Machina Mortis: Steampunk'd Tales of Terror

by Derwin, Theresa

  She breathed deeply the sweet scent of the lavender, allowed it to fill her senses. She washed herself vigorously, eradicating all traces of the asylum and of the train.

  She closed her eyes and lay back in the hot water and let the scent of the lavender lull her.

  She gradually realized, in a haze of perfumed mist, that she was feeling fingers brushing over her body, and she knew dimly that it wasn’t possible, that she couldn’t be feeling his hands on her skin, she couldn’t be feeling the heat of his mouth upon her breast…

  She knew she must have fallen asleep in the warm water, knew it could only be in sleep that her arms reached for him.

  And then the hands were pushing her down and Amelie gasped and water filled her mouth and she began to choke and more water poured over her as her head slipped beneath…

  …and there was no one there, but his hands held her down…

  …and the bitter taste of lavender oil…

  …Alexander…

  But the door was shut and she could make no sound and Alexander had gone to dress and he couldn’t hear the sounds she couldn’t make…

  ***

  A long, slim brass cylinder was selected for the bomb’s casing, and Random fashioned an igniter and timer out of the assorted cogs and gears that cluttered the marble table. The tea things stood neglected and cold on the sideboard as the two men worked feverishly to complete the device. They worked quickly and efficiently, with a minimum of spoken communication.

  Aether would add the same punch to the bomb’s gunpowder as it had to the gunpowder in the American cannons so many years ago. A glass tube contained the aether, and the tube would break when the timing device did its job. The timing device itself was a corposant candle, pared down to a mere stub. Random wrapped wires around both the candle and the aether-filled tube. Once the stub of candle had absorbed a certain amount of static—to be generated by Amelie’s ceraunoscope—the candle would then overheat the wiring, shattering the glass tube. The aether would then explode in conjunction with the explosion of gunpowder, and the bomb would detonate. Several smaller brass cylinders lined the inside of the main cylinder, each of them filled with yet more gunpowder as well as nails and small gears and anything else the two could find to serve as lethal shrapnel.

  All that remained now was to take Amelie into the valley tomorrow…

  ***

  The bomb was assembled in less time than Alex had expected it to take. He found himself beginning to form a grudging respect for Random Stanbury, a man he’d loathed for some time now.

  A quick breath of seawind spun through the parlor, and Alex heard a cry, his name cried in terror and blunt pain, and he did not pause even to see whether Stanbury followed behind.

  ***

  Alex tore her from the rapidly cooling water of her bath, from the water snaked with twirling ribbons of blood, and as she came up into his arms she bent forward and vomited forth all the fragrant water she had swallowed, and he carried her to her bedroom.

  Frantically, he searched for any signs of a wound to explain the bloody bathwater, and at last found a blood-ridden mark in the flesh of her left palm. It was no longer bleeding.

  He realized belatedly that Amelie was lying, soaked, on all of her blankets, he hadn’t thought of that when he’d laid her down. He ran to his room, grabbed his own comforter and took it in to her. He covered her and tried his best to dry her, and she didn’t protest, only stared at him with wide and frightened eyes, dread-filled eyes that seemed to look now not at him, but beyond him.

  “What is it? What do you see?” He turned to look, and saw nothing. Where the hell was Stanbury?

  With his words, her eyes flicked at last to his face, and she began to shiver.

  “How did you know I needed you?” Her voice was barely a whisper.

  “You called my name.”

  She shook her head, and with that simple denial a chill drove down his spine.

  “Yes, Amelie, you did. I heard you clearly. I’m surprised Mrs. Briggs has not come running.”

  “Alexander, I didn’t…”

  “All right, imp, all right. Now tell me what happened to your hand.”

  She looked at her hand with confusion. “I don’t know. I dozed, I think, and slid under the water, and panicked. I must have cut my hand somehow.”

