by Paula Guran
Despite an abundance of joy, I occasionally dreamed of death and of things worse than death.
The second time I died was on a midsummer’s night, nine years gone. Like my father before me, I chopped a tree and it corkscrewed beyond control and crushed me to jelly. You and your mother wept. Then she disappeared. I imagine how it went – a strangled cry jolted you from nightmares. Though you desperately searched this hut, though you combed the yard and the woods, you discovered nary hide nor hair of her. You collapsed near the hearth ashes in despair. Calamity upon calamity! What would become of you?
But three nights later you opened this door to soft knocking and found me, naked and delirious upon your step. I claimed to be your uncle. What choice did you have other than accept providence? Parents dead or missing. No man to protect you, no man to provide. A girl alone in the wood is easy prey for beasts. Besides, there could be no question of our kinship. I am inalienably a Ruark. Sad to say I am also a wee bit more than that.
This second death had traversed a similar arc to the first. I envisioned an abyss of terrible cold and darkness; I floated a stream as a fingerling babe upon a half shell and was devoured alive by bitterns. I clawed back into this world in the bog just yonder. The only real difference being my transformation from toddler to graybeard occurred as I stumbled along the path to your door. You accepted me and my hastily contrived tale of prodigal uncle, home at last. Robbers stripped me and left me beaten bloody. By the grace of the gods had I managed to reach sanctuary . . .
The moment I learned of your mother’s disappearance, I finally possessed an inkling of the horrible nature of the black eggs, if not their unholy provenance. Once a man departs the mortal realm he can only be restored by the subtraction of another soul. Rebirth via the egg claimed the flesh and blood, the very consciousness, of those whom I cherished. My suspicions were confirmed when I located her skeleton in the blackberry tangles that border the meadow. My wails of anguish scattered birds from the trees. A dark cloud blotted the sun and rain lashed the field.
Full to the craw with dread, I went to the bog that twice vomited me forth and beheld the remnants of the obsidian eggs. Animals steer well clear of that plot. Pieces of broken shell lay there, perfectly preserved. After a bit of rooting around the bed of decayed leaves and mossy loam, I uncovered the third egg. It nestled in a patch of muck, glittering like a flinty gemstone prized free of the Dark Lord’s own tiara.
Gods help me, I intended to destroy the egg lest you one day feed its unnatural hunger. I failed. Each time I bore the egg away, it slipped from my pocket and reappeared in the bog by some malignant supernatural trickery. I kicked it, smashed it with my ax, piled tinder wood atop and set it ablaze. All useless; no measure so much as scratched the gods damned egg. I even resorted to prayer, if you can imagine your old man upon his knees, yammering to the invisible powers with the zeal of a penitent. What a farce.
Despite these theatrics, a small voice in my head was pleased. My soul and my thoughts are corrupted, you see. To eat of the black egg is to be damned.
Both times I’ve rowed back from the abyss, my essence mingled and consumed an innocent sacrificial soul. In the process, some essential piece of my own being was replaced. Cold and darkness seeped into my bones. That cruelly selfish portion bid me to quit my attempts to destroy the egg and speak of it no more. It promised to ease my nightmares, it swore I would forget, but only if I played the fool, the supplicant. To my everlasting shame, I heeded this whisper. Grateful as a dog for the whipping to end.
Light burn me, I’ve tried to be a good father. Once in a blue moon, I ignored my instincts and summoned the courage to perform one last valorous deed before the bell tolls an accounting. Perhaps Jon Foot’s dark magic could reverse this damnation. Too bad he’s dead and beyond the reach of all men. The names he mentioned – Julie, Ethan, Phil Wary – are mysteries that confound solution. With rare exceptions, sorcerers tend to keep a low profile.
There have been times, such as last night, fortified by loneliness for your mother, or by the powerful spirit of the jug, that I crept out to the bog and sat cross-legged in the moss and schemed of ways to slip this noose around our necks. Generally though, it’s much easier to live the life of a garrulous drunkard and cheerfully wait for fate to run its course. Yes, so much easier to not dream of bitterns pecking my eyes and balls for eternity.
