Dark Gods

by T E. D Klein

She tilted her face in the light for the other's inspection.

  "This makeup picks up more dirt and soot, especially in the city…

  "You're-okay. You may have smeared that picture a bit, though."

  She pointed to a small woodcut in the center of the left-hand page.

  "Good Lord, what is it?"

  "Isn't he cute? He's called the Little Devil." She flipped back toward the beginning of the story." See, the farmer plants this bean, and then he waters it every day"-she indicated the illustrations"and when autumn comes, and harvest time, there he is, growing right out of the ground."

  Ellie wrinkled up her nose." Precious."

  George snapped off the bathroom light and walked down the hall to the small door at the end. When he opened it a rush of chill air settled around him; climbing the steep wooden stairs, he made a mental note, for the dozenth time, to see about having the attic insulated. Otherwise they'd simply have to keep the door locked all winter.

  Upstairs his breath turned to mist, but the cold sobered him; it came in pleasant contrast to the stuffy air below. Anyway, he'd only stay up here for a minute or two, just long enough to see if the memories matched.

  He picked his way through the piles of magazines, some neatly bound with twine, the result of their housecleaning, others strewn about the floor.

  The junk had accumulated here at the top of the house like debris left after a flood. A shape in the corner caught his eye, something pink and vulnerable-the mannequin, with its ravaged head, lying pressed into the crevice where sloping roof met floorboards. Turning away toward the metal cabinets against the far wall, he felt uneasy knowing it was behind him. Someone had removed the old blanket he'd thrown over it, Herb or one of the others. He thought briefly of searching for another cloth, perhaps some dusty tarpaulin, but the cold had seeped through his thin cotton shirt and added to his growing sense of urgency. Outside a wind stirred the roof beams.

  His way to the cabinets was blocked by the dilapidated wreck of a bureau and, propped against it, the shell of a medicine chest, its door sagging open, the mirror somehow intact. He avoided looking at his image as he stepped past it: an old fear, resurrected in the faint attic light, to see some other face looking back at him. Straining, he shoved the bureau aside and pulled on the door nearest him; it yielded grudgingly, metal grating on metal. Within, a rack was hung with children's clothes; others lay crumpled on the metal floor, gathering dust. All were wrinkled, as if stored here after having been soiled, and like a gym locker, the cabinet reeked of old sweat. He let the door hang open.

  The next was lined with deep shelves, empty but for a few rusted tools that had rolled backward into the darkness, and the door to the third had been torn from its hinges; bent double, it was shoved lengthwise into the cabinet, leaving one jagged end that stuck out. The door on the end swung open more easily, but stopped part way, blocked by the bureau; he tugged, jostling the cabinet slightly, but it held fast. He stepped around the bureau and peered inside.

  It was as he remembered it. The jars rattled against the metal as if responding to the chill, their liquid insides sloshing rhythmically. In the front row small wrinkled things floated serenely in formaldehyde, fetuses of dog and pig and man, their bulbous eyes closed as if in reverie, with only the labels to tell them apart. He shoved his hip against the bureau; the door opened a few inches more and the slash of light grew wider.

  Reaching into the darkness, he succeeded in shoving one of the ja rs to the side. Below an adhesive labeled "Pig" a huddled figure bobbed up and down. The opening was still too narrow, the jar too big to remove, but in the space behind it he could make out a second row of jars.

  Pulling one to the front, into a stray beam of light that passed through a crack in the door, he wiped away the thin film of dust that obscured its contents. The tape read "PD #14" in black ballpoint.

  Regretting that he'd never found out just what those letters stood for, he peeled the tape aside to get a closer look.

  Yes, the memories matched. It was just like the thing on the card.

