“Where’s my son?” said Huw, still scrabbling for the keys.
“I’m here, Daddy. Don’t you recognize me?” replied Lennie in his proper Lennie voice, childish and high. “Why don’t we wait here for the people?”
“What people?” and the keys were in his hands and Huw was pressing the button to release the door locks and opening the door.
“The different Morecambe people, silly. They’re almost here.”
Huw did not respond. Hurriedly, he unbuckled the unprotesting Lennie and moved him to his car seat. Even if, God forbid, it was not his son, he could not leave him behind. Huw could take them back, Lennie could be his son again. He could. Lennie, watching with a detached expression on his shifting, changing face, said, “What’s wrong, Daddy?”
“Shut up.”
Lennie started to cry, fat tears rolling from his eyes down towards his jutting bottom lip, a gift from Ro’s side of the family. The sobbing sounds were good, almost real, but not real enough. Huw knew his son well, knew the noises he made in almost every circumstance, and what was coming from his mouth now was simply not good enough. Another fake, another falsehood, mimicry that had technique but no emotion in it, and then Lennie was in and Huw was running around the car to the driver’s side and getting in.
The car started with a twist of the key. With the door slammed shut, the distant sounds were muted but still audible. They rose and fell, with the rasping shuffle sometimes in the ascendant before being drowned by the grumbling and roaring like muffled voices. Under it was another sound, or rather, other sounds. There was a grinding, like metal being dragged against metal, coming from the direction of the train platform. From further away, Huw could hear the ocean heaving even though, when he looked, the strip of grey sea visible between the far buildings was motionless. He pressed his foot onto the accelerator, letting the engine roar its response to the encroaching sounds, and then drove. The car jolted and bucked as it bumped across the carpark and Huw could not help but turn, say “Are you okay?” to Lennie, concerned that the bouncing may have hurt him.
“I’m fine, Daddy. You look poorly,” replied Lennie, the not-Lennie voice trickling from his mouth and his not-Lennie eyes gleaming.
“I’m fine too,” said Huw. “We’re both fine. That’s good,” just mindless chatter to distract him from the sights around him, from the fat white roots that he could see sprouting at the edge of the carpark and which hadn’t been there before, from the air that hung too low above them like old sacking and then they were out of the carpark and into the street.
The metallic grinding sound was louder here. The road ran parallel to the train track, separated from it by a width of pavement and a heavy line of trees and fencing. Behind the trees, something dark moved unhurriedly along, a black mass of shadow that slowed as it pulled up to the platform. Huw caught the shriek behind his teeth, trapped it there to prevent it escaping, and accelerated back along the road. Whatever it was behind the trees was long; a train, Huw thought, catching sight of dirty glass and rusting metal between the tree trunks as he drove. Behind the glass, he had the impression of movement, of figures pressing against the grimy glass and smearing dampness across its inner surface.
They were approaching the place where Huw had vomited. He pressed his foot harder on the accelerator pedal, hoping to coax more speed from the vehicle. Lennie laughed from behind him, an empty sound against the throated growl of the engine. Huw did not look around. The car sped up, rolling past the darkened pile of puke on the pavement. Huw clenched himself, tightening his grip on the wheel and praying with his whole body that he could get back, go home. For a moment, just the briefest of moments, there was a flicker in the air and Huw saw Morecambe, his Morecambe. It flashed with colour, loud with energy and movement. The buildings were solid, unadorned with plant growth, the roads smooth and solid. No train moved behind the trees, and no white roots rippled their way across the car park. There were people. Huw shouted, a cry of triumph and then Lennie hissed and the image fell in upon itself, crumpling away to a grey nothing. The different Morecambe rushed in to fill the space it left, its bleak walls gathering in around Huw as he brought the car to a shuddering halt. He craned around, staring out through the rear window hoping to still see the remnants of the brighter place, but it was gone. Lennie giggled again, bucking in his seat as mirth shook his tiny body.
“We can’t leave yet, Daddy,” he said brightly, “we haven’t met the people!”
