The first stories I ever wrote were horror stories, and recently, for whatever reason, I have returned to my roots and cranked out several darker tales. For October I published three of them on here - mainly older stories I wrote while still in my twenties. But this one I just finished a little over a week ago. It's yet another tale of the Lovecraftian strain, this time set in Puritan New England, not too many years after that first Thanksgiving. So travel back in time with me to the 1600's, when the wild woods of New England were sometimes wilder than the history books care to record . . .
THE
SAVAGE GOD THOTEP
A
SHORT STORY BY
LEWIS
SMITH
It
was in September of the Year of Our Lord Sixteen Hundred and Sixty-seven that
my family and I disembarked from the good ship Fortuna at the Providence Plantation, to seek out the company of
the Righteous in the New World. My
father, Matthew Brennan, had been expelled from the pulpit of his church by
order of the King because of his demand for a reformed, Scriptural Church of
England. When he saw first-hand the
corruption of the King’s chosen clerics, Father had no longer been able to hold
his tongue, and our exile was his punishment for his denunciations of the
wickedness of those who called themselves men of God.
But
what King Charles, that royal peacock and fountain of wickedness and
corruption, intended for our hurt, we chose to accept as a sign of God’s favor
and blessing, for we were exiled to a land where every man was free to worship
according to the dictates of his conscience, and where the heavy hand of the
state was forbidden by law from interfering with the free exercise of our
religion.
“Forced
worship is a stench in the nostrils of God!”
So
Roger Williams had informed my father when he was but a young man, and Matthew
never forgot that. So when we were
offered refuge by Williams in the colony he had founded upon the principle of
free worship and rights of conscience, my father decided to bring all of us
with him to the New World, myself, my mother Martha, and my three younger
siblings – brothers Connor and James, and my sister Charity as well. The brothers in the Plantation welcomed us at
first, and we quickly erected a clapboard house on the edge of Providence and
became members of the new Baptist Church located there.
As
the eldest son, my father had pointed out to me my responsibility before God to
marry and carry on the family name of Brennan, obeying the Biblical injunction
to “be fruitful and multiply; to replenish the earth and subdue it.” This commandment was made all the more urgent
by the vast and untamed land before us, for pestilence had reduced the ranks of
the local Indians to a fraction of their former numbers, and there was much
land to be cleared and tamed.
Thus,
in our first weeks in Providence, I found a fair maid by the name of Prudence
Gooden, whose parents were seeking a suitable husband. After a few whispered conversations and one
sweet, stolen kiss, I begged her father Thomas to allow me to come courting, which
permission he cheerfully gave. Prudence
and I were wed a few weeks thereafter, and lived for a time in the large extra
room that my father added on to the home we had built together for the family.
While
it is a sin to speak ill of one’s parents, I can note without comment that my
father’s stubborn stand for righteousness in a corrupted church had rendered
him to be more contumacious and sometimes even bitter in his character than had
formerly been the case. Despite the fact
that the church we joined in America was far more scripturally sound than the
Church of England which we fled, Father still took exception to some of its
practices and especially to the sermons of the pastor, Elijah Godsworthy. Why these two decent and godly men came to be
adversaries is beyond my power to tell, but something about Reverend Godsworthy
struck a deep chord of offense in my father’s spirit, and the two of them were
soon at odds.
At
first their differences were aired in private conversations, but soon their
quarrel became more and more heated and more publicly displayed. Pastor Godsworthy was well liked in
Providence Plantation, and regardless of the verity of my father’s criticisms,
most of the townspeople sided with their preacher. So it was that, less than a year after
arriving in the New World, the church withdrew its bond of fellowship from us
and we were asked to leave the town of Providence.
I
will not deny that this was a bitter blow to me and my young bride, but with
commendable loyalty she quoted to me from the Book of Ruth: “Do not urge me to leave you, or turn back
from following you, for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will
lodge. Your people shall be my people,
and your God shall be my God.” Therefore
Prudence voluntarily abandoned her home and family to sojourn with us into the
wilderness of the Plantation’s western lands.
Providence
Plantation, in these latter days known as Rhode Island, was far larger than the
township of Providence, although it was still the smallest of the twelve
colonies. We traveled twenty-five miles
north and west of the town, near the Massachusetts border. This was a densely
wooded region, with rocky hills and spurs jutting up through the primeval
forest, and dark loamy soil scattered through with hundreds of rocks and
boulders. It was a harsh land, but we
were a hard and stubborn people of sturdy English stock, and we set to work
clearing a patch for our farm right away.
Of
the land’s savage aborigines there was little sign – the smallpox had
devastated the tribes in the area, and they had withdrawn deeper into the woods
and mountains to escape its ravages. But
there was a deserted village a mile or so from the place where we chose to
build, with its lodges falling into disrepair and its burial ground grown up
wild and weedy. Not far from it, less
than a league to the northwest, was a bare hill with a circle of black standing
stones near the top. I disliked this
place from the moment I first saw it, for it seemed to me somehow ill
favored. One of the stones, near the
center of the circle, was a black slab that lay flat like an altar, and it
seemed to me that a foul odor lingered near it.
Oddly
enough, although I felt a marked aversion to this strange place, my wife
Prudence was strangely drawn to it. When
I described it to her, after first discovering it on a hunting expedition, her
eyes lit up.
“There
was such a standing stone circle near Providence in my father’s day,” she said,
“but Reverend Williams bade us tear it down, saying that it was linked to black
magic most foul. But when I stood where the stones once were, I felt a
wonderful sense of peace and joy wash over me, and I knew that it was a place
touched by the hand of God.”
“Don’t
be foolish, wife!” I said. “There is a foulness to that place I found, and
there is nothing Christian about it.”
