CHM December 2022
Author: CHM LLC
Date: 2022-10-20 21:28:53+00:00

Copyright © 2022 by CHM LLC

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Cover Art: Daniele ariuolo

The King in Yellow Illustrations: Luke Spooner | Carrion House

Cosmic Horror Monthly

Edited by Charles Tyra
www.cosmichorrormonthly.com

Greetings and Salutations Dear Reader,

We hope your holiday season is as free of terror and existential dread as you hope it to be. It can be a mad world out there and we’re glad you’ve chosen CHM to keep you cold, *ahem* I mean warm, at night. But by all means, grab an extra blanket. You’re going to need it.

You never know who is standing next to you in the elevator and with which demons they convene. But we’ll give you an idea in our first story “His Hands May Be Dirty, but His Brain is Freshly Washed.” Then a detective interviews something not quite human in “Millions” by Christi Nogle. In this month’s flash piece, a young woman witnesses an atrocity in nature before we are treated to a gripping but beautifully written struggle with existential dread in “The Language of Waves.” Then, a surreal and tragic tale of sacrifice and atonement in Ville Meriläinen’s “White Casket.” Don’t miss the epic and terrifying conclusion to Patrick Barb’s novella “The Nuthouse,” followed by an illusory tale of love and science in “Pin-Up Boy.” Don’t miss the special sit down we had with Justin Benson and Aaron moorhead, the director duo responsible for Resolution, Spring, The Endless, and Something in the Dirt!

We’ll bid CHM’s The Crypt a fond farewell with the final installment of Robert W. Chambers’ masterpiece: “The King in Yellow”. You may have mixed emotions here, I know I do. I, for one, didn’t expect such a positive reception for the stories appearing in the segment each month. It was truly a joy to present you with some of the more obscure pieces that I felt paved the way for this genre. Still, we are simply making room for more original cosmic horror and weird fiction; of which there is plenty. Do stick around, will you? 2023 looks to bear some of the most mind-bending, terrifying stories we’ve ever read.

Enjoy.

Meet the CHM staff

Charles Tyra: Editor

Oenophile, logophile, aspiring writer. Completely captivated by Cosmic Horror and Weird Fiction from an early age upon first reading the story: Dagon by HPL.

Resides in the flatland that is Oklahoma City.

Carson Winter: Co-Editor |Social Media Manager

Horror fan and author with works featured in Vastarien and the No Sleep podcast. He lives in the Pacific Northwest.

Featured artists this month

Cover Art: I am Daniele ariuolo a concept artist and an illustrator. I started working for small self-produced companies and then started making creatures and characters for additional manuals inspired by pathfinder. I recently did some illustrations for Magnum opus TCG and published an angelic-demonic bestiary called proelium.

Luke Spooner is a freelance illustrator from the South East of England. Since graduating from Portsmouth University with a First-Class degree in illustration Luke has gone on to work on a wide variety of projects and commissions, including; illustrations and covers for horror, science fiction and fantasy books, magazines, graphic novels, conceptual design, CD packaging and business branding. Luke has also illustrated children’s’ books for authors who aim to promote diversity and mindfulness in younger audiences.

Daniel Zamarronis a low-vision freelance illustrator from the United States. Living with an inherited retinal disease, Daniel finds an escape in the maddening world of science fiction. Fusing his love of horror with art, he uses frenetic detail and monochromatic coloring to instill feelings of dread. For more artwork you can visit his Instagram page. www.instagram.com/saintcosmonaut/

Maxwell Marais is an illustrator and author of all things horror currently living in Montreal, Canada. Their work is often featured in the pages of CHM, and their stories can be found in such publications as Thuggish Itch and The NoSleep podcast. Find their art at www.instagram.com/insanity_inc/

Welcome to Cosmic Horror Monthly

A monthly tome of terrifying tales, lovecraftian, cosmic, and weird.

His Hands May be Dirty, but His Brain is Freshly Washed

By Matt Handle

As the elevator doors opened, soft music within was joined by the sounds of muffled conversations and muted footsteps. Blindingly bright midday sun gleamed through tempered glass across the tower foyer. The slightest of smiles touched Victor’s thin lips as he dabbed a spot of blood from his ear with a tissue which he then absent-mindedly stuffed in his pocket. Light warmed his face and beckoned him to cross the lobby and exit into the downtown district beyond.

He stepped through the revolving door and onto the sidewalk outside where he marveled briefly at the level of surrounding noise. Car horns honked, brakes squealed, people talked on cell phones, and somewhere high over head, the distant roar of a jet could be heard as it streaked its way across the sky to some unknown destination.

Victor couldn’t recall what brought him into the midst of this urban cacophony. For a moment, it troubled him that he couldn’t remember how he got here or why he came. But the thought passed quickly, vanishing into the sea of tranquility that was his subconscious. After all, bunnies were destroying the garden. He had work to do.

He reached the front door of his one-bedroom apartment and turned the key in the deadbolt lock without thinking about it. Victor wasn’t sure how he’d gotten back home, but the air-conditioning within was a welcome respite. His shirt stuck to his back and sweat dripped from his temples. It was hot outside. He must have walked.

Victor locked the door behind him then stripped off his jacket and tie. Once upstairs to the bath he turned the shower faucet and peeled off the rest of his clothes.

The water felt good, so icy it made him shiver. Victor whistled a tune as he lathered up his hair and body with a cheap bar of orange-colored soap. Clean and refreshed, he turned off the water and exited the stall as he wrapped a fresh white towel around his waist and headed for the closet.

He dripped on the floor as he surveyed the dozen matching suits that hung like executive scarecrows inside the folded doors. Below the suits, three pairs of identical dress shoes were lined up in a row. Victor toweled himself dry and pulled one of the wooden hangers off the metal rod. He laid the suit out on his meticulously made bed before he retrieved a pair of underwear and socks from the nearby chest of drawers.

Dressed, Victor went back to the closet and reached up to the shelf that spanned the shallow space just over the metal rod. He pulled down an 18-inch black case and laid it down in the same spot on the bed where his clean suit had been minutes before. He opened the case and smiled. Every workman needed the right tool for the job.

As Victor’s hands busied themselves, he thought about the fact that bunnies could not be tolerated in a garden. They simply couldn’t. There was nothing more damaging to fresh, green crops than a hungry, freeloading bunny. Everyone had to earn their keep. If they didn’t, one needed to weed them out. It was just another part of tending the harvest.

After he inspected the contents of the case, Victor closed it and carried it with him out of the apartment. He passed his pretty neighbor on the sidewalk as she walked her miniature poodle. The neighbor wore a clingy red t-shirt and cut-off denim shorts that showed off her lean, tanned legs. Victor smiled as he passed. The dog yapped. The neighbor averted her eyes. People didn’t talk to Victor much. They didn’t seem to understand the importance of his work. The truth was the details of his work were a little fuzzy to Victor too. That was all right. He knew he was good at what he did.

Victor caught the bus two blocks away. It was well after working hours now and he only had a few fellow passengers. They kept to themselves, absorbed in their own little worlds. No one looked at him as he made his way to a seat in the back. He plopped down onto the hard molded plastic and placed his case in the empty seat beside him. He hummed “Here Comes Peter Cottontail” as the bus rolled down the darkening city street.

Soon enough, the bus arrived at Victor’s destination. As the vehicle pulled away in a cloud of exhaust, it revealed an expensive high-rise hotel on the opposite side of the street. Victor glanced at the elegant building with its colorful faux-brick front and thought for a moment he could smell the rich aroma of fresh-tilled earth and ripe vegetables. He turned his back on the hotel and stepped toward the entrance of an office building.

A security panel with a glowing keypad was mounted beside the front door. Just above it was a security camera. The power light on the camera was dark and lifeless. Victor offered the blind eye a brief smile then turned his attention to the panel. His fingers deftly keyed in the entrance code. When the door buzzed open, he ducked inside.

He strode across the lobby to the stairwell against the back wall. The stairs were steep. Every concrete step echoed as Victor methodically worked his way up all five flights.

At the top floor, Victor swung open the heavy door to the interior hallway and glanced around to see if anyone was watching. Seeing no one, Victor stepped onto the plush carpet of the hall and walked silently past a trio of office doors before he arrived at the one he wanted. He reached up to the top of the door frame, brushed his hand along the polished wood, and came away with a small key that shone in the pale light of the hallway lamps. He turned the key in the door lock and slipped inside.

The small office was dim, lit only by the city lights outside the large windows. Victor crossed the room and slid open one of the windows. He kneeled down on the wooden floor and laid the case at his feet. He opened it to reveal an ugly black bolt-action rifle fitted with a suppressor. A thin tripod was folded up beside it. The weapon gleamed softly in the darkness. Victor ran one hand reverently along its length then removed the gun from the case. He checked its sight as he pointed it at the hotel across the way. Satisfied, he set up his tripod in front of the open window. He settled into position and aimed the weapon at the hotel’s entrance six stories below.

The sight’s magnification provided Victor with a perfect view of the hotel’s glass doors and the sign just above them. It read “Chelsea Gardens” in a bright, inviting shade of green. Victor glanced at his watch then refocused on the target. Almost 9 o’clock.

He tensed as the doors slid open. A middle-aged couple walked arm-in-arm out onto the sidewalk to hail a cab. They smiled at one another, and the woman laughed as the man told some small joke.

That’s not the bunny.

A cab soon arrived and whisked the happy couple toward their evening adventure. Victor remained still. His finger rested on the trigger as he stared at the doors.

Here bunny, bunny.

A bead of sweat rolled down the side of his face, but he ignored it. The sun may have gone down, but the city still sweltered. There wasn’t even the hint of a breeze.

The doors swung open again and a tall figure in a gray suit carrying a leather briefcase stepped out. He glanced down at the expensive watch on his wrist. After three paces, the man looked up toward the street, revealing his face. He had a familiar face. Maybe even a famous one.

The bunny.

Victor calmly squeezed the trigger. He watched as his shot made a hole in the man’s forehead, just below his graying hairline. The man crumpled to the ground. His briefcase clattered as it bounced on the cement before it came to rest two feet beyond the body. Victor watched a minute more. Satisfied, he got up and quickly packed his rifle and tripod. He exited the office and left the building via a maintenance door.

A dark sedan waited in the alley outside, windows tinted, engine running. Its parking lights were two yellow eyes in the gloom of night. The back door of the car opened. Victor slid inside without hesitation.

The creature inside was cloaked in shadow, so large it took up almost the entire backseat. Its gray flesh pressed upon Victor’s side sending a wave of revulsion through the assassin even in his current addled state. Victor swallowed a mouthful of bile and closed the door. The car glided out of the alley and onto the city streets.

The creature’s tentacles undulated as it spoke, the words silent in the car, but slithering inside Victor’s head.

“ThE bUnNy Is DeAd?”

Blood began to ooze from Victor’s left ear. He winced as he replied.

“Yes, I did what you wanted.”

“VeRy GoOd.”

Victor covered both ears with shaking hands and gritted his teeth.

“Please, it hurts.”

“PaIn Is FoOd FoR tHe WeAk.”

Tears welled in Victor’s eyes.

“No more. Please, I’ll do whatever you want. Just make it stop.”

“We WiLl HaRvEsT aLl. ThIs WoRlD iS nOw OuRs.”

Victor nodded. Tears streamed down his face.

Two of the creature’s tentacles reached out to clasp the assassin’s head. The slimy suction cups lined along the dark flesh caressed Victor’s smoothly-shaved cheeks, sucking up his tears.

A dreamy look came over Victor’s face, his eyes unfocused and dim.

“I am the instrument of my own destruction. I am the tool of our vermin race’s demise.”

The creature’s tentacles stroked Victor’s hair like a treasured pet, small and helpless, caged yet eager to please. And the car drove on.

End.

Matt Handle lives in Atlanta, Georgia where he juggles the reality of being a husband, father, and software developer with the imaginary characters and worlds that constantly vie for his attention. His longer work including his debut novel Storm Orphans is available on Amazon. His short stories can be found around the web including at Dark Recesses Press, Daily Science Fiction, Verbicide, Flash Fiction Magazine, and Fabula Argentea.

Art by Maxwell Marais

Millions

By Christi Nogle

The suspect made that spiraling gesture close to the body that meant he was searching for a word. Finally, he said, “It isn’t a penis. It’s an... ovipositor. I have one there,” he said, pointing down, “and others in other parts of this body.”

“Where else, other than at the groin?” said Goode, pointing to his fly. He was standing but soon he would be sitting. It was always up, down, up, down with him, while the suspect always had to be still.

The suspect said, “The others are in these hands, in these elbows... other places.”

“Show me,” said Goode. “Show me the ones in your hands. Just do that, and we’ll have an easier time. Or just one of them.”

The suspect held out his palms so they both could see. They looked somewhat splotchier than Goode’s hands, but the suspect thought they were very close. The suspect closed his eyes and pushed. He knew he was making a face that would make Goode think of bearing down at the toilet or concentrating on some monumental problem. He was a long time like that with his eyes closed. When he opened them, he didn’t look straight at the hands. He looked at the mirrored wall behind Officer Goode—or Detective Goode? He couldn’t remember. He looked there because he knew the ovipositors had failed to emerge, which was shameful. It meant he’d lied, or that he was untrustworthy for other reasons, or that his organs were missing—or blocked. He thought it rather more likely that they were blocked than missing. Hopefully. Not that he ever might need them again.

He was knowing more and more ever since he had entered and bred himself into that other body. He was knowing more every minute and yet there were many crossed paths and times when the data before him seemed to contradict the meanings and words he received.

“What I don’t understand,” he said, “is what kind of a people leave an... elder to live alone so that when he dies no one—”

“She,” said Goode.

The suspect made a gesture, also close to the body, an outward turn of the palm, which meant it mattered not.

“Please state what you mean by that gesture,” said Goode.

The suspect felt surer of gestures than words. Words were ambiguous, many-featured things. “He and she matter not. Your sexes matter not,” he said.

“But you told those at the scene that you, quote, ‘bred into him’,” said Goode. He had opened and was reading from a folder.

“I bred into him, and he bred into me,” said the suspect.

“She.”

“She bred me. Bled? She bled into me,” the suspect said. He wanted to convey how immaterial all of it was, but he couldn’t find the words, and even if he could, there was no way, really, to make Goode understand. Instead of trying, he simply acknowledged, “This is very stupid. I’m sorry. It is, very stupid.”

Goode said, “The neighbor saw you on top of her, nude.”

And again the suspect made the gesture, it does not matter and again he said it, because Goode insisted all be verbalized: “It matters not.”

“How do you explain that these ‘ovipositors’ will not come out of your hands, and elbows, and so on.”

“Knees,” said the suspect. That was one of the other locations. He hadn’t known for sure that this was the right word when he was explaining earlier, but now he felt sure. She was still bleeding her words into him. Her memories and ideations were still breeding in him.

“How do you explain it?” said Goode.

The suspect smiled. “She bled into me a little more, maybe, than I realized. This body is more like your own than it was an hour ago. This body was very different, even when they put me in the car, even when I was waiting back there. It was very different then than it is now. I understood much less. She is still breeding me.”

“She’s dead. She can’t do anything,” said Goode.

“Yes?” the suspect said.

Goode said, “Yes, damn it.” He slapped his folder on the table.

The suspect leaned as far forward as he could and said, “She was bloating and crawling with life. She was full of life, more than you. A lot more, millions more. I pierced her here, here, here,” he said, touching the places. “The feet, too.” He wasn’t able to touch those, wasn’t allowed.

“I pierced her,” he repeated.

“There were no... pierce marks.”

“I pierced her, my eggs flowed into her, and out of her flowed…” He turned up his eyes as though her life was written in the air above his head. “Into me flowed memories, language, stories, people. She knew people when she was... young. She wasn’t always alone. And onto my body flowed her juices. The juices were still all over me, no, when they put me in the car? There is your… evidence.”

“Evidence,” Goode said, smacking the folder on his knee. “You disgust me.”

“Clearly,” said the suspect.

Goode shook his head slowly. Standing or sitting, he couldn’t seem to stop tapping the folder on his knee.

The suspect said, “Why do we keep talking about this one thing? Don’t you want to ask me what worlds I’ve seen? Don’t you want to ask how I came here? Or even–yes, even this: don’t you want to know how that poor thing came to be living all alone, and how she died, and what she thought as that was happening? No, you are curious about only one thing. You are....” The suspect put his palms to his temples. This word was very hard to call up, so that he was excited when it emerged: “Blindered. You are blindered.”

Goode stared, stood again. He turned away for a moment. “All right,” he said when he turned back. “Tell me the story from the beginning.”

This was what the suspect had asked for, and yet now he didn’t know where to start. With his landing? The journey? His own beginning? Human words could not express such things.

“All right,” he said. “I will start before we met. Before she and I knew each other.” He chuckled. “That is a mixed meaning, right? I was outside and I was afraid, you understand? Scared. I didn’t know if someone might squoosh me. I didn’t understand anything. I knew it was going to be different here—it’s always different each time, you understand? So I was smelling for life. I smelled little bits of life. Bodies like yours and other types of bodies. But each one had only a little life. I was smelling for—”

“Millions?” said Goode with a grimace. The suspect smelled something acidic come up in Goode’s throat just then.

“Ah, yes,” the suspect said, straightening in his seat. “I was smelling for something really alive, and it was a long time before I found it.”

“How long?”

“Years? I am not sure. Anyway, I found her, and right away I had this urgent feeling and knew how to make myself and what to do. I stretched myself like I told you, lined up my parts with hers. I pierced her, like I told you, and then what you don’t care about, the most important part: I saw her life. I saw how alone she was, years and years. I saw what happened right before we met. She wanted something up high, and so she pulled one of her… kitchen chairs over, to step on. There should have been someone there to do that in her place, she thought, or someone tall. Does that not make you ashamed? That there was no one tall for her?” Goode, being tall, should surely feel that shame, only he didn’t.

“Why would it make me ashamed? I’d never met her,” Goode said.

“Exactly.” The suspect shook his head. “Exactly. She was alone, and no one cared to meet her. She stepped up on the chair, very careful to not fall. She was terrified of falling and being hurt, and all alone hurt on the floor and no one able to hear her cries. But when it happened, it happened quick. There was pain but only for a short time. She thought, ‘Oh, it’s happening, like I feared. I am too stupid,’ and then she thought, ’Oh, it’s fast after all. That’s not so bad’.”

“Are you saying that Mrs. Bloade was dead when you came to her, that you were not the one who crushed her head?”

“You think I threw her down and then I waited a week to sex her? I know more about how you think now, and you think I am very disgusting, and it doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter!” He cried. He directed this last to the mirror.

“You know what happens to people here, on Earth,” Goode said, “when they are convicted of murder?” and he was addressing the window with that joke, no doubt. The suspect understood that now. All these years of cop shows the old lady had watched, and it was just like what she thought. This was a comedy one, like that show she’d loved years ago, and all it was missing was the laugh track.

As soon as he thought that, the suspect did hear the laugh track, just like all the audience was laughing along with his thoughts.

