No Light in August: Tales From Carcosa & the Borderland (Digital Horror Fiction Author Collection) (9 page)

I turned,
movement drifting into the corner of my eye right before everything exploded.

It’s hard
for me to say how long I was out for, but when I forced my gummed-up eyes open,
I wasn’t in the hotel. The walls were rough stone, suggesting a cave or
underground structure of some kind.

I was on
my side and my hands were bound with zip ties; so tight, I’d lost all feeling
in my fingers. I’d been out for a while, I guessed. I could almost feel the
skin turning blue. Turning my head, I saw I wasn’t alone.

A group of
men and women stood around me, their faces hidden. Some wore masks, while
others wore cauls that shone in the dim light and flapped or fluttered when
they breathed. The cauls could’ve been skin or some sort of plastic, I wasn’t
sure.

“He’s
awake.”

I heard
the smile behind his caul, the suggestion it threatened more than it promised.
“Qassilda?”

One of
them — man or woman, I couldn’t see — moved forward fast and put their foot
into my stomach. My vision darkened at the edges, and I spewed up whatever was
left from the last twenty-four hours.

“Get him
up.”

They did
just that, not waiting until I’d finished retching. The new speaker might have
been King, but I wasn’t really listening.

They
walked me along what I now saw was a cavern; its walls decorated with daubed
symbols and designs that made my stomach swim as I look at them. They writhed
against the rock in the light, coming together like snakes fucking.

I wanted
to spew again, but didn’t want another kick or punch for my trouble. They
didn’t have a problem with me looking around, turning my head this way and
that. Their faces were covered, after all, and I wasn’t leaving this place
alive.

There were
a dozen, men and women both by their builds. One of the women wore a necklace
of scalpels and syringes around her neck. The edges of the blades were flecked
with rust — except it wasn’t.

I knew it
wasn’t.

The glass
bodies of the syringes were mostly empty, but a few were filled or half-filled
with dark liquid.

There were
four bodies strung up along the wall ahead of us, and they drew my eyes away
from the woman. They were barely recognizable as human, though the last one
wasn’t so bad. I guessed they’d kept him alive until the end, to send reports
to Wade. He was lucky; only a bullet to the head for his trouble.

I turned
back to the woman. The eyes behind her leering mask were cold and dark. She’d
killed them.

One of
them tossed something to the ground in front of me; Carr’s jacket, of course.
The left sleeve was torn and bloody. It was statement enough about what had
happened to him and the kid.

“No one’s
coming for you, but we’ll let you go.” I recognized Carcosa’s voice. “After a
fashion, anyway.”

They
pushed me down on my knees and the woman with the dark eyes came in front of
me. She slipped a scalpel and syringe from her necklace easily enough; the kind
of gesture that spoke to years of practice.

“We have
such things to show you first,” Carcosa told me, and I could hear something
else behind his words — a droning coming from somewhere. “Wait.” The woman
stopped, and he came to her side. “You think we were doing those things to them
for fun?”

“Weren’t
you?”

“Nothing
like that, Agent Schrader, nothing so base as that.” He touched the woman on
the shoulder. “You’ll see…and then you’ll wish you hadn’t.”

She moved
closer, blade and needle catching what light there was. Before the point of the
syringe touched my neck, the dark of her eyes started to slide and shift, like
oil moving on water.

I just
told all of this to Wade.

“You look
like shit,” she’d said when I walked in. Can’t say I would disagree — Schrader
would say the same thing if he were here.

I’m not
Schrader, not in the strictest sense. I’m the thing they put inside him once
they carved him up and hollowed him out, yet all of this happened to me. His
memories are all I have. Until I entered him, I didn’t exist.

I remember
begging before the end, after they showed me what happened to the kid. I
remember how his eyes looked like they’d been turned to a dead TV channel. The
way he looked at me, or I should say the way the thing inside him looked at
Schrader; all full of hunger.

I’m not
strictly a demon, but it’s the closest word you have — and it’s a million miles
away from what I really am.

