Such strange, wrong angles. Attempting to focus on them made Mercer dizzy and—if he stared too long—queasy, as if he had been spun in a giant centrifuge. A disconcerting, alien sensation, yet one to which he had become inured over the years.
“Okay, Grand-dad. You ready?”
Ike Badden’s voice at his ear. He nodded. Then he felt his arms being pulled back, around the thick post behind him, the rope encircling his wrists and going taut. His shoulders and biceps screamed at being stretched too far, but he knew that in a short time numbness would set in, and his perceptions would be diverted to other things. Ike touched his shoulder, gentle and reassuring.
“Sorry about that.”
“To be expected.”
Ike nodded and moved on, securing each of the others, in turn, to the supporting posts, the tide now creeping up to swirl teasingly around their bare feet. Once he had finished, making sure all were tied tightly but with as little discomfort as possible, he gave them all a wistful look, took his torch, and began padding back up the beach toward the cabin.
“I’ll be back in an hour or so.”
“No sooner,” his brother Steve called after him. “I’ll call to you so you know the way is clear.”
“If you’re able,” Kelly said in a barely audible voice.
“One of us will.”
It wouldn’t be long now. Each wave now trespassed farther, groping for high ground, the water reaching Mercer’s shins, then his knees. Its touch was cool but not frigid, bracing enough to partially counter the vertigo that came when he gazed at twisted angles at the distant end of the pier. He forced himself to lock his eyes on its black center, despite the discomfort, knowing it was the way to ensure that he—and his companions—were noticed on the other side.
Something seemed to be drawing the air from his lungs: a kind of powerful suction. He could tell by the chorus of sharp gasps that the others felt the same thing; it always happened this way, at the merging of disparate dimensions. His heart began to thud, harder, faster, excitement building, turning darker, more fearful. Only moments to go, he knew, for his breath was gone, his chest on the verge of collapse, muscles jellied, body heavy, supported now only by the taut, binding rope.
The lure was next on the way. Mercer anticipated it before actually becoming aware of it. A stream of sensations, in his body and in his mind; gentle, warm caresses; light fragrances of citrus and evergreen; eerie sounds, like wistful, ethereal music: a siren’s song, beckoning him to break free of his bonds, to leap into the waves and swim out to meet the darkness. All these things, designed to draw him to that other domain.
There. Something was stirring at the farthest reaches of the pier. Black emerging from black, shadow separating from shadow, it moved, crablike, out of the abyss and into their three-dimensional world, its hellish contours standing out against the swirling white foam at the base of the pylons. Yet, Mercer knew, anyone looking at the pier from a different perspective—from any view other than straight-on—would see no trace of the otherworldly intruder. Nor, by all indications, could it see them. Witnessing the juxtaposition of dimensions required the proper angle.
A long time ago, his grandfather, Timothy, had constructed the pier as a bridge, employing angles that broke through the curvature of time and space, to connect this very spot with another universe. Once each year, when the moon and the tide were right, the creature came to feed; not only on their bodies but on their spirits, or souls, or whatever resided inside them that made them who they were.
It clattered toward them but could only come so far, to a point where Mercer’s grandfather had constructed some kind of barrier. No, for the creature to feed, they had to go to it, thus the lure it sent out. But it kept creeping forward, getting bigger and blacker, until he could see several vague, greenish points of light, weaving and wavering in the flickering torchlight, staring at him, transmitting to him. His mind’s eye saw an endless gulf, filled with jewel-like stars and bright, feathery whorls of astral matter, blazing like fiery clouds some unfathomable distance away. The image wavered, as if it had been projected on a windblown sheet, became murky, and then transformed into a grassy valley, with blue, craggy mountains erupting into a cerulean sky. Someone—a woman—was walking at the edge of a nearby tree line, and soon Mercer recognized her as Sara Wakefield, Ted’s mother.
Ted’s father, Del, had been the first of their group to succumb to the creature’s lure.