“All right, enlighten me. Why doesn’t it matter?” said Goode.

He said, full of certainty, “I fulfilled my destiny. I made all the little babies. Millions of them, tiny.” He held his fingers in the gesture that meant “a little.” The gesture you make when you don’t speak a language but want to signal you know a few words.

“Babies, huh?” said Goode.

“They’re hungry. They can probably only get a little life at a time, but that will be okay. A little here, a little there.”

“The woman will be buried, eventually,” said Goode. “What happens to your darlings then?”

“That’s okay. They will come up out of the ground. It might take years.”

Goode added, “Or after the trial—if it’s quick, and I think it will be—they might even cremate her.”

The old lady knew about cremation—yes, she knew quite a lot about it. The practice had been the preferred way for her family, back when she had a family. (Ah, well, she would have a family again. Millions.)

The suspect watched her memories associated with the word cremation and smiled. His smile opened into her own high, bone-rattling laughter.

Goode jumped up. “Why are you laughing? What is it?”

“Cremation? That’s what you said, right?” He laughed. He couldn’t help it.

“The fuck is your problem?” shouted Goode.

“Well,” he said, in the lady’s voice, and with the laugh-track roaring all around, “It’s only that the cremation makes them hatch right away. The heat! They’re like the phoenix; they’re like the dragons in that HBO show!”

“Come and get him. We’re done,” said Goode.

The images kept coming. The images, like the babies, were a mix of the old woman’s and his own. The cremation fires, the casket, the explosion of life—millions of them in the air, some in what looked like this new and improved body of his, some just like their other parent, all of them up in the air. Huge. Life-sized. Not tiny. All of them, millions—each of them poised to fall down on somebody, to piece and strike some earth-being, whatever the type .

Millions.

The planet would be transformed.

End.

Christi Nogle is the author of the novel Beulah (Cemetery Gates Media, 2022) and the short story collections The Best of Our Past, the Worst of Our Future and Promise (forthcoming from Flame Tree Press, 2023). Her work has appeared in over fifty publications including PseudoPod, Escape Pod, Vastarien, and Dark Matter Magazine along with anthologies such as C.M Muller’s Nightscript and Flame Tree’s American Gothic. Christi is a member of the HWA, SFWA, and Codex Writers’ Group. She lives in Boise, Idaho with her partner Jim and their gorgeous dogs. Follow her at christinogle.com or on Twitter @christinogle

Birth of the Living Night

By Elyse Russell

Ula had only twelve summers when she watched the birth of the night. She hid behind a tree and watched from beneath her prominent brow as the tendrils reached up, semitransparent and dripping, from the burial grounds.

There was no word in her language for the creature that pulled itself from the earth. She could not help but think of it as the night itself, given form. When the bulbous body had emerged entirely, it swayed on its many limbs like a newborn aurochs. Ula could see straight through its middle. It seemed to be made of dark blackish-purple ooze.

When it began to move, she crouched lower. It wrapped its long tendrils around boulders and trees, pulling itself along in fits and though Ula was wary, she did not fear it. Rather, she was curious.

And so, the young girl followed the thing as it progressed over the land of the dead. She flinched with every step, knowing that it was wrong to trespass on her ancestor’s resting place, but she could not let this new thing out of her sight. Her curiosity propelled her forward.

When the darkness came to a halt, she ducked down again and watched. It had found a wounded animal. A great deer lay on its side, heaving breaths through quivering nostrils, a spear jutting out from its flesh. The hunter, unlike Ula, had not trespassed on the burial grounds, even to chase dying prey.

When the new night came upon this animal, it hovered over it and seemed to quiver. A tendril reached out and stroked over the deer’s soft fur. Then the tendril pushed its way down the deer’s throat. Ula watched as the poor stag choked and convulsed, its hooves striking the air in futile desperation. Wet gagging sounds reached her ears, and then halted abruptly. The blood-soaked limbs lay still on the dewy grass.

Ula waited, wanting to see this new creature feed. She couldn’t even tell which end was supposed to be its head. Her confusion deepened as she watched the tendril withdraw from the deer’s throat amidst flecks of blood and spittle, for the limb seemed now to be glowing. The light traveled up to the main body of the living night, and then seemed to float freely through the transparent being as it moved away from the fresh corpse. It left the sacred meat untouched.

Angered, Ula moved to follow the new thing. Her foot landed on a dry leaf, which crinkled beneath her weight. It was a small sound that could have been made by any animal.

But the living night paused. And then it turned, and Ula could sense it looking at her.

In a split second, all sound cut out. An awful ringing filled her head, and she clutched at her temples, teeth gritted. She could not move for the pain as the living night edged closer.

And then a tendril pushed down Ula’s throat, and her soul was taken.

End.

by Daniel Zamarron

Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead

Interviewed by Charles Tyra

We had the immense pleasure to sit down with the director duo responsible for Resolution, Spring, The Endless, and the forthecoming Something in the Dirt.

They talk process, evolution of filmmaking and how they feel about their role in cosmic horror!

CHM: Thanks so much for taking the time guys, how’s it going?

Justin Benson: It’s going really good. We’ve been in a nonstop work crunch for like two years now. It’s finally getting to a point where we aren’t like: Oh my God, we’re so far behind! We’re starting to create stuff again.

Aaron Moorhead: Yeah, (we’re) not just reacting to schedule changes. Even being able to talk to you is a reaping of what we’ve sown. To actually go out and put a movie into the world feels great.

CHM: You guys are crushing it and are a big reason as to why cosmic horror is inching its way into the mainstream, but What challenges are there in adapting cosmic horror to the silver screen? How did you overcome them?

JB: It’s so interesting. While there have been challenges to overcome everywhere, every single day, film making is already about problem solving. It’s a cool career where every day, you pretend like you know what you’re doing but there are about twenty-five new problems.

AM: Everyday is actually your first day!

JB: But in terms of cosmic horror specifically, something that really helped us along was that out of the gate, we didn’t know we were doing it. We didn’t know we were making cosmic horror. There was a weird sort of convergence with the way our minds work. I was someone who was raised atheist but was extremely curious about things beyond our material existence. My imagination was trying to think up, like if there was a deity, what would it be? If there was an afterlife, what would it be? But not having a basis for it. Like, what is infinity, what’s in space? And Aaron, as someone who wasn’t raised that way, I’ll let him speak on that, is such a free-thinking person and had so much curiosity from a young age reading Stephen King and the like. But it is our two minds coming together. We didn’t realize we were making cosmic horror until movie number three. And now you have a way to talk about it even though it was never really the plan.

AM: You bring up something that we never talk about, but it is interesting. There is this amazing real-world analog for what cosmic horror is, which is religion. And I don’t mean you should be horrified by religion. That’s too cynical. But imagine, you are born into this mythology. There is this invisible thing out there that is going to break your mind and your soul. Oh, and do you know what a soul is? It’s this invisible thing inside of you. It’s not your brain, it’s not your body. It’s a very conceptual, heady sort of thing and the consequences are so much greater than with slasher horror where you get stabbed, and you die. It’s like, you’re going to this place that’s actually indescribable but the closest thing we can say is that you will be tortured forever. Cosmic horror comes from the deepest parts of religion.

JB: So, these two minds and sensibilities came together and we had this thing when we first started working together where if one person started to go down a road, and it felt familiar to the other person, we’d go another way. It was almost an unspoken rule of you know, no vampires, no ghosts, et cetera. But once you start doing that, you get into this world of innovation with supernatural stuff. And with that innovation at a certain budget range, you often times can’t show some things but they can be suggested. Trying to be innovative while also on a budget, led to this idea of cosmic horror.

CHM: You guys alluded to this a little already. For me, I am only sitting here today because when I was twelve, I read Lovecraft’s Dagon and it blew my mind. Was there a moment like that for either of you that brought you over to the dark side?

JB: In terms of the darker elements to our material, a lot of that comes from two things. One of them is an appreciation for dualities. Light with darkness. Humor works better among darkness. Romance works better if you take people to the edge. With most human relationships, we felt like we could land in more optimistic, softer places in the same material if we went really dark. It kind of frees you up to have the duality. I also want to say something. You said, you read Dagon? I haven’t read that one. I did recently finish, and hand over to Aaron, Alan Moore’s last big graphic novel, Providence. I don’t think it comes up until somewhere in the last half, but Dagon does come up. It becomes an analysis of all of Lovecraft’s work at a really elevated dense level. It’s amazing, I would recommend it to anybody. But Alan Moore’s Providence is probably my biggest education on Lovecraft, oddly. It goes deep, theorizing on where he got the stories from. And it also gets into the psychology of who he was, the good, and the extremely bad. But I think your going to love it. When you see the Dagon aspect, as it explores exactly where that story comes from, you’re going to have your whole childhood reshaped.

CHM: As filmmakers, how do you feel about the health of the industry, especially in regard to niche horror projects?

JB: God, they’re making a lot of money right now. Not ours! But I’ve seen some box office numbers recently. I’m like, what?!

AM: It’s in such a golden age and it has been for about five years. It’s still as hard as hard as ever to get a movie made and seen but also the quality seems to be going up and there are more innovative production methods. We have a company with our third partner David Lawson (Rustic Films) that was founded on the philosophy that films are not conceptual enough and are too expensive. We thought, we could find and identity other film makers and plug them into money and let them run wild, as long as they had a really good idea, which cosmic horror is all ideas and can be made at a certain price point. Obviously, there are plenty of movies that have come and gone but deserve to stay and I think, with the adjunct of streaming, there are ways for everyone to get a small movie made and get it seen. Every movie gets its day in court, at least a little bit. There’s still plenty of inequality and so much to solve but you’re no longer relying on having a big box office weekend and that’s a huge deal. We get to see more diverse voices, more interesting voices, and just more of them, period.

CHM: Speaking of streaming, with that medium really blowing up during the pandemic, do you think it makes it easier or more difficult to find an audience?

JB: That’s a really good question. It definitely puts more eyes on your movie but we’ve had some movies that have done really well with streaming. Well, it’s funny, how do you really know? But we’ve had movies that were ranked really high for viewership, at least publicly on Netflix. It’s weird, you get more eyes, but I couldn’t really say how much it expands the size of your audience going forward.

AM: It seems like the gatekeeping aspect of it has moved to a different place. Let’s remove streaming, like we were talking about before. You had DVD’s, theatrical, and of course TV. You would have to score a deal to make that work. And that’s only because there is only so much space on the shelf at Walmart, for example. Only so many slides at the theatre. And now, if you want to, you get to go on Amazon Prime. You send a link and you can do revenue sharing immediately. So, the gate has moved. You no longer have to score a deal, now you just have to fight your way through the noise. It’s a different ballgame. Justin made a good point that you might not be finding your audience, but you are finding an audience.

JB: We recently finished season three of Barry. There is a scene of someone having their show canceled on a streaming service while it’s number one on the streaming service. They’re like, it’s been out for twelve hours, what do you mean canceled?!

AM: It was on the front page! Everyone is loving it! 97% on Rotten Tomatoes and it’s just gone. The algorithm doesn’t like it. That’s cosmic horror. The algorithm telling you what you like is the real cosmic horror.

CHM: Do you have any surprising influences as artists that might surprise your fans?

JB: It’s funny, if we did have fans and they heard our influences, they probably wouldn’t be surprised. From a general film maker standpoint, it might be a little surprising. Alan Moore is a big influence. Stephen King, also not surprising. Garth Ennis.

AM: There are some people that you know, just inspire us like El-P from Run the Jewels. You just listen to him talk and your like: Yeah, you are just ruggedly independent all the way through and it’s always worked out for you. It kind of reminds you to just do it. You can do this. Synchronic was our largest film by budget and the next thing we did was Something in the Dirt which by budget, is our smallest film. And that wasn’t scary to us because we have people like El-P saying, yeah turn down money sometimes! Also, Ethan Hawke is a big inspiration even just as a human being.

JB: Yeah, he’s kind of like a renaissance man film maker. The more things you know, editing, acting, directing, plus doing other things that aren’t totally related to film making, they make you better at the job you are showing up for. If you are doing all of them, you’ll understand people so much better. If you ever have a bad interaction with someone on a film set, they are probably busy with their one job they’re doing and haven’t done other things or been able to see someone else’s perspective on it.

AM: It is fascinating, and I’m sorry this is going to sound judgmental, but you notice a humility when someone has done everything on set. You start to notice them keep the kid gloves on for other parts because they know what you’ve been through. Kind of like when you overtip the server. And also, Ethan reminds me that unbridled passion isn’t uncool. It sounds obvious, but you realize that sometimes you hold back on things that you really care about because you worry that gushing loses your veneer of cool, and he has none of that in any instance we’ve seen working with him or in any of his books. He rips his chest open and shows everything without considering that you might judge him for it.

CHM: Going back to 2012 with Resolution to now, how do you think your approach to film making has evolved?

AM: I wouldn’t say it’s changed. It’s more like its solidified. It’s calcified. We can say, oh that was always a good idea you just weren’t sure of it at the time. Like, could I make Resolution today? Yeah, it would probably look pretty similar.

JB: I read the book by RZA, The Tao of Wu. Some of it is autobiographical, some of it is little bits of life wisdom he’s picked up along the way. He has this part where he talks about when they made Thirty Six Chambers, probably one of the greatest pieces of music of all time, certainly one of the greatest albums of all time, regardless of genre. He says, he was so new to it, he really didn’t know what he was doing. Now decades later, with so many new skills picked up, he couldn’t make an album that tops that one. I think there is something interesting about being raw coming out of the gate. I don’t think I would say we’ll never make another move as good as Resolution. Someone else might say it. We loved the film, but there is something so interesting about the idea of being tasked with going out and trying to repeat that. To do that again and capture the spirit of it.

AM: I think Something in the Dirt kind of does. Something in the Dirt reaffirms that we can grab a camera and go make this tiny movie. And I know what you mean, you are always trying to come back home. You just don’t know it when you are leaving. You don’t know it on movie two, three, or four. That you are just trying to get back to what movie number one was at its core. I don’t mean to disagree I just think we did sort of take everything we’ve learned and instead of making some big budget spectacle, we said let’s make a tiny movie where nobody is going to care that it’s small. That when you think about it, it will just feel like a regular old movie.

JB: I want to go on the record, before this goes too far, saying that I am in no way comparing Resolution to a Wu-Tang album. That it has any cultural relevancy at any level compared to that! I just think its an interesting thing to think about comparing the earliest things you’ve done before you know what you know, and saying, could you do it again?

AM: You know what’s possible though? If you don’t mind us going down a country road on this?

CHM: Not at all!

AM: It’s possible that I am delusional. You know when you watch a TV show and they try to fake bad footage but it’s not bad enough because it is being made fake by professionals? So, I wonder if that’s also a thing. Like I can say yeah, Something in the Dirt kind of does that but when you look at it side by side, outside observers are like yeah, there’s definitely ten years between these two. The purity is something we will never get back, you can’t unlive 15 years of filmmaking.

JB: You know, (Aaron) I think with your cinematography. Like, this movie looks spectacular. I think it looks amazing. But then there is a world with what your cinematography could have become, where there is more ‘following the rules’ but you didn’t, and the cinematography is better for it. Because you’ve never done that. You’ve never not taken risks.

AM: I’ve been tempted!

JB: Yeah, you could have. You could have said now I have all this technical knowledge and I’m applying it in a way that makes it look bigger and more professional but ultimately, it’s kind of a little more boring. But you don’t flag yourself for it, it’s just so hard to do!

AM: It’s so hard to take something that’s still rough around the edges, but it’s correct. Now is the place to stop, don’t sand off the edges. Do you know what the edges should be? You want to fix everything, but I think we are going down a better path for that now.

CHM: Any connection to other films for Something in the Dirt? Can I expect an appearance of Shitty Carl?

JB: First of all, yeah there are a lot. Someday when this movie becomes available and you can flip through frames, you will catch a lot.

AM: Yeah, dozens and dozens. So, we do view this in a way that all the movies are connected. So, this one is more strongly connected than Spring and Synchronic but less strongly connected than Resolution and The Endless.

CHM: Is there anything else about Something in the Dirt you guys would like to say?

AM: At the end of the film, you’ll see in the credits, it’s dedicated to making movies with your friends. You’ll be able to see frame by frame when you pirate the movie, time-lapses of us all working together. There is a third one of us who should be here, David Lawson. He’s been with us every single step of the way. (He is) Smiling Dave, in The Endless. And it’s more true than ever, both in the world but for us as well. We just want to make movies with our friends. Every time you build a crew, you build a little family and every time you look outside of the people you know for help, it’s the wrong way. The people you know and love, you gravitate toward each other for a reason. The talent will grow with you. We just want to honor that idea and you know, the movies just get better and better as long as you make them with your friends.

JB: Plus the hours are too long to not be dealing with friends!

CHM: Thanks so much for your time, guys. You’ve been incredible!

Faithful (or new) CHM reader, if you love cosmic horror, particularly on film, go see Something in the Dirt any way that you can! The movie is set for release in the United States on November 3! Check for local show times or toss a bag of kettle corn into the microwave and catch it streaming in the comfort of your home. Keep an eye on our social media channels and we will post as soon as we know which streaming platform will carry the film!

* * *

The Language of Waves

By Scotty Milder

It came screaming out of the sky when the planet was still young: a black ball of ice and rock, birthed in a frozen void deep inside the darkest fold of the galaxy.

The planet’s crust was soft like newly formed skin. When the rock punched through it, the skin ripped open and the planet guttered fountains of molten blood. Ash billowed and encircled the globe, shrouding it in a darkness that would last eons.

Many things died.

Eventually the blood stopped flowing. Hardened. Turned black.

A hot, sticky silence descended.

And deep inside that puncture, that unhealed scar, something stirred.

* * *

The picture was ragged, torn at the corner, and haphazardly thumbtacked to the ceiling above Annie’s bed. Annie woke every morning—swimming, as always, out of murky, convulsive dreams filled with meat, blood, and hunger—and fastened her eyes to it. There was something choleric and new inside her that was constantly roiling. But that picture did a funny trick; looking into it was like falling from a great height into an unknowable chasm. The body tenses at first, anticipating the splatter. And then it releases into inevitability and accepts.

It was a print of an old painting called The Monk By the Sea. Annie didn’t know the artist, and didn’t care to. A frocked man stands on a bone-gray beach, staring across an immensity of dark water into the onrush of a blackening storm. The sea and the storm reduces the man to a speck against the dunes, and in that distance and against all that vastness he is featureless. Everything essential about him is erased.

Annie bought the print last year, when she and Colin went up to Cambridge and tooled around the Harvard Art Museum for an afternoon. Colin was always wanting to do things like that—go to galleries or arthouse film screenings at Coolidge Corner, take leisurely drives up the coast so they could see the House of Seven Gables.

She supposed he thought he had an adventurous spirit. But it seemed to Annie he just had a lot of family money to burn and no real driving interest in any one thing. He was a tourist in his own life, constantly amazed by all the sights. It was all so very basic.

