A chair was lifted off the floor and settled atop a bookcase. Dr. Fulmer’s desk lamp flickered a moment and went out again. From outside, distantly, the sound of pain went on, becoming tinged with panic and madness.
“What became of the children?” asked the first.
“I remember them,” said the second.
“Will they come looking for us?” asked the first.
“I do not know. Perhaps they are, like us, trapped, waiting, feeling about in the ether, waiting for Him to awake.”
“Oh, if only He were awake.”
“If only they would come for us that we might go and awaken Him.”
“Yes, that would be good.”
“Indeed.”
“He might crush us.”
“Oh, but to follow in his wake. I would take the risk.”
“So would I.”
Outside, there was a sound of something creaking, then the sound of footsteps as the human stumbled about outside the window, weeping and wailing.
“Let us throw something else at it,” said the second.
There was a general assent. They gathered themselves and ruffled the ether with the passing of another projectile. It pierced the mind of the human. It rose from where it had fallen and ran away into the night, screaming.
“There, that is the way of it,” said the second.
“More,” said the first.
There was a general assent. They waited.
The heavy darkness swirled aimlessly. No more lights came. The darkness outside grew heavier but remained punctuated by the moon and stars. Inside, the desk lamp made an occasional flicker, but never came fully on. The darkness grew listless and drifted. The eye was up in the vaulted ceiling.
“The children!” said the first, later. “What became of the children?”
“I remember,” said the second. “They were plump and tender.”
“Yes, I remember that too.”
“Their wings were fragile and wet, still. They dripped from being newly born.”
“Yes,” agreed the first, “I remember that too.”
“They were plump and tender. Do you recall?”
“Oh. We ate them, did we not, in The Valley of Blood at the slitting of the throats?”
“Yes, we ate them. That was it. Those were the days. The Valley of Blood.”
The darkness swirled. The voices rose to a clamor, and all individual voices were lost in the babble and confused shouts. The noise rose and fell. The furniture vibrated about on the floor. The windows rattled in their panes. One of them cracked. Books fell off the shelves onto the floor smacking loudly on the tile. An orange glow from the burning car without sometimes was reflected in the unblinking eye that had come back down on the heavy darkness from the vaulted ceiling. The memory of hunger filled the library until morning.
***
The sun rose. Outside the library, the wrecked car was discovered. It had burned through the night and was blackened. The tires were completely melted. The license plate too was melted beyond recognition. The campus police took a report as though it were business as usual. Strange occurrences, people dying suddenly and for no apparent reason, were not uncommon on campus. They spread out and made a check of the surrounding area where they found the scorched body of the driver hidden in the mulch behind some bushes near the sociology building across the quad, his eyes wide open, staring and his mouth fixed in a scream. An ambulance was called to take the body away to the morgue. A wrecker was called to pick the charred hulk of the vehicle up and remove it.
Students and faculty who were up early watched in horrified perplexity. Some cast nervous glances about the campus, vowing not to be out after dark. They dispersed once the last of the scene was cleaned up in a perfunctory manner. It had only taken an hour.
A little later, before regular classed began, Dr. Silk arrived, noted the blackened spot by the road, and shuddered. Not for all the money in the world would he ever stay in the library overnight. He came slowly up the steps and peered in. The darkness was fled, and the murmuring was quieted, but he knew he would have to get the ladder and remove the chair from the top of the bookcase and pick up a few dozen or so books that had not been on the floor when he left. Glad of the light, he unlocked the door and went in. He left the door open. If he aired the building out, the strange odor would usually dissipate. He clicked on the lights, even Dr. Fulmer’s desk lamp, and then proceeded around picking up the books that had hit the floor in the night. He opened a side door and some windows, the better to let fresh air in. As he did, he noted that one of the windows was cracked again. He would have
to ask building maintenance to replace it.
“It’s time to retire,” he said to himself. He passed the heavy volume on the table where Dr. Fulmer worked every afternoon. Dr. Fulmer had closed it, he was sure, but it was open again. He averted his eyes and did not touch it. After further arranging things to the way they were supposed to be, he decided to let maintenance get the chair down off the bookshelf. He was too old for that sort of thing. He went back to his desk and settled his aching bones on his cushioned seat. The library was empty yet except for him, but the sun was shining.
YEAR'S END
The Eldritch Dark
Clark Ashton Smith
Now as the twilight's doubtful interval
Closes with night's accomplished certainty,
A wizard wind goes crying eerily,
And on the wold misshapen shadows crawl,
Miming the trees, whose voices climb and fall,
Imploring, in Sabbatic ecstacy,
The sky where vapor-mounted phantoms flee
From the scythed moon impendent over all.
Twin veils of covering cloud and silence, thrown
Across the movement and the sound of things,
Make blank the night, till in the broken west
The moon's ensanguined blade awhile is shown....
The night grows whole again....The shadows rest,
Gathered beneath a greater shadow's wings.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Chad Eagleton – Chad Eagleton is a Spinetingler Award nominee and a two-time Watery Grave Invitational finalist. He formerly served as a reader for Needle: A Magazine of Noir and as co-editor for the Beat to a Pulp webzine. His work is available in print, ebook, and online. Most recently, he completed Hoods, Hot Rods, and Hellcats, a 1950s-themed crime fiction anthology featuring an introduction from counterculture legend Mick Farren. Join his fray at: dimestoreriot.com
S.L. Edwards – S.L. Edwards is a Texan-turned-Californian and is studying for his PhD in Political Science. He likes dark fiction, dark thoughts and even darker beer. His fiction tries, when it can, to bridge the gap between the horrors of the news cycle and the horrors of Lovecraft and Poe.
