She shuddered, her uneasiness blossoming into fear. She knew why she was here, and who wanted her. She knew what the encounter in the car meant. Cordigan had been weighing her worth against whatever he offered. She wrenched her hand out of Cordigan’s and backed away.
He grabbed her arm before she could go more than three steps. In the pale light, her face was white, her eyes huge with fear. “Where are you going, Mellie?”
“Bastard.” She hissed.
One of the figures by the well turned to look at them. It was a tall man, sunken and predatory. He wore a suit and had an imposing mane of steel-gray hair. Something red was smeared in finger-wide lines over his forehead and cheeks; as he approached the smell told Cordigan it was the cat’s blood. A smile twisted his thick lips. “Hello, Melanie.”
Her arm went limp in Cordigan’s grasp. Her lips trembled. “Daddy.”
August Howard gave Cordigan a cursory glance. “Thank you for bringing my wayward heir home, Mr. Cordigan.”
“I said I would, Howard. Do you have my payment?”
“You’re barely in time.” Howard bared his uneven teeth in the grotesque parody of a smile. “And yes, I’ve had the suitcase placed in your car. Don’t worry.”
Melanie tried to jerk her arm away, but Cordigan’s grip tightened. “How did he get to you, Cordigan? Money? “
“That’s unfair, Melanie. Mr. Cordigan came to me about an unrelated matter. In our conversation I learned he knew you, and where you were. I was surprised.” Howard’s eyes narrowed. “But maybe I shouldn’t have been. He says half the men in this city know you.”
She didn’t look at him. Instead she tried to catch Cordigan’s gaze. He refused to meet her eyes, keeping his expression impassive. “Cordigan! Did he tell you why I ran away two years ago? Why I changed my name? Why my mother killed herself? Did he tell you what he wants to do to me?”
“He’s your father.” Cordigan’s expression was blank.
Mellie shook her head. The last pins fells out of her hair, and it spilled over her shoulders. She shoved it out of her eyes, trying to make him look at her. Cordigan resolutely stared at the assembled cultists, recognizing some of them even though their backs were turned: the mayor, a councilwoman. One broad back belonged to the piggy-eyed chief of police. It didn’t matter. He’d be far away from this place by morning.
“But I’m not his daughter! He wants to kill me, Cordigan!” Her tone was thin with desperation. “I’m only an heir to him, a replacement…he wants to take away me, he wants to feed me to -“
Howard’s gaunt frame moved faster than Cordigan would have thought possible. His crabbed hand rose and fell, and Mellie’s voice was cut off. She stared at her father in shock. A red handprint bloomed on her cheek.
“You ungrateful little bitch.” Howard snarled. Cordigan leaned back as far as he could without letting go of Mellie; Howard’s breath smelled sweetish-sick, like decaying pork; it was layered over the musty, wet stench that rose from his clothes. “You run away when I tell you of your heritage. I have to pay a man to drag you back to me, and you come here stinking of your rutting with him. You never understood, you’re not worthy of Klth’ryl’s gift! I wasted all those years raising you…but you’re all I have. You’ll have to do, may the Thousand-Eyed Dragon of the Dark forgive me.”
Mellie was crying now, her mascara running into raccoon circles around her eyes.
“You’re crazy, Daddy.” She whispered.
“I’ve no more time for you. The ritual has begun.” Abruptly Howard turned and strode toward the well. The cultists were humming, something low and monotonous. No, Cordigan realized, they were chanting, low at first but growing gradually louder. The words were in some ugly foreign language; they scraped like sandpaper over his skin. Cordigan fought down a shudder of revulsion. It would be over soon, and he would be free of the city and Howard and all of it.
“It puts part of itself in you, in your brain.” Mellie was saying. “It makes decisions for you. He told me it doesn’t, you’re still yourself, but I read the books in his library, I know what it really does…what it makes you do after it’s inside you…”
“Shut up.” Cordigan said absently. He watched the ritual. The people remained in their spots, but they were sinking, falling to their knees as if they were slowly melting in the heat. Howard stood before the well, his arms half-raised, head thrown back. His face was slack with a hideous, almost carnal ecstasy. The chanting swelled, filling the basement. Cordigan couldn’t keep himself from wincing as it forced itself into his ears.