Soon, I shall die. Then, I shall return and you will be gone. You will vanish as my brother and your mother did. After you, there is no one. I will reside here, an unfamiliar ghost of myself, alone.
He slumped against his pillow. The effort of reciting his tale of woe had drained the man and turned his flesh a chalky white. Bruises around his eyes and nostrils lent him the aspect of a corpse about to endure ritual mummification. He coughed. Blood speckled his beard.
The woman held his hand. The fire had burnt low, casting a shadow across her face. She said, “Uncle, I mean, Da, that was an amazing story. Especially the part about Jon Foot. Did you really meet him? Was he so very ordinary? Surely, you never met him.”
“Merciful . . . Did you listen to a word?”
“You are a sweet, confused sod. Fret not over damnation nor curses, nor phantoms. I ate the egg.”
“You what?”
“We ate the egg, to speak true. Did you suppose I slept through your blundering around the cottage at all hours? What matter to follow you? And what matter, after you’d come and gone, to examine the item you coveted in your fevered state? A great white goose egg. Pristine as snow awaiting my eager hands to pluck it from the nest. Pluck it I did; plop into my apron and borne home in a trice.”
“No.” Horror twisted his countenance. He covered his mouth against a deeper, ripping cough, and blood came freely between his fingers. “Oh, daughter. There are no geese here. No geese. Nothing lives in the bog.”
“Our luck was good,” she said with placid determination. “The omelet we enjoyed this morning contained rich red yolk and a lump of half-formed gosling to boot. Praise to the Light. It is the first meat we’ve enjoyed since you took ill.”
He moaned and tossed his head in terrible negation. The woman stroked his brow. She soothed him until he ceased thrashing. His breathing slowed. After a long while it stopped. She squeezed his hand. How sad it was to lose one’s sanity with age as one lost his or her teeth.
She wiped her eyes and composed herself. There were practical matters to attend, such as acquiring a husband to chop wood and hunt game and run off the ever-lurking bandits. Pickings were slim in this neck of the woods, so she’d long delayed accepting a suitor. Now she feared it would come down to one of the inbred Slawson brothers or a gap-toothed hick from among the Smyths who dwelt a couple of hollows over . . .
The dog growled. His mangy fur stiffened until he was more porcupine than mutt. The woman told him to be still and then the shake roof peeled away with a grinding clatter. The stars were gone, replaced by a sky that glowed hellish red. A bittern, as tall and wide as a windmill, warbled mightily and slithered its long neck and broadsword of a bill through the gap and skewered the man’s corpse, lifted him on high, and flicked him back down its throat. A second bird echoed the hunting cry and muscled in, its smooth dark eye glinting with the murderous crimson light of the firmament.
“Well, shit,” the woman said. The black bill unhinged as it plunged to take her.
Gradually the swollen red light dimmed and stars sprinkled the heavens. The dog waited until he hadn’t heard any more screams or those piss-inducing bird cries for a while. He crept from beneath a table and sniffed around warily. Cold hearth, empty beds, no humans but for their fading scents. Tragic, although the mongrel had only wandered into the yard that spring. Scraps were less than plentiful of late, and the woodcutter had been free with his hobnail boot after a few drinks, so the dog wasn’t overly invested in the arrangement.
He jumped through the open window and trotted away into the night.
Crawford Tillinghast, a researcher of t
he “physical and metaphysical,” appears in H. P. Lovecraft’s “From Beyond.” It is the first of several stories with the theme – to quote S. T. Joshi – of “a reality beyond that revealed to us by the senses, or that which we experience in everyday life.” John Shirley – who has also written several works of fiction with that as a subject, perhaps most notably in his novel Wetbones – uses “From Beyond” as a springboard for this imaginative tale. Shirley also recalls being enchanted by “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath” around age thirteen: “I’ve used Lovecraft’s concept of psychic exploring in novels like Bleak History and Demons.” His original Lovecraftian stories have appeared in many anthologies including Black Wings II, World War Cthulhu, The Madness of Cthulhu, Searchers After Horror, Innsmouth Nightmares, Gothic Lovecraft, and periodicals such as Weird Tales and Spectral Realms.
