The Harvest Cycle

by David Dunwoody

  Maggots! Hundreds of maggots, pounds of them, teeming, pouring from the cub’s throat in an endless stream!

  Amanda thrust both feet out. The cub sailed into the opposite wall, deflating as the last of the larvae spilled from its slack mouth.

  She streaked across the room with no regard for the scratching on the door and flew into the hallway, down a rickety flight of stairs, across creaking floorboards and out the front door.

  No lawn. No snow. Only an expanse of fog-draped moors.

  She turned, and the house was gone.

  “NIGHTMARE!” Amanda screamed. “WHYYYY?!”

  She ran into the fog, full aware that at any moment it could coalesce into something far more horrible than anything she’d seen so far.

  A fog had descended on that place where they had been walking when it happened, the place where the cub had refused to go any further. She had been twelve, Aidan ten. It was the dead of night, and they’d had no way of getting their bearings. Dad said they would have to stop until the fog cleared and they could at least see the stars in the sky. Earlier just that autumn he’d taught Mandy and Aidan how to orient themselves by the North Star.

  They found a hollow log at the edge of a wooded area (perhaps the one they’d just left) and the children crawled inside, lining the bottom of it with their coats and shooing the fog away.

  Dad knelt to crawl inside.

  The Harvester drove all five claws through his throat and face and took him away forever. The last thing they saw of their father was his right eye bursting as one of the monster’s knives lanced it.

  Amanda froze in the dream-fog. She’d heard something.

  “Mandy?”

  It was Michael.

  She knew it couldn’t really be him, that it was, if anything genuine, a mere amalgam of her memories of him; but she ran as hard as she could anyway until she reached a stone wall that towered over her head.

  Mike sat atop it. He smiled down at her.

  “I am your memory,” he said. “But I’m real, aren’t I? Aren’t memories real?”

  “Only as I remember them,” she whispered. She had never seen him smile so broadly, with such emotion. He was brilliant and driven, to be sure, but it did come at a cost - she always knew that the fullness of Michael West would remain a mystery to all but himself.

  “But I am the fullness of your experience of Michael West,” he said. “Is that not enough?”

  “Is this a riddle?” She asked.

  “Oh Christ Amanda, I don’t know,” he snapped, and fell from the wall and exploded like an overripe carcass at her feet.

  A shower of hot blood splashed her eyes. She spun, clawing at them, spitting and moaning and knowing now that nothing in her head was hers anymore.

  “It’s all right, Mandy.”

  A hand on her shoulder, and another brushing blood-gummed strands of hair from her eyes.

  “Daddy?”

  And she fell for it all over again.

  31.

  New Dreams in The West House

  He was so much taller than she was! Looking down at her hands as he led her across the moor, she supposed she was eight years old. Yes, that felt right. Then Aidan would be six, and...

  The fog parted like the curtains on a stage, and she saw a squat, round building with a flat roof and boarded-up windows. Nondescript, unremarkable, the building sat in a bed of overgrown grass, framed by gnarled trees. Tentacles of moss crawled up the door set between two windows. Her dad grabbed the boards over the door and ripped them away. “Aidan, stack these over there will you? Be sure to put the nails facing down. Don’t scratch yourself son.”

  Amanda turned and, sure enough, there was her brother, an eager smile on his cherubic face as he rushed to help Dad. With a tiny grunt, he lifted the boards into his arms and carried them to the base of the tree where Dad had pointed. The door opened with a creak, and they entered the building.

  It was a house. They found themselves in a sitting room with chairs, a table and a worm-eaten carpet, all cast in an eerie green hue from the mossy curtains covering the windows. Dad frowned, hands on his hips. “I don’t know about this.”

  I don’t remember this. We never lived here. What is this place?

  Aidan crossed the room and leaned against another door, rattling the knob. “It’s stuck!”

  Dad helped him push it open. Tendrils of moss that had held it in place peeled away from the doorframe. Entering a narrow hallway, Dad peeled away a strip of faded wallpaper. He turned to Aidan and, twisting the wallpaper into kindling, asked, “Got your flint son?”