Sara appeared to notice him, and her lips spread in a pleasant, welcoming smile. He knew that the creature was feeding him these scenes, these moments stolen from its victims’ memories; the image of Sara originated from Del’s consciousness, many years gone now, but somehow retained by that monstrous hulk clinging to the pier.
He knew that time passed very differently in that other dimension. They had determined this when it had killed Keida Henry, Jack’s mother, twenty-three years ago. The following year, when the thing returned, it still held in its barbed claws Keida’s severed head, scarcely any more damaged or decomposed than when it had been plucked from her body.
To it, the many decades since its first appearance must have been a span of days or weeks. But it had been long enough since the thing had fed for it to be agitated. Desperate. Perhaps even starving.
The images of the past wavered and vanished. He could now see the thing moving closer than he remembered ever seeing it. The scrabbling, clattering sounds of its claws on the wood made him feel as sick as the vertigo had. What if the barrier had somehow fallen? After so many years, might weather have caused the pier’s supports to shift, altering the angles, however subtly, enough to allow the thing passage?
But then it stopped and emitted a harsh, grating rattle, its rage palpable, its hunger so powerful Mercer could feel it in his own gut. It was starving.
Might this truly be the last time?
Barely illuminated by the torchlight, Jack and Rachael, closest to the creature, struggled furiously against their bonds—not to flee but to rush to the thing, their minds overwhelmed by a ferocious new psychic barrage. Despite so many years of steeling himself against its influence, Mercer could feel the lure in his brain—the ironic, sweet, beckoning song, like a choir of angels—and he became aware of his hands, twisting and tugging in their bonds. Ike’s knots would hold. They had to hold.
Then the impossible happened. He saw Rachael’s flailings become more animated. Her arms were moving, pulling away from her pylon, the rope getting slacker and slacker. As the knots loosened, her struggles grew fiercer, more determined, and then Jack was screaming her name, trying to break the spell. The others’ voices combined in a cacophonous refrain.
“Rachael! No!”
“Stop! Stop struggling!”
Mercer’s voice joined the others; a mere reflex, for he knew it could be of no use. Her wrists were almost free now, and with each violent tug, she dragged herself closer and closer to the giant silhouette waiting in the shadows and angles of the pier. He saw its fore claws spreading wide in anticipation and heard a crackling, splintering sound that must have been its voice, rising in exultation. Then the ropes fell away and Rachael was free. She started to slog through the breakers, her movements mechanical, her eyes focused on the darkness ahead, her ears deaf to their screamed entreaties. She was only a few steps from the thing, which appeared to extend itself as far as it could through the barrier, and Mercer knew it was all over for her.
Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed motion, something streaking through the darkness, and then Ike Badden materialized before him, splashing toward Rachael, shouting her name. He grabbed her by one arm, jerked her backward, and began pulling her away from the horror, back toward the shore. She fought against him, still in the monster’s thrall, but Mercer saw something in her eyes changing, becoming aware. Her face, at first as blank as stone, changed to a mélange of revulsion, dread, and relief. She tore herself from Ike’s protective embrace and staggered up the beach, away from the pier, her hands going to her ea
rs, as if they might block the increasingly agitated song being transmitted to her brain.
Mercer felt a brief surge of hope at the reprieve, but then he realized that Ike had placed himself squarely beneath the pier, and now he was the focus of the creature’s attention. His face went as blank as Rachael’s had been, and just as she had, he turned toward the black waves and, unsteady on his feet, began to trudge through the water toward the outstretched claws.
“Ike!” His brother’s voice rose, frantic and shrill. “Stop! No! No!” Steve Badden writhed and jerked against the pylon, his bonds as unbreakable as steel cable. “Come back!”
This time, Mercer knew, there was no hope. Ike waded into water that reached his waist, then his chest, his body battered but unfaltering as he pressed on through the breaking waves. The huge, black silhouette loomed over him, and only when, with a clacking, creaking sound, the great claws came down and closed around his body did the angelic choir in their minds fall silent. Then Ike was thrashing, screaming, his brother’s voice rising along with his in a piercing harmony. The crablike shape turned and at high speed began to scrabble back toward the far spiral of blackness that opened the way to its own distant province, and within moments, Steve Badden’s screams were the only sound to rise above the pounding of the surf.
