No Light in August: Tales From Carcosa & the Borderland (Digital Horror Fiction Author Collection) (2 page)

The
remains were decayed, but Foss reckoned there were pieces of bear and wolf
among them. There were also parts that were less identifiable; parts that
looked to have too many joints, but they could’ve been put together that way,
he supposed.

“Not
exactly an invitation, is it?” he asked as Haran and Iayn drew up alongside.
“Looks as if there’s a stand of trees up ahead, we should hitch the horses and
go on foot.”

“Shit, I
think my bollocks have shrunk away to nothing,” Haran complained. The water
came almost to his waist, not that he or the others could say it made much of a
difference.

“That
won’t change much then, will it?” Foss said, grinning.

“I had
something to lose,” Haran replied. “Weren’t you clipped root and stem by a
priest when you were a boy?”

“I don’t
like to talk about it.”

Iayn let
the pair jibe back and forth; it loosened them up, providing a release from the
expectation of what was likely waiting for them. Gradually, the water became
shallower and shallower, until they traipsed out of the fen onto more or less
solid ground. Their course brought them in front of a rock wall split by an
opening too regular to be natural. Iayn loosed his sword, sliding the long
blade free; the familiar rasping sound setting his teeth on edge as always.

“Don’t reckon
I need to say we’re three against who the fuck knows how many?” asked Haran,
slipping his own sword from its scabbard. “No,” Iayn replied without looking.
“Just thought it worth a check.”

Water
dripped from the roof of the passage, the landing of drops echoing down into
the darkness. It wasn’t impenetrable; some light was provided by burning
torches set here and there, but it only made the darkness deeper, more like tar
or oil.

Foss came
up short, one hand up. “You hear that?” He kept his voice low, though it was
still caught by the walls and sent off as a tiny echo.

A moment
later, Iayn and Haran caught it; a low-sounding moan, rising in pitch as if it
was coming towards them.

“Wind?”
Haran asked.

“No,” Iayn
said as he spread his feet, the tip of his sword coming level with his eyes.

The sound
rose and fell, becoming more distinguishable as its source closed in on them.
She came out of the dark; one minute, they only heard her, and then she was on
top of Foss. He backed up in shock, batted his sword at her clumsily, and
managed to overbalance himself.

The woman
shrieked, raising long-fingered hands tipped with even longer nails filed to
razor points. Something glinted at the ends, where they appeared sheathed in a
thin layer of metal. She clawed frantically at Foss, managing to score his face
before Iayn took her arm off just below the elbow — the sword parted skin and
bone as easily as paper. She hardly noticed and swung her other hand, flattened
like a spade, directly for Foss’ chest.

Haran
split her skull, driving his blade down almost to the center of her face. She
spasmed and her hand went limp, falling uselessly against Foss’ armor with a
rattle of metal on metal. Haran helped Foss to his feet. One of his eyes was
filled with blood, but it ran down his face as he stood, revealing the eye
intact.

“Fuck, how
bad is it?”

“You’re
prettier than before,” Haran said, then clapped him on the shoulder and took a
canteen from his belt to wash the worst of the blood away.

“Makes me
about as pretty as you, then.”

Iayn
stared down at the body. She was naked save for a rotten-looking animal pelt.
Even with her face split, her eyes were still somehow frantic.

“It’s
deep, but not bad,” Haran told Foss, stoppering the canteen. “It’ll bleed;
nothing much we can do about that except keep it clean.”

Iayn faced
them. “C’mon then, I don’t fancy waiting around here like rats in a box.”

Bodies
appeared in the passage; first one, and then a second, and then more and more
until it became difficult to walk over them. Foss, face still throbbing, knelt
and examined one.

“This one
cut his own throat.”

“Looks as
if they killed themselves,” said Haran, leaning over another.

“Look for
him.” Iayn knew the thin man wouldn’t be here, but they searched anyway.

The bodies
led to a wide circular space, where they were spread out rather than almost
piled together in the narrow confines of the passage. Again, each was dead by
his or her own hand, some more violently than the others. It took some amount
of will to cut your own throat or disembowel yourself; a kind of determination
Haran, Foss, and Iayn couldn’t quite comprehend.

Iayn stood
over one woman, her face a torn-up mess. The wounds and the blood and bits stuck
to her hands held his focus until he felt, rather than heard, the walls breath.
The suicide chamber, for lack of a better name, seemed very much alive. Iayn
got the impression it had been holding its breath for a moment.