  He spoke with an Irish brogue, one inherited from his parents, who had carried on their own parents’ efforts to preserve a culture that had fallen by the wayside and been all but forgotten during the early Harvests. Dad often explained to Amanda and her brother that America had once been a land where all cultures met, including that of their Irish ancestors, but that the Harvest Cycle had nearly wiped all that away. People lost their identity. They fled underground and stopped praying, stopped singing, stopped laughing. All was survival. They were no longer people, but animals tumbling down the food chain.

  Dad told them old folk tales at bedtime and sang ballads as he walked. He was joy in the face of absolute horror and Amanda was in love with him.

  Aidan bit his lip in fierce concentration as he struck the flint over the wallpaper. A spark finally caught, and a small flame rose. Dad held the torch out before him and ventured deeper into the hallway, the children following him.

  There were windows, but they were completely boarded up and only trickles of green light came through. The hall followed the curve of the house for a while, then branched off into two separate passages. Dad chose the right, and tore down more wallpaper to make torches for Amanda and Aidan. “This is like a labyrinth,” he whispered.

  “Are we going to get lost?” Amanda asked worriedly.

  “No, I can remember the way. It’s all right.”

  “Then how is it a labyrinth?”

  Dad turned to her, trying for a reproachful look, but a smile cracked his stern expression. “Amanda Kelly.”

  “What?”

  “It is like a labyrinth,” he said, “but your old man is good at figuring things out.” He winked.

  She was lost in thought. I still don’t remember this house...when I was eight years old, we were living in a dreamer commune back East. That was around the time that-

  A panel to their right slid open. Dad threw his arm in front of the children. “Get back!”

  There was only darkness beyond. The house’s silence returned. Dad relaxed a bit. “I thought there was something a little off about this wall,” he muttered. “This whole house is a little off.”

  “Let’s see,” Aidan insisted, pointing to the new passage. “Daddy?”

  “You stay behind me,” Dad said, “and watch your backs. You scream to wake the dead if you see anything, and I mean anything. Understand?”

  They both nodded, and he led the way into the dark.

  Not too far up ahead was a crack in the wall with sunlight coming through. Dad peered through and whispered, “I can’t see anything. Must be another trick panel, though. Stay back.” He worked the tips of his fingers into the crack and pried as hard as he could. His torch dropped to the floor. Aidan moved toward it, but Dad snapped, “Leave it.”

  The wall groaned, and the panel began to slide back, scraping loudly along its track. Sunlight poured into the passage. Amanda shaded her eyes and squinted. She saw a tree...

  “It’s an atrium!” Dad said, and stepped through the opening. It was a round, open-air patio with young plants peeking up through fractured concrete. In the center was a tree that rose up high, spreading its branches to form a thick green canopy.

  A few leaves drifted down as they walked around the atrium. Amanda watched them dance in the air. Maybe this house was unfamiliar, but it was strange and beautiful. Maybe they could stay.

  She looked around for her f
ather. He was gone. So was Aidan.

  She ran along the wall, searching for the panel. She couldn’t find it! She pounded frantically in search of a hollow section. Nothing. It was like it had never existed.

  Nightmare. This is a nightmare!

  Something whisked along the floor at her back. She spun and screamed.

  It was a woman, a crone - with withered white skin and gaping empty sockets, wearing a tattered brown dress - the gaunt thing lurched forward, hands thrust out, and raked its long nails across Amanda’s face.

  The sting of the nails became the burning of deep cuts in the girl’s flesh. She stumbled back into the wall and fell, swinging her arms and kicking her legs and sobbing madly as the crone swiped at her again and again. She saw wounds opening on her wrists, saw streams of blood racing up and down her arms as she threw them at the old woman.

  The crone let out a hideous scream. She was screaming Amanda’s name.

  A long, rusted pike burst through the crone’s chest. “Aaamaandaaaaa,” it wailed, claws falling at its sides; and it crumpled to the floor.

