Black Wings: New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror (46 page)
Read Black Wings: New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror Online
Authors: S.T. Joshi
The true visionary neither requires supporters nor expects them. My mother's only functions are to keep the house in order and to deal with the mob on my behalf. Her interpretations of my pronouncements are none of my concern, and I shall not allow them to annoy me. It is only to retain her usefulness that I exert
myself to keep my secrets from her, instead sharing them with the lonely hills when the night permits. There I can release the truths which the lips constantly shape in my brain. Sometimes things consumed by ancientness gather about me to listen to my utterances, and sometimes I am witnessed by creatures that will inhabit the earth when the mob is no more.
As to you, Strivecraft, will you persist in scribbling when you have less than nothing to communicate? Perhaps you should be shown what a true seer looks like. The next time I dispatch my mother to the shops I may have her bring me a camera. While your mind would shrivel at the merest glimpse of the source of all dreams, perhaps you can bear to look upon its human face, although I do not think you will survive the comparison. I think you will never again want to face yourself in a mirror.
C. T. Nash.
1, Toad Place,
Berkeley,
Gloucestershire,
Great Britain.
October 12
th
, 1936.
Limpcraft,
I see that Rabbity Coward has ceased to play the brave barbarian. His dreams must have been as frail as your own. Or might he have intended to set you an example by ridding the world of himself? How long will you persist in loitering where you are unwanted? The readers of the scientific fiction magazine have made your unwelcomeness plainer still.
22
What delusion drives you to seek publication where you must know you will be loathed? Even Farthingsworth is not so desperate that he feels compelled to disseminate your latest flops. Limpcraft, you are but a dismal caricature of the man I once sought to be. As well as burdening literature, your inert presence weighs me down and binds me to the earth. My brain aches at the thought that you continue to infest the world, just as my jaws ache with declaration.
I have the camera, but I do not think any technician could look upon the photograph which would be developed. Whenever my mother is at home I keep to my room. I have trained her to leave my meals outside the door, since it would be inconvenient to have her flee. The curtains shut out the attentions of the mob. I have no need of mirrors, because I know that I am transformed by dreaming. Perhaps I am growing to resemble the source, or perhaps its awareness has begun to consume me. Perhaps I am how it mouths its way intro the world. By now the lips that gape within me feel as vast as space. Your puny skull could never contain even the notion of them.
C. T. Nash.
1, Toad Place,
Berkeley,
Gloucestershire,
Great Britain
January 18
th
, 1937.
Lovecrass,
So you are dreaming of me, are you? Or you are so bereft of dreams that you have to write tales about me. I am a
haunter
of the
dark
, am I, and a shell which owes its vitality to the presence of a woman.
23
It is time that you were confronted with the truth. I shall convey a revelation from which even your mind will be unable to hide. I vow that you will no longer be able to ignore your ignorance.
I shall enclose my photograph. There is, of course, no need for my to delegate my mother to obtain a print, since you can have the film developed yourself. Have you the courage to gaze upon the face of dream, or has all your dreaming been a sham? Perhaps you will never sleep again while you remain in the world, but whenever you dream, there shall I be. Do not imagine that your death will allow you to escape me. Death is the dream from which you can never awaken, because it returns you to the source. No less than life, death will be the mirror of your insignificance.
C. T. Nash.
his was apparently Nash's final letter. Two items are appended to the correspondence. One is a page torn from a book. It bears no running title, and I have been unable to locate the book, which seems to have been either a collection of supposedly true stories about Gloucestershire or a more general anthology of strange tales, including several about that area. Presumably whoever tore out the sheet found the following paragraph on page 232 relevant:
Residents of Berkeley still recall the night of the great scream. Sometime before dawn on the 15th of March 1937, many people were awakened by a sound which at first they were unable to identify. Some thought it was an injured animal, while others took it for a new kind of siren. Those who recognised it as a human voice did so only because it was pronouncing words or attempting to pronounce them. Although there seems to have been general agreement that it was near the river, at some distance from the town, those who remember hearing it describe it as having been almost unbearably loud and shrill. The local police appear to have been busy elsewhere, and the townsfolk were loath to investigate. Over the course of the morning the sound is said to have increased in pitch and volume. A relative of one of the listeners recalled being told by her mother that the noise sounded "as if someone was screaming a hole in himself". By late morning the sound is supposed to have grown somehow more diffuse, as though the source had become enlarged beyond control, and shortly before noon it ceased altogether. Subsequently the river and the area beside it were searched, but no trace of a victim was found.