She
said no more at the time, and I thought nothing of it. She was just kindled with child, and I was
busy felling trees, burning stumps, and pulling rocks from the ground so that
we could get a crop in before planting season ended. It was tiresome work, and but my father was
still strong and able-bodied for a man of forty-six summers, and my brothers
were of an age to be of good assistance.
We planted three acres in corn, potatoes, and squash, and harvested
abundant hickory nuts and acorns from the woods around the house.
As I
have said, the native population in our region had mostly fled or been
destroyed by pestilence, but there were a few furtive Indians still lurking in
the woods around us. Most of the time,
the only evidence of their presence was abandoned campfires and the occasional
glimpse of copper-skinned figures flitting through the trees, but nearly a year
after we had settled into our new surroundings I met one of the savages for the
first time.
I had
gone hunting with my brother, seeking to put more meat into our smokehouse
before the first snows began to fall, and spotted a noble hart standing in a
clearing, surrounded by his does. I
crept through the trees and aimed my musket, but before I could pull the
trigger the beast jerked and snorted, ran a few paces, and fell, an arrow
protruding from his side. The females
began to flag their tails and run; in desperation I shot at one of them and hit
her in the neck. The wound was mortal,
and she staggered to the edge of the clearing before collapsing.
It
was only then that I realized the significance of the arrow, and I hesitated to
stand up for fear that the unseen hunter might be hostile. But after a moment, a figure rose from the
undergrowth on the far side of the clearing and stepped forward, holding up an
open hand to show his friendly intentions. At this signal my brother and I also
stood erect and strode forward.
The
Indian was slightly shorter than us, but well-muscled and sturdy of build, clad
in buckskins, with the facial paint that was typical of the woodland
barbarians. His face was weather-beaten
from a lifetime of exposure to the elements, and I guessed his age somewhere
between forty and sixty summers. His eyes were clear and grey, and his bearing
was one of friendly caution.
“English?”
he asked us.
“Yes,”
I said, “we live in the two cabins south of here.”
“My
name Swontee,” he said in broken English.
“I know your preacher-man Williams.
He stay with us when the Boston tribe cast him out.”
“I
have oft heard him tell of the hospitality of your people,” I said. “You are welcome to food, fire, and board in
our home, Swontee.”
The
savage grinned.
“English man speak kind
words,” he said. “English pox is not so
kind. Many my people die after feasting
with English. You cut up your deer, I
cut up mine, and we go back to our people.
I see you again, Englishman.”
“I hope so,” I
replied. “My name is Edward, and this is
my brother James.”
He bowed respectfully,
and took his deer by the hind legs.
“Can I help you cut him
up?” I asked. “My knife is keen and
quick.”
He pulled his own knife
from its scabbard. Its blade had been
sharpened so many times that it was but a sad remnant of the proud weapon it
had once been.
“Swontee thanks you,”
he said. “My knife sharp, but too
short.”
In short order I had
both deer gutted and quartered, and when I was done I gave Swontee my knife,
since I had another at the house – and I figured the blade was a small price to
pay for earning the friendship of our savage neighbors. The old native seemed
most grateful, and clasped my hand as we parted according to the traditions of
his people.
The good weather
persisted for another week, and I went hunting twice more during that span of
days. The second trip took me past the
standing stones, and as I walked past them I noticed something lying atop the
flat altar stone. Curious, I turned
aside and climbed the hill to see what it might be.
There, on the center of
the slab, lay the head of the deer that Swontee had felled with his arrow. I
recognized it because two of the antler tines on one side were broken off, just
as I had noticed when butchering it.
Drawn around it, in blood, was a crude outline that I could not at first
recognize, although part of it resembled the wings of a great bat. But, if it were intended to represent an
actual creature, I could not imagine what the beast might be, for it had too
many limbs for any natural being, and its head, though misshapen, resembled
that of a man.
The place was still
repulsive to me, and the foul stench around the altar seemed even stronger than
before. Disgusted, I knocked the stag’s
head off the table and headed back into the forest. But the game, normally abundant, was nowhere
to be seen, and shortly before dark I headed home. As I returned past the bald hill with its
jagged crown of standing stones, I heard a slight rustling in the brush and
suddenly Swontee stood beside me.
“White brother,” he
said, “did you tread on yon hill, within the sacred circle?”
“I did,” I said. “Did you leave the stag’s head there?”
“Offering for Thotep,”
he replied. “The Eater of Souls must be
appeased, as long as men live in the forest.
If we do not give him blood and flesh, he will take it. Do not defile his altar, White Brother, or it
shall go ill for you!”
“My God is powerful
enough to protect me,” I said. “But I
thank you for your warning. Will you
come and sup with me?”
The Indian nodded, and
we headed back towards my home. I was
struck by how soundless the forest was – the normal chirps and twitters of
birds were nowhere to be heard, nor the rustle of larger animals moving through
the brush. As we neared the clearing, I pointed this out.
“Thotep prowls
tonight,” he said. “Woods not safe. Swontee may sleep in your barn, yes?”
“You are afraid of your
own god?” I asked the red man.
“Thotep not Indian
god,” he said in reply. “He was god of
the Old Ones, who lived here during the time of the eternal winter, when great
shaggy beasts from the far north roamed the whole land, and red men fled to the
south. The mountains of ice retreated
back to the great north, and the Old Ones disappeared, but their standing
stones and altars remained. Red men
learn that Thotep must be fed, or he will feed.
He devours both flesh and spirit, and the shades of his victims rest
not. So as long as red men dwell here,
we feed Thotep a share of our game, that He Who Flies By Night may not devour
us.”
This was the most that
I had ever heard the savage speak, and what he said confused me. Who were the Old Ones? Were the “Eater of Souls” and “He Who Flies
By Night” one and the same? Pagan
superstitions they were, but interesting ones.