Mellie took advantage of his movement to yank her arm away. She flung herself around the corner, to the waiting stairs. Cordigan jerked himself out of his stupor and dove after her. It was very dark, after the light of the lamps; if it hadn’t been for her red dress he might have lost sight of her. She was nearly to the steps when he caught up. She fought him in the darkness. He managed to twist her arm behind her back. She struggled, her free hand groping for his eyes, but he grabbed her wrist and forced it down.
“I trusted you, Cordigan.” Her hair had fallen down over her face, but her voice was full of tears. “I trusted you. What could he offer you that’s worth more than that?”
He pushed her back toward the ceremony, yanking her to her feet when she stumbled. As they turned the corner, he answered. “Australia.”
Mellie made a soft noise, a cross between a sob and a moan. She sagged against him, all resistance drained from her. He put an arm around her waist, liking the way it curved under his palm; he knew this was the last time he’d feel it. Something that was almost regret plucked at him. Cordigan snorted and crushed it like a bug beneath his heel. Nothing mattered but Australia, so close the desert air burned his throat.
The cultists had gathered even closer to the well, tightening like a pulled knot. They all leaned forward, the shorter ones even standing on their toes. The air was taut with expectancy; they slobbered their eagerness even as they kept up the droning chant. Cordigan involuntarily dug his fingernails into Mellie’s flesh. The chanting and the tension felt like needles in his skin. He wanted nothing more than to let her go and run, back to the night and the chilled air aboveground. But he couldn’t risk Mellie following him. He waited for one of the cultists to take her.
Howard shoved them aside and fell to his knees before the well. He raised his hands and threw back his head. His eyes bulged like a toad’s. The chant, alternately grating and whining, poured from his mouth. Cordigan couldn’t make out much, but he heard Klth’ryl repeated several times. The other cultists were swaying, moaning under their breaths in eagerness. Mellie slumped, staring vacantly. He could hardly feel her breathing.
As Howard raved, something happened above the well. The air wavered, shimmering with an oily sheen. Revulsion nearly choked Cordigan, but he managed to stay still. The blackness began to solidify, taking shape- but not a shape he recognized, not any shape that belonged in the world. It bulged and wobbled gelatinously. Howard cried out. The thing became clearer: a mass of mottled skin the color of moss, eyes…far too many eyes running with ichor and, rising from the bottom, a nest of tentacles like a squid’s. Instead of suckers, the tentacles were covered with gaping mouths lined in tiny sharp teeth. The smell that accompanied it was putrid; like rotting vegetation.
The thing hadn’t risen from the well; they’d called it somehow. But why bring it here? Unless…
Unless the creature was enormous, and only the well was deep enough to hold it. How far beneath the ground did the shaft extend?
The cultists had fallen silent, staring transfixed at their god. Mellie suddenly stirred, whispering something. Cordigan leaned down a little to hear her.
“He’s going to die.” She repeated. “He’s going to die, he’s going to die.”
“No, Melanie.” Howard’s voice swelled to fill the cellar. Cordigan started; how had he heard her? The old man swiveled his head further than it should have been able to go, looking over his shoulder at them. His face w
as twisted with some inhuman pleasure, his eyes burning. “I’m going home.”
One of the tentacles whipped forward. The mouth nearest its tip gaped wide. It rose over Howard, then descended. In an instant he was gone. Blood ran between the tiny teeth, and the tentacle withdrew. The cultists moaned with delight.
Mellie closed her eyes. “Daddy.”
Cordigan thought she might faint, but she kept her feet, swaying. Two of the cultists- one the greasy police chief- left off contemplating Klth’ryl and turned to Mellie and Cordigan. One took her free arm. The chief reached for the one Cordigan still held. Cordigan’s grip tightened as the chief took Melanie’s hand. She didn’t open her eyes. The fat man gave a tug, and Cordigan let go.