By the train station, indistinct shapes moved. They milled out from the entrance, spreading like oil to fill the street. Huw had the impression of squatness and width, of arms that were just too long and bent in the wrong places, of legs that writhed and of features that were moist and eager. He looked again at Lennie, the not-Lennie that had taken his son’s place, and saw that he had managed to undo the straps of the safety seat.
“We came to a different Morecambe, Daddy, just like I wanted to. Don’t you like it?”
“No,” said Huw.
“I do. Thank you for bringing me here, Daddy. It’s nice that you brought me when I wanted to come so much.”
Huw opened his door and climbed out of the car, backing away on legs that felt like brittle fracturing twigs. “Why did you want to come here?” he asked, watching as the tiny figure clambered between the car’s front seats and jumped delicately to the floor.
“Because we’ve been here so long,” said the not-Lennie, no longer making any effort to sound or act like the Lennie that Huw had helped create, that he loved with all his being. Its voice was hoarse and the poor, beautiful flesh of Huw’s son was already distorting into a new shape. “We made a different Morecambe and we try to use it just like you use your one, but it’s not the same. No one comes here so it’s empty apart from us, and it’s not as good as your Morecambe. It feels different and it smells different because we can’t make it like you do. We can’t make it work. We can’t make proper colour. We can’t make it real.”
“”Where’s Lennie?”
“I’m Lennie, Daddy!” said the thing in front of him in a tone of mock indignation. It grinned again, its lips stretching far, too far, back from teeth that were still small and white but were now too numerous. “Don’t you recognize me?”
“You’re not my son,” and saying it made it hurt worse than a hangover, worse than every pain he had ever felt. “Give him back. Please!”
“But he wanted so much to come somewhere different, and you were so ill and were almost here anyway because of how you felt, so we just pulled you through to where you both wanted to go. You’re the first ones we’ve managed! Do you like our different Morecambe?”
“No.”
“Don’t be nasty. It might not be as good as your Morecambe, but we did our best even though we’re not made for creation, only other things. We watched for so long, kept seeing the other Morecambe but couldn’t get there no matter how hard we tried, and then you and little Lennie came along and look! You helped us make a door now so now we can go through and finally visit yours. Isn’t that nice?”
The crowd gathered.
-
-
Simon Kurt Unsworth was born in 1972 somewhere in the northwest of England, on a day during which no mysterious signs or portents were seen – something that’s been a source of constant disappointment ever since. He spent most of his early years growing and hasn’t stopped yet, although he’s swapped upwards for outwards these days. He currently lives with his wife and child in Lancaster (just below the Lake District), which is a good place to live if you like that sort of thing – it has a river, some shops and pubs, a number of good pizza restaurants, and lots of roads of varying quality. He writes when he’s not working, spending time with his family, cooking, walking the dogs, watching suspect movies or lazing about. His stories have appeared in the Ash Tree Press anthologies At Ease with the Dead, Exotic Gothic 3 and Shades of Darkness, as well as in Lovecraft Unbound, Gaslight Grotesque, The Black Book of Horror 6, Never Again, The Ma
mmoth Book of Best New Horror 21 and Black Static magazine. His story ‘The Church on the Island’ was nominated for a World Fantasy Award, and was reprinted in Stephen Jones’ The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror #19 and The Mammoth Book of the Very Best of Best New Horror. His first collection, Lost Places, was published by the Ash Tree Press in March 2010 and he had collections due out in 2011 and 2012, from Dark Continents and PS Publishing respectively.
This story is from Lost Places, which can be ordered here.
Story art by mimulux.
Return to the table of contents
NOTE: Images contained in this Lovecraft eZine are Copyright ©2006-2012 art-by-mimulux. All rights reserved. All the images contained in this Lovecraft eZine may not be reproduced, copied, edited, published, transmitted, borrowed, duplicated, printed, downloaded, or uploaded in any way without my express written permission. These images do not belong to the public domain. All stories in Lovecraft eZine may not be reproduced, copied, edited, published, transmitted, borrowed, duplicated, printed, downloaded, or uploaded in any way without the express written permission of the editor.