Jill Hand – Jill Hand's work has appeared in several anthologies, including Urban Temples of Cthulhu. Her short story, "Draw the Leprechaun" appeared in the November 2015 issue of FrostFire Worlds. Her work has appeared recently in Aurora Wolf, Another Realm, Dark Gothic Resurrected, Heater, Jersey Devil Press, and Nebula Rift, among others.
Robert J. Krog – Robert J. Krog is author of the collection, The Stone Maiden and Other Tales, the Darrell Award winning novella, A Bag Full of Eyes, and numerous short stories from Sam’s Dot publishing, Kerlak/Dark Oak Publishing, Alban Lake publishing, and Ink Monkey Press. He edited the anthology, A Tall Ship, a Star, and Plunder from Dark Oak Press and Media, and the anthology Potter’s Field Five for Alban Lake. His story Eat Your Peas, about yard care workers hunting down a werewolf, won the Darrell Award for best short story in 2015. It appears in Luna’s Children: Full Moon Mayhem. His most-recently published works are The Ones Who Remember which appeared in Idolaters of Cthulhu, and The Pauper’s Reaper which appeared in Potter’s Field Five. He is working on a screenplay and a few novels. He attends several sci fi and fantasy conventions every year as an author/editor guest. He lives with his wife and children in Memphis, TN. His website is www.krogfiction.yolasite.com. You may also find him on Facebook.
Logan Noble – Logan Noble is a horror writer who happens to include a dash of humor and sci-fi if the literary recipe calls for it. He spends his days thinking about more interesting places from his home in Ohio, reading and wasting time with his wife Elizabeth and his two dogs. His short fiction has appeared in a number of anthologies, most of which can be found on Amazon. A novel should be coming soon, assuming he's not writing something else at the time. Follow along his daily adventures on Twitter from his profile: @logan_noble
Gregory Norris – Gregory Norris is a full-time professional writer, with work appearing in numerous short story anthologies, national magazines, novels, the occasional TV episode, and, so far, one produced feature film (Brutal Colors, which debuted on Amazon Prime). A former feature writer and columnist at SCI FI, the official magazine of the Sci Fi Channel (before all those ridiculous Ys invaded), he once worked as a screenwriter on two episodes of Paramount's modern classic, Star Trek: Voyager. Two of his paranormal novels (written under the nom-de-plume, Jo Atkinson) were published by Home Shopping Network as part of their "Escape with Romance" line -- the first time HSN has offered novels to their global customer base. He judged the 2012 Lambda Awards in the SF/F/H category. Recent short story acceptances include Sci Phi Journal, Lovecraft E-Zine, Year's Best Gay Erotica, Inked, Sizzle (food-themed romance), and The Prison Compendium. Three times now, his short stories have notched Honorable Mentions by Ellen Datlow.
Guy Riessen – Guy Riessen is an American author of contemporary dark fiction spanning the science fiction, horror, fantasy and crime genres. He lives in the wilderness north of San Francisco. His publications include short stories in recent anthologies such as Urban Temples of Cthulhu and What Dwells Below. Find him at www.guyriessen.com
Dave Schroeder – Dave Schroeder is a retired chief information officer from metro Atlanta. He’s written and produced an off-off-Broadway musical and enjoys performing with the Atlanta Radio Theatre Company when he’s not working on the fourth book in his Xenotech Support science fiction humor series about supporting alien technology after Earth joins the Galactic Free Trade Association.
James C. Simpson – James C. Simpson is a recluse from the wild mountains of rural Pennsylvania. There he busies himself coming up with archaic slabs of dark fiction in the tradition of the Gothic masters of which he owes much to. He has been published several times in both print and digital. These publications include Undead of Winter, Stranger Worlds: Luna's Children, Whispers from the Past, Winter Chills, Legends of Sleepy Hollow, to name a few. He looks forward to expanding his vision of horror in the future.
Eric Tarango – Eric Tarango has enjoyed honing his writing skills since the age of eighteen, and at the age of forty-eight he was published by Horrified Press in their Fall of Cthulhu volume two anthology. He has several horror and fantasy stories published in Amazon Kindle.
DJ Tyrer – DJ Tyrer is the person behind Atlantean Publishing and has been widely published in anthologies and magazines around the world, such as Chilling Horror Short Stories (Flame Tree), Cthulhu Haiku and Other Mythos Madness (Popcorn Press), Sorcery & Sanctity: A Homage to Arthur Machen (Hieroglyphics Press), Tales of the Black Arts (Hazardous Press), Ill-considered Expeditions (April Moon Books), Cosmic Horror (Dark Hall Press), Fossil Lake and Fossil Lake II (both Sabledrake Enterprises), and Steampunk Cthulhu (Chaosium), as well as having a Yellow Mythos novella available in paperback and on the Kindle, The Yellow House (Dunhams Manor). DJ Tyrer's website is at http://djtyrer.blogspot.co.uk/. The Atlantean Publishing website is at http://atlanteanpublishing.blogspot.co.uk/
Aaron Vlek – Aaron Vlek is a storyteller who works with the trickster mythos in its role as bringer of delight and proponent of disquieting humors. Some of her (yes, her) stories center around the goings on of the jinn, and of a universal imagining of the Native American character, Coyote. Some works are historical in setting while others occupy a contemporary and urban landscape. She also indulges frequently in the reimagining of classic themes of horror and the occult. Aaron is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College.
Lyssa Wilhelm – Lyssa Wilhelm may be a young author, but that doesn't keep her from enjoying older authors such as Edgar Allen Poe and H.P. Lovecraft. She hopes to be a published author one day and is starting it now by sending in submissions. She has a deviantart account under the username, EntirelyBonkers.
ive.
Miskatonic Dreams Page 22