Emmy-nominated Shirley is the author of the Bram Stoker Award-winning collection Black Butterflies and the highly regarded collections Living Shadows and In Extremis, as well as over thirty novels and numerous short stories. His latest dark fantasy novel is Doyle After Death. A collection of his Lovecraftian fiction is forthcoming. John Shirley was co-writer of the movie The Crow and has written television including scripts for Poltergeist: The Legacy. His Lovecraftian-themed lyrics for the song “The Old Gods Return” (and others) were recorded by the Blue Öyster Cult.
Just Beyond the Trailer Park
John Shirley
——
I seen that Mr. Tillinghast since I was a five-year-old boy. Now I’m almost twelve, I finally I know him.
Mr. Tillinghast got that old house of his granddad’s just cranked up off its foundations and moved over here from Benevolent Street because they was going to tear it down, him being behind on some taxes and it being ugly and not fitting in over there and ordinances. That’s what Providence town people said about it. So he got it up on those jacks they used, and had a big tractor-trailer pull it over here, next door to the Cumberland Glory Trailer Park. We’re out by the new Walmart. My dad said there’s a money end of Cumberland Avenue and a no-money end. We’re at that no-money end.
My dad said Mr. Tillinghast must have a big ol’ bucket of money to do that. Said he would talk to him. My mom was drunk asleep, I didn’t want to stay around with the TV broke and Mama snoring with her mouth open, so I decided to follow Dad down there, and he never noticed if I did that.
It was cold out, but no snow yet. When I went out the door I wished I had a coat on but it was lost in that mess on the closet floor.
I followed and I seen Dad talking to a man strapping boxes from the back of his big car to one of those hand trucks. The man was dressed in a sweater and slacks and a bowtie. First time I saw a bowtie except on Mr. Rogers. That man did not act like Mr. Rogers.
Dad said, “I could help you carry them boxes in, won’t charge you for that. But I do some handy work for cash, now ‘n’ then.”
“Don’t touch those boxes,” the man said. He had white hair cut real short, like he didn’t want to bother with it. Even though he had white hair he had a young face. But also when he frowned he looks older, hella older. You can’t tell a lot for sure about Mr. Tillinghast till you know him some.
“Well if there’s anything else I can do,” Dad said. “Glad to help. My name’s Lenny Forest. Live right next door.” He had his hands stuck in his pockets when he said it because it was cold. I could see his breath coming out like smoke. “I’m in trailer seven over there, in Cumberland.”
That’s exactly what he said, too. I remember everything, always. My mom says I’ve got a memory like flypaper. I remember what the emergency doctor said when I was two and I had that virus and I remember what people said when I was three and four.
When Mr. Tillinghast just frowned some more like he wanted my dad to leave, Dad said, “I sure was blown away, seeing you wheel this whole house out here. Look at that, you already got the crew to set it down on foundations, and she’s all set. Everything running okay?”
Mr. Tillinghast looked at the house with his eyes real squinty. “Fools didn’t get the pipes right. Water’s not right running.”
“You don’t say! I’ve done my share of plumbing and I got the tools. How about I hook it up for you, and you can pay me a hundred dollars, cash, if it’s done right and not before then. How’d that be?”
“And if you make it worse?”
“I won’t. But if I do, I’ll get people in to fix it.”
Even back then I wondered who that would be, who my dad could get in there to fix it. He was bluffing I guess.
“I have no time to fix pipes.” Mr. Tillinghast made a grunting sound. “So be it then.”
I never heard anyone say so be it but Mr. Tillinghast.
“You come in one hour,” he said, “and I’ll show you where the pipes are. You will come around to the back.” Then Mr. Tillinghast went on with hand trucking his boxes.
My dad turned around to go home and he saw me and got mad that I was standing there staring with my finger in my nose and yelled at me, “Get your ass home, Vester!” My name’s Sylvester, after Sylvester Stallone, but they call me Vester or Ves.