I decided that perhaps God was showing me that I needed to introduce
this red man to the true faith, so that such heathen foolishness need trouble
him no more.
I was uncertain as to
how my father might react to my bringing a native into our dwelling for supper,
but he was in a most expansive and generous mood that evening, and welcomed
Swontee into our home. The native was apprehensive at first – his people had
become more and more wary of whites in recent years, although the great
rebellion of Chief Metacom was still several years off.
Swontee was
particularly fascinated by my wife Prudence, whose time was almost at hand.
Uncomfortable as she was, she still smiled graciously and allowed him to
briefly lay a hand on her belly. The old
Indian was grateful for our food, and after we finished our repast I led him
out to the barn and gave him an extra blanket.
As we stood there, listening to the horses nicker, a bizarre,
otherworldly shriek echoed from the woods, beginning with a deep bass croak and
shrilling higher and higher till it threatened to split my eardrums.
Swontee placed his
hands over his ears and cowered against the wall of the barn.
“What in the name of
great Jehovah was that?” I asked.
“Thotep hungry,” he
said. “White brother angered him, taking
sacrifice from the altar. He will prowl
till he feeds. Build your fire high, and
hold your woman close!”
Up to this point I had
thought of his superstitious ramblings as arrant nonsense, but that horrible
screech –whatever wild beast may have uttered it – was most unnerving,
especially under the light of the sickle moon.
I did throw an extra log of two on the fire when I went inside, but only
because the night was chill – or so I told myself.
Prudence lay in our
bed, one hand cradling her belly, with an odd smile on her face.
“What pleases you this
night, wife?” I asked her fondly, for she was a most comely woman, and the
flush of new life was on her cheeks.
“Such beautiful music,”
she said softly. “What forest creature
makes such sounds?”
“You dream, my love,” I
said, “for all I have heard from the woods this night was the screech of some
foul beast.”
Not long after that I
fell asleep, one arm around her shoulders as was my custom. In my dreams I was back in the forest, near
the bald hill with its black stones, hunting for game. It was dark outside, but
a bright moon lit the clearing where deer grazed peacefully, and I raised my
trusty musket for a clean shot at one of them.
Suddenly a shadow fell across the herd, and the deer began to flag and
run. But not swiftly enough – a hideous
shape dropped down out of the sky and grasped one of the stags in its
talons. What manner of demon or monster
it was I could not say, for it had attributes of bat, serpent, man, and insect
about it. The stag bellowed and
struggled, but the beast’s snakelike tail wound around its neck and strangled
it. I stood there, frozen with fear, as
its manlike face lowered towards the animal’s flank. Even as its talons began ripping at the flesh
and lifting red gobbets of it towards the fanged maw, I jerked awake.
The first rays of dawn
were creeping in through the window, and despite the chill, my wife had cast
aside the coverlets. I saw, to my alarm,
that her shift was rent at the waist, and that her belly, swollen with child,
was exposed to the morning air. As the
cloudiness of sleep fled from my vision, I realized that her pale skin was marked. I sat bolt upright and saw that her belly had
been painted with symbols unfamiliar to me, half picture and half writing. Then I realized they were not unlike some of
the characters I had seen on the altar stone atop that profaned hill.
I leaped up from my bed
and ran to the barn, calling for Swontee at the top of my lungs. The Indian was already awake, munching on
some dried venison, and he calmly regarded me as I came storming up to him.
“Did you come to my
bedchamber last night, you savage?” I asked him.
“No, White Brother,” he
said. “But your wife left your side and
was walking towards the woods. Some sort
of spell was on her, for she heeded not my cries. Thotep was calling her; the Eater of Souls
could smell the new life inside her. I
stopped her from going to him, and painted the ward signs on her belly to
protect your child from him.”
My anger faded a
bit. There was no guile in his voice,
only a sincere sadness. Could he be
telling the truth? False gods and demons
abounded in our world, and witches and witchcraft were certainly real. Could there be some primal force of evil
lurking in our forest? I thought of how
my wife described the hideous shriek from the woods as “beautiful music,” and I
shuddered. Could some form of glammer be
cast upon her?
I looked at the old
savage, studying his face. I could see
no deceit there, and after a long moment I sighed.
“I was prepared to be
angry with you,” I said, “but I can see you did what you did to protect
her. I shall pray to my God, who is mightier
than any demon of the woods, and He shall protect us.”
“I do not know your
god,” said Swontee, “although White Brother Williams talked of him. He seems like a strong god, but Thotep the
Old, Narla-Thotep, the One Who Flies by Night, the Eater of Souls – he is
ancient, and wicked beyond the ken of mortal men. I hope your god can protect you. Do not let her wash off the markings!”
With that he devoured
the last morsel of his venison, and then trotted off into the forest. I stood a long time, reflecting on what he
had said, and then walked back slowly to the house. Prudence was up and dressed, helping my
mother and sister prepare breakfast for the family. Father was speaking to my brothers about
packing away our foodstuffs for the coming winter, and, all things taken into
reckoning, things seemed remarkably normal.
I could almost forget the dark forces stirring in the forest, or the
fact that a red savage had painted my wife’s belly in the night and I had not punished
him for it.
The rhythms of life
returned to normal for a week or so after that, until Monday morning, when my
wife’s days were accomplished that she should be delivered of our child. Her labor was painful and sharp but brief;
barely four hours after the birth pangs began, my firstborn son was
delivered. My mother and sister attended
her, while Father and I, with my brothers, prayed for her safe delivery from
the arduous task of bringing a new life into the world.
When Mother emerged,
cradling my son in her arms, I held the baby boy for a moment, resolving to
name him Caleb, after my father’s elder brother. Then I asked if I could see Prudence yet.