False Light
by Adrian Chamberlin
Crouched with his men behind the jagged rock that broke the expanse of the beach, Joss Merlyn peered ahead into the mist-shrouded darkness. He knew it was pointless to listen for the vessel’s approach. The breakers crashing onto the rocks in the bay drowned all sound except for the retreating of the waves on the shingle.
That latter noise sounded like the hissing of some great reptilian creature, hungering for fresh meat. Joss shivered at the thought.
His throat was dry and his eyes stung with the salt spray from the breakers. He felt the icy water soaking into his clothing just as his men did, but it was something else that was chilling him to his very soul.
In all his years of wrecking on the Cornish coast, Joss Merlyn had never known a night like this one – and though he’d never admit it to his men, it scared him.
This fog was no ordinary autumn mist, he knew that. The full moon that had been shining so brightly earlier had vanished, as though God himself had plucked it from the sky. God – or sommat else?
“‘T’aint natural, Francis.” He heard his younger brother Jem mutter to Francis Davey. Both men were crouching beside him behind the rock. He knew Jem was just as uncomfortable as he was, but Davey…well, Francis Davey, the vicar of Altarnun, was a different matter.
“This fog is Devil-sent,” Jem continued, and Joss silently agreed with him. Davey didn’t.
“This mist is a boon to us all, Jem. It is proof that Our Father provides.”
Joss shivered at the vicar’s words. They sounded almost as reptilian as the waves retreating over the shingle. He kept his eyes dead ahead, not to see the approach of the vessel that Francis Davey had promised would come this very night, but to avoid the sight of the vicar’s white skin and piercing red eyes.
Even in this darkness they seemed to glow with an inner luminescence, like one of those strange fish-like things Jem had seen landed along the coast last summer. Something that had no right to exist, that Francis Davey had claimed to have come from some unfathomed part of the ocean where the sunlight never fell. He had taken it away, claiming it was proof that God’s power was everywhere – even in the pitch darkness of the abyss. And God alone knew where it was now. Joss shook his head and concentrated on the unsettling blend of white mist and pitch, moonless night before him.
The only thing that scared him more than the fog this night was working alongside the albino Francis Davey.
Joss Merlyn was a big man. Almost seven feet tall, with skin as dark as a gypsy’s – the complete opposite of the albino vicar’s – his huge frame and long arms contained a physical power that made all fear him and obey without question. Few would have believed that it was the vicar of Altarnun who was the mastermind behind this gang who had wrecked countless vessels, murdered the mariners and plundered their ships.
They’re afraid of me, the whole damned lot of them. Afraid of me, who’s afraid of no man Joss had said to Patience’s daughter who was now staying at his inn on Bodmin. A lie. Patience knew very well that her husband drank out of fear, fear for what the priest ordered him to do. He’d almost damned himself, almost opened his mouth too far to Mary Yellan.
I shut myself in my room and shout my secrets in my pillow…I’ve told you because I’m a little drunk and I can’t hold my tongue.
Thankfully he was not too drunk, had caught himself in time.
But I’m not drunk enough to lose my head. I’m not drunk enough to tell you why I live in this God-forgotten spot, and why I’m the landlord of Jamaica Inn.
All the same, he’d have to watch her very closely. That girl would be trouble, he was certain.
Joss turned to his right and saw the dancing star in the darkness. He grunted in approval and relief, knowing that soon it would begin.
Because this was no star. It danced and swayed in the wind because it was a false light.
A lantern held aloft by one of his men on the highest part of the cliff that sloped to the sea. A beacon of lies and falsehood, one that promised deliverance from the ravages of the hungry sea, and offered shelter and safety. And instead delivered only death.
“See! It comes!” Francis Davey cackled in glee, pointing a skeletal finger to the new light dead ahead of them in the storm tossed bay.