Annie mostly just wanted to get herself good and fucked up. The monk is erased by sea and storm. Most nights, Annie did everything she could to erase herself with pills and pot and alcohol.

To go right along with his personality, Colin also had a thing for gift shops. He always wanted a mug or a coffee-table book just to prove he’d been somewhere. She didn’t know who he was trying to impress, considering the only person who ever went to his apartment was her. They’d wandered through the museum, him oohing and ahhing and her doing everything she could to push out an agreeable smile. It felt like a corpse’s rigored grimace to her, but he didn’t seem to notice. When they were done she followed him into the shop, bored with the museum and with him and feeling that fractious thing inside her drilling down like a corkscrew. She thumbed idly through the framed posters, half-listening as Colin debated loudly with himself between an artisanal candle and a jigsaw puzzle. Her eyes took in all those glossy reproductions of Manet, Renoir, Rembrandt, and Van Gogh—seeing but not seeing, vaguely imagining what the images were supposed to make her feel, but not feeling anything at all.

And then she came to The Monk by the Sea. Her heart seized. A blade unsheathed, pierced the soft tissue at the back of her throat.

What she felt wasn’t fear.

It was excitement.

Recognition.

Home.

She carried it wordlessly to the checkout counter, ignoring Colin’s surprised gape. When she got home she immediately tacked it to the ceiling. Every morning she woke to a pounding whiskey headache, pulled herself free of those febrile dreams, and gazed up into that turbid sea. That encroaching slab of storm. She felt herself falling. She released into it. The restless thing stilled.

Home.

She’d stay in bed for as long as she could. Finally, once the thing had quieted as much as she could hope for, she’d get up. Maybe make some coffee or a juice smoothie with a shot of vodka to take the edge off. All the while trying to forget the dream and not quite being able to. Pushing her mind toward the day—get dressed, call Mom back, walk over to Salem Market and get some cigarettes—as it tried to pull back into thoughts of bone and blubber and the savor of ruptured flesh.

Maybe, if she was feeling up to it, she’d paint for a while.

* * *

“Colin,” Annie said, and he could hear the groan in her voice. “I don’t know.”

“Oh, come on Annie.” He could hear his own voice trying to tighten down like a ratchet strap. He made himself swallow, forced his hand to ease its white-knuckle grip on the iPhone before he cracked the glass. “What else’ve you got going on?”

“That’s not the point,” she said, and didn’t elaborate.

He knew he should let it go. This—THIS right here—was why he couldn’t seem to keep a girlfriend for more than a year: his inability to let things go. He’d just pick and pick and pick until the whole thing was raw and bloody.

Mike, his brother, spoke up in his head, half-laughing and bemused: you’re losing her, buddy.

He shoved Mike aside. “We’ve only got a couple weeks before it gets too cold. I promise it’ll be fun,” he said, and cringed at how lame that sounded. Mike again: you shouldn’t have to beg.

“Not the point.”

“Okay.” He struggled to keep his tone light. “What is the point?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“You just don’t want to go.”

“I… Yeah. I don’t think so.”

He sighed.

“Annie,” he said. “Do we need to have a talk?”

“About what?”

“You tell me.”

She made a small clucking sound, tapping her tongue against the back of her teeth. “Yeah,” she said finally.

Here it comes. Colin braced himself. Now that it was about to happen, he found himself strangely elated. Whatever happens, you’ll be fine. He’d been through this enough times; he had calluses over it.

“So,” he said. “Talk.”

“About what?”

For the first—and hopefully last—time in his life, Colin was seized by a purely violent impulse. The type of impulse you can’t tell anybody about. It was a good thing Annie wasn’t here, because he might have tried to strangle her.

“Are you… okay, I’ll just come out with it. Are you sleeping with somebody else?”

She barked a laugh. “Jesus, Colin! No. I’m not. That’s the first thing you thought?”

Fire rose to his cheeks. “I don’t know,” he said, “I feel like… you’ve been pulling away from me for a while now. You can’t deny that, right? I’m just trying to understand why.”

Silence on the other end of the line. Colin looked out his bedroom window, saw the narrow black spire of the Prudential Center and the cobalt ribbon of the Charles beyond it, cutting through the splay of Boston like a knife. Everything was painted in dull browns and grays, with splashes of vibrant color here and there where the leaves were turning. Snow, the first of the season, swirled down in big fat flakes.

He wanted to say something, to keep digging at that raw spot, but he knew that the best thing he could do was just let her come to whatever she needed to say on her own. So he filled the silence with a scatter of memories. Bits of disconnected conversations that all snapped together into an undeniable truth: nobody he knew thought she was any good for him.

Mike met her once, almost a year ago, when Colin took Annie down to the Cape to meet his family. I don’t know man, he said when Colin got him alone in the kitchen. Does she ever say anything?

A week later, his dad was customarily more blunt: I get why you’re into her, kiddo. She’s a fucking looker, no doubt about it. But she’s got all the personality of a pair of wet swim trunks.

Shannon, his best friend from high school, the one that got away: I’d say she’s your manic-pixie dream girl, Colin. But she’s not all that manic or pixie-like.

And his mother, a month ago when he let it spill that he was afraid Annie had decided she was through with him. You know what I think it is? It’s that she’s adopted. I’ve read about it. A lot of those kids get attachment disorders.

“I’m not sleeping with anyone,” Annie said.

It came out of his mouth before he could stop it: “Do you want to?”

Silence. The space between them stretched out. He closed his eyes. Nailed it, he thought bleakly.

But what she said surprised him:

“It’s like… I feel swallowed.”

He tried to make sense of that, couldn’t. “Huh?”

“It’s like the whole thing… my life, my body, this city, you… all of it just came up and swallowed me.”

Colin was working on his graduate degree in structural engineering. Like most engineers, he had a bluff, practical (some might say boring) way of approaching the world. The fact that Annie was an artist thrilled him most of the time. But it could also drive him crazy. Because too often she’d say shit like this—couch whatever she was thinking in some quasi-poetic stanza—and leave him flummoxed.

“Annie,” he said evenly, through gritted teeth. “I guess what I’m trying to do here is ask a simple question. Do you want to break up with me?”

Another long silence.

“I don’t think it’s about what I want, Colin.”

“For Christ’s sake, can you for once just come out and say what’s on your—?”

“I dream about swimming through an ocean of intestines,” she said, and there was a buzz on the other end of the line that might have been static or might have come from her throat. “The ocean is black, and everything smells like salt and rot all I can think about is eating. And I wake up and I think, if you were here next to me, I might just roll over and tear your throat out with my teeth.”

He blinked, staring out at the city as if waiting for it to do something. It didn’t. Snow drifted out of the steel-colored sky like volcanic ash.

“So yeah,” Annie said, and she sounded happier than she had in a month. “I think maybe we should break up.”

* * *

The ash choked the sky for thousands of years. It sifted down over time, smoothing the scorched contours of the land, turning the shallow, acidic oceans to mud.

Inside the puncture, something stirred.

Finally, once the sky was no longer black and the air no longer tasted like charred stone, something—bulbous, oily, many legged—pulled itself from the crater. It crouched on the lip, splayed its body across hard, black rocks. They jabbed into it like knives. It didn’t care. The pain was a new, interesting sensation.

The rocks grew into it. Anchored it. Reshaped it. Things like lungs expanded within the sloping massif of its chest. The air of this planet was filled with nitrogen and carbon, and it wasn’t used to that, but it made do. Its body had evolved across millennia to make do.

It waited.

The sky went from red to blue as cyanobacteria pushed oxygen into the atmosphere. The lungs adjusted. It felt itself growing sharper, more vital, with each thunderous breath.

It lay there and watched as many tiny things died. They had not evolved to make do, as it had.

It waited.

Many other things—new things, green things—pushed up through the rocks. An epoch’s worth of dust stuck to its hide, covering it in a layer of soil, making it blend into crater’s edge like a broad volcanic plug. More green things wormed out of that soil, fed by the nutrients exuding through its skin.

It waited.

Generations of creatures lived and died around it. The first were small, no bigger than the bacteria that changed the color of the sky. Then they grew bigger. Their bodies filled with bones. They grew fins and scales, then legs and tails, eyes with which to see, ears with which to hear, teeth with which to bite.

It waited.

Finally, when it could wait no more, it stood and sloughed the dirt and rock and trees off of it like a snake shedding its second skin. The rocks that made its bed tore free of its belly, and torrents of red-black blood fell from the wounds like rain. It didn’t mind. Creatures screeched and brayed and ran as it drug itself—step by plodding step—across the land.

Finally it came to a blue-black immensity of water. A storm churned the horizon.

The many legs retracted into the swollen body. The lungs shriveled. Slashes appeared across the mottled landscape of its throat, and they flared, revealing interior pink flesh aching for nourishment.

It lifted the mountain of its head to the sky and bellowed.

Then it slid forward and disappeared into the waves.

* * *

The dream was always the same.

Annie pushed through a greasy blackness. There was no up and down here. No backward. Just forward.

The blackness was cold, and it kissed and nibbled at her naked skin like thousands of icy lips. The feeling was sensual and repulsive all at once. She wanted to shrink from it, even as it brought a new and welcome pleasure.

She pushed on. She could hear things, very distant things, coming from all directions. Muffled bleats and bellows, shrill clacks and chirps. A rhythmic and comforting drone underlay it all.

There were words buried in that rumble. Low and soothing. She couldn’t make them out.

Then—just as her body started to grasp for wakefulness and she became sickly aware that this was all a dream—the blackness grew warmer. Thicker. And then it wasn’t blackness at all, but pillowy bursts of red. She could taste all that red sluicing into her throat, the salt and copper tartness of it. Hunger snapped in with bewildering suddenness and she felt her jaws distend. A massive tongue lolled past ridges and ridges of broken teeth.

Ahead of her, she saw a wavering disc of orangey light. She pushed toward it.

And in that half second before sleep deserted her completely and the real world crashed in, something lumbered into the red space between her and that light. It was large, black, and ovoid. Alive.

She hit it. Her jaws clamped down, tearing through layers of skin and fat and muscle, thrashing her way to the hard bones beneath.

And the thing, whatever it was, shrieked—

* * *

—And then she was awake, sometimes to the trill of her alarm clock, usually to a dry silence. Annie was a side sleeper, so the first thing she saw was her cheap IKEA end-table and the lava lamp Colin got her a couple months ago as a joke. Past that, a stippled expanse of off-white wall.

Home, she thought. Except it wasn’t, and the sadness that filled her was so complete it was physical.

She rolled onto her back and gazed up at The Monk By the Sea. She breathed deep, no longer smelling those succulent ribbons of blood and dying but rather the flat, starched odor of her sheets.

My name is Muireann Webber, she thought. Muireann, from old Gaelic, meaning “sea fair.” She’d looked it up. Webber, meaning her adoptive dad probably had some German in him somewhere. Not that he knew or cared.

My name is Muireann Webber. My friends call me Annie. I’m twenty-four years old. I was born in the middle of May, 1997.

She celebrated her birthday on May 15, because that was everyone’s best guess as to when she was born. She was fifteen when she’d finally asked her mom why the adoption agency or whatever didn’t have the actual birth date. Her mom got shifty and never quite answered the question.

I’m Muireann Webber, she thought, and most mornings that moored her to the idea that she was in fact this thing called Muireann Webber, Annie to her friends, a pretty young woman with dyed burgundy hair and milk-pale skin and a face shaped like a heart. A pretty young woman who almost never smiled, and never understood all the people who did.

But this morning the name felt abstract, like mysterious words barked at her in a foreign language. She gazed at The Monk By the Sea and instead of calming her, the sadness curled up inside her chest and pressed down like an enormous foot. She gasped, trying for air and not quite finding it.

She threw herself out of bed. The world spun. Another hangover. There were vague memories of last night’s whiskey—something cheap that she’d picked up at the package store over on Hanover, the kind of liquid fire they put in a plastic bottle and sold from the bottom shelf. She’d downed half the bottle and stared at the TV, something about sweaty dudes and fire and metal. It didn’t matter. She thought the phone might have rung at some point. She wasn’t about to check to see who it was. It would have been Colin. Poor guy didn’t know when to quit.

She put a palm to the wall to steady herself.

“Muireann Webber,” she murmured. “Muireann Webber… Muireann Webber.”

Finally, she managed to coax her body over to the window and shoved it open. She stood there, eyes closed, only dimly aware that she was naked. A blast of cold air hit her in the face and for a moment she was back pushing through that frigid blackness, feeling the caress of all those daggered kisses. Smelling the blood and sinew. If she was a normal person, a dream like that should have disturbed her. But she wasn’t normal, so it didn’t. Instead it brought a still, all-too-ephemeral tranquility.

Then the sounds and smells of Boston’s North End crashed in. Car horns. Some guy shouting down the street—just a stream of fucks and cunts in thick Bostonese. The reek of car exhaust twined with the sweet perfume from the Italian pastry shop next door. A sharp chemical stink wafted up from the dry cleaners beneath. Underneath it all lay the ghost of something darker and older, a syrupy thickness that may have been the fabled remnants of the Great Molasses Flood, or may have been her imagination.

And the sea. She could smell the sea.

She crossed the bedroom and squeezed into the bathroom. She looked at herself in the mirror. It was a face she recognized, one she’d lived with her entire life, but just now it felt uncanny, like a waxwork. Some distant artist’s vague impression of the thing that was called Muireann Webber. She felt disconnected from it, and peering into its details—the wide-open pores, the plum-colored half moons under her eyes, the high ridges and low canyons of her nose and lips—was like studying the topography of an alien landscape.

I am Muireann Webber, she thought. And suddenly didn’t believe it at all.

You know, whatever’s going on here might be clinical. Colin had suggested once—timidly—that maybe she could see a therapist. She’d scoffed and changed the subject.

She left the bathroom.

By the time she was in her kitchen, running water through day-old coffee grounds, her mind turned back to that long-ago conversation with her mother. Every conversation about the adoption—where she came from, who her birth parents were, even the goddamned day she was born—ended in obfuscation, followed by promises that we’ll talk all about this when you’re a little older. But then Annie got older and they never did, and eventually she stopped trying. Now, as she filled a chipped BU mug with appalling coffee and spoonfuls of powdered cream, she realized how fundamentally opaque her past was to her. How erased she felt. Like the monk by the sea.

Maybe there’s something wrong with me, she thought as she choked down a swallow of coffee. Maybe my real dad was a serial killer or something.

She went into the living room. Stacks of unframed canvasses leaned against the walls, all similarly spattered with globs of muted color. The images were abstract at best, psychotic at worst. But looking at them now, lined up as they were, a vague pattern presented itself. Some of these canvasses went back to her college days, and the dream had only been inflicting itself upon her for the last few months. Still, she thought she could see the ghost of it in all those chalky greens and blues. And blacks. Especially the blacks.

She sat on the futon and took another swig of coffee. Her eyes flitted from canvas to canvas. Entirely accidentally, one image seemed to flow perfectly into the next. Lined up, she realized what she was looking at. The salt tang of seawater tickled her nostrils. And the sour rot that came with it.

Her mouth watered.

Annie grew up in Cleveland, hadn’t seen the ocean or given it much thought until she’d come to Boston for school. She had the lake, after all; it was a poor substitute, she knew now, gray and choked with a century’s worth of pollution.

The first time she set her eyes on the sea, it was like the initial click-back of a hundred different locks.

Once, not long after that conversation with her mom, she’d Googled her birthdate and scanned through all the Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania newspapers, looking to see if there was anything anywhere about a baby left on a church doorstep or something. No luck. She’d even tried to call a couple of the local adoption agencies to see if they would give her access to any records. One lady actually laughed at her. The others just hung up.

But now, sitting here and staring at all these paintings that were like a maniac’s conception of the sea, she realized something.

She was from Cleveland. But her parents weren’t. They were from Maine. They’d moved to Ohio when her mom got a job as a copy writer at American Greetings, making bank by thinking up such congenial missives as thinking of you just makes my day and may the love of those around you help you through the difficult days ahead.

Annie scoured her memory, trying to dig out any conversation they’d ever had about their life before she came along. She couldn’t think of one. She’d assumed that they moved to Ohio before she was born, but she realized she really had nothing upon which to base that assumption. She only knew they were from Maine because her mom mentioned it in passing once, and Annie hadn’t thought to press.

Her laptop sat on the coffee table. She set the coffee cup aside and levered it open.

It was almost upsetting how little time it took. The article was short, and there wasn’t much detail. But it was enough:

MACHIASPORT—Washington County Sheriff’s Spokesman Dale DeLonge confirmed that an infant girl was found abandoned along the beach at Long Point Preserve near Machiasport.

A couple walking their dog along East Side Road at Holmes Point Tuesday morning heard the child crying, DeLonge said. They found her nestled in the rocks just above the low-tide line.

“That child is extremely lucky those folks found her when they did,” DeLonge continued. “Those tides out there aren’t anything to mess around with. Another hour and the sea would have come right in and took her.”

DeLonge said that the girl was rushed to the emergency room at nearby Down East Community Hospital, where she is being treated for exposure and possible hypothermia. DeLonge did not have any information about the girl’s condition.

“Anyone who knows anything about this, please get in touch,” DeLonge continued. “Someone ought to go to jail for this…”

Annie shut the laptop and leaned back, thinking. It explained her name, at least.

She thought about calling her mother and confronting her with what she’d found, then decided against it. What would be the point?

The thing in her bashed against the cage of her skull like an ape. She felt something giving way. More tumblers clicked. Deadbolts slid back into their sheaths.

A door was about to open.

She closed her eyes and let it.

* * *

It swam.

Mostly it kept itself to the abyssal depths, burrowing its way implacably through an endless blackness. It swam, and it ate. Dead things sifted down, tons of them, filling its ever-gaping maw. Sometimes, when it wanted a taste of the living, it would rise. Great jaws would unhinge and snap violently shut, severing head from body and fluke from vertebra.

Sometimes it slept.

Always, it pushed forward.

Above, nations rose and fell. Occasionally the people of those nations would catch a glimpse of it as it breached volcanically through the waves. It would show itself for mere moments, sometimes at a distance, sometimes right beneath ships that it would reduce to splinters and screams. And then it would slide back into the murk, leaving the ocean like a pane of glass.

They gave it a thousand different names, many forgotten and a few that would resound through ages:

Tiamat.

Kraken.

Charybdis.

Iku-Turso.

Leviathan.

All the while it watched. Many creatures had grown to populate this strange blue world, but none were so fascinating as these tiny pink and brown things that presumed to build wooden—and then steel—ships and trespass into its territory.

At first it feared them, for reasons it couldn’t quite understand. Then it hated them.

Eventually, it grew jealous of them. Their industriousness. Their capacity for community. Even for love.

It had been alone so long.

The idea came slow, like methane bubbles belching up from caverns along the sea floor. The building blocks were right there in its genetic code. The same thing that allowed it to exsiccate its own lungs and split its neck into gills could allow it to transform.

The problem, it realized, was not insurmountable. It was simply one of scale.

It pushed ever forward, and it pondered.

It worked its way through the problem.