“Certainly, my son,”
she said. “She is tired, but well
enough, and bled not overmuch. She’s a
strong girl and should bear you many sons and daughters in the years to
come. But do not overstay, for her labor
was hard, even if it was brief.”
My dear wife was glad
to see me, and agreed readily to the name I had chosen for our son. I kissed her brow and gave her a drink of
cool water, urging her to rest and recover from her ordeal. She held tightly to
my hand for a little while, and then I pulled away from her so that she could
rest. My sister was bringing little
Caleb in to nurse when I returned to the front room of our house – a simple
three-room log cabin, about fifty feet from the one my parents shared with my
unmarried siblings.
Mother was ready to
return to their house and cook supper, but she pulled me aside for a moment
before leaving.
“What were those
strange marks on your wife’s belly?” she asked in a whisper. “They looked pagan to me!”
“The Indian Swontee
placed them there,” I said. “It was some
sort of prayer or ward to protect mother and child during her confinement. He meant no harm by it, so I left it there.”
“Nothing good can come
of consorting with pagans, my son,” she said.
“I washed it off as soon as I saw it.”
I started a bit at
that, but the ghostly wail from the woods was already fading away in my mind,
and nothing like it had been repeated.
If there was any evil force on the prowl that night, it had apparently
withdrawn from our region, hopefully forever.
I thanked mother for her concern and went about my daily work, thanking
God for the birth of a son and for the good health of my bride.
Her recovery was indeed
swift; within a week she was going about her daily work as if she had not just
been delivered of a baby, pausing only when Caleb needed to be fed. Two weeks after his birth, she resumed
marital relations with me with the same passion and affection that we had shared
beforehand.
It was that same night
that I began to notice something odd in her behavior. I woke in the middle of the night to find
that she had strayed from our bed. At
first I thought perhaps she had gone outside to make water, for it was a fine night
and she always despised the chamber pot.
But when I stepped outside, I saw her walking across the yard, barefoot,
wearing only her shift. I came to her
side and turned her about, noticing the beatific smile on her face. I led her back to our bed and she laid down,
as biddable as a small child. She put
her arms around my waist and buried her head on my shoulder. Just before she lapsed back into slumber, I
heard her whisper something very softly.
“Such beautiful music,”
she said.
And far, far away in
the woods, it seemed that awful, hell-born cry echoed again. But it was faint
and far away, and sleep overcame me not long after.
I had not seen Swontee
since that night some weeks before, but the next day he came forth from the
woods, his coppery face wreathed in smiles.
“Happy was I to hear
White Brother has a son!” he said. “I
bring gift for the boy!”
He reached into his
leather pouch, and produced an odd toy.
It was a green limb, carefully wrapped in leather, with two hawkbells
skillfully tied near the end, so that they jingled with the slightest movement
of the stick. But oddest of all was the greenish stone tied to one end. It was very light, as if carved of pumice,
but it was carved or polished into the shape of a five pointed star, with
rounded rays.
“What is this,
Swontee?” I asked him.
“Baby rattle,” he
said. “Bells make your boy smile.”
“And this odd stone?” I
asked.
“Old Indian charm,” he
said. “Bring good luck, help boy grow up
tall and strong.”
I was unsure of the
wisdom of giving a child what amounted to a stone club as a gift, but the old
savage was so sincere that I hated to disappoint him, so I thanked him for his
gift and visited with him for an hour or so.
He was full of news, and related with some concern the fate of a small
clan of Indians who lived just across the border in Massachusetts.
“Not many left in their
village,” he said. “Wampanoags lose many
of their kin to the pox. But there were
still three families there last fortnight, and now all are gone. Some dead, ripped to pieces, others simply
disappeared. They say that Thotep, the
Eater of Souls, was on the hunting path when he found them. I have heard him cry in the woods a few times
of late, but far off from here. Maybe
now he will be content.”
He bade me farewell not
long after, and I gave him a haunch of venison to thank him for his gift to my
son. As young as Caleb was, he took to
the rattle right away and held it tight in his tiny hands, waking or
sleeping. Prudence did not care for the
toy at all, and tried to pull it out of our son’s hands on more than one
occasion. But the infant always set up
such a squalling fit that she returned the rattle to him, and he would wrap his
chubby fingers around it and shake it till the hawkbells jingled. The sound did lull the boy, and he slept
soundly as long as the rattle was in his crib with him.
It was a month or two
later, as land lay under its annual blanket of snow, that I realized our
respite from the lurking evil of the forest had been temporary. Although some of the game migrated south
every year, there were still a number of deer and many smaller creatures abroad
in the snow, if one had the patience to track them. The smoked meat tasted more and more like
leather as the cold months progressed, and I decided that I would take it on
myself to find the family some fresh game.
Dressing warmly, I set out in the middle of the morning, heading deep
into the woods to see what creatures might be taking advantage of the rare
sunlight to emerge from their winter holes.
I did not consciously
walk towards the tall hill with its standing stones, but without my being aware
of it, my feet seemed to be pulled in that direction. I was actually startled when I looked up and
saw it looming ahead, being fixed on the trail of a large deer in the
snow. To my surprise, I saw that there
was a fresh set of tracks moving towards the top of the hill, clearly the
tracks of another hunter. I thought
perhaps old Swontee was visiting his pagan shrine again, and made up my mind to
accost him and see if I could direct his thoughts towards a faith more worthy
of his devotion.
As I traversed the
slope, I noticed that Swontee’s tracks were uneven, almost serpentine, in their
progress, and the length of his strides made me think that he must be running
rather than walking. Concerned, I
redoubled my pace – and then drew up short, stunned and puzzled by what lay
before me.