  But the decomposition was worse than he'd remembered, worse than in the other specimens, as if the thing had shrunk and lost shape. Half buried in sediment, the small gray lump rested on the bottom, turning lazily in the cloudy liquid. Once, on his first time here, he'd been tempted to scrape aside the wax that sealed the top, to unscrew the lid and pour the contents down the toilet like a piece of bad meat. But tonight he understood, if only from the faint odor that hung about the shelves, how easily the smell would sicken him. He slid it back into place, between jars labeled "PD #13" and "PD #15," where it clinked against a third row-and there was still another row behind that. The shelves were deep. There were twenty-two jars in all, he knew, and the specimens seemed to grow progressively larger with each number; he remembered one jar on the bottom, hidden way in. the back, nearly filled with something whose rotting flesh hung off it in ribbons. It had been too unpleasant to look at closely.

  He closed the cabinet and picked his way back to the stairs, stumbling once on the tiny arm or leg of some long-discarded doll. Descending the stairs, he wondered how much it would cost to have the whole place cleaned out. In some ways this house had proved more expensive than he'd bargained for.

  The iron railing felt thin and cold in his grip, and gave slightly when he leaned on it; a strong man might easily have yanked it free.

  The repairs an old house required… he wished he were handier at such tasks. Once, long ago, he'd had the necessary skills, and had enjoyed working with his hands. He'd been a schoolboy then; the world had contained fewer secrets. Biology had been his special love; he had even dreamed, once, of medical school. How much he'd forgotten since then, and how mystifying the world had become.

  Perhaps he could find a doctor in the area, some country G.P. he could trust. He'd have a lot of questions for him: about things that floated silently in jars, and what they fed upon. And how big they could grow.

  "Oh, El, you're just an old fogey. Don't you like fairy tales?"

  Doris pointed to the woodcut." See? The farmer dresses him up in a little suit, and tucks him in at night, and he has himself a little friend."

  " I don't think I'd want that thing for a friend."

  "Well, that's the whole point. That's why he's called the Little Devil.

  He's supposed to help the farmer tend the garden and clean the house, but he just causes mischief and eats up whatever's lying around.

  Including a few of the neighbors."

  Ellie shrugged." I'm afraid I don't approve of fairy tales, at least not for very young children. They're really quite frightening, and so many of them are unnecessarily violent, don't you think? Our two grew up quite nicely without them, thank God." She paused, then added, "Not that a steady diet of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew is so much better, of course." ill- "Oh, these stories wouldn't frighten anyone. They're all told with tongue in cheek. Typically French."

  "French, huh? That reminds me-that's what I came in for, something French. What's this book called?" She turned to the title page, Folk Tales from Provenge. Hmm, no author listed, I see. How about the story?"

  "None there, either. All I know is, it's called, "The Little Devil." I don't know what the title is in French." She closed the a thump; the sound seemed excessively loud in so silent a room.

  The attic door slammed loudly; he hadn't counted on the wind pulling it closed. Bathed in the warmth of the hall, he turned the corner, and froze involuntarily at the figure in the doorway-though his brain had long since identified it.

  " Sorry, Walt. I wake you?"

  Walter stumbled back to the bed, his eyes puffy and half shut.

  Creases from the quilt were etched into the side of his face." Jesus," he muttered, a slackness still about his lips, "it's a good thing you did.

  I was having one hell of a nightmare."

  George followed him into the room and stood awkwardly by the bed; he wished that Walter had picked somewhere else to sleep. H
e had left a sour, liquory smell in the room.

  "Boy, it'll take me a while to get over this one. It seemed so goddamned real."

  George smiled." They all do, that's the point."

  The other was not comforted." I can still picture the whole thing.

  It was night, I remember-"

  "Are you sure you want to talk about it? You'll forget faster if you put it out of your mind." He was bored by other people's dreams.

  "No, man, you've got it backwards. You're supposed to talk about your nightmares. Helps you get rid of em." Walter shook his head and eased himself back on the quilt, the bedsprings twanging with each shift of his body." It was at night, you see, but early, just after the sun had gone down-don't ask me how I know -and I was driving home.

  The countryside was exactly like it is around here."

  "Here? You mean this part of the state?"