I am
Schrader. More accurately, I am the part of Schrader that exists beneath the
surface. All they did in that cave was drag me up, along with something
trailing behind.

They did
the same to the kid, and when I opened my eyes for the first time, I recognized
a kindred. It smiled as I stood, and I smiled back before I opened its throat
with my hands.

Schrader
wasn’t the sacrifice, it was — and I savored its realization as it bled out.

Carcosa
and the others bowed their heads. I ignored them. They’d brought me up for
something beneath me, but I was locked in. They’d said and done all the right
things. We’re funny about that; like lawyers, we obsess over the fine print.

I’m not
their patron, though, it’s something else.

Believe me
when I say you don’t have a name for it. Truthfully, it doesn’t even notice you
exist, and why should it? Nothing else in the universe is aware of mankind.

What
Carcosa and his friends siphon off for their perverse games isn’t noticeable,
and it attracts bottom feeders and carrion. The lowest of the low, for who or
what else would end up here on this plane of existence?

Schrader’s
memories hold a multitude of sticky fantasies about Wade. Nothing I’ve not seen
or felt before a hundred times over. Taking them in again was nothing. Carcosa
and his folk drink up shit like that, though, and I gave them the usual demon
spiel about how he had such thoughts.

None of
them in that cave truly understand what they’re doing. For them, it’s all about
satisfying a need. Shipping kids and unluckies across the border as fuel for
the grinder to bring up things like me.

Sometimes
we give them things. Mostly, we do things none of your languages can describe
to the innocents they hand over to us. They watch and get off on it, enjoying
how we rip their minds apart and reduce them to nothing — much as what happened
to Schrader.

“That’s
the last thing you remember?”

Technically,
it’s the first thing I remember, but I nod. It’s what he would do, so it’s what
I do.

There are
only a few people in the office at this hour, just her and me alone. Like all
paragons of supposed virtue, Schrader felt guilty about his ideas about Wade.
I’m not so restrained.

I don’t think anyone
will hear her scream, but I’ll paralyze her vocal chords just to be sure. It’s
what I was born to do. I don’t think anyone can say they were born with such
clarity.

I left the
door unlocked, so perhaps I invited what came. I was working then, but my
career had stalled for family. I think that’s something I resented, but I don’t
have enough of my sanity left to say for sure.

Sadly,
about the clearest memory I have of that time is the night everything changed.
Despite giving up a lot of my career for the sake of family, I was still
working too much.

Don’t know
how much — not like it matters anymore. I came home and dropped my keys on the
table by the door; I remember the rattle they made in the small metal dish my
wife had bought. The door closed behind me, but I didn’t lock it.

There was
no reason to — and no reason not to. Nothing special behind it, I just didn’t.
I’m not sure if I was a forgetful husband.

I can’t
see my wife’s face clearly anymore. Her eyes, nose, and mouth are wiped over;
smudges over a canvass in my memory. Her hair stands out — coppery and healthy,
spilling over her shoulders and framing her non-face.

She moves
her head as if speaking.

“Good,
busy, but good.” She’d asked me how my day was. “How is she today?”

Slight
movement of the head; inclining to one side where it bobs, before she
straightens and looks at me with eyes I can’t see.

“Okay,
I’ll go up and say goodnight.”

Turning
means I can’t see her head moving anymore; can’t see if she’s speaking. The
words are somewhere, but I don’t know where to look or even if I want to.

Rachel is
under her covers when I open the door, reading but not really. She’s waiting,
like most nights. She has a hard time sleeping if I’m not back on time. She’s
quite serious for someone her age.

The book’s
out of her hands as soon as I am inside the room, forgotten on the covers
around her legs.

I see her
face clearly, unlike my wife’s.

“Dad,” she
says and smiles up at me, but there’s something underneath it. I can see it.
Her eyes follow me as I sit on the edge of her bed.

If I was
looking, I might have seen more. I ask her what’s wrong.

“I can’t
sleep, even with the light.” Rachel leans closer, cupping a hand around her
mouth. “Can you look under my bed, please-please-please?” Her usual rapid fire
demand.