The second item is a photograph. It looks faded with age, a process exacerbated by copying. The original image is so dim as to be blurred, and is identifiable only as the head and shoulders of a man in an inadequately illuminated room. His eyes are excessively wide and fixed. I am unable to determine what kind of flaw in the image obscures the lower part of his face. Because of the lack of definition of the photograph, the fault makes him look as if his jaw has been wrenched far too wide. It is even possible to imagine that the gaping hole, which is at least as large as half his face, leads into altogether too much darkness. Sometimes I see that face in my dreams.
NOTES
1.
Nash refers here to Lovecraft's tales "Dagon", "The Hound", "The Rats in the Walls", "Arthur Jermyn" and "Hypnos", all recently published in
Weird Tales
BACK
2.
In this paragraph Nash refers to "The Festival" and "Imprisioned with the Pharaohs".
BACK
3.
Nash is referring to "The Music of Erich Zann" and "The Unnamable".
BACK
4.
Farnsworth Wright, editor of
Weird Tales
.
BACK
5.
"The Tomb" and "The Outsider".
BACK
6.
Lovecraft's original name for the island in "The Call of Cthulhu".
BACK
7.
"The Terrible Old Man", "The Moon-Bog", "He" and "The Horror at Red Hook".
BACK
8.
"The Call of Cthulhu", "The Colour out of Space",
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
and
Supernatural Horror in Literature
BACK
9.
"The Colour out of Space" was published in
Amazing Stories
.
BACK
10.
August Derleth, Clark Ashton Smith, Donald Wandrei and Frank Belknap Long.
BACK
12.
Dunwich is a submerged town off the Suffolk coast.
BACK
13.
Medusa: A Story of Mystery, and Ecstasy, & Strange Horror
(Gollancz, 1929).
BACK
14.
"The Whisperer in Darkness".
BACK
16.
"The Dreams in the Witch House".
BACK
18.
"The Shambler from the Stars".
BACK
19.
"The Space-Eaters" by Frank Belknap Long.
BACK
20.
The tale originally published as "The White Ape" was reprinted as "Arthur Jermyn".
BACK
21.
On its appearance in
Astounding Stories, "At the Mountains of Madness"
attracted hostile comment in the letter-column.
BACK
22.
After the publication of "The Shadow out of Time",
Astounding Stories
ran further hostile correspondence.
BACK
23.
. Nash is referring to "The Haunter of the Dark" and "The Thing on the Doorstep", published in the most recent issues of
Weird Tales
.
BACK
.
Michael Cisco
Michael Cisco is the author of the short story collection
Secret Hours
(Mythos Books, 2007) and the novels
The Divinity Student
(Buzzcity Press, 1999; winner of the International Horror Guild Award for best first novel), The Tyrant (Prime, 2004),
The San Veneficio Canon
(Prime, 2005), and
The Traitor
(Prime, 2007).
rover
I watch.
The fly rubs its things. It came out of the well. That well is full of flies. There are always more after for a while. Julius didn't need to take the bucket off the rope and put it away in the cellar to stop me drinking any more well water because I kept forgetting not to drink it because I stopped liking the taste since the pit was filled in and there are too many flies. Now there's just the loop.
I used to come out to the well all the time because Father didn't give me water in the house. They didn't remember me because I was always quiet even before I stopped talking. Julius had the pump put in so we don't have to use the well water anymore. After Father left.