  "Yeah. Only it was around seven at night, a few hours ago, and Joyce wasn't with me. I was alone in the car, and I wanted to get home. And somehow-you know how it is in dreams-I knew I'd lost my way. All the roads began looking the same, and I remember being very conscious of the fact that it was getting darker and darker all the time, and that if it got too dark I'd never make it. I was driving on this road that led through a tobacco field, just like the one we passed tonight-"

  "Right, it's a big crop around here. We've got plantations just down the road."

  "Yeah, crazy-looking things, laid out so flat and regular… But I could barely see the land. It was dark now, except for a little glow in the sky, and I was driving very, very slowly, trying to find my way.

  You know, kind of following the beams of my headlights… And then way off in the field I noticed a farmer or someone, one of the hired hands, way out there in the tobacco, so I pulled over to the side of the road and leaned across the front seat, you know, to ask directions… And I'd unrolled the window and was yelling to him when the man turned and made this odd movement with his head, kind of nodding at me, only I couldn't see the face, and then he came toward the car and bent down and I could see that it wasn't a man."

  George gave him a moment's silence, then asked, "So what was it, then?"

  The other rubbed his eyes." Oh, something pale, puffy, not completely formed… I don't know, it was only a dream."

  "But, God damn it, you were just saying how realistic it was!" He found himself glancing toward the window, the shadow of the elm, and was angry.

  "Well, you know how quickly you forget dreams, once you tell'em…

  I don't know, I don't want to think about it anymore.

  Let's go downstairs and have a drink."

  George followed him down with the old ache building once again in his stomach, feeling betrayed by both the world and his own body.

  "Something French, huh? Were you looking for anything special?" asked Doris. She slipped the storybook back onto the shelf.

  Ellie grinned at her." You sound like you own the place."

  "Well… I like books. Unlike my husband."

  "I'll tell you, then-" Ellie surveyed the room, hands on hips.

  "I'm really just looking for a French dictionary. Is there any order to this place? Anything approximating a reference section?"

  " Right this way, madame."

  While the books in the living room had been bound almost exclusively in leather, obviously chosen for their decorative quality, the collection in the library was strictly functional. Glossy new paperbacks stood pressed against ragged quartos whose titles had long since rotted away.

  A pocket-sized Field Guide to the Mammals was lost in the shadow of an Audubon portfolio, and odd sets of fantasy pulps leaned against a sturdy black row of Arkham House editions, the gold imprint on their spines fading next to the magazines' garish primaries.

  The reference section was relatively small, as if the collector had realized that one learns but little from books that try to tell too much.

  There was, though, a French dictionary on the bottom shelf, side by side with something called, The Book of Hidden Things." I just wanted to look up a word from that stupid little pamphlet," Ellie explained, flipping through the pages." The one that came with those cards."

  Doris watched her friend read." Found it?"

  "Yes, icartde. It means isolated, alienated."

  "Was that from your card?"

  She nodded." That's me, I guess. The original alienated woman."

  She gave a short laugh." Hey, look at this! Speak of the devil!" She pointed to the shelf a little above eye level, where three books on the Tarot stood huddled between a history of superstition and Gresham's Nightmare Alley. "I'll bring all three in," she decided; two were cheap paperbacks, the third a fat little volume with a brown paper cover.

  "Milt's probably dying to leave, but first I'd like to give somebody a proper reading."

  ***

  "Hungry! Aw, for Chrissake, not that again. I tell you I'm sick of that shit, I really am. You was just fed, not more than-" The man on the bed shook his head "Oh, so all of a sudden you're not hungry, huh? You'd damn well better not be, because I'm leaving in just one second; I mean it. I don't have to stick around and listen to this shit." He paused, and made a big show of looking at his watch." Okay, you're not hungry.

  A nod "Someone else is hungry?"

  Another nod, more emphatic.

  "Well, who the hell gives a- Oh, all tight, go ahead The foot was tapping another word. One, then six. P. Five. E Two, and then a noiseless tap. Twenty. T.

  'All tight, that's it." The orderly rose; the tapping continued, but he stuffed the paper into his pocket." That's it, buster. I've wasted enough time on you as it is. You can knock the goddamn wall down for all I care!" He turned and strode down the hall, muttering to himself "Goddamn animal lover".