I did. I
looked under the bed because it was the sort of ritual we did, more for
Rachel’s amusement than anything else. We both knew I would never find
anything.

I saw her,
another Rachel under the bed, staring back at me, eyes wide and shaking despite
the sweat beading her face.

“Daddy.”

Her voice is
somewhere between a whisper and a hiss, so I have to duck my head under the bed
to listen. I think I thought I was dreaming.

“Daddy,
there’s someone on my bed.”

Something
brushes against the hand still on the covers. It’s wet and warm and sticky, but
somehow brittle underneath. A wash of hot air stirs my hair.

My mind
spills away like sand, and I run.

Rachel
stares after me, mouth half open and unbelieving. It’s better to look at her
and not at what’s on the bed.

My wife is
on her way up the stairs, drawn by the beating of my feet. I open the door and
run onto the path, and even the cool night air isn’t any comfort. Nothing can
be after that.

“DADDY!”
Rachel screams behind me, but I don’t look back as my feet pound the concrete,
picking up speed all the time.

When
you’re drinking, time becomes compressed. Almost in line with every beer you
have, time starts to pool in around you, and there’s nothing you can do to stop
it. The same is true of dreams, or when your mind suffers a break.

Drunk, you
can function on autopilot, more or less.

I opened
my eyes, though they were never closed, and didn’t immediately know where I
was.

Time
didn’t compress for me. I stepped outside of it, and I haven’t really stepped
back. I think I’d lost time before; I have memories of being a drinker before,
but those memories are even hard to grasp by necessity of the booze. I think
it’s why I was able to ground myself, for however short a time, when I came
back up for air.

Light from
streetlamps lay on top of the water, like oil on water. Running, but unmoving
with the direction of the current. Tremors twitched up my fingers and along my
hand, but stopped when I looked away from the water. Neon lights dazzled me
from across the street; washed-out promises lighting a strip of bars and clubs.

I knew
where I was, more or less.

As I
stepped into the road, a car blasted its horn and swerved to avoid me. I caught
words, sucked away in the backwash of its passing. I didn’t see it because it
wasn’t there before, like I wasn’t all the way back up yet — only breaching the
surface by inches. I was aware enough to know where and when I was; the rest
came back only gradually as I drifted back to the surface of things.

The door
to one of the bars was open, it being a cool evening. I stepped in, if only for
somewhere to go. I was afraid if I didn’t stop for a second, I’d never find my
way back.

The
bartender asked me what I wanted for the second time. His voice was dulled,
like he was speaking through water or as if my ears were filled in.

“Scotch.”
He slid the drink across to me and I handed over a fiver. I had forgot my
wallet was even in my pocket; only my keys were still in the house.

The
house, my dau—daught…

My first
sip kicked the back of my head, hauling me into the bar. Spluttering and coughing,
I found my feet and swayed my way towards a dark corner where there weren’t any
people.

The whisky
sloshed around in my mouth, its warmth now more familiar. Sinking into the
padded leather of the seat, I realized how much my legs and back ached. How
long had I been running? Where was I going?

The drink
burned the questions away. Enough of my reasoning was sifting itself together,
but it was like trying to fit together a picture you didn’t really understand.
There were gaps notable by their absence, only there was no way to know exactly
what was there before.

So many
pieces of your mind fit together in such a way that you only realize they’re
gone when it’s too late.

By the
time I noticed the woman, she was already sliding along the seat opposite me.
The leather creaked under her thighs, rubbing against the fabric of her dress.

“Mind if I
join you?” she asked, then fished a pack of cigarettes from her bag, stuck one
between her lips, and lit it with a slab of slender steel.

“Mind if I
have one of those?”

The words
were like familiar actions, muscle memory more than anything else. The whisky
helped, but I needed something else. The flame jumped, shaping itself into a
flickering blade. The first draw stuttered in my lungs, but the second was
better.

“You look
like you could use some company.”

“Do I?”
What I’d seen of my reflection said she was right. “Rough night?”

“Something…something
like that.”