The Indian’s tracks –
for I assumed they were his, and not another’s – ended abruptly about a rod or
two short of the standing stones. There
was no place he could have gone, no bare rock or other surface where his feet
might have left no mark. Instead, two
parallel impressions indicated that he had been standing still, and then not a
single mark led off in either direction.
There was a faint splatter of blood in front of his last two footprints,
and no other sign to indicate where he could have gone. I am no papist, but I was sorely tempted to
make the sign of the cross in the air before me, so strong was the aura of evil
that hung in the air.
I looked towards the
flat stone at the top of the hill, and saw another splatter of blood,
considerably larger, in the snow, just inside the circle of stones. I moved towards it, and saw that gobbets of
flesh were scattered about, with no tracks or signs around them, as if they had
been dropped straight from the sky. The
carnage grew greater as I neared the altar table, and when I finally lifted my
eyes from the litter of death in the snow, what I saw horrified me so much that
the strength left my legs and I crumpled in the snow for a moment.
The flat black stone
had not a flake of snow on it – whether the sun, striking its dark surface, had
melted it all away, or whether some evil property of that accursed altar had
kept the snow from settling on it in the first place, I could not say. But the stone was not empty, for laid upon
it, arms thrust outward, was the body of my Indian friend Swontee.
To be perfectly
truthful, to call what I found “his body” is a bit of an exaggeration. He had been cleaved in two, and his legs and
hips were gone altogether. His bowels,
half frozen, trailed off the end of that foul altar, and his eye sockets were
empty. His face was frozen in an
attitude of fear and loathing that caused my knees to go weak a second
time. What horror had he witnessed in
his final moments, to fix such an expression on his countenance? Had he felt a moment of gratitude when his
eyes were taken, that he could behold the sight no more?
I wanted nothing more
than to run from that accursed place, to find home and hearth and warmth and
the comfort of prayers and Scripture and my loving family, but I refused to do
it. This man had broken bread with me
and been a friend to my family, had tried to protect my wife from whatever
horror stalked these woods, and I would not leave him, gutted and bisected,
laid out like an offering to this savage god Thotep.
I removed the long coat
I was wearing and wrapped his pitiful remains in it as best I could, and set
out for home. Somehow, time had slipped
away on that stone-ringed hill, for the sun was much lower in the sky than it
had been when I first spotted the footprints heading up the slope. I strode forward as rapidly as I could,
having no desire to be caught in the dark in those accursed woods. Indeed, as I
neared our two cabins, and smelled the familiar scent of wood-smoke coming from
our chimney, somewhere in the woods that accursed screeching howl sounded
again, as if the gates of Hell had opened and released the Devil’s hound upon
the world. But this hound had wings -
the thought sprang unbidden to my mind, and I shuddered at it.
“Hello dear
brother! Do you bring us meat?” James’ voice broke my grim procession of
thoughts, and I was glad at the sound of it.
“I fear not,” I
replied. “This is a much sadder burden I
bear. Our Indian friend Swontee has
fallen victim to some wild beast.”
“That is ill fortune,”
he said. “But I recall Swontee being of
far greater stature than that bloody bundle you bear!”
“This is what is left
of him,” I said. “He was partly devoured
by whatever creature attacked him.”
He turned pale, and
then ran into the house, shouting for my father. In short order, he came forth, with both my
brothers in tow. I saw my mother hanging
back at the door, wringing her hands, and Prudence behind her, bearing Caleb in
her arms. I gestured towards the barn, not wanting the womenfolk to get even a
fleeting glance at the horrid revenant that had been our Indian friend.
Father’s face was grim
as he surveyed the butchered remains of Swontee.
“May Christ and all his
Holy Angels protect us,” he said. “This
was not the work of any ordinary wild beast.”
As if to punctuate his
pronunciation, in the distance the shrill howl of Thotep shook the darkling
woods. My brothers blanched, and Father glared at the blasphemous sound.
“Let us bury this poor
savage,” he said, “and pray for the mercy of God on his pagan soul. Then let us lock the doors and windows
against whatever may prowl in the night.”
The ground was frozen
hard to a depth of a couple of feet, but I had already given thought to how to
overcome this. The thought of leaving
Swontee’s frozen corpus in our smoke house for the winter was unnerving to say
the least, so I directed my brothers to the place we had already chosen as our
family’s burial ground, although it was, as yet, unused. They used shovels to clear the snow from an
area large enough to serve as a grave for my friend’s truncated remains, and I
stacked a pile of firewood and kindling there, lighting it with a taper carried
from inside. We let the fire burn fast
and hot, and the ground beneath the flames melted quickly. After the fire had burned down to embers, we
used the same shovels to cut through the turf and dig several feet down into
the stony, cold soil. I pulled several
of the larger rocks we uncovered aside, so that I could cover Swontee’s body
with them.
After an hour of hard
labor, the unfortunate Indian’s remains were lowered into the pit, several
heavy stones stacked atop him, and the rest of the soil shoveled back over the
grave. I laid the last few rocks atop
the spot, so that we could carve a proper marker for our Indian friend in the
spring. It was nearing midnight when our
work was finally done, and we returned to the cabins.
Little Caleb was long
since asleep, and Prudence helped me out of my bloodstained, grimy
clothes. Dutiful wife that she was, she
had filled the washtub with heated water so that I could bathe the stains of
the day’s horrors from my skin and hair before coming to bed. Seeking comfort in her arms afterward, I
reflected, despite the evil I had witnessed that day, how good God is that he
did not leave man alone on this earth, but created a helpmeet adequate to all
our needs.
But all her charms
could not keep the wheels of my mind from turning over the events of the day as
I lay back and tried to sleep. My rest
was fitful and interrupted, and in my dreams I approached that altar of evil
again, seeing the butchered form of poor Swontee lying atop it – only this
time, he turned his head towards me and opened his mouth as if to speak. The expression on his face was so horrible I
started awake.