This new pinprick of light did not dance like the false light on the cliff top. It dipped, remained hidden for a while, and then would rise above the blackness of the invisible breakers as though clawing its way to heaven.
Soon the mast-light of the ship grew larger, and closer to that on the cliff – one compelled the other, a moth summoned by a candle, and soon they would be a pair of shining white eyes in the mist.
This was the vessel that Davey had promised. This was the full-rigged brig Imboca.
Joss Merlyn held his breath as the brig made contact with the treacherous rocks of the bay.
Now the noise. The ear piercing shriek of timber splintering, of square-rigged masts and spars twisting and breaking. The triumphant roar of the sea, breakers crashing onto the deck and washing away those mariners that clung on for dear life to the slippery sloping surface.
His men waited for his signal. His huge arm was raised aloft, a bear’s paw ready to strike. They stared quizzically at him, wondered why that arm trembled.
It was a sight and a sound he had been used to since childhood, when he was first initiated into the art of the wrecker. The sound of a vessel dying, murdered by the sea, was always accompanied by the human screams of despair from the men on the ship. But this time not one had screamed. Not one.
Shapes bobbed in the tide, hands raised as if in supplication. But still no noise. His hand trembled.
The albino vicar stared at him, and muttered angrily, “Why do you hesitate? Give the order!”
His hand fell. As one, the men of the gang ran screaming like maniacs past the jagged rock and waded waist deep into the breakers.
For once, Joss Merlyn stayed. Always the first to lead his men to the spoils of the sea like a victorious general, always the first to bring his club crashing down on the head of the first mariner thrown onto the beach, this time he remained behind the rock.
“Not joining your men, Joss?” The vicar’s words were delivered in a suspicious tone.
Joss watched his team snatching at the bobbing wreckage amongst the breakers. The crates were miraculously intact, wooden boxes that had survived the destruction of the rocks and were landed unharmed and whole on the shingle.
“What is the Imboca’s cargo, Francis?” This was not tobacco, this was not the silk or brandy Davey had promised. Those crates contained something else.
“The love of Our Father,” the vicar said with a smile. Joss turned and stared, and saw that the albino wasn’t smiling at him but at the actions of the wreckers. The sailors of the Imboca had been brought to them on the waves.
&n
bsp; The clubs of the wreckers were raised, and brought down with a devastating force that was almost equal to that of the sea that had destroyed the brig. For a while Joss saw nothing but the fury and joy of his men as they wiped out the survivors of the wreck, the witnesses of their crime. And then…
Joss started, saw the baffled expressions of his men. No blood splattered their sodden clothing. No red fluid dripped from their clubs. He moved from the shelter of the rock and into the bay.
The mist was fading now, the icy chill of the autumn night fading as dawn cast a weak light upon the carnage of the bay. Joss Merlyn stared in horror at the crushed and pounded skulls of the things that had crewed the Imboca.
These were human in shape only. They had two arms, two legs, a thickened torso – but that torso was bent forwards, so that these unholy things would only be able to walk in a hunched fashion, their webbed fingers dragging along the deck of the ship they sailed.
The sun was rising, the light stronger. It reflected off their green scales, made them shine like emeralds. On one nearest to him three slits on each side of its neck flared open in unison, like a trio of identical wounds, sucking in a last, shuddering breath of air before the gills relaxed and the creature died. Now Joss Merlyn was glad that the head had been caved in and pounded to a pulp. At least he would be spared the obscene reality of what visage the ungodly creature had possessed. What it’s eyes would look like when they stared, cold, dead and unblinking at him.
The wreckers stood in the retreating breakers, horrified expressions replacing puzzlement and bewilderment as dawn’s golden light revealed to them the nature of their victims.
Joss turned stiffly to the man who had the answers. The man of God.
Francis Davey was oblivious to the hostile stares fixed on him from the men in the sea. He was hunched over the first of the crates, his fingers pulling the planking free from the nails with an unnatural strength. He was muttering as he threw the wood to one side, pulled with shaking hands at the shrouded items within.
Lovecraft eZine Megapack - 2011 Page 9