  …and what did you see behind me, Amelie, a moment ago? What did you see?…

  He pulled her hand toward himself for a better look. The angry red mark in her skin could be clearly seen. It looked vaguely like a comet, complete with an arcing trailing tail. It almost looked like a brand.

  He kissed her palm, then looked into her eyes. “Imp, I want to suggest something to you, something you will not like at all. Your fiance and myself would like to take you into the valley and try to trap and kill your Cadachlod.”

  Her eyes, which had been increasingly lifeless in recent months, deadened almost absolutely now. She held his gaze as she nodded.

  ***

  Oak and maple and elm grew in profusion in the valley, interspersed with rhododendron and yew. A lake, immense and shining and lapis and azure and silver, lay in the valley’s center like a jewel in a richly embroidered tapestry. Hills rose gently on all sides. The valley’s floor was carpeted with soft grass, mossy and deep. Peonies, cowslips, daffodils and wild hyacinth dotted the hillsides, sharing the valley with anemone and wild roses and heartsease. And over all of it, mocking the three who walked now into the valley’s midst, was a bright, shining sun.

  Their boots crunched through the undergrowth, breaking an occasional twig, and it sounded like snapping bones. The only birdsong to be heard was the high and distant shriek of a falcon on the hunt. No small animals came out to watch them pass. The forest, green and lush and blossoming, felt like a dying thing.

  Or, Random reflected grimly, a frightened thing.

  “We’re being watched,” Amelie whispered suddenly, an edge of panic in her voice.

  He knew she was right. The clear, straight path they were following was too clear, too straight. They were being escorted down into the clearing near the lake. He’d known it all along, but it had been comforting to hope otherwise.

  The stillness of the forest pressed in upon them, touched them with heavy hands, but they continued walking along the too-clear path.

  A gentle breeze was blowing, but they were cautious as they emerged from the dubious cover of the forest. Sweet breezes were no guarantee that evil did not hover nearby.

  And so Random wasn’t in the least surprised when the breeze was suddenly a frozen gust that tore leaves from trees, tore fresh green leaves from trees, and he wasn’t in the least surprised when those verdant leaves blew over Amelie and covered her over in a cape of obscuring rustling malevolence. Leaves rushed past him and around him and over him and hurled themselves upon Amelie in a frenzied storm. Amelie’s hand was torn from his and she fell.

  He knelt and flung the stinging leaves aside and pulled Amelie up and into his arms. She wrapped her arms about his neck and laid her head against his shoulder. He could feel her fading from him even as he carried her.

  A low snarl carried to them and for a moment Random thought Amelie had made the sound. And then the snarl became lower yet, until it was a growl, deep in a throat. It came from across the valley. Random looked at Alex over Amelie’s head. “We have to turn back. On the hillside we can perhaps unbalance the thing.”

  Alex nodded, and without another word they turned back. Alex took Amelie from him and now carried her, freeing Random to fish in his bag and grasp the brass cylinder of the bomb. As they continued forward the sound caught up to them, darting over the valley and rising steadily in timbre until it was almost directly over Random’s shoulder. He didn’t turn his head, but kept moving.

  And then came a breath, hot and putrid, that stirred his hair, and still he refused to stop or to turn and see. He glanced at Amelie in Alex’s arms, and her warm amber eyes were immense with terror, and her skin was ashen,
and he knew she’d looked behind them, knew she’d seen.

  By the time they reached the briars and thorns on the hill’s crest, the snarl had risen in pitch until it was a howl directly in his ear. He felt the brush of flesh against his face, and the foulness of the thing’s breath was overpowering.

  And then all was silent, a silence so utter and penetrating that Random spun to look behind them and it was there, it was there, Cadachlod was inches from Alex, and Cadachlod was putrescent rotting flesh and Cadachlod was yellowed teeth and decay and rotten greenblack flesh.

  A towering, moldering thing stood there. Flesh blackened by mold rippled and pulled apart on the thing’s arms, and the parchment skin tore and split even as they watched. Putrid green flesh, rotting before their eyes.