The bed beside me was
cold and empty, and as I sat up I saw that little Caleb’s cradle was likewise
vacant. I jumped up, wrapping a
greatcoat around me, and ran to the door, which was standing open. Prudence was standing in the yard, holding
our child in her arms, facing towards the dark north woods. In the east, the sky was just beginning to go
grey with dawn. I could see that her
face was wreathed in the most innocent of smiles, and her eyes were open.
“Come, wife, it is too
cold to have the child outside!” I said gently.
She gave a long sigh
and turned towards me.
“Too late,” she softly
whispered. “The music is silent, and I
know not where to go.” Although her tone
was happy and calm, I shuddered at the words, and fairly dragged her back to
bed, putting our child between us and locking my hand in hers. I eventually fell back to sleep, and the sun
was high in the sky when I finally awoke.
She was sitting by the fire, making flour cakes, seemingly unaware of
all that had transpired in the night.
But the next night I
found her getting out of bed again, that same dreamy smile on her face. Once more I turned her around and put her
back under the covers, and only the slightest frown showed her displeasure at
being interrupted in her intentions. The
next night I was more soundly asleep, and I did not wake till she was out the
door, carrying our babe in her arms again.
By now that beatific smile had come to horrify me, for she was indeed
acting under some strange compulsion.
When I questioned her
about the matter the next day, she had no memory of getting out of bed at all –
in fact; she treated the matter as a jest.
When I pressed her, she did own up to hearing music in her dreams,
coming from the woods – music of such an unearthly beauty that it filled her
with the deepest joy. I asked her if she
had ever heard the music when awake, and she hesitated to answer.
“I thought I have, more
than once, dear husband,” she finally said.
“But you said it was the cry of a wild beast.”
Something was pulling
at her mind, trying to lure her into the woods for some evil purpose, that much
was clear. So that evening I procured
one of the cowbells from the barn and tied it to the door of our cabin after
she went to sleep, so that she could not leave our home without making
considerable noise. Somewhat reassured,
I curled up beside her and closed my eyes quickly.
Sure enough, in the
dark of the night, I heard the bell clang loudly. I sprang from the bed and ran outside after
her, barefoot in the snow, and turned her around before she had gone a dozen
paces from the door. Once more she had
our son in her arms, and I shuddered to think what might happen if I had not
had the foresight to rig the bell on the door.
At least, I reflected as I slipped back into slumber with my arm tight
around her waist, she did not struggle when I took her back to bed.
For the next three
nights, even as the temperatures outside began to warm and the snow melted
away, she rose in the middle of the night, and the bell warned me of her
attempted departure. Each time I
intercepted her and brought her back to bed, but twice as I did so I heard that
unearthly screeching howl rising from the woods, on the last occasion so close
that I shuddered and slammed the door behind us, waking Caleb and setting him
to squalling.
Somehow, I think my son
perceived that he was in danger. Always
a sweet-tempered babe, he became more irritable and cried often, and for
longer, than he had previously. The only
thing that seemed to comfort him, besides his mother’s teat, was the rattle
that Swontee had given him. Indeed, the
child did not like to be parted from it for even a moment, and refused to go to
sleep unless it was clutched in his chubby little hand.
The interrupted sleep,
along with the hard work that accompanied the beginning of the spring thaw, was
beginning to tell on me. I had a harder
time forcing myself out of bed when I heard the cowbell clang in the middle of
the night, even though I knew that my wife and child were in danger. A strange lethargy had seized me, and
threatened to overpower my since of dread.
One night, after two
straight weeks of interrupted sleep, I fell into a slumber so sound that
disaster nearly struck. In the depths of
my slumber, I heard the slightest tinkle of the bell, immediately
silenced. I rolled over, thinking that
surely the wind had rattled the door and jarred it – but then a cold breeze
blew into the room, shaking the cobwebs from my mind and jerking me awake. The door was wide open, and the bell was on
the floor, a piece of our bedsheet wound around the clapper. Prudence and Caleb were gone, and I ran out
into the cold rain that was falling. I
could see her white shift shining through the storm, as she had nearly reached
the edge of the trees.
Running as fast as I
could, I grabbed her more harshly than I intended, and for the first time she
cried aloud in frustration that her nightly journey had been thwarted. Caleb
was tightly clutching his rattle, his eyes screwed tightly shut, whether in
sleep or in dread of what his mother intended, I could not tell.
As I rushed them back
towards the cabin, that horrific screech sounded again, louder and closer than
I had ever heard it. A shadow passed
over us – something darker than the night and colder than the rain. I could not make out what cast it, but it was
close – far too close for my comfort or my child’s safety. I fairly dragged the two of them back into
the cabin, all of us soaking wet. I
carefully dried my young son first, and then placed him back in his cradle,
pulling the blankets up to cover his tiny body.
He pulled his rattle, Swontee’s gift, close to him and his features
relaxed into natural slumber.
Prudence stood there,
fully upright, her eyes open, but her mind distant, unaware of her
surroundings. I removed her shift and
hung it by the fire to dry, and pulled out another from her clothes chest,
putting it on her and leading her back to bed.
She cast one last longing look towards the door and the forest beyond,
and then spoke. Her words cast a chill
over me that had nothing to do with the cold rain falling outside.
“He will not be
refused,” she said, and then closed her eyes in slumber.
Once more, when the day
had dawned, Prudence had no memory of her nightly perambulations. At this time I chose to confide my fears in
my father and mother, meeting quietly with them while Prudence was cooking our
noontide meal and our brothers were tending the garden plot.
My father stroked his
beard thoughtfully.