Grass. The up and down where the wood starts. Sun in my eye. The rough grey wood of the well. The hum the flies make in the well. One of them lands on my hand. I shake it off. Todd said it has to be soon. But we just did the it. We just did one. Julius is angry about it. I wish Todd would just tend the women and quit fussing with Julius, because Julius shouts when he gets mad. And he hits me for no reason.
The day sure is fine. It might be today.
Julius
"You took your time," I said when Todd came in.
I was certainly ready for him. I was braced and ready. I took a good hard look at him. He didn't answer me. He was always backtalking me but this time he kept his peace. That irregularity put me up.
"What kept you, Todd?"
He rubbed his brow. I hadn't expected that. I thought he might be shamming.
"Are you ailing, Todd?" I asked.
He wouldn't meet my gaze.
"You look at me when I address you,
Todd,"
I said, without raising my voice.
He shook his head once, almost as if he wanted to shush me. The day he shushes me—but then I thought again.
"Is it—?"
After some dither he managed to get it out. He said he thought.
"You think?" I demanded. He could sham that too.
But he told me it was still going on, that he was coming out of it. His Lordship. The Prophet.
Right then he looked at me. I knew that was the look. Todd couldn't have shammed that look if he'd practiced day and night.
"Again?"
Todd
The word just dropped out of his mouth, and he leaned against the lintel like he'd been biffed on the head. His eyes blundered from nothing to nothing. Stupidity washed down his seamy white face and made it even longer. I had to keep my eye on him now that I'd looked at him; it was helping me to come back out of it.
It came over me with more force than ever, as I was coming back from tending the women. The one Julius dubbed Elaine, her name was Katey or something like that actually, had given me a bit of smart mouth and I'd had to crack her in the chops. Then I reminded her why she was there. In that frame of mind it is not for me a protracted matter and Julius never suspects. I don't think he hardly goes out there any more. Perhaps he can't manage it, in his senescence.
It doesn't really start until you notice. I had been feeling good, although my hand was a little sore, then I realized that, now that I was out of the dark, that close little cell with the women, the sun dazzle isn't diminishing. Every time I move my eyes I see streaks. Then my breath whistles in my teeth and I know this is really it. I don't like to fall down. I keep myself clean, I hate to get even the slightest bit dirty. So I hold myself up.
My mouth watered and my stomach turned over. My arms and legs got weak, hateful. Next I notice some dark spot; in this case, it was the shadow that fell between the house and the tupelo tree. I saw the sign in there. The dark opened and spread itself around me, and then the palaces.
We'd had to know it would come to this sooner or later. The last time hadn't been but a month ago, less than a month. Julius had relaxed. I have to admit I'd let myself relax too. I shouldn't have.
We're not ready. We haven't got a girl and we haven't got time to grab one. The last time was a close call—she was a tussler and Julius came back white as a sheet and swearing, pacing and swearing up and down he'd been seen. Nothing came of it. Nothing has as yet come of it.
He asked me how long, still gawking at me as if there were ever any variation how long between the sign and the time, as if I set the time.
"Tomorrow dusk like always," I said, throwing it at him.
His mouth was hanging open, and I could see he hadn't a thought in his head not an uncommon condition.
No.
He did have a thought in his head—I had it, too. We were ready, that was the thing. There were girls. He was thinking of Claire. I was thinking of Ruth.
He was thinking of Ruth.
We had always known something like this might happen, and Father had seen to it we knew what to do if it did. He'd said the elders had given us the measure.
Julius
"We can't use any of the women?"
I knew we couldn't of course. But it was Todd's job to tend them, and there was a slim chance he might know something I didn't. He'd brought them. They were always to his taste.
Todd looked at me with his eyes slitted up and asked me if I meant were any of the women young enough. I could have busted the lamp over his head then. I nearly started to shake, but I can keep my composure.
I take the risks. I do all the planning. I'm the oldest, and I do it. I'm the only one who can. And he knows what'll happen if I don't do it.
You never ignore the sign. Father took us as boys to see where the old place had been, and even in the broad light of day it was a screaming piece of land, just screaming. It turned Grover inside out. I was the only one who could come back from there on his own two feet and that was why it was entrusted to me. Todd had to go get in bed and stay there.