  ***

  There was a Pyramid Spread and a Magic Seven Spread and a Wish Spread and a Life Spread and a Horoscope Spread and, according to one of the paperbacks, something called a "Sephiroth Spread I as well as a Kabala Spread and a Cross Spread-"covering," as Milton suggested, "damn near all the religions except a Star of David Spread"-but the Brackmans were in a hurry to leave soon, others having left already, and Milton had passed them all up for a simple "Yes or No Spread" that used only five cards.

  "The two on the right are your past, the two on the left are your future, and the one in the middle is you now. We turn that over first."

  Ellie read from one of the paperbacks; the clothbound volume had proved a disappointment, its author dampening their spirits at the outset by informing readers that the Tarot had been invented as recently as the 14OOs-worse, by charlatans-and that the seventy-eightcard deck was in fact two decks mistakenly grafted together, the one consisting of fifty-six playing cards, the Minor Arcana, the other of twenty-two picture cards, the Major Arcana, illustrating various magical symbols.

  All fortune-telling properties, he maintained, were strictly illusory.

  By the time Ellie had so informed the company, reading extended passages verbatim, she'd looked up to find that her audience had dwindled from more than a dozen to her husband, Sid and Doris Gerdts, and Paul Strauss. They were gathered around a bridge table set up near the front hallway.

  "So you've had domestic illusions," Ellie was saying, "but now you've seen through them-"

  "What the hell are 'domestic illusions'?" asked Paul. "-and you've set your sights higher, on philosophical aspirations." She had both paperbacks propped open before her, and-like the medieval's unquestioning faith in both Christian and Classical cosmologies-she saw no discrepancies in the two sets of predictions, at odds though they often were.

  Milton's fond husband-smile had never wavered throughout her performance. "So much for my past," he said." Now for the present."

  He turned over the center card." This is me now."

  Gerdts chuckled." Looks like you're a girl, Miltie!" Indeed, the card was The Queen of Pentacles; surrounded as she was by foliage, sitting in a meadow beneath a rosy trellis
, she seemed the most feminine of all the queens.

  Milton forced a laugh." Ah, what do these cards know?" he said.

  He reached for the first of the future-cards.

  "No, wait," said his wife, "I'm sure there's a reading for you in this.

  Remember, it's only a symbol." She looked from book to book.

  "See? Just listen: It's a symbol of fertility-" Milt's eyebrows rose -and charity. It says you're of Libra temperament, whatever that is "Oh, God," said Paul, "not astrology too!" -and therefore have a deep love of justice." She looked up; her eyes met Milton's." That part's true, anyway."

  "Yes."

  "And now the future," said Gerdts." Come on, Milt." The other reached for the card.

  "Now hold on a second," said Ellie." Remember, boys, this one's the near future, because it's next to the center… And the last is the distant future."

  "Got you." He turned over the first card.

  "You've got it upside down," said Doris." Here, let me-"

  "No, leave it be," Ellie ordered." The meaning changes if it's that way." She scanned the illustrations in the guidebook, then shrugged.

  "Nothing like that in here. This book's no damned good." She looked in the other, explaining, "All decks have basically the same idea, but the actual pictures can be different. Like chess sets, it says here.

  Sometimes a queen is a beautiful young woman: other times she's shown as an Egyptian goddess, or a nun, or a naked girl." Her eyes kept scanning the pages." But I really don't see anything like that.

  And no reference number on the bottom; that makes it harder to identify.

  What's it look like to you?"

  "Like something hanging from a tree," said Doris. "A bat or a sloth."

  "You know, those things that get the fungus on them She turned the card around." And right side up it looks like-" She frowned.

  "A sloth on the ground," said Milton." Seen from the rear."

  "Like those prehistoric things," added Paul." Giant ground sloths."

  There was, in fact, something ancient in the squat gray form, crawling along a road beneath a starry sky, its head no more than a bulge in the background.