She was
pretty. High cheekbones and full lips painted red. Her hair fell straight,
framing her face like a painting.

“Angela,”
she introduced herself, sliding her hand across the table and offering it, all
very businesslike.

Her grip
when I took it was warm; it pulled me forward without actually doing anything
like that.

“Buy me a
drink?”

Slips of
logic started to come forward in my head; a way things might go if I just held
on long enough.

“Why not,
sure.”

She gave
me the keys to her car on the condition we were going back to my place.

“You have
your own place?” She isn’t slurring her words, but she sways on her feet.
“Yeah, I do…it’s not far,” I said, hoping I would know the way once I got
behind a wheel and on a road I knew.

Her car is
small, but practical for the city in its own way. She flopped into the seat and
her hand bounced onto my leg, where it remained for longer than I expected.

“Welll,”
she stretched the word and ran her lips along her teeth. She wasn’t a hooker,
just someone out to have fun, maybe meet someone and see where it went. Nothing
wrong with that, just a shame she met me.

The door
of my house is closed. I thought it would be because whatever was now in my
house wouldn’t want to be disturbed.

I could
feel a tickling sensation down my neck and back; the sand of my sanity again
dribbling through the open cracks. The pouring increased the closer we came to
my home. When I stepped out onto the pavement near my front drive, I was sure
she could hear the rattle-patter of grains falling out.

“Nice
place.” She walked a little steadier, but still took my hand for support. She
didn’t need to.

Standing
in front of my door, I turned the handle, but found it locked. “No keys?” she
asked.

Reaching
into my pocket, I found them…only, I’d never picked them up on the way out. Or had
I? Did anything actually happen before, or was I back drinking again?

Drinking
again?
Did I have problems with it before? “C’mon, it’s getting cold,” she
prompted.

I put the
key in the lock, and my hand took a long time to turn it. What was I going to
find inside?

When they
found me standing outside, clothes ripped and arms bloody to the elbows, it was
open and shut. History of alcohol abuse, which they said explained why I
couldn’t remember much; they said I had something called Cotard’s syndrome.

I’d never
heard of it, but they fixed on it as why I had a hard time seeing faces. Did I
feel alive or more like I was out of myself?

“Sometimes
one or the other.” I’m in leg irons and an orange jumpsuit. The doctor writes
something on a pad and looks back at me; one of his eyes is filled in now, but
it wasn’t before.

“What do
you see now when you look at me?”

“Your face…more
or less.” They’d put me on medication not long after they picked me up. “Your
daughter, you saw her face?”

“My real
daughter, yes.” “But not the other?”

I screwed
my eyes shut, refusing to remember and doing a good enough job to keep from
convulsing in my chair.

“Your
wife?”

“I saw her
face when I came home,” I told him, but in my mind, I couldn’t remember it. It
was hard to separate the memory from what happened. Something in me had shifted
out of place and wouldn’t go back.

“No, that
isn’t what you said.” His other eye was gone now, just a pink cover of skin
over the socket. His nose was losing definition, so I focused on his mouth.

All the
electroshock hasn’t stopped the faces from disappearing, because they’ve all
been marked. My wife was marked first, I know that now, but it saved my
daughter as bait.

It knew me
— knows me, I should say.

I wonder
if I’m dead, like they say. I might start to think so. I hear things when I
sleep sometimes, and once, in the corner of my room in the hospital, I saw
something quivering in the corner where the shadows are deepest.

There was
only one of my wife and one of my daughter in the house when they found me. The
woman they never found, but I do think I killed while it watched.

It’s
feeding off me; stripping what’s left of my mind a piece at a time. This
morning, I found a carved shank under my pillow. I don’t remember making it,
but I think the end is coming soon. Not for me — it doesn’t want me to kill myself.
It wants me to give a face to everyone who doesn’t have one, to carve under
their pinkish fill-ins and find what’s underneath.

The last
thing I’m not going to see is my own face, because I’ll think it will fill it
in too.

That’s
when I’ll do it to myself, and all this will end — until the next time.

It won’t be me, which
is all I care about.