* * *

“Annie?”

A hollow thrum greeted him on the other end of the line. Colin was on the Red Line, clanking slowly across the Longfellow Bridge. Dying sunlight dappled in through the scratched plexiglass windows, painting the interior of the subway car in fierce violets and golds. An old man with grizzled white stubble and a lightning storm of burst capillaries across his nose and cheeks glanced up from a battered copy of the Herald and scowled, irritated. In moments the train would plunge into the tunnels and the signal would break.

“Hello?” he said. “Annie, are you—?”

“Hey,” she said, so low her voice was almost lost beneath the rattle.

“Hey,” he said. “Is everything okay?”

They hadn’t spoken in over a week. He’d half expected her to call, to take it back, but she didn’t. By the third day he pretty much gave up.

“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah. Everything’s great. Look, I… can we talk?”

“I’m on the T and we’re about to go underground. Can I call you later?”

“Sure,” she said. “But…”

“Annie?”

“I changed my mind,” she said. “I want to go.”

* * *

In the 1960s the United States Navy set up set up an underwater microphone array. The idea was to catch Soviet submarines as they prowled, panther-like, along the American coast.

The microphones only sort of worked. But they were great at detecting other sounds. Eventually, by the early 1990s, the Navy threw up its hands and turned part of the array over to civilian scientists.

Most of these sounds were easily identifiable: whales, boats, the occasional calving of an ice shelf. A few were not.

On May 1, 1997, the array picked up a new sound. It started at a relatively high frequency and then decreased over seven minutes to sub-aural rumble. They called it “the Slow Down.”

Similar noises would be heard over the ensuing decades, but nothing quite like that original. A few of the scientists thought it was the mournful bellow of some unknown animal. Others blamed icebergs grinding against one another. More still believed it was the call of a vast continental ice sheet scraping across frozen ground.

What occurred to no one was that it could be the sound of millions of tons of water suddenly rushing in to fill an empty void.

A void previously occupied by something monstrous.

* * *

“See, I told you. It’s nice, right?”

“Mmmm….”

In fact, it wasn’t particularly nice. They’d missed the window by a solid week, and in the interim the air sprouted teeth. A steady, Arctic wind nipped in across the sandy expanse of North Beach Island. Beyond it, a churning gray sea melted into a hazy gray sky.

Colin’s dad thought he was nuts when he called and asked if he could take the boat out. Colin hadn’t quite begged, but he supposed his dad must’ve heard the desperation in his voice because he relented without much fight. But if you see a storm rolling in, he said, you head on back. Don’t forget the Andrea Gail.

Colin gunned the engine and looked at Annie, who was sitting up toward the bow and leaning against the gunwale. She was wrapped in a heavy, fur-lined parka. Red hair squashed out from beneath a knit cap. Big, black gloves enveloped her hands. Hectic blooms of color splashed her pale cheeks and stippled her nose, but otherwise she looked content enough.

Still, he couldn’t quite help himself: “We probably should’ve come last week,” he said. “It would’ve been a bit warmer.”

There was a movement beneath the parka that he supposed was meant to be a shrug. Her eyes never left the shore, where the peaked clapboard cottages of Chatham drifted serenely by. “I’m fine,” she said. “It’s… I don’t know, it’s kind of invigorating.”

They were almost past North Beach Island now. “I figure we’ll make a loop around Little Pleasant Bay,” he said, trying to keep his teeth from chattering. “Maybe as far north as Barley Neck. If you’re up for it we can dock and grab a couple pints at the Inn. It’s been named ‘Restaurant of the Year’ like four times….”

You’re trying to make this like a first date, he thought, in Mike’s voice. Stop it.

But, as North Beach Island fell behind them, she swiveled in her seat and looked east. “Can we get out there?”

Out there was just miles and miles of open ocean, all the way to Portugal.

“I don’t know,” he said, trying to silence the part of his mind that was screaming you’re screwing this up! “The sea can turn rough in a hurry this time of—”

She turned her flat gaze to him, and—as always—he felt himself sinking into her eyes like quicksand. He flashed on a memory: the first time they made love, him on his back and her above him, moonlight washing her breasts in silver and sparkling across those eyes like diamonds.

“We don’t have to go far,” she said, and offered a tight, mischievous smile. “I feel like being just a little bit dangerous.”

He returned the smile.

“Okay,” he said.

* * *

“Come sit with me,” she said after Colin pushed the engine to idle.

The boat rocked as he made his way across the deck and slid onto the bench next to her. Distant, to the West, was a long and bone-white ridge that he knew was Pochet Island. Seeing it there—and knowing that the village of South Orleans lay just beyond—anchored him. He didn’t want to turn and look the other direction; the thought of all that depth and distance unnerved him. He felt like he was hanging off the edge of something, one missed finger-hold away from tumbling into the dark.

Annie turned to him. She smiled.

Say something, he thought. Tell her she’s beautiful. Ask her what’s wrong with her. Tell her you need to know what she wants from you. Anything.

“We probably shouldn’t stay out here too long,” he said.

Annie smiled. Her lips parted. She drew in a breath.

Colin entertained a half-minute fantasy about what she would say. She’d tell him she loved him. She’d say she was sorry she’d been so distant lately, she just had a lot on her mind, but that she really wanted this to work. She’d say he was the best thing that ever happened to her, and that just being with him was teaching her how to truly receive love.

What she said was: “You know, there was this tribe down in South America—Peru, I think—that sacrificed its warriors to a sea god.”

“What?”

She nodded slowly. “It’s true. They found this grave a few years back. Something like two hundred men were bound and then killed, and their bodies were left on the beach so that the sea could claim them.”

“Annie—”

“The Phoenicians, too. They think they were actually killing their kids.”

Colin’s mind spun, trying to attach any significant meaning onto what she was saying. Even for Annie, this was weird.

“Okay,” he said.

She turned and squinted out into the sea. “Look at it.”

Reluctantly, Colin did. The wind was picking up and the swells were starting to grow. The horizon was like one of Annie’s swirled canvasses. He felt nauseous.

“Every god needs a sacrifice,” she said.

“We really should go—”

“I never should have tried,” she said.

“Huh?”

“To be like you. I made myself forget who—what—I am. I thought it would make it easier. It didn’t. You can’t forget. Not really.”

“Annie, what’re you talking about?”

She looked at him. This close, there was something different about her. Her skin was waxy smooth. The color had fled from her cheeks and nose, leaving the gleaming white of a shark’s belly.

And her eyes….

“What I’m saying…” she said through teeth that were suddenly yellow and peg-like, jutting out of the black cave of her mouth like stalactites. A wet, carrion reek exuded.

Her face flattened out, expanded until it filled the whole of the sky and sea behind her.

The voice that finished the thought was dull thunder:

“…is that none of this is your fault.”

Bones cracked and jutted. The jaw unhinged, yawed wide and merciless, and Colin thought—too late—of pulling away.

And then he thought nothing at all.

* * *

It swam.

Miles off the coast, the continental shelf fell away and opened into inviting blackness.

It dove.

It remembered, dimly, the last name they’d given it. I am Murieann Webber, it thought, as their language dissolved from the expanse of its mind, replaced by the pure, arcing sensation that was its true nature. I am Murieann Webber… I am Murieann Webber…

The words followed it into the deep, clanging around until they became a meaningless, hollow echo.

It also remembered—even more dimly—another sea, a deeper sea, on another planet rotating slowly around a dying sun deep inside the darkest fold of the galaxy.

It remembered the journey, locked into ice as it tumbled through the limitless black.

That planet was long gone, that journey long over.

Something moved beneath. A sperm whale, trolling for squid. It sensed danger—too late—and tried to plunge away.

The whale bleated as it was slammed from above. Teeth drove through blubber, rending flesh from splintered bone.

Home, it thought.

End.

Scotty Milder is a writer, filmmaker, and film educator living in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He received his MFA in Screenwriting from Boston University, and his award-winning short films have screened at festivals all over the world, including Cinequest, the Dead By Dawn Festival of Horror, HollyShorts, and the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival and CthulhuCon. His independent feature film “Dead Billy” is available to stream on Amazon.com and Google Play.

His short fiction has appeared or will appear in Dark Matter Magazine, Dark Moon Digest, KZine, Lovecraftiana Magazine, as well as anthologies from HellBound Books, Dark Moon Books, Dark Peninsula Press, Sinister Smile Press, Dark Ink Books, and others.

He teaches screenwriting and film production at Santa Fe Community College and the Seattle Film Institute. He is also the co-host of “The Weirdest Thing” history podcast with actor/theatre artist Amelia Ampuero.

You can find him online at scottymilder.com or www.facebook.com/scottymilderwrites.

White Casket

By Ville Meriläinen

Originally published in Cirsova magazine in 2020

Boots crunching on midwinter snow, Vilja gripped her shawl tighter when a gale cut through the forest. She had left her coat, hat, and gloves back home, a gesture of solidarity toward the victim she guided by hand. Twilight hung over the forest as a purple pall, heralding the coming of the Nattfader. Vilja shuddered at the thought of him and quickened her pace so suddenly she made Emil stumble.

“Slow down,” the boy said, hobbling to keep up in ankle-deep snow. His clothes weren’t warm enough for the season, but Vilja had nothing better to give. She had too many children to tend to, and those who outgrew what she could spare were luckless. Emil would be only nine in another month, but his notch for height on her doorframe was already her hand’s span higher than the next tallest boy’s.

And so it was his turn to follow Vilja into the woods.

“There’s no time.” Vilja’s gaze wandered over the shrouded trees. She felt the god’s eyes upon her and his presence in the chill of the air, but saw nothing. Bringing a torch or a lantern would’ve been for naught—no light could survive the Nattfader’s arrival. “We must find the fairies before night’s upon us in full.”

“You’re trying to trick me,” Emil grumbled. “There’s no such thing as fairies.”

She rubbed his knuckles. “The forest is a home to a great many things, and half of them are things you must see to believe.”

Candles stood in the drifts around them, and Vilja left Emil quivering in the circle of wax memorials as she tied strings to hang from the branch of a grey willow. The new candle she set on the strings was made from the tallow of her last offering: little Bea, who loved to fish and had come running at the chance to find fairies.

Once she finally scraped a match alight through her trembling, Vilja lit her admission of guilt, then the others. The Nattfader’s breath would put them out when he came for Emil, but it gave her an excuse to stay a little longer. The boy bounced in place, shifting weight from one foot to the other, arms wrapped around himself.

“Is it going to be much longer?” he asked.

“Not at all,” Vilja said. She forced on a smile and rubbed the boy’s cheek, so terribly cold. “Fairies won’t show themselves to adults. I’ll be just over there, behind the birches.”

“I still don’t believe we’ll find anything,” Emil said, brow set in a frown.

“Would you like to go back, then?” Vilja asked. Emil fell into deep thoughts, noting his rumination with a hum, but then shook his head.

“I trust you,” he said, in tones of childish deference. “But only for a short while. I’ll freeze if I have to stay out much longer.”

Vilja scarcely kept her placid mask from cracking, but did not offer her shawl.

They both gasped at a groan on the wind. Emil’s gaze darted about, but Vilja fell to her knees and guided his wide-shot eyes onto hers with a hand on his chin. “What was that?” he hissed.

Vilja put on the most comforting smile she could. “It’s only the fairies, so excited to see you.”

Past the boy’s shoulder, Vilja saw blotches of ink spreading on untouched snow. Emil sucked in a shivering breath as he uttered, “I changed my mind. Take me back.”

Vilja kissed his brow, then whispered in his ear, “Tyst nu, älskling. Allt är bra.”

In a whimper, Emil said, “Promise you won’t be far?”

She rose from her knees, gave the boy’s hair a tousle. Behind him, where the shadows grew, appeared cloven tracks as great as a bear’s claws. “Promise.”

* * *

Vilja’s shawl was wet with tears by the time she reached the house. The log cabin sat at the edge of the woods, between a field where she gathered herbs and clovers in the summer and mushrooms in autumn, and a lake rich with fish, sedges, and wild ducks. Beside her house sat an old barn, where her father had once kept livestock and which now served as a dormitory for the unwanted children entrusted in her care. There was no light inside, but when she came around the barn, Vilja found someone waiting for her at the step of her porch.

“Won’t you let me grieve in peace?” she called quietly to the sitting devil-woman in a frayed dress. The Sister of Silence looked up from her work, the light of the lantern beside her shimmering on her wax-covered eyes hidden under earth-brown strands. Between her legs she held a pot of molten tallow, in which she dipped a wick made of Emil’s hair. The sides of the metal container glowed red where her bare knees touched it.

“Now’s not a night for grieving, angel maker,” the Sister of Silence said. “My prince was pleased with this one, and so he is pleased with you.”

Vilja’s sorrow burst out as a bitter scoff. “Get out of my way, corpsegrinder. I’m going to bed.”

“The candle is almost done.”

Vilja folded her arms and turned toward the barn’s dark window. “How many children have you brought me this time?”

“Only one,” the Sister of Silence said. “A girl of four. She has one blue eye and one green, and can charm winter birds with her singing. Her name is Eva. You will bring her to my prince when she loses a hand to curiosity.”

The demon lifted her finished candle out of the container. “Here. It’s small, but there wasn’t much left for me to work with.” She grinned at Vilja’s discomfort with a mouth full of pike’s teeth. “My prince was ravenous today. You’ll find only bones in the glade.”

Once the Sister of Silence had returned to the woods and her lantern’s glow disappeared amidst trees, Vilja went inside, fell in her bed fully clothed, and lay still until daybreak, thinking about Emil.

* * *

Vilja fell asleep in the early hours, and awoke to the sound of the children laughing and shrieking. She sat up, puffy-eyed and with a headache, and went to the window for a look at the newest. Her four wards played outside, two girls and two boys now: Iris, a bright one of seven with a knack for coming up with stories, who would go to the Nattfader when she’d break Vilja’s axe and lie the näck of the lake did it; Oscar, a six-year-old who was prone to disappearing on solitary adventures, who would go to the Nattfader when two of his baby teeth fell out at once; Benjamin, who refused to be called Ben and fancied himself the man of the house, and who would go to the Nattfader when Vilja would find him sleeping under her bed after a game of hide and seek.

And now Eva, a songstress of four with eyes of different colours, who would go to the Nattfader when—by God—she lost a hand. With her soft features and blonde locks, Eva looked so much like Vilja she could’ve been her daughter, or a twin to any of the others. Vilja didn’t know whether the demon hunted children with her likeness or if her litter of simulacra were an absurd coincidence.

Vilja stayed by the window for a while, watching the children playing outside, the ache in her heart spreading until it choked her. They had made circles in the snow and threw sticks in turn to conquer the spaces of others. Eva was either a natural talent or the others were letting her win.

Instead of disturbing their play with her grim task for the day, Vilja set to making breakfast. When the porridge was done, she called the children in. They did not ask about Emil. Children came and went, and only Vilja suffered their passing. Eva asked if Vilja was her mother now, and she answered no.

Vilja released the children back to their game once every bowl was empty, went outside and fetched her axe and sled. The day was bright and would be long, as it always was after sating the Nattfader. Axe on shoulder, she dragged her sled to a field of birch stumps, where she spent the rest of the morning chopping another tree down, splitting it into logs and dragging them back to the house. Some would go into the stove, but the best ones she’d use to bury Emil. She may’ve been a murderess, but she would not leave the children to a fate as mylings and made a white casket for every one of them.

Left to their own devices, the children had disappeared from the yard by the time Vilja returned. From inside the house came singing that had lured a pair of bullfinches to perch on the roof. Vilja let the children be—she had her tools out on the workbench behind the house, where she pieced together the casket. Once, she had adorned them with crosses, but now that she relied on a demon to bring her nails it seemed like an empty gesture. She still painted them white, a sign of the purity of the inhabitants, if not the maker.

Once she had tucked the children in—and made sure Oscar’s teeth were still in place, that Eva had both her hands, and that Benjamin was in his own bed—Vilja took a shovel and the casket into the woods. The sun had set, but the light of her torch glittered in the footsteps she’d made earlier in the day as she followed them to the crossroads. From there, she had another light to guide her way. Sled hissing behind, Vilja chased the ghost wandering amidst the trees.

“Vilja,” came a disembodied voice when she spotted a candle standing in a drift. “I called for you. Why didn’t you come?”

“I’m sorry.” Vilja knelt to light the candles anew, but kept the one made of Emil’s fat in her pocket. It wouldn’t be right to light it with him watching. “Were you frightened?”

“I called for you,” he repeated. Vilja stepped back in shock when she rose and found Emil standing behind her. “You said you wouldn’t be far. Why did you leave me?”

There was no colour in the boy’s spectral eyes. His skin glowed gently, his blond hair had turned into shining strands, but his eyes were the deep and dark abyssal pit between the stars. She pressed a hand to his face, but could not force a smile of comfort onto her lips. His skin was deathly cold, chilling even through her thick glove.

“I’m sorry, Emil. More than you know.”

Emil followed her as she went around lighting the candles, but she made sure not to turn her back to him. “I should’ve believed you,” Emil said, went quiet, and Vilja glanced his way. “I saw the fairy,” he went on. “I thought it would be small and pretty, but it was…” His breathing quickened—or the imitation of it—until he was on the border of hyperventilating. “I think it… It…”

Emil began to sob, and Vilja exposed her back to him at last, by kneeling to light Bea’s candle. It had chewed through the strings and fallen sideways on the snow. As soon as she lowered herself to set it upright, Emil clung onto her back.

“It ate me, Vilja. Your fairy ate me!” he cried. Vilja had to lean on a tree for support to stand up. The boy’s weight grew with every sob, until she was down to her knees in the drift.

“Where did it take you?” she asked, half-crawling back to her sled. “I’ll make it right, Emil. I promise.”

He slammed a fist with the weight of stones against her shoulder, making her buckle and drop her torch. “You promised you wouldn’t leave me!” he screamed. “I trusted you! You said you wouldn’t be far and I trusted you!”

His weight grew tenfold and Vilja’s leg’s gave, sending her plummeting facedown into snow. Emil wrapped his hands around her neck, screaming madly as he tried to break it.

“Emil!” Vilja cried, helplessly shovelling herself room to breathe. “Emil, look what I made you!”

“You killed me!” Emil shrieked. “You killed me! You—”

“On the sled, Emil! It’s for you!”

The boy’s scream cut off, then his grip weakened, and finally his weight lifted enough for Vilja to stand.

“You made me a casket?” he whispered.

“Help me find your bones,” she said, rubbing her sore neck. “I’ll give you a proper burial.”

Emil hung quietly onto her back as Vilja went to the sled, stayed quiet while she searched for the remains, and only spoke once she noticed them. His skeleton lay against the trunk of a birch outside the circle of candles. “Why did you leave me behind?”

“Because…” She stopped to regard the bones, then opened the casket and gently gathered them. Emil whimpered when she piled them up to fit inside, but the casket was too small to lay the skeleton straight. “Because the thing that did this was not a fairy, Emil. It’s the only god in these woods and I am indebted to it. I knew what would become of you, so I asked the god’s servant to bring me holy water. I blessed the grove where I’ll bury you.”