  Dad was standing behind it, his face pale. He shook his head, reaching for his daughter. “Oh, baby. Baby, I had to...”

  Amanda saw that the dead crone had become her mother.

  “She was going to hurt you both...she was going to kill you...she thought she was doing the right thing but baby, your mommy was sick...I had to...”

  Amanda just stared at the corpse. She remembered now. It all came flooding back. Not this house - this house, this dark maze, was never real - but he had killed their mother. And he did have to.

  “Come on!” Dad shouted, grabbing her bloody hands. “We have to find Aidan!”

  The panel was revealed beneath Dad’s hands, and he led Amanda back into the passage. Emerging in the hallway, Dad listened, then cocked his head as he heard something. “Aidan!” Dad cried, running for the door at the end of the hall.

  The door was stuck fast. He wrapped both hands around the knob and threw his shoulder into the door. It wouldn’t budge.

  “All right, I’m gonna take a run at it.” He backed away from the door, pushing Amanda against the wall. “Just stay there.”

  His eyes met hers. They reflected her terror. He tried to smile. “It’s all right. I promise.”

  He bore down and charged at the door.

  Harvester claws punched through to meet his face. He skewered himself on them, screaming for a split-second before one of the knives pierced the back of his throat and parted the hair at the nape of his neck.

  “DADDY!”

  Amanda ran, every footfall driving a shriek from her throat. The hall curved and rejoined the other one. She had forgotten all about Aidan, she was now a little girl in both body and mind and she only wanted to escape-

  She threw open the door to the sitting room. Aidan stood there, a man of twenty-four, his face wracked with pain.

  He pulled his hands away from his stomach and she watched his guts spool out onto the floor.

  They took him too. They took Mommy and Daddy and then they took Aidan. Nightmare took them. Nightmare!

  “NIGHTMARE!”

  Fog swept mercifully around Aidan; Amanda was left alone in nothingness.

  Then...

  I’m right here, child.

  32.

  Everything You Love

  Did you like the house?

  The Jabberwock’s tail curled around her as its head came down through the fog. She was herself again, full grown, yet she still felt like a helpless girl in the presence of this thing that knew every part of her.

  Stay here with me, Amanda. There’s still so much we haven’t explored.

  “You can keep me trapped in here for the rest of my life,” she spat. “Mike is-”

  Dead.

  The Jabberwock’s jaw unhinged as it let out a hideous laugh.

  “You’re lying!”

  Oh no, I assure you I’m telling the truth. And his last moments were pure Hell.

  “I don’t believe you,” she said, voice quaking.

  The creature leaned into her face, hot breath blasting her. I’m just getting started. Hitch is next!

  You see Amanda, I know everything you love. West was dear to you, but Hitch - you never did stop loving him, did you? The pain is going to run so much deeper when you bury him. At least he’ll be with his best pal.

  I’m so glad I got to meet you. Your dreams will be especially sweet.

  Goodbye.

  ***

  At the moment of death, all the muscles relax. The bladder and bowels empty. The skin begins to tighten, and body temperature begins to drop. In a half-hour’s time, the skin becomes a waxy purple-gray. Color fades from lips and nails. Blood pools at the lowest points in the body.

  The eyes begin sinking into the skull.

  Rigor mortis will set in after a few hours, briefly tightening the muscles before relaxing them once again. The body is in full rigor at twelve hours.

  Once a full day has passed a greenish-blue color begins to spread throughout the body. Temperature has dropped, or risen, to that of the surrounding environment. The smell starts.

  After three days, fluids begin to leak from every orifice. Blisters form on the skin due to gases in tissue; then the entire body begins to swell. The stench is unbearable.

  It had been three weeks.

  The corpses covering West had burst open, covering him in a vile slurry. Bits of decaying matter were stuck to his face and body. The flies were everywhere. Maggots rained from a burst corpse propped a few feet above him. They were squirming all over him, wriggling through rotting meat, lying in pools of unspeakable filth. West himself was lying on a bed of corpses, slowly sinking into ruptured cavities.