Eventually, Steve stopped screaming. Kelly whimpered a few times before lapsing into stunned silence. Ted seemed to be frozen with shock. Jack was sobbing softly—remembering his mother, Mercer thought. If he had lost Rachael tonight, that would have been the end of him.
All Mercer’s energy had fled, and his head sagged, his chin to his chest. All these years’ efforts, now undone, the thing once again nourished and renewed. Perhaps it would be better to burn the pier after all; maybe they could settle for not knowing whether the thing from beyond might survive. Certainly, now it would survive—probably longer than he would.
All words, all thought gone, they faced the now-empty blackness beyond the twisted angles of the pier. The waves roared, hissed, and sighed, breaking and curling amid the crooked pilings, the whitecaps forming leering, mocking grins in the vast expanse of night.
The water was cold now. Mercer could only hope that, at some point, Rachael would have the wits to return and cut the ropes that bound them to the pier like a few bits of drenched, half-dead bait.
He had lived through this before. Perhaps, next year, they would find it in themselves to begin again.
Stephen Mark Rainey is author of the novels BALAK, THE LEBO COVEN, DARK SHADOWS: DREAMS OF THE DARK (with Elizabeth Massie), THE NIGHTMARE FRONTIER, BLUE DEVIL ISLAND, and THE MONARCHS; over 90 published works of short fiction; five short-fiction collections; and several audio dramas for Big Finish Productions based on the DARK SHADOWS TV series, featuring several original cast members. For ten years, he edited the award-winning DEATHREALM magazine and has edited anthologies for Chaosium, Arkham House, and Delirium Books. Mark lives in Greensboro, NC. He is an avid geocacher, which oftentimes places him in some pretty scary settings. Visit his website at www.stephenmarkrainey.com.
Story illustration by Leslie Harker.
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An Eidolon of Filth
by W.H. Pugmire
The beast came to me at midnight, as I assumed he would. I had been on a two-month excursion to Europe, with most of my time spent with an acquaintance in Italy, and I had returned with a fascinating little book and an unusual relic. I had enjoyed myself to the full – knowing that, due to my advanced age, this was likely to be my final trip abroad. I did not mind that this was so. My parents had brought me to Sesqua Valley eighty years ago, when I was but a child; ending my days within its fantastic shadow was a happy, peaceful thought. As long as the beast remained among us, my days would not prove uneventful.
“Agatha Norris – welcome home. I would have come sooner, but I have been away, to New England.” I had not heard him enter my abode, but I had sensed his presence in the room, and his peculiar odor. He smelled of the valley, a pungent sweetness that was quite outré compared to anything in the outside world. I had been absent from the valley long enough that the smell affected me, as it disturbs those outsiders who first encounter it. I turned and nodded to him as he leaned against the wall near to the French windows through which he had entered my cottage. Beyond the tall windows I could see the moonlit garden that spread behind my residence, the sight of which inspired me to walked past him and out into the moonlit patch. The perfume of the blooms helped to counter the syrupy tang of Sesqua Valley.
“I’ve been back for over one month, beast. To what do I owe this singular visit? You have rarely paid me any attention in all my years here.”
I did not look at him but heard him sigh. “I heard that you were visiting an alchemist in Italy. Such a magnificent country, so overflowing with elder ways and esoteric secrets. I am, of course, curious about anything you may have gleaned in matters of necromantic art. Is he profound in learning, this person you stayed with?”
I could not help but laugh a little at his method, it was so obvious. “Ah, but you know Andreas, Simon. You visited his abbey ruins in 1897. He speaks of it still, your performance quite startled him. He thinks you pilfered a book from his library.”