Emil dug the tips of his fingers into Vilja’s throat and growled, “What right do you have to bless anything?”

“None,” Vilja rasped. “But you aren’t the first child I carry there on my back.”

Blotches appeared in her vision as the boy’s grip tightened, then suddenly loosened.

Emil said nothing for the rest of the way.

* * *

Digging frozen earth left Vilja’s back and arms aching, but by dawn she and Emil stood over a fresh grave placing the marker. The boy had climbed off her back, as proof of the sanctity of the earth.

“I feel strange,” Emil said, black eyes downcast, voice low. “Like I don’t belong here. Like I never have.”

“You’ll pass on when the sun rises,” Vilja said, shielding her eyes from the first rays over the trees. “I’ll wait with you if you’d like. I could say a prayer.”

Emil shook his head. “That’s not what I meant.” Vilja’s brows lifted from the concern on his spectral features. “I’m sorry, Vilja. I’m so sorry for shouting at you.”

“Tyst nu, älskling,” she whispered. A frostbite cracked her lip from the touch of his forehead. “Don’t be afraid. It won’t be long now.”

“No! You don’t understand.” His hands shot up, made her wince from the chill through her cheekbones. “You don’t belong here either.”

“I know. Only demons do.”

Sunlight touched the grave.

Vilja was alone in the grove.

She gave herself a moment to stop the grief in her bruised throat from spilling out, gripped the rope of her sled and started off. Before the trees blocked her view of the gravesite, she turned for a last look at Emil’s cross amidst a dozen others. The Sister of Silence sat on her knees before the mound, head bowed, strands of hair swaying in the wind like a mourning veil.

All the way home, Vilja wondered whether she had lied to Emil one last time and this was the only place where she belonged.

* * *

The children were up and playing the game from yesterday. Eva was winning again. Oscar noticed Vilja coming out of the thicket and ran over, grinning impishly as he spun around to fall in step with her. He said nothing, only sucked his lip, until Vilja prompted, “Aren’t you going to say hello at all?”

Oscar covered his mouth. His eyes twinkled with the hidden grin. “Hello, Vilja.”

Something was off about his speech, and his attempt at secrecy made Vilja’s gut turn over. In her thoughts, she prayed for only one lost tooth; aloud, she asked, “Are you done playing?”

“I’m almost out. Eva’s really good.”

Vilja stopped. With the longer phrases, his newfound lisp was more prominent. “Did you lose a tooth?”

The boy threw his hands aside and gave her a gap-toothed beam. “Two! You weren’t home when I woke up and I didn’t want to wake Iris to make breakfast, so I took a piece of hard bread.” He ran his tongue over the gap of missing incisors. “Will you give me pennies for them? Benjamin said you would.”

Vilja’s face felt paralysed, smile too rigid, broken. Hard. Like she was supposed to be. “Of course. And… I’ll even take you somewhere very special.”

“Oh? Where?”

They’d been with her for too long. She’d developed affection. Two months at most—that was the deal.

Emil had been with her for four years. Oscar for longer. He’d still crawled when the Sister of Silence brought him and… who was it with him? Anna? Martin? How long was it since they’d gone to the Nattfader?

She’d have to give him up, but not so soon. Not the same day she buried Emil.

“I thought…” Her voice came out dry. She cleared her throat. It didn’t help much. “I thought we could go looking for fairies tonight.”

The boy’s mouth fell open. “Fairies! That sounds great! But… don’t you think the others would like to come too?”

Vilja knelt to place her hands on his shoulders. “I’m sure they would, but I want you all for myself.”

The boy grinned.

* * *

“I’m surprised, angel maker,” the Sister of Silence said, startling Vilja as she chopped the felled birch into smaller logs. She had appeared sitting on a stump, lantern wan under the sun. The waxen patches looked less sinister in daylight, made her almost pitiable.

“I thought you beyond remorse by now,” she went on. “It’s strange to see you’ve grown soft instead of more numb.”

“Go away, corpsegrinder. I have a casket to make,” Vilja said, returning to her work. “I’ll fulfil my task, but I won’t be mocked for finding no enjoyment in it.”

“Mocked? Hardly. It’s good to see there’s still a shred of humanity in you.”

Vilja struck the axe to stand from a log, let go of it with an inhale, and straightened her back. Oscar was exploring somewhere—Vilja had told him to stay within earshot, but his agreement lasted only until he found something interesting. “Why already? Did you not say the Nattfader was pleased with my giving up Emil?”

“Don’t speak their names, angel maker. I don’t want to hear them after I’ve exiled the children in your care.”

“Answer the question.”

The demon grunted at her sharp tone, but then chuckled. “My prince was most pleased. Perhaps you whetted his appetite.”

“Can I give him the new girl?”

“Not unless you know of wounds I don’t.”

“Curiosity is her bane. If I howled like a wolf, hooted like an owl, could I chop off her hand when she comes looking?”

The Sister of Silence cocked her head from side to side. “You could, yes, but I’d advise against it.”

“He never said I could not hasten his arrival—”

The demon grinned her fishy grin. “That’s not it at all. You’d give me more work when I have to bring you two candles at once.”

Vilja breathed harder, balling her fists by her sides. “I wouldn’t bring him Oscar tonight. Eva would go in his stead.”

“Do not speak—”

“Shut your mouth, corpsegrinder, or I’ll recite every last one of them, and then ask the Nattfader to tell me yours so I can add it to the list.”

The Sister of Silence leapt to her feet. “If you’re in one of your moods—”

“I’m in no mood.” Vilja grabbed the axe, sent the log flying off her sled when she yanked it loose. “This is your fault. They weren’t supposed to be with me for so long. I’ve come to love him, like I loved the boy I buried today, after betrayed trust made him a monster.”

The Sister of Silence regarded her with blind contempt, then grated, “The only monster here is you. You kept your life in exchange for theirs. That is the pact.”

Vilja’s gaze was hard, but her voice came out broken. “I never wanted this.”

The demon’s mouth fell open.

Then she laughed.

Laughed so hard her voice filled the forest. Vilja gripped the axe tighter, gritting her teeth.

“Self-pity doesn’t suit you, angel maker,” the Sister of Silence said, hiccuping even after her hysteria calmed. “And I’m getting tired of reminding you this is exactly what you wanted. On the night the storm surprised you, you cried like a lost little lamb, praying to be spared from the death you gave to so many. My prince offered to let you sleep, feed the foxes, rot when spring came until nightshades grew between your bones. You begged him for salvation, and when he embraced you, you wanted more, more, more. He gave you back your home. He keeps you fed and warm. All that and everything you asked for in exchange for nothing but continuing your trade.”

Her good humour disappeared. “And still you have the audacity to claim you love the children?”

Vilja’s breath fled in billowing clouds around her face. “Oscar!” she then cried. “Oscar! Come to me at once!”

“Do not speak their names in my presence!” the Sister of Silence snapped.

“I think I’ll honour my threat,” Vilja sneered. “I’ll stay with Oscar, so he won’t have to be alone and afraid. I will let the Nattfader pry him out of my arms only in exchange for your name.”

“He doesn’t know it!” the Sister of Silence screamed. “No one does! I died without a name or marker!”

Vilja stammered a response, but a gale quieted her with chattering teeth. “My prince is here,” the demon muttered. “I suppose he’s grown impatient with you.”

“Not yet,” Vilja said, desperately shaking her head. “Not yet. Please. Let me part with E—with the new girl.”

A darkness of the deepest kind veiled the woods, and the Sister of Silence drove back a part of it with the defiant light kindling within her lantern. The enchanted flame reverted her features into the hellish visage Vilja best knew. “I knew you to be a hypocrite, angel maker, but not one this abject. I doubt a wretch like you could ever learn to love, even this boy—your own boy.”

Vilja’s stomach lurched.

“And I’m certain of my judgement,” the Sister of Silence continued, in tones more low and menacing, “because the replacement you offer is your daughter. Find the child, angel maker, and stop—”

Her voice turned into a gurgle.

Vilja struck again, sunk the axe so deep into the side of the demon’s neck it broke the collarbone. The Sister of Silence slumped to her knees, and Vilja left her lying on crimson snow as she grabbed the demon’s lantern and dashed off.

“Oscar!” Vilja cried. “Where are you? Answer me!” She gasped upon noticing footprints heading for the site of sacrifice, a cloven trail beside them. Another hoofprint appeared before her, then another, and another at the edge of the lantern’s reach. Cold air froze her lungs and chilled the acid in her gut as she ran over the marks.

Oscar sat in the circle of candles. The gales of the Nattfader’s arrival had put them out, but the boy held little Bea’s candle in gloved hands, nose scrunched as though sheer force of will could let him inspect it in the starless dark. He shielded his eyes against the stolen lantern when Vilja emerged from the thicket and yelped when she scooped him up without stopping.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, bobbing against her shoulder. The wind changed directions, erupting out of the candle glade, and Vilja’s pace grew more frantic. “It’s just a storm. You don’t need to carry me.”

“A storm like no other, Oscar,” Vilja said, hoisting the lantern to shield herself from willow branches lashing against her face. “But I won’t give you up. I can’t.”

“What are you—” the boy began, then quieted with an “uh.”

Then he screamed, startled Vilja, and made her lose footing.

Vilja scrambled to her knees and toward the toppled lantern when the wind groaned. She slowly faced the Nattfader towering behind the trees. His beard was the blackness in depths of the earth. His body the dark in the eyes of mylings. Beneath his horns of swirling winds blinked the stars gone from the sky, the prey his teeth had gnashed and rent before his slumber in the woods.

Vilja had never seen him this way, so enormous, godlike, and the sight made her arms give. She had called him Satan when he first revealed himself to her as a great black goat, but the moon-eater was not a fallen angel nor a demon. He was something beyond even the feeble lord of man Vilja once had thought heard her prayers, and the futility of resistance, the sheer arrogance of demanding its favours froze her tumultuous thoughts to the brink of shattering.

And so, in the absence of the rational, Vilja’s primordial need to survive took over, and she flung the Sister of Silence’s lantern at the god with all her strength.

The lantern shattered against a birch, spilling its fire in a cascade down the dead trunk. The fire caught and spread in a blaze, and the heat and the smoke jolted Vilja back to her senses and alerted her to Oscar’s cries. She leapt to her feet and caught him in her arms as the forest became a roaring inferno around them. She broke toward a passage between the flames, hoping the enchanted fire would buy them time to escape and that the trees crashing in swarms of cinders wouldn’t trap them to choke on thickening smoke.

The Nattfader fell unto earth and cut the burning woods in half with his cloak of the night. Vilja ground to a halt at the precipice appearing before her, sending snow flying into nothingness. The god’s breath rolled over her, full of coaxing whispers as quiet as the flutter of moths around the children’s candles in the summer.

“No,” Vilja stammered. “No! You can’t have him! I revoke the pact! I revoke the pact!”

A gale swept over her and sent her staggering back. The flame of the Sister of Silence wilted as the darkness conquered more of the earth, and the god whispered the demon had never governed fire truly impervious to his endless dark. He had allowed her its solace.

“I revoke the pact,” Vilja said, low and hard. Oscar sobbed against her shoulder, clutched her as though he wanted to crack a rib. “Take me. Spare the boy.”

Before her, in the small strip of land left, appeared the print of a cloven hoof; around her the flames died. Only the sparks on the tips of broken willow branches, like a circle of candles, still allowed her to see.

Breathing hard, Vilja kissed the boy’s brow, brushed his hair, and pressed her cheek against it. “Tyst nu, älskling. Allt är bra.”

“How can you say that?” Oscar said. “Do something! Get us away from… from that…”

She nuzzled her nose against his ear and forced her voice to sound calm. “It’s only a nightmare. You fell asleep while you were playing. You’re safe on my sled and I’m bringing you home.”

His breath hissed against her neck, the skin wet with his tears as she rubbed his eyes against her in disbelief. “No, Vilja! It’s real! You have to do something!”

“It’s all right,” she said, squeezing him tighter. “You’re safe with me.”

She covered the boy’s ear. “I revoke the pact, you bastard,” she growled, took a step forward, and fell off the edge of the world.

* * *

The angel maker revived to the smell of earth and mould.

Upon trying to rise from her dark place of rest, she struck her head against wood. It confined her within a box, the grain rough around her elbows and against her knees. Pounding the ceiling gave the dullest thud, and the realisation of being inside a buried casket sent her into a panic.

How long it took to free herself, she couldn’t tell—but eventually bloody nails broke through wood and frozen soil. The angel maker emerged from an unmarked grave in the forest, trembling and pulling out clumps of dirt from her hair and coat. Aside from her fingers, she was unharmed.

The woods around her were calm and quiet, alive only with distant birdsong. It was early in the morning, the sun yet to fully rise, and the clouds would bring snow later in the day. A breeze made her shiver and pull up her hood. In the pocket of her coat she found her woollen hat and gloves.

With nowhere else to go, the angel maker returned home.

As she approached, the angel maker heard soft humming from the direction of the house. On the porch of her home sat the Sister of Silence, a bucket between her legs.

“There you are,” the demon said. “Is your tantrum over? My prince was most displeased. The next time you rebel, he might make me dig so deep you’ll never rise from your grave.”

The angel maker only stared at the demon, not with the malice that churned in her chest, but the shock that roiled in her mind. “I killed you.”

“You certainly did.”

“In the woods.”

“As I well know.”

The angel maker shook her head, kept her gaze on the wax eyes of the demon. “How can you be here?”

The Sister of Silence tilted her head, then slapped her hands together with a laugh. “Oh! You meant—ah, that was so long ago I’d forgotten all about it.” She grinned and pulled down the neckline of her dress. Her pale skin was unscarred. “And when you forget such trivialities, they might as well have never happened.”

The Sister of Silence went back to work on her candle. “I’ve brought you another child. A girl of three, who—”

“No more,” the angel maker said, voice thick with grief. “Take me to your prince. Let him separate my flesh from the bone.”

The Sister of Silence laughed. “Angel maker, it was never your flesh he wanted, nor the flesh of these children. They were only morsels; he feeds upon the grief and pain of those you lead astray.” She set her bucket aside and stood to caress the angel maker’s cheek. “You didn’t kill me with an axe, you see, but a broken promise. I cannot tell you why it was my fear that roused my prince from his sleep when the woods were full of bones, but it did, and he offered me a blessing in exchange for feeding him. I pleaded for him to save all those lost in the woods—all, angel maker, even you—and because I’d fed him well he obliged.

“He gave me a flame that would never die out and I became a protector of the lost, guiding them back home, until you started burying them alive in their small white caskets. I am only a spirit, powerless to do more to the ground than walk on it, and not even my prince could reach far enough into the mortal coil to shovel aside the earth. All I could do was weep by the graves and try my best to comfort them until the muffled cries ceased.” The demon tutted, but the sarcasm of the gesture was a thin veil over the fury hiding on her tightened lips. “That made him very, very angry. You, a mortal girl, had the impudence to deny his magnanimity, so he had no choice but to take their souls and hold them safe in his eternal night.”

The angel maker swallowed hard. “Were they the children you brought me?”

“No, angel maker. I will never let you hurt them again. The ones I brought were yours, the stillborn you never bothered burying, the only ones who deserved your caskets.” A gloom twisted her face, but it was gone when she brushed her waxen patches. “I did not enjoy their part in your torment. My prince graced me with blindness so I wouldn’t have to know their faces.”

“No,” the angel maker uttered. “They were too many. I couldn’t have—”

“Two men stayed a season with you, and two children I have brought. One boy, one girl, poisoned in your womb.”

“Eva, and Iris, and Beatrix, and Anna, and Maja, and…” the angel maker said, eyes turned to glass, voice as frail. “All mine?”

A twinge of bitterness visited the demon’s features. “Names you never gave them, and each a vision of what could have been. You spent and lost your life murdering the children of others, so my prince saw it fitting you’d spend eternity betraying your own.”

The angel maker collapsed onto her knees, and the Sister of Silence patted her head. “I won’t do it,” the angel maker whispered. “Torture me all you want.”

“I do not torture anyone. My heart is too soft for it.” She sat on her heels, lifted the angel maker’s chin with a thumb. “But you will do it, not because I force you to, but because you’re a hypocrite. Do you know what makes a myling go away, angel maker? It is not the holy ground nor the white casket. They scream and they rage and they fight, just as you do, but only once they quietly accept their own death can they move on.” The demon bared her fangs, letting the hatred she’d held back seep into the venom of her tone. “All it takes to end the pact is for you to do the same, yet despite your posturing, here you are. As much as you claim to love the children, you’ll never fear for them as much as for yourself.”

She stood up, dusted snow off her knees, and started off toward the woods. “The girl of three loves to dance and has a tendency to forget her shoes. Her name is Lovisa. You will take her to my prince when she asks a question you can’t answer.”

“Corpsegrinder,” the angel maker said feebly. “If your prince hates me, why has he given me so much?”

The demon stopped, turned. The angel maker did not face her. “Because you feed him well. For every child you say you love, you forget a hundred others.”

The Sister of Silence vanished into the woods, leaving the angel maker sitting in snow glittering with the brilliant dawn. When the angel maker finally rose, she noticed her shadow had grown longer, and turned to a forest gleaming as though another sun had risen from the soil. She went to its edge, found innumerable candles the Sister of Silence must’ve kindled sitting on every branch in sight. Before her, against a young willow leaned an unlit one the demon had left behind, one that hadn’t yet wept a single wax tear. The angel maker could not remember whose it was.

She stayed there, deep in thought, until the door of the barn creaked open and a barefooted girl with the blonde locks and soft features every incarnation shared joined her. “Vilja?” She took the angel maker’s hand. “Why are you crying?”

The angel maker gripped the girl’s tiny hand in hers, gaze wandering over the candles—so many, too many she could not name—and spoke no louder than a breath.

“I was only wondering if you’d like to go looking for fairies tonight, Lovisa.”

End.

Ville Meriläinen is a Finnish author of fantasy and horror fiction. As is common for his taciturn Nordic tribe, his interests include—but may not be limited to—not talking about himself or his work.

The Nut House

A Novella By Patrick Barb

Chapter 6: The Conflagration

No matter how many more moments remain in his life, Asher Black knows he’ll never forget the fox squirrel burning. Set ablaze by the Nut House cultists, DW’s forward momentum appears to owe more to instinct, the final firing synapses inside his roasting skull, than to any considered purpose. The former consigliere of the Grey Gang lurches from side to side, a glowing monstrosity—more inferno than fur.

Asher stands at attention with his jet-black fur sticking straight up atop his head and in spiked tufts down his back. Flashbacks to his family’s tree engulfed in the devastating blaze hold him fast to spot. His fight or flight’s short-circuiting. He’s gripped by his certainty that the burning DW’s coming for him. The path from the fireplace to Asher’s an unavoidable one.

And it’s always been that way stretching back to that first fire.