They led her away between them. He felt a twinge of gratitude that she didn’t look back.
Klth’ryl shuddered and heaved as it digested its meal. Cordigan closed his eyes briefly, opened them, and turned to go. He had given them Mellie; he didn’t have to stay and watch what it did to her. He concentrated on the wall; follow the wall and it would lead to the stairs. Follow…
He was nearly to the corner when Mellie screamed.
“Sean!”
Cordigan froze.
“Sean!”
No one had called him that since he was a kid, since he’d dropped out of school. How did she even know his given name?
“Sean!”
He didn’t have to turn around. He shouldn’t turn around. He didn’t…Cordigan turned, just enough to catch a glimpse of the creature and the cultists. And Mellie.
The two held her at the edge of the well. Klth’ryl undulated with excitement. Mellie had twisted in their grasp. Her tangled hair partially covered her hair. But not enough. The terror in her eyes reached across the cellar to find him.
“Sean!” Her voice strained, broke. Tears traced paths down her cheeks; they shone in the lamplight.
Behind her, a tentacle rose up. From the center of its mouth protruded a long, slender needle.
Cordigan swallowed, hard. He turned his back on Mellie and the god and the worshippers. She screamed his name again, and again. By the time he reached the top of the stairs, her screams had dissolved into wordless shrieks. By the time he reached the entrance of the school, the shrieks had stopped. Something slithered out of a crack on the steps and disappeared into a brown, thorny bush that clung to the building. Cordigan kicked at it and missed in the darkness.
The suitcase was in the backseat, just as Howard had promised. Cash, passport, the papers he would need to show the guards at the city gate. He went to close the door, and saw one of Mellie’s ridiculous heels on the floor of the car. He left it there.
The fog had grown thicker; even the headlights didn’t penetrate it. But he knew the way to the gate by heart. Cordigan turned out of the weed-ridden parking lot. The city rose all around him, the buildings curving inward like the claws of a giant beast. The ground trembled, so that the steering wheel shook in his hands. Earthquake? It was over in seconds. Cordigan headed toward the wall, toward escape. In the morning he would be out of this cursed place. What kind of shape would Mellie be in, when dawn found her?
It didn’t matter, not really. He was getting out. He was going to Australia.
Patricia Correll lives in Kentucky with her husband, son, and cat familiar. She has also been published in The Absent Willow Review, Silver Blade, and Lightning Flash Magazine. She likes gory horror movies, pepperoni pizza and Hello Kitty. Hit her up on Google +!
Illustration by Ronnie Tucker.
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Dark Ambient Metamorphosis
by John Claude Smith
The following untitled notes for a “review-story” (as far as can be gleaned) were taken from the files of music journalist, John Schnell. It has been minimally edited for layout. It is presently the last known written work of any sort from Schnell (see afterward for further details—Ed.).
mtk’hukX’xm-c (band/artist name? Only on spine.)
Self-titled?
O’robdhoramxa (label? Bottom center of back, almost illegible; no country of origin; no website listed.)
Digipak, unknown material (!), colors like oil stains on pavement, no particular image(s) stand out, but there seems a variance in perceptions when viewed from different angles or lighting.
Second spin:
My original impressions seem invalid. I had written, “Primitive percussion, somewhere between the rawness of Tom Waits’ Bone Machine, the early found sound scrape and clang industrial of Einsterzende Neubuaten or, a little later, the zombie rattle of Memorandum. The resonance contrasts this, as waves of grinding, concentrated noise and indistinct instrumentation–they seem to mesh within the din–somehow bursts through with crystal clarity and an undefined purpose (though indistinct, there is a real force and presence) that is most ingenious. The whiny, caterwauling vocals are more another instrument than messenger(s) of anything concrete. Five tracks, sixty-two minutes of intense, strange music that relates to dark ambient, but has much more life than what has occupied that boring sonic terrain for the last few years.”