“Perhaps we should
visit this hill in the woods and tear down these standing stones,” he
said. “They seem to be the source of
whatever spell or glammer has cast a shadow over your good wife’s mind.”
“And until you can do
this,” my mother added, “I think that you should bind her at night.”
“You think I should
truss my wife up like a hog for the slaughter?” I said incredulously.
“Not at all,” she
said. “But think on this, my son – the
strongest instinct that God placed in woman’s breast is to be a mother. And the first role of a mother is to protect
her young, not offer them up to some vile forest demon! If this thing is powerful enough to overthrow
that divine influence in your wife’s mind, it is nothing to be trifled
with! I would simply tie a rope around
your wife’s ankle and fix the other end to the bedpost, so that she cannot
leave the house without shaking the bed and waking you.”
I agreed to this, and
that night explained to Prudence what I was doing and why. She was loath to be tethered, but recognized
that something beyond her ability to control was endangering our child, and
agreed to the circumstances. Sweet
woman! To this day I do not blame her
for what followed, for even the noblest mind can be overthrown by such powerful
evil.
That night I slept
deeply and soundly, and when I awoke Prudence was still sleeping beside
me. The rope was stretched halfway
across the room and back, but I was not sure if she had gotten up to feed the
baby or in an attempt to carry him into the forest again. But I felt rested for the first time in days,
and some of the oppressive dread that had been hanging over me was gone.
For the next three
nights I rested thus, and I began to think that perhaps the baleful being that
lurked in the forest had moved on to easier prey. Would that I had been right! But the final horror still lay ahead, and
even now, thirty years later, I shudder to recall it.
The promise of spring
had been belied by the elements, as the snow had returned with a
vengeance. A foot-deep blanket covered
the ground, and we thanked Providence that we had only done our plowing, and
not planted any seeds yet. I spent most
of the day mucking out the barn and bringing in fodder for our hungry beasts,
and then repairing one of the stalls that old Sadie, our milk cow, had damaged
during a kicking fit.
The result of this
labor was that I was cold and tired at the day’s end, and Prudence had prepared
a large pot of savory chicken stew for our evening meal, which we shared with
the rest of the family as was our custom.
Full and happy, I repaired to my marriage bed that night. Prudence was
more affectionate than was her wont – did she, at some level, know that this
would be our last normal night together?
To this day I cannot say, nor was she able to thereafter. It was with
some regret that I bound her ankle to the bedframe again, hoping that perhaps
this compulsion of hers was slowly fading.
Vain indeed are the hopes of men!
My sleep was deep but
not restful. In my dreams, I trod
through the lonely woods, musket in hand, tracking some creature whose
footprints resembled nothing I had ever seen before. Here and there blood stained the snow, black
under the light of the full moon. I
found myself climbing the accursed hill, fearing what I would find at the top,
but unable to turn around. When I
reached that black altar, a horrible apparition was floating above it.
It was Swontee, but not
the friendly native who had been my guest months before. What I saw was the savaged remains I had
found on the altar table, but no longer were they sprawled out and frozen in
the throes of his awful death. Despite
his horrible wounds, the body moved in a hideous semblance of life. His eyeless sockets slowly turned to face me,
and then he spoke with a voice that was thick, as if his throat was clotted
with blood.
“Wake, white brother!”
he said. “Wake now, or it will be too
late. Your woman and child are in grave
danger. Narla-Thotep’s hold on me is
strong – I cannot warn you again.
WAKE!!”
With that, the dreadful
apparition spread out its arms and flew through the air towards me, his mangled
bowels trailing from his ripped torso. I
jerked awake with a scream.
My wife and child were
gone, and the door was standing open.
Snow had begun to drift inside the cabin, showing that they had been
gone for some time. I found the rope
still tied to the bedpost, but the end of it was wet and frayed. My wife had chewed it in half, I realized in
horror. I dressed as quickly as I could,
and grabbed my musket. Looking towards
the woods, I saw that the footprints Prudence had left were already filling in.
I ran to my parents’ cabin.
“Father! Wake up! Prudence is gone, and she has taken
Caleb with her!” I cried.
“Fetch your brothers
from the loft,” he replied as soon as he sat up. “Tell them to bring muskets and ropes. We need to destroy this foulness once and for
all!”
I wakened Connor and
James, urging them to grab their weapons and don their warmest clothes. When I came downstairs, I saw my father
holding a musket in one hand and his well-worn copy of the Geneva Bible in the
other.
“A warrior should not
go into battle without his greatest weapon,” he said.
I nodded in agreement
and we headed out the door, racing through the new-fallen snow in the barely
discernible footprints of my wife, praying to the Almighty that we were not too
late. The moon was full, as it had been
in my dream, and as we raced through the forest I heard that unearthly
screeching howl ahead of us. It sounded
as if it had not yet reached the hill with the standing stones, but it was very
close.
Prudence’s tracks were
becoming fresher and clearer as we followed them, and I began to hope that we
might catch her before she arrived at that black altar of evil. My hopes were not ill-founded; by the time we
reached the foot of the slope I could see her above us, toiling through the
snow towards the foul stone table. She
was clad only in her shift, and bare of foot.
I could see blood in her steps where the cold had already begun to gnaw
at her. Hoping that perhaps the pain had
reduced the monster’s hold on her mind, I cried out.
“Prudence! Stop! Do not
do this!” I called.
But it was to no
avail. Even as we raced towards the top
of the hill, she lifted the sleeping form of Caleb up in her arms and laid him
on the altar stone. Its cold touch wakened him, and he began to fuss, waving
his rattle in the air over his head. As
soon as she set him down, all energy seemed to leave her limbs and she crumpled
motionless into the snow. The four of us
reached the summit of the hill, entering the circle of standing stones, intent
on rescuing my son. That was when it
came.