But then, defying the black squirrel’s predictions, the fiery fox squirrel pivots. With his forepaws waving from side-to-side, he instead heads straight for the throng of animals raising ecstatic praises to their Death God. First, yelps and cheeps, then the angry buzzing of insects worshipping She Who Reclines in their alien tongues. Caught in the revelry of singing hosannas to death, the Nut House cultists miss when death comes for them. Whirling, as though made from autumn leaves captured by aggressive breezes, DW’s burning body wanders a clumsy, crooked path through the throng of celebrants.

If he falls in a slightly different direction, then one or two of the furry former pets will suffer singed fur, a blistered paw, or a scabrous tail. Minor injuries compared to what’s already unfolded in the charnel rooms of the Nut House. But when DW crumbles and surrenders to the flames, he stretches out with his forepaws until his smoky, charred mitts close around the scaled head of the retreating Hiss Honor.

Rasping and spitting, the serpent struggles to break free from the burning squirrel’s grasp. However, it’s hard to maneuver with the long black wick of the barbecue lighter held between his fanged jaws. As fur and flesh melt into the snake’s scales, the fire travels through the melting plastic casing of the lighter. Until the flames reach the fuel hose….

The loud pop afterward makes Asher’s ears ring and brings black spots floating before his eyes. It’s even worse for the screaming Nut House denizens. They’re the ones covered in the splattered fiery remnants of DW the fox squirrel and Hiss Honor’s head. The rest of the snake writhes and twitches, knocking over smaller mammals trying to flee.

Like raindrops beating against the paved streets, flamelets bounce from one animal’s hide to the next. As though the fire’s working hard to pet every animal crossing its path. There’s a mad scramble for safety, tiny bodies all aglow.

Burning rats seek higher ground and a way out from the conflagration. They scramble up the plastic sheeted loveseat. As the opaque material melts and oozes over their scruffy bodies, the yowling rodents try in vain to reverse course. There are too many of them already on this path. Soon, they’re all ablaze and bonded to the plastic sheeting. When they pull back, the cover comes with them. It flies off the loveseat, sending more fire across the living room. The burning plastic, stinking of dead or dying flesh and chemical waste, lands at the foot of the recliner.

Pulling themselves from the sheet, leaving fur, skin, and even limbs behind, the liberated rats stumble toward potential salvation. As the woolen sweater draped over She Who Reclines catches fire, Mr. Muffins digs the claws on his forepaws into the open wound of the corpse’s chest. There’s a moment of hesitation following, a final reckoning taking place in the piss-yellow eyes of the calico cult leader. As the burning rats scurry inside the chest cavity with him, Mr. Muffins searches for Asher—the final trespasser to be dealt with. He comes up empty and his demeanor changes. The light goes on in his eyes, then off again.

He calls for the other animals in the sing-song voice employed so many times before. “Here, babies. It’s okay, my precious babies. I’m here for you. Come on up and hug me. Come on, good girls, good boys. That’s right….”

The fire paints the room in yellows, reds, and oranges, while also smearing a blue-black layer of smoke across the floor. The Nut House animals obey the voice calling for them. Their brains, broken long before the fire, seek out the words emerging from the corpse of the woman who cared for them, fed them, and sheltered them amid the unfettered excesses of her suffering mind. As one, they reach the same conclusion: This is our home.

Not the Nut House, but the body seated in front of them. Reclining in her alleged eternal slumber.

Not so eternal anymore….

Mr. Muffins calls the worshippers into the body of their Death God. “Come inside, come inside, there’s nothing good outside, my dearies. Come inside!”

Insects fly through or crawl into empty eye sockets. The tiniest mice force wrinkled lips open and fill Her from jaw to gullet. More rats and cats and other pets crawl into the chest cavity. She’s aglow with tiny fires everywhere, showing through the sweater layers. Inside the corpse, the animals stay quiet, even as they continue to burn. Their silence is eerie and serene.

Mother Hamster’s child-tongue lays inside her mouth, charcoal black and flaking at the touch of her gums rubbing against its head, worrying it away bit by bit.

She waits to swallow and to mourn. Like all the others, she embraces the silence.

* * *

It’s the silence Asher notices from his position at the front door of the Nut House. The fire travels fast, spread by the junk mail and cardboard littering the floor of the hoarder’s nest. Much better than a tree, the home’s hoarded treasures and trash prove well-suited for the needs of a raging inferno. Plenty of available fuel.

Everything’s hot to the touch. Asher waves his forepaws in front of his face, trying to see a few inches ahead. He settles for shadowed impressions and unreliable memories of a place he glanced for no more than a few moments earlier.

Incinerated paint sloughs off the front door and the knob emits a sunburn-pink glow. As Asher swats away another curled finger of smoke before it penetrates too deep into his lungs, he makes an intense study of the burning door. He grabs the sock-made satchel of acorns, pulling it loose to keep melted elastic from sticking to his chest fur. Trembling with adrenaline, he pulls open the sack and scoops out a handful of nuts.

He crunches them between his teeth, fragments of brown shells near-roasted, sticking out every which way from blackened gums. With a scream, he drops to all fours by the staircase, then takes off at a sprint, bounding across the burning floor.

He throws his body against the door, right as it’s engulfed in flames. After all those years, he’s back once again, throwing himself into the fire. When he lands, he rolls across the hardwood revealed by the incinerated debris. He smothers the flames prickling up from his fur as best as he’s able.

The heat surrounding him is one thing; but the cool sensations, from additional patches of exposed pink skin revealed after the flames scorch away even more of his black fur, are something else altogether—compelling him forward in this reckless pursuit of freedom.

Another acorn between his teeth, mashed to a pulp, then Asher runs for the door again. Aiming for the same spot, hoping he hasn’t inhaled too much smoke and that he’s strong enough to weaken the wood further. When he connects this time, his forelimbs spread wide and flames devour the fur from his chest. A chunk of wood comes loose, a blackened burning Human heart-sized lump.

Asher takes it as a sign of progress. There’s still a chance for the door to give, allowing him to complete his escape. Even as more and more exposed skin’s displayed all over his body, the black squirrel will not relent.

He retreats to the burning staircase, ready for one last run.

As he races toward the door, Asher’s bedazzled in crooked crowns of flames. And there’s someone else behind him.

Chasing him, grabbing at the black squirrel. She speaks in hundreds of voices. Mewling, peeping, whining, buzzing, humming. Black flies swarms around eye sockets. Mice tails dangle from wrinkled lips and a calico cat, halfway in and halfway out of a chest cavity, thrusts its burning paws forward.

“There we go! There we go! Pull! Push! Let’s move, let’s go.”

The body of She Who Reclines bulges with animal activity under its skin. Critters pull at bones and muscles, working in tandem to move their Death God forward. They’ve risen her from the dead, moved her to the foyer.

Leaping through black smoke, eyes awash in hot tears sizzling, Asher senses fingertips missing the scorched ends of his tail. The brilliant light of the raging fire meets him on the other side of darkness. He slams into the door, hitting the same spot. Again.

He’s not alone this time.

A fist covered in rats follows behind him. The door collapses around them, thanks to this follow-through impact. Like a solid object never stood there. Like it was fire all along, masquerading as a door.

Providing the illusion of a door and nothing more.

* * *

Fire crackles in Asher’s ear. It sounds so close because that’s where he’s burning. Flames not only travel across the trellises outside the Nut House, consuming the once vibrant green ivy on their way, but they’re all over his body as well. The burning’s so loud, he misses the birds shrieking in alarm after having their early morning conversations interrupted by this unexpected and unparalleled display of violence. He shakes his head from side to side, but he can’t escape the flames and the burning.

His body aches from head to tail. The pain’s so intense he also misses the sirens and the flashing lights moseying down the neighborhood streets.

There’s no finesse left for the master thief to draw from, no master plan to consult. Survival matters and everything else is an afterthought. Asher Black turns off his mind, setting aside memories already searing their way into his being for all the time he’s got left in the world. Avoiding them for the moment, even if he knows it’s a losing game, Asher rushes from the Nut House and returns to Majestic Forest.

Even as the burning black squirrel hops and jumps, stretching limbs as far as possible with each movement while trailing a brilliant blaze at his back, the Death God, stuffed with her animal companions turned worshippers, shuffles in his wake. Limbs pop and crack with each creature-controlled motion. Skin burnt blacker than Asher’s fur falls to the ground, exploding like puffballs from the trees, casting seeds of fiery death on the grass and cement.

Asher slips between the legs of joggers, while the burning body of She Who Reclines shoves strollers out of its way. The Humans gathering to watch the Nut House burn—like how the gray squirrels watched the ash tree burn—are slow to recognize the bizarre and grotesque chase unfolding a few feet away.

They won’t accept the idea of animals in control. Witnessing Their bodies desecrated and used for anything other than Their interests and Their pursuits does not compute.

Even as Asher allows himself one glance back over his shoulder to witness the remaining flesh melting from the skull of the Death God, he continues digging his blackened claws into the pavement and pulling forward. His claws crack and split, then bleed. He wonders if the ashes falling from the skull contain the insects or mice who’d hidden inside. He pictures centipedes escaping into the brain, then finding themselves trapped when the flames rose and billowing smoke vomited into the skull smothering everything left inside.

* * *

Oakley Grey waits in the one green space left in Majestic Forest, sitting under the oak tree, rubbing his belly. Parkgoers wave, nod, and giggle in his direction. And why not? The jolly, rotund gray squirrel resembles something from Human-Child cartoon fantasies, a drawing of something designed to be loved, cherished, and admired.

A far cry from an ancient past when They drew animals on cave walls to show their respect and fear. The Humans shivered together before the discovery of fire, smearing their feces across cold stone walls to pay homage to the beasts who existed then as more than equals.

When Asher crashes through the hedges surrounding the park and the burning skeletal remains of She Who Reclines come stumbling, stomping after him, Oakley has a moment where he experiences the old fears Humans lived through in millennia past. The black squirrel, more black from smoke and his sizzling, charred skin than from any fur left on his body, bounds forward. Eyes gone white, blinded, Asher Black still moves with single-minded purpose.

The shambling skeletal remains of She Who Reclines do the same, even as the last of the Nut House animals burn up while clinging to blackened bones.

Asher races at a full sprint, a comet on the ground, getting closer and closer to Oakley. The chubby gray squirrel stands frozen, twitching. His small brain’s incapable of processing the unfathomable race heading toward the finish line of his tree.

“Mister Black, Asher, I…”

Piss trickles down his thighs. If squirrels were the praying type, he’d offer up some pleas. But they’re not, leaving Oakley with nothing more than an overwhelming urge to live, to keep going day after day. It’s a bare minimum for any creature, a standard that appears woefully inadequate to the dangers approaching.

When Oakley throws his forepaws over his face, he’s expecting to fend off an attack from an angry, vengeful, burning black squirrel. Instead, there’s the slight change in the air as Asher leaps over and past the Grey Gang leader. He crashes through the entryway knot dug into the old oak tree. Then, Asher Black’s inside. He burns through the homes of the gray squirrels living under Oakley’s protection.

So many of those same squirrels once stood and watched while Asher’s home and family burned.

Jittering, shaking Oakley watches smoke pour out of his tree. But the faltering footsteps from burnt-up footbones pressing against morning grass slick with dew draw his attention away. Casting his eyes to the heavens, he meets a cat on fire sitting inside the ribcage of a skeleton. “Bad boy! Naughty boy! No treats for you! No treats for you!”

The pathetic scolding from the dying cat is meaningless to the gray squirrel.

And the words make even less sense to those Humans witnessing the horrific tableau. For them, all they pick up are the shrieks of a dying animal—a cat in heat.

Oakley doesn’t get a chance to turn away again, once the Death God stumbles to its knees and topples forward. There’s a crack like a tree limb breaking off clean from a trunk. Then, the burning skull plummets from the spinal column. Heading for Oakley. As the black sockets and open mouth of the skull come closer, the flames turn upward, making it appear as though he’s being greeted by a glowing, radiant grin.

* * *

The Humans of Majestic Forest don’t appreciate facing too many questions for which no answers appear evident. And yet, after the incident covering the block from the old shut-in’s house to the city park one morning in the time between late summer and early autumn, they find themselves burdened with questions and armed with insufficient answers stemming from their limited perspective—above the grass, yet below the trees.

What happened to the old woman?

Must’ve been some sickos, punks from across town who broke in, and when they didn’t find anything worth a damn…they assaulted her, then set her on fire. Can you imagine?

Did you hear about the unpaid bills? Bank was all set to foreclose on her? Inspectors mentioned something about health concerns too….

Oh, the poor, sweet woman.

Not too sweet from what I recall. Mean old bitch. Nasty, too. Bet she killed those animals of hers. Did you hear about all the bones they found?

Breaks my heart thinking about those furry fuzzies oblivious to the dangers in the world. It’s why my theory’s someone else did it to her…and set those poor critters on fire too.

Animals are our brightest blessing, right?

Things haven’t been the same since the squirrels—the gray ones—all ran away. Were you there in the park? Did you see ‘em?

They spilled out of the old oak tree. So, so many of them…. Not even sure there’s anything left in the old tree now.

God, what a horrid thing for kids to witness in broad daylight. No wonder those squirrels left. The poor things must’ve got traumatized. Do you know if they recovered all of the old lady’s skeleton from when it fell? Somebody told me part of it went missing….

How do you even lose something like that?

Well, you wanna know what I think happened?

* * *

Asher Black remembers the tree on fire, the house on fire, his friends, enemies, and other incomprehensible beings, all on fire. Inside the oak tree, the blind squirrel lives alone. The gray squirrels and their associates have all fled, giving him the run of the arboreal shelter.

When anyone tries to breach his sanctuary, Asher lashes out from the darkness. So they leave him alone. Because the old oak tree’s gone through so much and they’d never dream of cutting it down, what with the backlash they’d encounter.

It’s the last original tree in Majestic Forest after all.

Deep in the tree, the blind black squirrel, with his hair growing back in jagged clumps of white—white of all things, counts the many acorns he’s amassed. Then, he sharpens his teeth on the thick yellow bones of the Death God’s skull. The skull he dragged into the oak tree when the gray squirrels ran out, abandoning their home after their leader’s demise.

Teeth sharp, eyes blind, fur sparse and white, Asher Black remembers fire. The voices whispering in the branches won’t let him forget.

But he’s damned if he’s got a clue what to do with this knowledge now.

End.

Patrick Barb is an author of weird, dark, and horrifying tales, currently living (and trying not to freeze to death) in Saint Paul, Minnesota. His debut dark urban fantasy novella Gargantuana’s Ghost is coming from Grey Matter Press’s Emergent Expressions line in Fall 2022. His debut dark fiction collection Pre-Approved for Haunting is coming from Keylight Books in 2023. In addition, he is an Active Member of the Horror Writers Association and a Full Member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association. For more of his work, visit patrickbarb.com or follow him on twitter.com/pbarb.

Pin-Up Boy

By Katie Cervenec

Instructions: Insert first pin, Stainless #00, at center of thorax perpendicular to body of insect. Drive down into spreading board. Using forceps, angle bottom of wing 100 degrees from body, add second pin. Apply parchment to hold down specimen.

* * *

Kevin had a five-minute window.

And he wanted it done right. For Sonya. Sonya with her reading glasses frequently lost on top of her head, her black heels, sensible, he believed they were called. Still, they accentuated her calf muscles.

“Hiya, Sonya. Got this Junonia coenia pinned, labeled and cataloged. GPS-ed it down by the creek, near where Putsem said he saw that giant moth.”

Sonya barely looked up from her phone.

“Putsem’s a liar,” Kevin continued, clicking his teeth together. He hadn’t meant to say that.

Putsem said he saw a male Cecropia Linnaeus the size of a car. What a sham. Moths were getting bigger, it was true. A byproduct of gases rising from the GMO crops male moths flew over while sniffing out female pheromones. Kevin didn’t mind the butterflies, prim and dainty. But he hated moths, even the small ones, but one that big?

It could fight back.

Somewhere beyond their basement walls, a jackhammer started up its rhythm. The Ag department was getting a new building next door. Figured.

Sonya motioned him to place the newest specimens in the catalog-file, then waved him away.

* * *

That Friday evening, Kevin leaned into the trunk of his bug-splatted Prius. He pulled out the child’s butterfly net, dollar bin -- Walgreens, and the wintergreen-flavored mouthwash.

* * *

Lepidopterology—moths and butterflies—fills his weekdays. Most days in the lab, earbuds in, nodding to his playlist, he imagines himself, one hand wrapped around a sweating glass, the other at Sonya’s waist, hips forward, moving, moving, Put it on my life baby in a bar somewhere in SoCal.

He measures the wing-span of the male Hübner, common Buckeye, types 58 millimeters into the ancient desktop. One last ¡Dale! from Pitbull, then Alan Jackson gets all soulful.

Kevin moves on to the next specimen, a Polygonia Interrogationis looking like it sucked a sunset through a straw, before it got itself pinned down in the basement level of Ides Research Building 24. Alan Jackson twangs, and Kevin pretends he’s boots on a log, somewhere in Tennessee, watching the campfire flicker over Sonya’s face.

* * *

Kevin slammed the Prius trunk closed. The sound bounced off the oaks. The air ate it, and he was alone again. Usually, his days were full of numbers, data collected and poised for future study. He made a buck or two, flung it at Little Caesar’s down the block and PacMan at the arcade around the corner.

But tonight, he couldn’t eat. Pizza just sat there, getting cold.

Kevin snapped the butterfly net to his belt loop with a carabiner and shoved a sewing kit and the mouthwash in his pack.

“Dag nabbit.”

His tennis shoe caught on an Osage orange root.

Early twilight was the best time to find them, but it was solid night now. He’d been late getting out here, waiting on hunger that never came. And last weekend, a moth had flown off with his good net, so he had to make the Walgreens pit stop.

* * *

The forest opened onto a moonlit field. It should’ve been lovely, but Kevin found little use for it. As the last bruised hints of sun faded in the west, bats dipped around the trees. He angled his eyes lower.

His prey hung closer to the ground.

The net bounced against his leg as he jogged into the field.

Cicadas abraded the soft wind with their electric sorrow. And beneath that, to an ear that spent hours attuned to it (when Pitbull wasn’t thumping): the dusty huff of wings.

A smile twitched on his lips.

The first few attempts were fruitless. There wasn’t much in his favor, a nonathletic human in the realm of night’s creatures. But he had patience and a thirst for the endgame. Success came, in the end.

Damn, this one was big as a dinner-plate. The largest Cecropia he’d seen. Still, car-sized? Putsem was full of it.

Between his thumb and forefinger, the moth flexed strong forewings, the costas pushing on his hand. It took intent to hold it still. Its feathered antenna combed his knuckles. Six legs clawed for purchase like Jimmy Page whaling on a guitar solo.

There was no mouth.

Cecropia moths don’t eat. They emerge from the silk cocoon, fly, mate, die. No time for anything else.

Kevin didn’t see anything wrong with that.

He knelt into the grass. Mud leeched up through his jeans.

Awkwardly, with one hand, Kevin unsnapped the sewing kit’s cover and drew out a needle.