It is strange, then, that my compulsion to immediately play the disc again is jostled by the sounds that pour out my speakers: the percussion seems minimized now, the ambience congealing as a pulsing mass. It seems alive, the throb of blood thrusting through concrete arteries, the surge of sentient momentum within a sleeping, abandoned factory. That said, the sleep seems full of dreams, living extensions, like the futile lashing of tentacles for something just out of reach, that rip and claw for that something more at the brink of reality, unreality…the possibilities are endless: the unconscious wishes of forgotten machinery. My brain is soaking in this audio miasma, but it seems incomplete, as if in transition. The vocals, though still harsh and beyond understanding–this is not the pristine melancholic gobbledygook of Sigur Ros, or the abysmal ululations of Thee Parchment Souls—seem to hold both an insect quality as well as something completely alien. The clattering clicks and chattering nuances seem to speak in tones that fill the night—think the language of insects, of a crowded insect festival—but with a decidedly unearthly, hence, alien, tendency. And not “alien” in the usual manner. Many dark ambientists pride themselves on being able to manipulate sounds so as to create unexplored sonic worlds. Only a few (Inade and Pus Siphon come to mind) really engender something truly unique. I am both flabbergasted and intrigued by the developments, wondering how this weird alteration is possible. And yet I am sure that somehow my initial impressions and the results of the second spin are of the same origin. Why? I do not know. Something to do with the all around feel of…both versions? That and the fact that the disc has not left the player between plays…
Funny, but it seems as though something is happening to me as well. I feel changed or…something. Not clear. Must be the beer.
Funny again: now the time on the display reads fifty-five minutes. I thought it was sixty-two. Oh well, onward. (It’s like an addiction–haha.)
Third spin:
Okay, something really out of sync is in motion. The sounds have mutated again, and “mutate” seems the appropriate word. It’s obviously the same disc, the feel is intact, but whatever phenomenon (another appropriate word) is transpiring it’s getting under my skin.
The sounds seem hollow, completely devoid of anything remotely human within their creation. The closest comparison is the pitch black bleakness of Kerovnian, but even that pales by comparison. Within this black hole of sound, feeble mutterings (well, they seem vocal, kind of…) and nervous, twitchy scraping sequences rise to the surface, squiggly like rats scampering toward hole-in-the-wall exits, only to find the exits have been sealed up, and the rats are made to bounce off the walls in search of other means of escape. There is also a processional tapping that—
It feels like a beehive has exploded in my body and the buzzing is the sound of tiny chisels as the bees chip their sinister designs into my bones, and they are inexplicably changing
me from the inside.
Man, this is one wild experience!
Five tracks still, but thirty-seven minutes—what the hell is going on here?
Fourth spin:
Addictive is an understatement. I barely waited for the final fade before pressing play again.
I need it!
(Or it needs me…?)
Something is truly amiss: the display reads five tracks, fifteen minutes! Impossible! My breath seems rushed. Reminds me of when I had that problem with heroin ten years ago. That same desire and necessity is being transferred to the music, the sounds.
No, that’s not it! The sounds themselves are dictating things now!
There is density within the thickening void, a density that translates within my mind as something of insidious intent. I am impelled to eject the disc, but my body does not move.
Funny, but no, not funny at all. My fingers seem clumsy in typing these words; they seem elongated and I am struggling to control them. My legs feel numb. They look odd, but then again, the whole of me looks odd. Then again, the whole of what I see, the way I see, is not as it was before I started playing this disc. I am feeling a bit disorientated as my eyes seem to be taking in too much, and not what I understand to be my apartment. Does that make sense? The flood of patterns and obtuse images nauseate me, but I cannot look away. Everything seems geometric, hard edged, yet smooth and flexible; indescribable objects shimmer, polished to a painful glare, or waver as if stenciled on my world from another world. The alien sensations are in full bloom–
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