“This
looks to be all of them,” said Foss. “Doesn’t make sense.”

“It does.”
Iayn prodded one body with the toe of his boot. “Some of them have pieces
missing.”

The walls
pulsed as the breathing intensified — as if the place was waking up, but not
due to their presence. They followed the passage, which continued only a short
way after the suicide chamber, to its conclusion. A second, much smaller
chamber greeted them — no, not a chamber, more like a tomb.

That was
it, Iayn thought. It was a tomb, though not one meant for the dead. Quite the
opposite.

A
tremulous quiver ran through the stone, almost making it flap like cloth in a
breeze.

It was a
birthing tomb.

The thin
man had his back to them. He faced an altar and though he must have heard them
enter, he did not turn. Iayn saw the flash of the dagger, but then it was too
late. Something ripped quickly, almost a whisper underneath the rapid breathing
of the walls.

The thin
man slumped forward and slid off the altar, his legs kicking fitfully as blood
poured from the wound he’d inflicted on himself. Mostly in shadow, what lay on
the altar was indistinct, but Iayn saw enough.

It was
just tissue, but where before it was still, now it was animated like something
washed up from the deep ocean. It did not rise, but opened like a mollusk — it
was a trembling mass of pieced-together flesh. Just looking at it, Iayn found it
hard to keep his mind from dribbling away a bit at a time. Perhaps only the
presence of his friends kept him from running.

It slid
off the altar, wet flesh grinding against old stone, and all but plopped to the
floor. The sound put Foss in mind of meat dropped to the ground in an abattoir.
Then it stood on legs thin as a bird’s.

“Run or
fight?” Haran asked, fighting to keep his voice steady.

Though it
lacked a head, it clearly turned to look at them. Slowly, but with mounting
speed it came forward and made the choice for them.

Hitched as
they were under a stand of stunted trees, the horses were spared the worst of
the drizzle that poured down from the west. They bore it because they could do
nothing else but wait for their riders to return.

A splash
somewhere sent ripples through the water, and two of the horses flicked their
ears towards the sound. Something sloshed through the water, heavy and slow,
and all three turned in its direction.

The smell that
followed set them to pulling at their reins, but they were knotted too tightly
and the old leather refused to break as it came out of the mist towards them.

So
close, the bird was truly monstrous.

(Manuscript recovered by the
whale ship
Fury
, arctic sea, 1845)

Screams
from above reached sickbay, and I found Borr raving up above, covering the deck
with bloody, smeared smiles. Three others held him as I opened my bag; his
screams wound down to watery gurgles.

When I got
him into sickbay later, I asked, knowing he wouldn’t live through the night, if
there was anyone I should write to for him. We were passing into the arctic
places and it might be some time before we could next put into port.

A certain
kind of man may find himself on a ship and he will bring with him a certain
kind of madness. In many ways, it’s looked for. I can’t say I am any different.
I’m the doctor onboard, though not one onshore.

Think of
the kinds of frustrations you would encounter in such a place. It’s the sort of
environment where everything can be taken as a slight — someone talks too
loudly, or a bad joke or annoying laugh follows you about in your head all day
until you have the fellow’s eyes out over cards the same night.

Everyone
exists at the point of violence, and there are few real things one can do to
pass the time. Drinking yourself blind and gambling are the two chief
activities, as well as fishing, but precious little else. Stranger men still
were the ones who took up this last with enthusiasm. They weren’t really
fishing; the water was far too deep to catch anything. They just stood at the
rail with a rod in their hands, smiling at the ocean.

There were
times when the sea decided to purge itself of something; something without eyes
or tentacles, or something like a sphincter with a maw of needle teeth. When
these things were offered up by the sea, these men found themselves engaged in
a second’s violent murder, still smiling all the time.

Oft times
I would take the creatures and what remained of them before they could cast
them back to the depths. For my part, there was a certain medical curiosity.

Other
times, they wouldn’t cast them to the waves below, but into a cauldron or pot
they set up on deck. They did not eat them, but dropped them into the boiling
water only to see them change, or not. The cauldron’s own hunger for their
offerings reflected the hunger each of them felt.

In truth,
it was marked on all of our faces.

Ice
becomes a fact of life when travelling in northern climes hunting for whales.
It gets into your lungs, your skin; smell and pain become things you forget you
had.