  Cadachlod’s head was a thinly covered skull, and long black hair hung limply to his shoulders. His eyes were feral. His tongue was a mass of rotten tissue.

  And Cadachlod reached out and his fingers were long, oddly jointed claws, and the flesh of his hands rubbed and sloughed across Alexander’s cheeks as Cadachlod’s hands gripped his face.

  Amelie was screaming, she’d fallen from Alex’s arms, she stood by his side, clutching at him and screaming.

  And then one of Cadachlod’s hands no longer gripped Alexander’s face but was forcing three fingers past his teeth and into his mouth and over his tongue and Alex was retching but it did no good, there was nowhere for the bile to go past the blocking fingers, and from the look on his face Random knew that he had swallowed the bile back and with it had come shreds of dead flesh.

  Seizing the only chance he knew he was going to get, Random triggered the timer on the bomb. He leapt upon Cadachlod’s back and grabbed its head and with a swift, brutal twist he pulled its head back. Alex immediately gripped the monster’s mouth and wrenched its jaws as wide as possible, and Random drove the brass cylinder of the bomb as deeply down the creature’s throat as he could. Screaming now, Cadachlod tried to throw them off, but the adrenaline-driven strength of the two men would not be denied.

  The cylinder gave off a brief glow as the trapped ceraunoscope began to emit static somewhere in the bomb’s bowels. The candle would soon be blue, ready to release its temporary load of energy. They had run out of time. With a desperate shout, Random pounded on the cylinder, knowing full well that his actions alone could set the device off, but finally, finally, Cadachlod’s throat worked convulsively and the cylinder vanished down the creature’s gullet.

  “Run!” Random shouted, leaping from the monster’s back and grabbing Amelie’s hand, and together the three of them sprinted back down the hillside into the valley. An enormous sound reached their ears before they’d gone thirty feet, and the shock of the explosion sent them tumbling to the grass.

  Amelie whimpered in his arms, and Random released her, sat up and looked up the hillside. Burning, smoking black flesh dotted the hillside, and Random cheered. “We’ve done it, Tamnais! We’ve done it!”

  There was no answering cheer from the Tamnais siblings. Random turned and looked down at them. And fell to his knees in horror.

  Amelie lay on her back, blood pooling around her. Alex knelt by her side, his hands slick with his sister’s blood. Even as Random pulled Amelie into his arms, she flung her head back and began screaming, and the sound was the sound of everything ending.

  Cadachlod had torn at the flesh on her back as they fled, he saw that now, and her skin hung in strips. Blood flowed freely from the wounds. Amelie’s breathing was rapidly becoming labored and gasping. Random bent down and kissed her, deeply, and she responded eagerly, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  And with a last gasp, Amelie Tamnais breathed no more.

  ***

  Rain, stinging and fierce, lashed down without mercy upon the new grave, knocking bits from the mound and washing them away. Did she feel the rain, he wondered, clutching his posy of gillyflowers, of dog roses, of sweet yellow thyme. So often, he wondered if she was aware, somehow, of him, of life, of breath. Dear God…

  He knelt and flung the flowers to the head of the grave, a low moan of rage breaking from his throat. He began tearing at the soil that hid her from him, fury and loss welling within him. Earth and rain muddied his gloved fingers, and the scent of the loamy ground was a heavy and iron bite in his mouth.

  He fell over the mound, his greatcoat covering the grave like protective wings, and pressed his cheek to the savaged soil. He could feel the summer rain falling on his face, but he felt it at a distance. Without Amelie, there was no real awareness, no real sensation of being alive at all.

  He closed his eyes, and Amelie’s face was there in his mind, so close…so close…

  ***

  When he opened his eyes, it was to feel the summer rain still falling upon his face. He lay motionless, unwilling to disturb this moment of leavetaking, sharp and pure and unforgiving. The earth under him was wet, clinging, seductive. Amelie was there, somewhere beneath him…

  …Amelie…

  The rain increased in intensity. He braced himself against the grave and pushed himself to his knees. Twilight was gathering swift about him; night would soon fall. And Amelie would be alone here, no stone sentinel tomb to shelter her. She would be alone…

  A chill descended through his soaked garments, and he began to tremble.