A foul stench filled
the air, with the sound of beating wings and a rushing wind that felt strangely
hot amid the winter cold bending the treetops around the hill. Then a black shadow swept up into the sky
above us and slowly lowered itself, hovering over the altar, its form fully
illuminated by the westering moon.
I am an old man now,
nearing my allotted life of threescore and ten years. But the full horror of the thing that flew
above us in the clearing that awful night is burned indelibly into my brain,
and haunts my nightmares to this day.
What manner of creature or demon it was, and what foul pit it emerged
from, I know not. But it was no natural beast, nor any creation of a good and
loving Providence. What I beheld was
evil incarnate.
It flew on vast wings,
five times greater in span than that of the mightiest eagle – but veined and
webbed like those of a bat. Its legs,
however, were multi-jointed, like those of an insect or a spider, with razor
sharp claws at the end of each. Two
tails coiled and whipped from its hindquarters, and at the end of each was a
serpentine mouth, full of needle-like teeth, although neither maw was topped by
eyes of any sort. But the alien nature
of its anatomy was altogether surpassed by the pure evil of its head, for its
head was made like unto that of a man – but a man so twisted and steeped in
evil that all semblance of humanity was lost.
Its mouth was wide and lidless, its teeth like broken daggers. Its nostrils were large and flared, sniffing
the air with voracious eagerness. Large pointed ears projected from either side
of the skull, but the greatest horror
was its huge, single eye, burning red, with three lobes, that surveyed us all
with the mockery of the pit.
Prudence was slowly
pulling herself upright, and then glanced at the monster and collapsed
shrieking to the ground, curling into a ball and screaming “No!” over and over
again. One of my brothers raised his
musket and fired it, but the ball seemed to pass harmlessly through the
creature, leaving no mark. I raised my own
weapon, but one of those lashing tails ripped it out of my grasp with such force
that I stumbled to my knees.
At that moment my
father stepped forward, holding the Bible aloft in front of him, and reciting
the Lord’s Prayer. The creature struck
again with the fanged mouth at the end of one of its tails; it grasped the Holy
Book and ripped it out of my father’s hands.
But the power of the Word was strong; the toothy maw clutching the
Scriptures burst into flames, and with a horrible shriek the devil spat out the
Word of God. Father raised his voice
even louder – but the second tail struck, its fangs tearing out his throat in
mid-prayer, and he crumpled to the snow with a fount of blood gushing forth
from his throat.
Thotep – for I knew
this beast could be no other than the hideous Elder God Swontee had described
to me – moved directly over the altar.
My baby son was fussing and cooing, waving his rattle over his head, as
the monster looked down on him with a bloodlust that was horrible to
behold. Then it opened its mouth and
spoke.
“Eeeegaah! Shub-Niggurath! Yog-Sothot R’lyeh ichftaghn! NYARLOTHOTEP!
Nyarlothotep hadiga ftaghn!
Azathoth, cataga!” Its voice boomed across the forest, and both my
brothers fell to the earth, stopping up their ears and sobbing with fear. There was intelligence in that voice, but
nothing of humanity. The nobler emotions
that our Creator placed within us – charity, hope, faith, and love – were
nowhere within those words. Though I do
not know and have no desire to know what they actually said, what they sounded
of was slaughter, and blood, and death.
I was frozen to the
spot, unable to look away but unable to move.
Prudence was rocking back and forth on the ground, still crying out in
denial of what she was seeing – or perhaps, of what she had done. I alone witnessed what happened next.
Thotep, the savage god,
slowly hovered nearer and nearer to the altar, until his nightmarish form was
suspended only a few feet above that of my baby boy. The undamaged tail, the mouth at its end
still bristling with needle-sharp teeth, extended downwards, towards my
son. Caleb, innocent as he was, had no
idea of the horrible fate that was merely seconds away. He extended the rattle, clutched in his tiny
fist, towards the advancing monster.
Then the five-pointed,
star-shaped stone touched the forked tongue that flickered out from the razor
teeth to taste the air. The sharp smell
of lightning filled the air, and green flames burst from the stone, consuming
the demon’s tail and spreading upward.
Thotep screeched – such an awful sound that it filled the forest and
echoed from the distant mountains; so loud that my eardrums bled for the next
three days and I have remained hard of hearing until this very hour. But the
shriek was to no avail, for the consuming fire from the star-shaped stone
spread up and out, through every limb and sinew, burning all to ash. A huge ball of verdant flame hung in the sky
for a moment, preserving briefly the outline of the Eater of Souls, He Who
Flies By Night – then it collapsed upon itself, sucking back into the stone
that had produced it. There was an
audible pop, and the star shaped stone likewise collapsed into dust.
We buried my father in
the plot there next to Swontee, the noble savage who had saved my son’s life
with his improbable gift. Prudence did
not speak for a year, although she refused to be separated from my son for any
reason for much longer than that. She
eventually began to talk again, albeit in short and simple sentences. But of that night, and of the strange
compulsion that drove her to lay our son upon that vile altar, she never spoke
again. Some vital part of her had been
blasted out of existence by the knowledge that she had nearly fed our son to a
monster, and eventually it was too much for her. When Caleb reached his eighteenth year, and
moved out of our house to go to work for a shipping firm in Providence, she
hung herself in the barn.
I still live here, in
the cabin I built for us on the edge of the great forest. Much of the timber has been cleared now, and
the Indians are all gone at last. The
standing stones no longer exist – with my brothers I tore them down, smashed
them to bits, and built a low wall along the edge of the woods with their
fragments. Whether or not Narla-Thotep, the savage god, is truly gone from this
earth I cannot say, but in forty years I have never again heard the foul cry
echo from the forest, so I feel safe in assuming that He Who Flies by Night
flies no more.