Dad was about to give me a smack but I ran home, wondering what was up with that man who trucked his big house into the lot on the other side of the maples. I was in a trailer park and I knew you could move those houses but I was amazed anyone could move a big one like that. It looked like it could tip over if you pushed it. Two and a half stories tall, and missing most of its white paint and all kind of squeezed together looking.
Now looking back, I wonder that Mr. Tillinghast trusted my dad, that day, because Dad had old sneakers on, and no socks, and his raggedy jeans and Iron Maiden T-shirt. It was cold but Dad didn’t have the sense to put his jacket on, and he was grownup. And he had all those tats on his arms and that beardy face. But then again, I found out later that Mr. Tillinghast didn’t trust anyone who wrote stuff down about him. You get some guy from a fancy-ass plumbing company – like Cumberland Glory has for maintenance – they always look like they’re writing things down.
Dad fixed that pipe all right and Mr. Tillinghast paid him and we went and had hamburgers and French fries and milk shakes that night. Sometimes Dad went over there and cut the grass on the lot, for twenty dollars, so the city people wouldn’t come and bother Mr. Tillinghast about the yard ordinance.
But I heard my dad say more than once, “That’s not a friendly man, that Tillinghast.”
My dad wasn’t always friendly neither, especially when he was smoking the glass pipe and drinking. He would do that and stop doing it and do it and stop doing it. He couldn’t just forever stop doing it. Sometimes he went to special meetings about it and then he’d stop smoking for a while. When he started again, my mom bitched at him about it and he would give my mom a “teaching smack” on the face. But then when he was in the stop-doing-it time, he was okay and he would do some work in construction. He took me to see The Expendables 4 at the mall when he got in a check, just last year. He’d drive me to school sometimes, because the bus stop is so far from here. I liked going to school and he told me once he thought it was good I liked it. “Me,” he said, “I never liked it. Wished I did.”
But he would start up smoking the glass again. So late spring last year, he got taken to jail, because of not wanting the repo to tow his truck off, and he hit that repo guy with the tire iron, and fought the police when they came, and broke a cop’s collarbone. They tazed him, and cuffed him, and I haven’t seen him since, except one visit with Mom.
He won’t be back till I’m twenty-seven because it was also some kind of probation violation, and because he was holding, and because of assault on a police officer, and assault on the repo guy, and resisting arrest.
My mom’s still around, but she likes to drink, and sometimes there’s pills, too. She’s asleep a lot. She has a boyfriend, part time, since last month. She goes to his apartment.
I have a sister, Dusty, who’s fifteen, but she left w
ith Barron from Trailer 2, they took his dad’s old El Dorado and we haven’t seen them for almost a year. Mom hates Barron. She cries and talks about killing him when she’s about half a gallon into that red Carlo Rossi.
I saw Mr. Tillinghast many times, but didn’t talk to him till last year. I heard the humming from his house and the sound like way too many bees, but it didn’t bother me. Other people in the park said the humming and buzzing would shake their trailers and give them headaches. Mom didn’t seem to notice it but she used to live next to a stock car racetrack.
I could feel it when he was running machines that made the humming and that noise like too many bees buzzing. It was a weird feeling, but not so bad. It gave me dreams that were better than some movies I’ve seen. I called it the dream hum. I wasn’t even really asleep when that happened – just halfway. The hum and the buzz gave me ideas, too, but it’s hard to explain what they were. But I always liked to look in the back of televisions and radios and Bebe’s dad told me sometimes how they work and I looked up some on the school internet.
Now Dulesta Finch, she’s my Mom’s friend, from across the park. Her daughter is my friend Bebe.
On the Fourth of July, last year, I heard Dulesta say, when we were at their barbecue, that Mr. Greel who owns Cumberland Glory was going to send the police over to the Tillinghast house because he said it wasn’t zoned for some equipment, and that kind of gear could interfere with airplanes flying over. And she said she heard on the news some pilots were having radio trouble, when they were flying over here.