If strange
men take to life onboard a ship, stranger women take to life in such ports as
there are in the arctic places. There were always enough to keep us warm. A
mixed bunch for sure: Finns, Estonians, Lithuanians, and Poles, with the odd
Scandinavian blonde thrown in here and there. None of the women in these places
ever asked, “How much?” The exchange was only of heat and maybe some pleasure
to relieve the boredom of daily life.

We came
into one such port. It was the sort of place where fathers might lie with
daughters in winter — where rats amounted to the town watch. We heard a story
in what served as tavern, brothel, and hotel.

“There was
a ship goin’ north, much as you boys are,” the old duffer said.

As long as
we kept his cup filled, he was content to talk while we waited for our turn
upstairs.

Not that I
was taking part, but where the crew goes, it’s advisable for the doctor to follow.

“I’stead
of findin’ whales, what they got was ice, and they was locked in for the
winter.” He smiled, displaying a mouth mostly empty, save for a few stone-like
teeth. “There was seals close by, so it weren’t so bad as all ‘at. They wasn’t
goin’ to starve or nothing…naw, it was boredom what started to thin their
faces.” He paused as a woman upstairs cried out, long and hard and much too
much for show.

“The
seals, ye see,” the old man tapped his temple knowingly. “They was too easy to
kill, so there weren’t no fun in it. Then no booze, and they’d played cards so
much, they knew every crease and crinkle in the deck so it weren’t no fun
neither.”

He slid
his battered mug across the table, and it was left to me to pour the rum to
keep him talking.

“Some
fella thought it’d be a grand idea to break out the guns. They made snowmen,
see?

Dressed
‘em up in spare clothes; maybe imagined they was someone they didn’t like none.
Heh, problem was once the shootin’ started, weren’t no stoppin’ it.”

A sailor,
one of the younger ones from the crew, stumbled into the common room still
doing his trousers up. His face practically glowed with warmth. Another quickly
sidestepped a couple more who were half up before realizing they weren’t going
to beat the other’s head start.

The old
man continued, “They killed the seals first; shot ‘em all to pieces. Took ‘bout
thirty minutes or so, but they run out of fun in the end.” He looked down and
shuffled his feet. There was something genuine in the gesture, but practiced
storytellers know how to lure an audience in.

“Back on
the boat, they was in the middle of givin’ the guns back to the master-at-arms,
when one bright spark lets his off at a friend. Just for a laugh, mind, but it
weren’t long before they was shootin’ at each other and laughin’ all the
while.” He presses a thumb and forefinger against the edges of his lips to
stretch his smile. “They was all froze up when they found ‘em, with smiles like
‘at splittin’ their faces.”

Each of us
understood what he was saying.

It wasn’t
madness that killed them, but boredom. It’s a far more insidious disease and
one which, as a doctor, I am unable to treat. Hence why we found ourselves in
such a place as this rickety and chilly rat-hole of a port, where only
terminally bored men come. With each man waiting his turn for a few moments of
warmth and something, anything, to take the drudgery away, even if only for a
little while before facing it again.

Several
days later, we sighted a pod of whales breaching ahead of us to starboard. The
prospect of work, our work, filled the crew with renewed vigor.

We no
longer took things quite so personally as before. We could tolerate a laugh or
bad joke because we could all taste the chance of action to take our minds off
it. Such a change brought on its own dangers; a kind of mania not easily
doused, even with drink. Indeed, it seemed as if some eye of madness settled
over the ship and crew, just waiting for us to blink and consume ourselves.

I lost a
patient on the second day of our pursuit. The result of an infection I failed
to notice, once I treated the initial wound. A second died a day later, and I
am not able to say for sure what killed him.

Shouts
from the deck on the third day drew me topside, along with most of the others.
Were the whales now within striking distance? I fancied I could almost hear the
boats being lowered.

One was,
in fact, but for a wholly different reason.

She was
perhaps twenty or twenty-five, but no more, I should say. We never learned her
name or age due to her being mute, though I could find no physical reason for
her affliction.

We found
her adrift in a battered boat, with no markings and nothing on her person to
say where she might have come from. The Captain himself and two men he trusted
stood watch at the door as I treated her. I could feel the rest of the crew
pressing in through the walls and deck. She most definitely offered a
distraction from boredom, though of the kind that could destroy the ship and
the authority of the Captain.

“What can
you say?” He loomed at my back, as unadmittedly eager to see her as the others,
I suspected.