Still more awkwardly, he unscrewed the safety-top lid on the mouthwash. The wintergreen scent hit his nostrils.

There were several ways to kill the moths: the ethyl acetate jar, a trusty freezer, a hearty pinch. Then at the lab, they were relaxed from rigor mortis and pinned into the accepted splay, wings spread 100 degrees. All for science.

But this was about the night, about the kill, something less than and more than. It was about a glance from Sonya.

Kevin dipped the needle into the mouthwash and plunged it into the moth’s body. It wasn’t instant, but that was fine. Over the years Kevin had been doing this, he found the wintergreen oils relaxed the wings even more. Made for an easier pinning job later. Made him look better for Sonya.

In the car, Kevin turned on classic rock and whined along with Zeppelin, the short miles to his apartment melting under the street-lit highway.

* * *

Monday morning, he left the moth, pinned perfectly, on Sonya’s desk. It looked respectable there, almost as big as her laptop with the blue motorcycle sticker on it. So hot.

It got an eye-brow raise from her, then she went back to typing with one thumb.

Kevin shook his head.

The next one had to be even bigger. So big she’d have to pay attention.

“Where’d you see it, Putsem?”

At the far lab bench, Putsem wiped his nose and squinted, indents from a microscope framing his eyes like a drunk raccoon.

“Not telling you.”

Kevin shrugged.

That night, the cicadas were silent. The only sound was the running creek, black as apathy in the cloudy night. Kevin whistled to keep his spirits up and used his phone to zero-in on the coordinates he’d stolen from a Post-It at Putsem’s desk when he wasn’t looking.

He spun in a lazy circle, net held by his side. But there was nothing. Just silence.

Silence, and then a breath of wind.

Scraggly hairs on top of his head fluttered. Kevin clapped a hand to his head, trying to smooth everything down up there. A stronger whooosh messed it up again. Sweat on the back of his neck dried instantly.

Kevin turned around, raised his net, then dropped it.

A giant of a moth, wings stirring up a gale force, blocked his path. Red-orange legs, covered in two-inch hairs, clicked over stones. Wing scales as large as Kevin’s palm dropped to the ground as it flapped. The moth’s antennae were the size of skeletal palm fronds. Crescent wing markings grinned. If he could bag this one, Sonya would have to love him.

Kevin fished out his sewing needle and ignored his shaky hands as he untwisted the cap on the mouthwash.

The moth tilted its head, raised one red leg and flicked his chest.

So that was how the bugger was going to play. Well, he’d best it, the dumb insect.

As it drew closer, he chuckled. Guess Putsem wasn’t lying.

* * *

Tuesday morning, Sonya stopped for a latte before work. Trying to get one last play in Words with Friends, she hurried to the lab doors.

There was a pop. Something punctured the coffee’s cardboard sleeve. Hot liquid ran over her fingers, and she backed up, dropping her coffee and phone.

Rebar, from the construction site next door. Long as a bloodied sword, driven perpendicular into the center of the body and into the lab doors beyond. Two more rods, sharpened enough to glint the rising sun from their tips pinned the arms at an angle.

100 degrees.

Kevin’s head hung forward; he was covered in moth wing scales. The wind brought a whiff of wintergreen to Sonya’s nose as he raised his head.

“Sony...” he whispered.

Sonya pursed her lips, considering him. A minor annoyance plagued her, but she couldn’t put a finger on it.

Instead, she wrapped her hands around the rebar puncturing Kevin’s chest. She’d almost broke a nail. She pushed, leaning on it, driving her weight into the ground through her low heels. It budged another inch or two. Kevin slumped and stilled.

That was done. She’d get Putsum to bring the body in, pin it up, nice and neat in a display case. Perfect formation, angles at 100 degrees of perfection. For science.

She tapped her finger on her teeth. So close, so close to remembering....

Of course!

Sonya bent to her fallen phone. Words with Friends was still active. She hadn’t accidentally skipped her turn when she dropped it.

The S

The R

The W

She only needed an E in play... yes, there it was.

She keyed in her word for the winning play, W landing on the triple letter square.

SKEWERED

* * *

Perfect.

She nodded at the body, Kevin, or was it Kyle maybe, and walked across the dew-wet grass to the side door of the lab.

End.

Katie lives in Lexington, Kentucky with her husband and 13-year-old triplets and, recently, two impulse-buy Covid-times cats. A decision she daily regrets and applauds at once. She is a commercial interior designer by day and an ear-buds-in writer in the evening. She’s an active member of the Mid-South SCBWI and a member of the Lexington Writers Room. You can find her on twitter @ReadKaCerv.

The King in Yellow

The Yellow Sign

By Robert W. Chambers

Originally published in 1895

“Let the red dawn surmise

What we shall do,

When this blue starlight dies

And all is through.”

I

There are so many things which are impossible to explain! Why should certain chords in music make me think of the brown and golden tints of autumn foliage? Why should the Mass of Sainte Cécile bend my thoughts wandering among caverns whose walls blaze with ragged masses of virgin silver? What was it in the roar and turmoil of Broadway at six o’clock that flashed before my eyes the picture of a still Breton forest where sunlight filtered through spring foliage and Sylvia bent, half curiously, half tenderly, over a small green lizard, murmuring: “To think that this also is a little ward of God!”

When I first saw the watchman his back was toward me. I looked at him indifferently until he went into the church. I paid no more attention to him than I had to any other man who lounged through Washington Square that morning, and when I shut my window and turned back into my studio I had forgotten him. Late in the afternoon, the day being warm, I raised the window again and leaned out to get a sniff of air. A man was standing in the courtyard of the church, and I noticed him again with as little interest as I had that morning. I looked across the square to where the fountain was playing and then, with my mind filled with vague impressions of trees, asphalt drives, and the moving groups of nursemaids and holiday-makers, I started to walk back to my easel. As I turned, my listless glance included the man below in the churchyard. His face was toward me now, and with a perfectly involuntary movement I bent to see it. At the same moment he raised his head and looked at me. Instantly I thought of a coffin-worm. Whatever it was about the man that repelled me I did not know, but the impression of a plump white grave-worm was so intense and nauseating that I must have shown it in my expression, for he turned his puffy face away with a movement which made me think of a disturbed grub in a chestnut.

I went back to my easel and motioned the model to resume her pose. After working a while I was satisfied that I was spoiling what I had done as rapidly as possible, and I took up a palette knife and scraped the colour out again. The flesh tones were sallow and unhealthy, and I did not understand how I could have painted such sickly colour into a study which before that had glowed with healthy tones.

I looked at Tessie. She had not changed, and the clear flush of health dyed her neck and cheeks as I frowned.

“Is it something I’ve done?” she said.

“No,—I’ve made a mess of this arm, and for the life of me I can’t see how I came to paint such mud as that into the canvas,” I replied.

“Don’t I pose well?” she insisted.

“Of course, perfectly.”

“Then it’s not my fault?”

“No. It’s my own.”

“I am very sorry,” she said.

I told her she could rest while I applied rag and turpentine to the plague spot on my canvas, and she went off to smoke a cigarette and look over the illustrations in the Courrier Français.

I did not know whether it was something in the turpentine or a defect in the canvas, but the more I scrubbed the more that gangrene seemed to spread. I worked like a beaver to get it out, and yet the disease appeared to creep from limb to limb of the study before me. Alarmed, I strove to arrest it, but now the colour on the breast changed and the whole figure seemed to absorb the infection as a sponge soaks up water. Vigorously I plied palette-knife, turpentine, and scraper, thinking all the time what a séance I should hold with Duval who had sold me the canvas; but soon I noticed that it was not the canvas which was defective nor yet the colours of Edward. “It must be the turpentine,” I thought angrily, “or else my eyes have become so blurred and confused by the afternoon light that I can’t see straight.” I called Tessie, the model. She came and leaned over my chair blowing rings of smoke into the air.

“What have you been doing to it?» she exclaimed

“Nothing,” I growled, “it must be this turpentine!”

“What a horrible colour it is now,” she continued. “Do you think my flesh resembles green cheese?”

“No, I don’t,” I said angrily; “did you ever know me to paint like that before?”

“No, indeed!”

“Well, then!”

“It must be the turpentine, or something,” she admitted.

She slipped on a Japanese robe and walked to the window. I scraped and rubbed until I was tired, and finally picked up my brushes and hurled them through the canvas with a forcible expression, the tone alone of which reached Tessie’s ears.

Nevertheless she promptly began: “That’s it! Swear and act silly and ruin your brushes! You have been three weeks on that study, and now look! What’s the good of ripping the canvas? What creatures artists are!”

I felt about as much ashamed as I usually did after such an outbreak, and I turned the ruined canvas to the wall. Tessie helped me clean my brushes, and then danced away to dress. From the screen she regaled me with bits of advice concerning whole or partial loss of temper, until, thinking, perhaps, I had been tormented sufficiently, she came out to implore me to button her waist where she could not reach it on the shoulder.

“Everything went wrong from the time you came back from the window and talked about that horrid-looking man you saw in the churchyard,” she announced.

“Yes, he probably bewitched the picture,” I said, yawning. I looked at my watch.

“It’s after six, I know,” said Tessie, adjusting her hat before the mirror.

“Yes,” I replied, “I didn’t mean to keep you so long.” I leaned out of the window but recoiled with disgust, for the young man with the pasty face stood below in the churchyard. Tessie saw my gesture of disapproval and leaned from the window.

“Is that the man you don’t like?” she whispered.

I nodded.

“I can’t see his face, but he does look fat and soft. Someway or other,” she continued, turning to look at me, “he reminds me of a dream,—an awful dream I once had. Or,” she mused, looking down at her shapely shoes, “was it a dream after all?”

“How should I know?” I smiled.

Tessie smiled in reply.

“You were in it,” she said, “so perhaps you might know something about it.”

“Tessie! Tessie!” I protested, “don’t you dare flatter by saying that you dream about me!”

“But I did,” she insisted; “shall I tell you about it?”

“Go ahead,” I replied, lighting a cigarette.

Tessie leaned back on the open window-sill and began very seriously.

“One night last winter I was lying in bed thinking about nothing at all in particular. I had been posing for you and I was tired out, yet it seemed impossible for me to sleep. I heard the bells in the city ring ten, eleven, and midnight. I must have fallen asleep about midnight because I don’t remember hearing the bells after that. It seemed to me that I had scarcely closed my eyes when I dreamed that something impelled me to go to the window. I rose, and raising the sash leaned out. Twenty-fifth Street was deserted as far as I could see. I began to be afraid; everything outside seemed so—so black and uncomfortable. Then the sound of wheels in the distance came to my ears, and it seemed to me as though that was what I must wait for. Very slowly the wheels approached, and, finally, I could make out a vehicle moving along the street. It came nearer and nearer, and when it passed beneath my window I saw it was a hearse. Then, as I trembled with fear, the driver turned and looked straight at me. When I awoke I was standing by the open window shivering with cold, but the black-plumed hearse and the driver were gone. I dreamed this dream again in March last, and again awoke beside the open window. Last night the dream came again. You remember how it was raining; when I awoke, standing at the open window, my night-dress was soaked.”

“But where did I come into the dream?” I asked.

“You—you were in the coffin; but you were not dead.”

“In the coffin?”

“Yes.”

“How did you know? Could you see me?”

“No; I only knew you were there.”

“Had you been eating Welsh rarebits, or lobster salad?” I began, laughing, but the girl interrupted me with a frightened cry.

“Hello! What’s up?” I said, as she shrank into the embrasure by the window.

“The—the man below in the churchyard;—he drove the hearse.”

“Nonsense,” I said, but Tessie’s eyes were wide with terror. I went to the window and looked out. The man was gone. “Come, Tessie,” I urged, “don’t be foolish. You have posed too long; you are nervous.”

“Do you think I could forget that face?” she murmured. “Three times I saw the hearse pass below my window, and every time the driver turned and looked up at me. Oh, his face was so white and—and soft? It looked dead—it looked as if it had been dead a long time.”

I induced the girl to sit down and swallow a glass of Marsala. Then I sat down beside her, and tried to give her some advice.

“Look here, Tessie,” I said, “you go to the country for a week or two, and you’ll have no more dreams about hearses. You pose all day, and when night comes your nerves are upset. You can’t keep this up. Then again, instead of going to bed when your day’s work is done, you run off to picnics at Sulzer’s Park, or go to the Eldorado or Coney Island, and when you come down here next morning you are fagged out. There was no real hearse. There was a soft-shell crab dream.”

She smiled faintly.

“What about the man in the churchyard?”

“Oh, he’s only an ordinary unhealthy, everyday creature.”

“As true as my name is Tessie Reardon, I swear to you, Mr. Scott, that the face of the man below in the churchyard is the face of the man who drove the hearse!”

“What of it?” I said. “It’s an honest trade.”

“Then you think I did see the hearse?»

“Oh,” I said diplomatically, “if you really did, it might not be unlikely that the man below drove it. There is nothing in that.”

Tessie rose, unrolled her scented handkerchief, and taking a bit of gum from a knot in the hem, placed it in her mouth. Then drawing on her gloves she offered me her hand, with a frank, “Good-night, Mr. Scott,” and walked out.

II

The next morning, Thomas, the bell-boy, brought me the Herald and a bit of news. The church next door had been sold. I thanked Heaven for it, not that being a Catholic I had any repugnance for the congregation next door, but because my nerves were shattered by a blatant exhorter, whose every word echoed through the aisle of the church as if it had been my own rooms, and who insisted on his r›s with a nasal persistence which revolted my every instinct. Then, too, there was a fiend in human shape, an organist, who reeled off some of the grand old hymns with an interpretation of his own, and I longed for the blood of a creature who could play the doxology with an amendment of minor chords which one hears only in a quartet of very young undergraduates. I believe the minister was a good man, but when he bellowed: «And the Lorrrrd said unto Moses, the Lorrrd is a man of war; the Lorrrd is his name. My wrath shall wax hot and I will kill you with the sworrrrd!” I wondered how many centuries of purgatory it would take to atone for such a sin.

“Who bought the property?” I asked Thomas.

“Nobody that I knows, sir. They do say the gent wot owns this ‘ere ‘Amilton flats was lookin’ at it. ‘E might be a bildin’ more studios.”

I walked to the window. The young man with the unhealthy face stood by the churchyard gate, and at the mere sight of him the same overwhelming repugnance took possession of me.

“By the way, Thomas,” I said, “who is that fellow down there?”

Thomas sniffed. “That there worm, sir? ‘Es night-watchman of the church, sir. ‘E maikes me tired a-sittin’ out all night on them steps and lookin’ at you insultin’ like. I’d a punched ‘is ‘ed, sir—beg pardon, sir—”

“Go on, Thomas.”

“One night a comin’ ‘ome with ‘Arry, the other English boy, I sees ‘im a sittin’ there on them steps. We ‘ad Molly and Jen with us, sir, the two girls on the tray service, an’ ‘e looks so insultin’ at us that I up and sez: ‘Wat you looking hat, you fat slug?’—beg pardon, sir, but that’s ‘ow I sez, sir. Then ‘e don’t say nothin’ and I sez: ‘Come out and I’ll punch that puddin’ ‘ed.’ Then I hopens the gate an’ goes in, but ‘e don’t say nothin’, only looks insultin’ like. Then I ‘its ‘im one, but, ugh! ‘is ‘ed was that cold and mushy it ud sicken you to touch ‘im.”

“What did he do then?” I asked curiously.

“’Im? Nawthin’.”

“And you, Thomas?”

The young fellow flushed with embarrassment and smiled uneasily.

“Mr. Scott, sir, I ain’t no coward, an’ I can’t make it out at all why I run. I was in the 5th Lawncers, sir, bugler at Tel-el-Kebir, an’ was shot by the wells.”

“You don’t mean to say you ran away?”

“Yes, sir; I run.”

“Why?”

“That’s just what I want to know, sir. I grabbed Molly an’ run, an’ the rest was as frightened as I.”

“But what were they frightened at?”

Thomas refused to answer for a while, but now my curiosity was aroused about the repulsive young man below and I pressed him. Three years’ sojourn in America had not only modified Thomas’ cockney dialect but had given him the American’s fear of ridicule.

“You won’t believe me, Mr. Scott, sir?”

“Yes, I will.”

“You will lawf at me, sir?”

“Nonsense!”

He hesitated. “Well, sir, it’s Gawd’s truth that when I ‘it ‘im ‘e grabbed me wrists, sir, and when I twisted ‘is soft, mushy fist one of ‘is fingers come off in me ‘and.”

The utter loathing and horror of Thomas’ face must have been reflected in my own, for he added:

“It’s orful, an’ now when I see ‘im I just go away. ‘E maikes me hill.”

When Thomas had gone I went to the window. The man stood beside the church-railing with both hands on the gate, but I hastily retreated to my easel again, sickened and horrified, for I saw that the middle finger of his right hand was missing.

At nine o’clock Tessie appeared and vanished behind the screen with a merry “Good morning, Mr. Scott.” When she had reappeared and taken her pose upon the model-stand I started a new canvas, much to her delight. She remained silent as long as I was on the drawing, but as soon as the scrape of the charcoal ceased and I took up my fixative she began to chatter.

“Oh, I had such a lovely time last night. We went to Tony Pastor’s.”

“Who are ‘we’?” I demanded.

“Oh, Maggie, you know, Mr. Whyte’s model, and Pinkie McCormick—we call her Pinkie because she’s got that beautiful red hair you artists like so much—and Lizzie Burke.”

I sent a shower of spray from the fixative over the canvas, and said: “Well, go on.”

“We saw Kelly and Baby Barnes the skirt-dancer and—and all the rest. I made a mash.”

“Then you have gone back on me, Tessie?”

She laughed and shook her head.

“He’s Lizzie Burke’s brother, Ed. He’s a perfect gen’l’man.”

I felt constrained to give her some parental advice concerning mashing, which she took with a bright smile.

“Oh, I can take care of a strange mash,” she said, examining her chewing gum, “but Ed is different. Lizzie is my best friend.”

Then she related how Ed had come back from the stocking mill in Lowell, Massachusetts, to find her and Lizzie grown up, and what an accomplished young man he was, and how he thought nothing of squandering half-a-dollar for ice-cream and oysters to celebrate his entry as clerk into the woollen department of Macy’s. Before she finished I began to paint, and she resumed the pose, smiling and chattering like a sparrow. By noon I had the study fairly well rubbed in and Tessie came to look at it.

“That’s better,” she said.