  He was alive.

  Someone’s blood - probably the blood of several - had been dripping down through the pyramid of bodies and into his mouth. It had kept him alive, even though he retched uncontrollably with every other swallow. Disease be damned, it was the blood or nothing. His face was encrusted with pus and other fluids. Chunks of foul meat rested on his chest, where he could reach them with his one free hand, but he didn’t dare. He wasn’t going to become a cannibal like they had been. He wasn’t an animal. He wasn’t insane.

  Maybe he was insane.

  A maggot fell onto his eyeball. He shook his head frantically from side to side. How many maggots had fallen into his mouth without him even realizing?

  They were falling from Rabbit’s eye sockets. Most of his face had been eaten. West was near the bottom of the pile, and he was able to look into several familiar faces. Each’s skull was shattered, a ragged hole left behind by the Harvester that had sucked their brains out. West was able to see them because of a luminescent fungus that had spread from Caterpillar’s eviscerated abdomen and was now growing on most of the corpses.

  He didn’t remember much about the attack. Just falling beneath Rabbit, then Caterpillar collapsing atop the both of them, and the endless, deafening screams.

  He was able to guess at how long he’d been here based on the state of the corpses. And, day by day, hour by hour, he’d been flexing his muscles, clenching his fists, turning his head, trying to keep his muscles from atrophying until he had the strength - and will - to pull himself free.

  Now was that time.

  West pushed his free hand up through the bodies overhead until he was able to thread his fingers through someone’s ribs. He closed his fist and pulled as hard as he could, bracing his feet against skulls, wrenching his opposite shoulder in an attempt to free the arm that had been pinned for weeks.

  He was moving. It was working. West’s grunts increased in volume, and he began to growl, to roar - he freed his other arm and grabbed onto Rabbit’s neck and it snapped as he hauled himself up through a slick sea of rot and clawed his way to the very top of the nightmare pyramid.

  The Hatter awaited him.

  Hatter was waist-deep in the dead, his own skull smashed and bits of gray matter poking
out into the cool air. It looked as if he’d somehow managed to pull himself away from a Harvester, salvaging his brain, if not his mind.

  The Hatter brushed his hair back and nodded to his new neighbor. “What was the name again? You’re a doctor, aren’t you? You look like a Doctor Pus to me. Did I actually know a Doctor Pus?

  “But you should try Gryphon.” He reached into the gut of an unrecognizable corpse and pulled out a handful of maggot-ridden meat. “He’d be wonderful with a spot of tea. You know, it’s not that I didn’t care for Gryphon the person - it’s just that he’s so much more agreeable as Gryphon the meal.

  “Bill’s good too,” he added, pointing to the remains beside West. “I left a little if you’re hungry.”

  West retched, but there was nothing in him. Hatter gave him a sympathetic smile. “My dear Queen is gone. I know she’d have wanted it that way - I ate her first, before she got too green. I would have never let the others see her like that.” He grinned. “You know what the best part was? Her-”

  He stopped mid-sentence, touched his bloody hands to his lips, and drew a sharp breath. “I have an idea.”

  He held out his left hand. “Why don’t you eat a bit of me, and I’ll eat a bit of you? We’re both still fresh, aren’t we? Why, we shouldn’t have to live like Neanderthals.”

  West gave him a blank stare. The Hatter thrust his palm at him. “Go ahead then. I don’t need this one.”

  He waited a few moments, then shrugged. “All right. Well, think about it. I’m going to look for Miss Cheshire. She had such a round bottom...”

  His voice reduced to a prattling mutter, the Hatter turned to dig through some guts. West quietly freed himself from the pyramid and slid down to the tunnel floor.

  There was a rope ladder visible in a shaft of light. He hadn’t seen a Harvester in at least a week; it was now about time for them to return to the sea. His patience and fortitude had paid off. He could finally leave this awful place.

  Macendale shot down the ladder and landed in a crouch. His eyes lit upon West, and he grinned from ear to ear.