But when it's time, the sign comes to Todd. I have to hop to like a slave and start it all over again every time he gets the sign.
I squeezed the bridge of my nose, rubbed my face.
Father said it was bound to happen.
"I'll get the lots," I said.
Claire looked up when I came in. I crossed the room and got the case. She didn't take her eyes off me. I told her to get back to her reading.
Todd
Julius brought down the cigar box open and set it on the table beside me. I had sat myself by the bay window, looking out at Grover who was sitting in the grass like a sack of potatoes. The checkers, red and black, were all jumbled together, and Julius was letting me see them all first. I nodded, numbly, and thinking about what we had to do was setting in and my mouth went dry and my hands turned cold.
Julius shut the box and shook it, still standing over me. It's hot and stuffy upstairs and I could see sweat swarm down the gnarls in his brow. He stank. He made us keep the house neat as a pin but he couldn't be bothered to wash. The whole place smelled like him.
He rattled the opposite chair back and dropped into it, putting the shaken box on the shelf under the table, where we both could reach it and neither of us see it.
We stared at each other. He said we would pick to see who went first. I got red. That color seemed to burn against my hand. It was just that particular color red. We put the checkers back and shook the box again, both of us, out of sight. Then we put our hands on the table. I thought of Ruth out in the woods and stubbed out that thought.
I pulled black.
You lie down in the dark, and wait.
At first you would see something like a forearm crossing the room. Just the forearm. It isn't a forearm, it only so happens to look like one just then, and it's what occurs to you. It just flashes by. Then, after a while, the dark and the quiet open up, right where you saw it. I can't say what the others see, I see only dim colors. For a long time, there are only dim colors there, and something will flit through the field now and then, quick as a wink. You have to make the effort not to ask it anything; it isn't hard. Eventually, you'll be shown the palaces, five figures of light or maybe more, and then they're all over the room like fog. The fog is blue, like cigarette smoke, but the light is white and gold. The palaces are like chandeliers. Hanging from nothing. We all lie in our separate rooms and go into the walls, I believe the girls too, slipping out into our palaces at night, in perfect silence. That's our beauty; we inherited it from Father, and he from long before.
Julius
Todd sat across from me, blanched to the bone. He'd scrunched up that cat face of his. I told myself that if I heard anything like fumbling around down there, anything but a straight pick, I'd shoot out my arm across that table and shove his adam's apple in.
Black.
Dirty cheater—
I just reached out and grabbed one. It felt like it wanted to slip out of my hand. I slapped it down hard on the table. Black.
Todd rocked a little. My nerves were steady.
I was going to win.
He pulled black.
Must have been the shuffle put them all back in order I thought. Could I count them—how many were there?
I pulled black.
Todd hesitated. He rubbed his fingers together. Nails all clean and buffed.
You're going to lose, I thought at him.
He pulled.
I got up and swept the checkers back into the box.
"Red for Ruthie," I said. I left him sitting there.
Grover
Julius asked me where Todd is and I pointed to where Todd was waiting for Ruth on the veranda because he wanted to see her. Julius made a noise and went back into his office to get ready.
It's supposed to work like, Julius gets the girl and brings her here. Todd puts casts on her legs so she can't run. Then he puts her in with the women but separate so they don't mix. Todd holds, normally, because Julius has to do it himself. No one hears because nobody lives around here. When Todd gets the sign, she's there. All ready. You always keep a girl, because you never know when Todd will get the sign. But there's no girl now, because we just did the it. Julius can't go back so soon because they'll be on the look out. But Todd says it has to be tonight.
The last girl was black. Julius said it didn't matter. He also said no one would care because she was colored. She was here three months, nearly. I only got to see her twice. Todd saw the sign and the next night he took her into the thing. She was so scared she didn't even move. Julius did the it. He called when we have to bring her in because he has to start by himself, because he doesn't like us to see how it's done. He wants to be the only one who knows.