I thought so too, and ate my lunch with a satisfied feeling that all was going well. Tessie spread her lunch on a drawing table opposite me and we drank our claret from the same bottle and lighted our cigarettes from the same match. I was very much attached to Tessie. I had watched her shoot up into a slender but exquisitely formed woman from a frail, awkward child. She had posed for me during the last three years, and among all my models she was my favourite. It would have troubled me very much indeed had she become “tough” or “fly,” as the phrase goes, but I never noticed any deterioration of her manner, and felt at heart that she was all right. She and I never discussed morals at all, and I had no intention of doing so, partly because I had none myself, and partly because I knew she would do what she liked in spite of me. Still I did hope she would steer clear of complications, because I wished her well, and then also I had a selfish desire to retain the best model I had. I knew that mashing, as she termed it, had no significance with girls like Tessie, and that such things in America did not resemble in the least the same things in Paris. Yet, having lived with my eyes open, I also knew that somebody would take Tessie away some day, in one manner or another, and though I professed to myself that marriage was nonsense, I sincerely hoped that, in this case, there would be a priest at the end of the vista. I am a Catholic. When I listen to high mass, when I sign myself, I feel that everything, including myself, is more cheerful, and when I confess, it does me good. A man who lives as much alone as I do, must confess to somebody. Then, again, Sylvia was Catholic, and it was reason enough for me. But I was speaking of Tessie, which is very different. Tessie also was Catholic and much more devout than I, so, taking it all in all, I had little fear for my pretty model until she should fall in love. But then I knew that fate alone would decide her future for her, and I prayed inwardly that fate would keep her away from men like me and throw into her path nothing but Ed Burkes and Jimmy McCormicks, bless her sweet face!

Tessie sat blowing rings of smoke up to the ceiling and tinkling the ice in her tumbler.

“Do you know that I also had a dream last night?” I observed.

“Not about that man,” she laughed.

“Exactly. A dream similar to yours, only much worse.”

It was foolish and thoughtless of me to say this, but you know how little tact the average painter has. “I must have fallen asleep about ten o’clock,” I continued, “and after a while I dreamt that I awoke. So plainly did I hear the midnight bells, the wind in the tree-branches, and the whistle of steamers from the bay, that even now I can scarcely believe I was not awake. I seemed to be lying in a box which had a glass cover. Dimly I saw the street lamps as I passed, for I must tell you, Tessie, the box in which I reclined appeared to lie in a cushioned wagon which jolted me over a stony pavement. After a while I became impatient and tried to move, but the box was too narrow. My hands were crossed on my breast, so I could not raise them to help myself. I listened and then tried to call. My voice was gone. I could hear the trample of the horses attached to the wagon, and even the breathing of the driver. Then another sound broke upon my ears like the raising of a window sash. I managed to turn my head a little, and found I could look, not only through the glass cover of my box, but also through the glass panes in the side of the covered vehicle. I saw houses, empty and silent, with neither light nor life about any of them excepting one. In that house a window was open on the first floor, and a figure all in white stood looking down into the street. It was you.”

Tessie had turned her face away from me and leaned on the table with her elbow.

“I could see your face,” I resumed, “and it seemed to me to be very sorrowful. Then we passed on and turned into a narrow black lane. Presently the horses stopped. I waited and waited, closing my eyes with fear and impatience, but all was silent as the grave. After what seemed to me hours, I began to feel uncomfortable. A sense that somebody was close to me made me unclose my eyes. Then I saw the white face of the hearse-driver looking at me through the coffin-lid——”

A sob from Tessie interrupted me. She was trembling like a leaf. I saw I had made an ass of myself and attempted to repair the damage.

“Why, Tess,” I said, “I only told you this to show you what influence your story might have on another person’s dreams. You don’t suppose I really lay in a coffin, do you? What are you trembling for? Don’t you see that your dream and my unreasonable dislike for that inoffensive watchman of the church simply set my brain working as soon as I fell asleep?”

She laid her head between her arms, and sobbed as if her heart would break. What a precious triple donkey I had made of myself! But I was about to break my record. I went over and put my arm about her.

“Tessie dear, forgive me,” I said; “I had no business to frighten you with such nonsense. You are too sensible a girl, too good a Catholic to believe in dreams.”

Her hand tightened on mine and her head fell back upon my shoulder, but she still trembled and I petted her and comforted her.

“Come, Tess, open your eyes and smile.”

Her eyes opened with a slow languid movement and met mine, but their expression was so queer that I hastened to reassure her again.

“It’s all humbug, Tessie; you surely are not afraid that any harm will come to you because of that.”

“No,” she said, but her scarlet lips quivered.

“Then, what’s the matter? Are you afraid?”

“Yes. Not for myself.”

“For me, then?” I demanded gaily.

“For you,” she murmured in a voice almost inaudible. “I—I care for you.”

At first I started to laugh, but when I understood her, a shock passed through me, and I sat like one turned to stone. This was the crowning bit of idiocy I had committed. During the moment which elapsed between her reply and my answer I thought of a thousand responses to that innocent confession. I could pass it by with a laugh, I could misunderstand her and assure her as to my health, I could simply point out that it was impossible she could love me. But my reply was quicker than my thoughts, and I might think and think now when it was too late, for I had kissed her on the mouth.

That evening I took my usual walk in Washington Park, pondering over the occurrences of the day. I was thoroughly committed. There was no back out now, and I stared the future straight in the face. I was not good, not even scrupulous, but I had no idea of deceiving either myself or Tessie. The one passion of my life lay buried in the sunlit forests of Brittany. Was it buried for ever? Hope cried “No!” For three years I had been listening to the voice of Hope, and for three years I had waited for a footstep on my threshold. Had Sylvia forgotten? “No!” cried Hope.

I said that I was no good. That is true, but still I was not exactly a comic opera villain. I had led an easy-going reckless life, taking what invited me of pleasure, deploring and sometimes bitterly regretting consequences. In one thing alone, except my painting, was I serious, and that was something which lay hidden if not lost in the Breton forests.

It was too late for me to regret what had occurred during the day. Whatever it had been, pity, a sudden tenderness for sorrow, or the more brutal instinct of gratified vanity, it was all the same now, and unless I wished to bruise an innocent heart, my path lay marked before me. The fire and strength, the depth of passion of a love which I had never even suspected, with all my imagined experience in the world, left me no alternative but to respond or send her away. Whether because I am so cowardly about giving pain to others, or whether it was that I have little of the gloomy Puritan in me, I do not know, but I shrank from disclaiming responsibility for that thoughtless kiss, and in fact had no time to do so before the gates of her heart opened and the flood poured forth. Others who habitually do their duty and find a sullen satisfaction in making themselves and everybody else unhappy, might have withstood it. I did not. I dared not. After the storm had abated I did tell her that she might better have loved Ed Burke and worn a plain gold ring, but she would not hear of it, and I thought perhaps as long as she had decided to love somebody she could not marry, it had better be me. I, at least, could treat her with an intelligent affection, and whenever she became tired of her infatuation she could go none the worse for it. For I was decided on that point although I knew how hard it would be. I remembered the usual termination of Platonic liaisons, and thought how disgusted I had been whenever I heard of one. I knew I was undertaking a great deal for so unscrupulous a man as I was, and I dreamed the future, but never for one moment did I doubt that she was safe with me. Had it been anybody but Tessie I should not have bothered my head about scruples. For it did not occur to me to sacrifice Tessie as I would have sacrificed a woman of the world. I looked the future squarely in the face and saw the several probable endings to the affair. She would either tire of the whole thing, or become so unhappy that I should have either to marry her or go away. If I married her we would be unhappy. I with a wife unsuited to me, and she with a husband unsuitable for any woman. For my past life could scarcely entitle me to marry. If I went away she might either fall ill, recover, and marry some Eddie Burke, or she might recklessly or deliberately go and do something foolish. On the other hand, if she tired of me, then her whole life would be before her with beautiful vistas of Eddie Burkes and marriage rings and twins and Harlem flats and Heaven knows what. As I strolled along through the trees by the Washington Arch, I decided that she should find a substantial friend in me, anyway, and the future could take care of itself. Then I went into the house and put on my evening dress, for the little faintly-perfumed note on my dresser said, “Have a cab at the stage door at eleven,” and the note was signed “Edith Carmichel, Metropolitan Theatre.”

I took supper that night, or rather we took supper, Miss Carmichel and I, at Solari’s, and the dawn was just beginning to gild the cross on the Memorial Church as I entered Washington Square after leaving Edith at the Brunswick. There was not a soul in the park as I passed along the trees and took the walk which leads from the Garibaldi statue to the Hamilton Apartment House, but as I passed the churchyard I saw a figure sitting on the stone steps. In spite of myself a chill crept over me at the sight of the white puffy face, and I hastened to pass. Then he said something which might have been addressed to me or might merely have been a mutter to himself, but a sudden furious anger flamed up within me that such a creature should address me. For an instant I felt like wheeling about and smashing my stick over his head, but I walked on, and entering the Hamilton went to my apartment. For some time I tossed about the bed trying to get the sound of his voice out of my ears, but could not. It filled my head, that muttering sound, like thick oily smoke from a fat-rendering vat or an odour of noisome decay. And as I lay and tossed about, the voice in my ears seemed more distinct, and I began to understand the words he had muttered. They came to me slowly as if I had forgotten them, and at last I could make some sense out of the sounds. It was this:

“Have you found the Yellow Sign?”

“Have you found the Yellow Sign?”

“Have you found the Yellow Sign?”

I was furious. What did he mean by that? Then with a curse upon him and his I rolled over and went to sleep, but when I awoke later I looked pale and haggard, for I had dreamed the dream of the night before, and it troubled me more than I cared to think.

I dressed and went down into my studio. Tessie sat by the window, but as I came in she rose and put both arms around my neck for an innocent kiss. She looked so sweet and dainty that I kissed her again and then sat down before the easel.

“Hello! Where’s the study I began yesterday?” I asked.

Tessie looked conscious, but did not answer. I began to hunt among the piles of canvases, saying, “Hurry up, Tess, and get ready; we must take advantage of the morning light.”

When at last I gave up the search among the other canvases and turned to look around the room for the missing study I noticed Tessie standing by the screen with her clothes still on.

“What’s the matter,” I asked, “don’t you feel well?”

“Yes.”

“Then hurry.”

“Do you want me to pose as—as I have always posed?”

Then I understood. Here was a new complication. I had lost, of course, the best nude model I had ever seen. I looked at Tessie. Her face was scarlet. Alas! Alas! We had eaten of the tree of knowledge, and Eden and native innocence were dreams of the past—I mean for her.

I suppose she noticed the disappointment on my face, for she said: “I will pose if you wish. The study is behind the screen here where I put it.”

“No,” I said, “we will begin something new;” and I went into my wardrobe and picked out a Moorish costume which fairly blazed with tinsel. It was a genuine costume, and Tessie retired to the screen with it enchanted. When she came forth again I was astonished. Her long black hair was bound above her forehead with a circlet of turquoises, and the ends, curled about her glittering girdle. Her feet were encased in the embroidered pointed slippers and the skirt of her costume, curiously wrought with arabesques in silver, fell to her ankles. The deep metallic blue vest embroidered with silver and the short Mauresque jacket spangled and sewn with turquoises became her wonderfully. She came up to me and held up her face smiling. I slipped my hand into my pocket, and drawing out a gold chain with a cross attached, dropped it over her head.

“It’s yours, Tessie.”

“Mine?” she faltered.

“Yours. Now go and pose,” Then with a radiant smile she ran behind the screen and presently reappeared with a little box on which was written my name.

“I had intended to give it to you when I went home to-night,” she said, “but I can’t wait now.”

I opened the box. On the pink cotton inside lay a clasp of black onyx, on which was inlaid a curious symbol or letter in gold. It was neither Arabic nor Chinese, nor, as I found afterwards, did it belong to any human script.

“It’s all I had to give you for a keepsake,” she said timidly.

I was annoyed, but I told her how much I should prize it, and promised to wear it always. She fastened it on my coat beneath the lapel.

“How foolish, Tess, to go and buy me such a beautiful thing as this,” I said.

“I did not buy it,” she laughed.

“Where did you get it?”

Then she told me how she had found it one day while coming from the Aquarium in the Battery, how she had advertised it and watched the papers, but at last gave up all hopes of finding the owner.

“That was last winter,” she said, “the very day I had the first horrid dream about the hearse.”

I remembered my dream of the previous night but said nothing, and presently my charcoal was flying over a new canvas, and Tessie stood motionless on the model-stand.

III

The day following was a disastrous one for me. While moving a framed canvas from one easel to another my foot slipped on the polished floor, and I fell heavily on both wrists. They were so badly sprained that it was useless to attempt to hold a brush, and I was obliged to wander about the studio, glaring at unfinished drawings and sketches, until despair seized me and I sat down to smoke and twiddle my thumbs with rage. The rain blew against the windows and rattled on the roof of the church, driving me into a nervous fit with its interminable patter. Tessie sat sewing by the window, and every now and then raised her head and looked at me with such innocent compassion that I began to feel ashamed of my irritation and looked about for something to occupy me. I had read all the papers and all the books in the library, but for the sake of something to do I went to the bookcases and shoved them open with my elbow. I knew every volume by its colour and examined them all, passing slowly around the library and whistling to keep up my spirits. I was turning to go into the dining-room when my eye fell upon a book bound in serpent skin, standing in a corner of the top shelf of the last bookcase. I did not remember it, and from the floor could not decipher the pale lettering on the back, so I went to the smoking-room and called Tessie. She came in from the studio and climbed up to reach the book.

“What is it?” I asked.

“The King in Yellow.”

I was dumfounded. Who had placed it there? How came it in my rooms? I had long ago decided that I should never open that book, and nothing on earth could have persuaded me to buy it. Fearful lest curiosity might tempt me to open it, I had never even looked at it in book-stores. If I ever had had any curiosity to read it, the awful tragedy of young Castaigne, whom I knew, prevented me from exploring its wicked pages. I had always refused to listen to any description of it, and indeed, nobody ever ventured to discuss the second part aloud, so I had absolutely no knowledge of what those leaves might reveal. I stared at the poisonous mottled binding as I would at a snake.

“Don’t touch it, Tessie,” I said; “come down.”

Of course my admonition was enough to arouse her curiosity, and before I could prevent it she took the book and, laughing, danced off into the studio with it. I called to her, but she slipped away with a tormenting smile at my helpless hands, and I followed her with some impatience.

“Tessie!” I cried, entering the library, “listen, I am serious. Put that book away. I do not wish you to open it!” The library was empty. I went into both drawing-rooms, then into the bedrooms, laundry, kitchen, and finally returned to the library and began a systematic search. She had hidden herself so well that it was half-an-hour later when I discovered her crouching white and silent by the latticed window in the store-room above. At the first glance I saw she had been punished for her foolishness. The King in Yellow lay at her feet, but the book was open at the second part. I looked at Tessie and saw it was too late. She had opened The King in Yellow. Then I took her by the hand and led her into the studio. She seemed dazed, and when I told her to lie down on the sofa she obeyed me without a word. After a while she closed her eyes and her breathing became regular and deep, but I could not determine whether or not she slept. For a long while I sat silently beside her, but she neither stirred nor spoke, and at last I rose, and, entering the unused store-room, took the book in my least injured hand. It seemed heavy as lead, but I carried it into the studio again, and sitting down on the rug beside the sofa, opened it and read it through from beginning to end.

When, faint with excess of my emotions, I dropped the volume and leaned wearily back against the sofa, Tessie opened her eyes and looked at me....

We had been speaking for some time in a dull monotonous strain before I realized that we were discussing The King in Yellow. Oh the sin of writing such words,—words which are clear as crystal, limpid and musical as bubbling springs, words which sparkle and glow like the poisoned diamonds of the Medicis! Oh the wickedness, the hopeless damnation of a soul who could fascinate and paralyze human creatures with such words,—words understood by the ignorant and wise alike, words which are more precious than jewels, more soothing than music, more awful than death!

We talked on, unmindful of the gathering shadows, and she was begging me to throw away the clasp of black onyx quaintly inlaid with what we now knew to be the Yellow Sign. I never shall know why I refused, though even at this hour, here in my bedroom as I write this confession, I should be glad to know what it was that prevented me from tearing the Yellow Sign from my breast and casting it into the fire. I am sure I wished to do so, and yet Tessie pleaded with me in vain. Night fell and the hours dragged on, but still we murmured to each other of the King and the Pallid Mask, and midnight sounded from the misty spires in the fog-wrapped city. We spoke of Hastur and of Cassilda, while outside the fog rolled against the blank window-panes as the cloud waves roll and break on the shores of Hali.

The house was very silent now, and not a sound came up from the misty streets. Tessie lay among the cushions, her face a grey blot in the gloom, but her hands were clasped in mine, and I knew that she knew and read my thoughts as I read hers, for we had understood the mystery of the Hyades and the Phantom of Truth was laid. Then as we answered each other, swiftly, silently, thought on thought, the shadows stirred in the gloom about us, and far in the distant streets we heard a sound. Nearer and nearer it came, the dull crunching of wheels, nearer and yet nearer, and now, outside before the door it ceased, and I dragged myself to the window and saw a black-plumed hearse. The gate below opened and shut, and I crept shaking to my door and bolted it, but I knew no bolts, no locks, could keep that creature out who was coming for the Yellow Sign. And now I heard him moving very softly along the hall. Now he was at the door, and the bolts rotted at his touch. Now he had entered. With eyes starting from my head I peered into the darkness, but when he came into the room I did not see him. It was only when I felt him envelope me in his cold soft grasp that I cried out and struggled with deadly fury, but my hands were useless and he tore the onyx clasp from my coat and struck me full in the face. Then, as I fell, I heard Tessie’s soft cry and her spirit fled: and even while falling I longed to follow her, for I knew that the King in Yellow had opened his tattered mantle and there was only God to cry to now.

I could tell more, but I cannot see what help it will be to the world. As for me, I am past human help or hope. As I lie here, writing, careless even whether or not I die before I finish, I can see the doctor gathering up his powders and phials with a vague gesture to the good priest beside me, which I understand.

They will be very curious to know the tragedy—they of the outside world who write books and print millions of newspapers, but I shall write no more, and the father confessor will seal my last words with the seal of sanctity when his holy office is done. They of the outside world may send their creatures into wrecked homes and death-smitten firesides, and their newspapers will batten on blood and tears, but with me their spies must halt before the confessional. They know that Tessie is dead and that I am dying. They know how the people in the house, aroused by an infernal scream, rushed into my room and found one living and two dead, but they do not know what I shall tell them now; they do not know that the doctor said as he pointed to a horrible decomposed heap on the floor—the livid corpse of the watchman from the church: “I have no theory, no explanation. That man must have been dead for months!”

I think I am dying. I wish the priest would—

End.

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Dear beloved reader,

I hope you found the chills you were looking for. Perhaps while entrenched in the pages of this issue of Cosmic Horror Monthly, you questioned both your own sanity and your place amongst the malevolent whims of our cold universe. If so, let not your thirst for more cosmic terror go unquenched. Simply visit COSMICHORRORMONTHLY.COM/SUBSCRIBE and offer your tribute to the old ones at a reduced rate!

Again, thank you for taking the time to read our fiction. I hope we meet again soon.

Charles Tyra

Editor

Table of Contents

- His Hands May be Dirty, but His Brain is Freshly Washed

- Millions
- Birth of the Living Night
- Interview: Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead
- The Language of Waves
- White Casket
- The Nut House
- Pin-Up Boy
- The King in Yellow: The Yellow Sign