The beast discarded the accusation with an irritable sniff. “His collection was then magnificent. Andreas has a talent for sniffing out the remarkable thing. But he’s more a collector than a magus – preferring to sit in his soft chair and read the formulae to himself rather than conjuring forth their properties. I find it inexplicable – to have an interest in Outside matters that does not inspire one to speak strange language to the hills or make covert signals to the moon. What is the use of all that learning if one keeps it locked within one’s cranium?”
Reaching into the deep pocket of my dress, I fondled the small red book sequestered there. “He still has a knack for finding the fascinating thing. We went into an innocuous shop that sold old furniture, where there were some few antique pieces. There was this extraordinary thing, a combination of bureau and bookcase, fantastically painted. The seller had no idea of its age or worth and allowed us to plunder it. The doors to the bookcase portion, you see, had been sealed shut and were difficult to open. Andreas sensed something, his instincts had been aroused, and thus he began to work at the doors with the deadly ritual dagger that he is never without. At last, there was the sound of splitting wood as one of the doors cracked open. The noise alarmed the seller, but Andreas hushed him by producing a large wad of bills with which to purchase the piece. I could tell by the way my friend’s eyes burned that he had known that we would find the marvelous old book that rested on the topmost shelf behind the painted door. How the seller hooted at us as we departed with just the book, leaving behind the purchased bureau.”
I paused in my story and admired the way Simon’s eyes shimmered with lunatic expectation. And yet I had wearied of playing with the beast, and so I removed my hand from the pocket and held the small book to moonlight. “Ah!” he exclaimed.
“Alas, no. The book is in cipher, and we could not crack it. That it is some kind of alchemical journal, some necromantic diary, is obvious because of the way it excited my friend’s enthusiasm. He is far more remarkable a wizard than you give him credit for. But this thing – well, it’s inscrutable.” Shrugging, I tossed the item to him, and he hummed as he caught it and began to study its pages.
“Oh, but I have seen something similar to this, from the library of Curwen in Providence. He corresponded with many European alchemists. Perhaps…”
I shrugged again. “I have no use of it, and thought perhaps it may amuse you. Accept it as a gift from an ancient friend.”
“Many thanks. I will do just that.” He raised his eyes and sneered. “But this bright moonlight is too severe. I shall retire to my tower in the woods. I have acquired an excellent candle created from the flesh of a hanged hag. It will be the perfect radiance in which to study this rare text. Good day, Agatha Norris.
”
“Good evening, beast,” I spoke as I bowed to him. I could have chuckled, I was so pleased with myself; but I did not want to give myself away, for the beast was acutely perceptive and would have noted any vibration of self-satisfaction. Returning into my cottage, I stood at one table and lit another candle. Dim flickering light moved shadows on the walls, yet the corners of the room remained in semi-dusk. I looked into the corner where my recent acquisition sat on a tall stand. This object was the reason I had stepped into the garden so that the beast would exit my home, and it was the reason that I had tantalized him with the proffered book. I did not want Simon to know of the weird relic that I had brought home from my sojourn in Italy, at great cost and bother. I walked to it now and removed the lace cloth with which I had covered the device. It was not my only music box; but the others were small objects that one could place on bedside stand on mantelpiece. The antique music box that I had shipped from Italy was of substantial size and played removable fifteen-inch metal discs. Working the lever, I wound the instrument and listened to its superb sound. For me, the playing of a music box was one of the few perfect pleasures in existence. As I listened, memory drifted back to when I had first heard the delicate playing of the gentle song.
We stood in one of the small and beautifully decorated rooms of my friend’s centuried abbey, and Andreas and I both prickled with excitement. We had located the antique music box in a secluded Italian shop, and we both sensed instantly that there was something about it, some hidden wonder, that would spellbind us if we could discover it. Andreas bought it at a good price and had his driver secure it inside the coach, and my friend and I kept ogling and bending to touch the thing’s dark wood as his horses took us to his home. We had not operated it at the shop, but I was familiar with the mechanics of the box, and once we had set it on a low table I put the crank into place and wound the device. We both stood, enraptured, as the delicate music filled the room.
Lovecraft eZine Megapack - 2013 Page 2