“Not much.
She’s not eaten in more than a day and about the same for drink, if the state
of her lips and mouth is anything to go by.”

“Not just
salt burn?”

“No, but
once we get her warm and fed, she should be alright,” was about the best I
could offer.

“Anything
in her clothes say much?”

She wasn’t
naked on the table, though her dress was so soaked as to be nearly transparent.
“No, and we checked the jacket she’d been wrapped in.” I waved to where the
assistant was washing it. “Just a sailor’s pea coat; could’ve come from any
ship you care to mention.”

“Any
gazettes I have will be long out of date,” he said as he sucked his tongue. “No
way of knowing what ships would be up this way.”

“Someone
gave her that jacket, or was with her in the boat.”

The idea
she might’ve pushed a dead man into the water wasn’t as far-fetched as you
might think. The sea changes people, strips away compassion until there’s
nothing but rationality as cold as the waves.

“Will she
be able to walk about once she’s awake?”

“I
wouldn’t advise it, but if I’d been a long time alone on a boat, I might feel
the need to stretch my legs.”

“Could be
a problem.” “Aye, that it could.”

Before she
came onboard, the crew could be said to act as one body, with the Captain
acting as its head. Now we were following her with our own eyes and using our
own minds. Where once there was a crew, there was now only a group of
individuals. This is why women are not permitted onboard ship.

I saw it
and so did the Captain, though neither of us was immune to it. As I feared, she
walked even when she was barely able.

I had her
clothes washed and pressed and a bath drawn for her in sickbay — I waited
outside the door, of course. Hot water and relatively clean clothes restored
some measure of color to her hair and skin. Though her black curls were in need
of another woman’s touch, the crew would no doubt have been eager to volunteer
to fill such a position.

Once
dressed, she drifted about sickbay for a bit while I tossed questions at her.
She ignored them and examined the shelves lining the walls. Odd, and she made
odd, bobbing movements of her head here and there. I swear she butted her nose
gently against one or two of the glass jars.

There was
something off-putting about the way she walked, her head moving in time with
her steps.
Like a bird
. But I said nothing and put it down to her time
in the boat, God alone knew how long that may have been.

She either
was truly mute or had suffered some sort of psychic break during her time at
sea. I can’t say either way, though she understood if I told her not to touch
something. She went everywhere with the black sailor’s coat draped about her
shoulders. Likely it served as a kind of talisman, most probably because it was
the only thing to provide any degree of comfort to her in recent days.

Once on
deck, and even with me trailing a bit behind her, it was a different matter.
The men avoided her, but couldn’t help but stare after her. She repeated the
same odd pattern of walking, eyes blinking as she tilted her head from side to
side while examining something.

From his
position near the wheel, the Captain enjoyed a view of the main deck. His gaze
held the men in line, but it was a fraying cord at best. We both sensed it, so
he descended to walk among the crew. A hard look or nudge here and there would,
he probably thought, restore his authority.

It was
also my cue to get her back below. In the end, neither thing happened.

It was
Nils.

What to
say about Nils? Swedish by birth, he was quick to throw in at cards. Too quiet
for the liking of most of the crew, except when he drank — which had been often
of late.

I never
saw him reaching behind me to take me unawares and so make for the girl, along
with any else who wanted.

The
Captain saw and grabbed his hand.

Nils had
his knife out before anyone could stop him. As I turned at the commotion, Nils
flicked his hand out and ended the Captain where he stood. I couldn’t stop the
bleeding, and four men pinned Nils to the deck. It took two more to hold him in
place, his eyes rolling wildly and spittle flying from his mouth as he shouted
and raved.

All the
while, she stood and watched, though her eyes weren’t fixed on the man who’d
intended her harm; rather, it was the blood pooling on the deck that she fixed
upon. I had other concerns, so put it from my mind as part of her condition.

Rawlins
was first mate. A hard-bitten Canadian, he was Captain now. With Nils still
pinned, the shock of mutiny did something to strengthen rather than tear the
cord of authority he now held.

His
decision was simple: “Lash him to the mast, high up as you can. A day and a
night, and see if he lives.”

Later,
with the girl sedated in sickbay and two men Rawlins trusted at the door, I
watched Nils. He was so high it didn’t seem possible the ropes could hold him
there.

“He won’t
last the night, doctor,” the Captain reassured me.

The Swede
had long ago screamed himself hoarse, but you could still catch rasps under the
wind. I thought he was trying to say something, but it was impossible to say
what.