  And there on a hilltop, outlined against dying day, a man in mourning-black, kneeling upon Amelie’s solitary grave, his head bowed, his body rigid. His hair, heavy with rain, hanging about his eyes. His form a menhir of grief, a shield and a watch in the marches of the lifeless.

  Patterns

  By Drew Dunlap

  He stared at the ceiling.

  Leaning back in his oversized leather chair, he slowly rocked back and forth, his body swaying rhythmically with the wormlike creatures swimming around on the ceiling overhead. Their slick, bloated bodies swirled along the custom stucco patterns. He always thought one might drop down with a thick thud on his desk, but it never did. Still, it was enough to remind him to close his mouth as he stared, mesmerized. He often wondered where they came from, these watery grubs. Long ago he had given up trying to get rid of them. When he reached toward them with any object – his cane, a mechanical candlestick, even one time the fireplace poker – they simply parted as if they were part of a larger creature avoiding his attempts to knock them down. He had never tried with his hands. He knew that they would attach themselves to him, and that would be the end. No, he never tried to touch them with his hand.

  Three light, quick chimes sounded from a small mechanical device on his desk, causing him to look down. The gears turned, swirling around like the worms. And without looking back up, he knew they were still swarming, these creatures of his nightmares, slithering above his head. They were always there, waiting for him. Waiting for him to reach. To reach up.

  But he had more important things to worry about today.

  The chimes announced the time each day when his old friend came around to visit. Today they would go to the park. He often did not want to go to the park, but he knew today was different. It was warm today, though the news-ticker machine had clicked out a warning earlier that morning cautioning residents to take their re-breathers with them if travelling outside. But he really did not have a choice. The park it would be.

  With thoughts of the park, the old man’s hand went to his chest. He fumbled around until he could feel the heavy weight resting against his breastbone. The talisman on the end of the necklace felt cold even through his thick wool vest and button-down shirt. But it was a solid comfort. He closed his eyes, remembering his mentor holding open the mahogany box that contained the talisman. He reached for the thick leather strap and lifted up the bronze casing that surrounded the heavy, rune-etched stone. His mentor explained its use and warned of its power. Within the hour, his mentor lay dead at his feet as blood dripped from his cane sword.

  But, no.

  Truly, it was not his mentor who died at his hand. He watched th
e abomination tear his mentor’s soul from his body and rise up again in the corpse’s shell. That was his first vision of the beasts. But surely he has been forsaken by God, as it was only the beginning.

  “Etruz fahegit k’rasha,” he whispered in a low, raspy voice, his eyes still closed. Then a tiny rap sounded from the doorway.

  His eyes flashed open. He squeezed his lips together and tried to swallow, but his throat was dry. Slowly he closed the tome in front of him, dust rising up around the brittle edges of parchment even with his gentle handling. He pulled a large kerchief over the top of the tome, protecting its worn, leathery cover.

  Another soft rap.

  Without turning, he reached behind him for his cane. He felt the smooth bronze head, comfortable in his grasp. From the corner of his eye, he saw a shadow move, stepping out as if to charge, but pulling back again. He turned his head quickly, but it was gone. It always was. “Not this time, you bastard,” he said, his voice gravelly from dryness and fatigue.

  A muffled voice came from behind the door. “Professor? May I enter, sir?”

  His gaze flashed back to the door. He wanted to slip the sword from his cane and ram it through the rich, expensive panels. Striking again and again as blood poured through each hole he created. The screams echoed through his mind from a memory. It was long ago. Blood pouring through the door. Keep stabbing!

  “Grandfather?” she said a little more gently. She knew he allowed her to call him Grandfather as long as no one else was around.