It Came from Anomaly Flats Page 9

  But I do not forget your face, bandit.

  My memory does not betray me the look of dark betrayal.

  You still don’t see me? Or perhaps you wish not to. But I will make it easy for you. Here, see: gaze upon the puckered white scar of my throat where the point of your knife did its horrible work. Hear the rasp in my voice where your blade forever altered the wholeness of my words. Were I to untie you, you could put fingers to my neck and feel the scarred and puckered skin where naught but chance itself stayed my death. A man, as close to Death as one can be, is thrown into a hole, and a buried rock crushes against his neck, holding in the blood of the wound. Then a great weight is piled on top, the weight of a man gone cold, and the pressure further seals the gash. The pain is...beyond telling. The horror of being buried alive...beyond belief. It is the only mercy that with the blood gone out, his attentions are softened, his focus is weak, and the pain begins to be felt less acutely as it once was.

  Shall I spare the details? With time, the wound closes. I won’t say it heals, because it is infected to an extraordinary degree, and it will require many months of hospitalization to break the fever it causes and drain the pus that forms a great fist beneath the skin. But it does close, and weak though the man is, his need to survive is strong. He feasts on worms and beetles, there under the earth...what’s this? You think “feast” too generous a word? Oh, I assure you, there comes a time when the smallest, foulest insect is looked upon as a great and humbling banquet. And so he feasts, and while strength does not come back to him, it stems its retreat in small bits, until an animal burrows into the soft earth above, looking to make a den, and takes umbrage with the heavy weight of death beneath the soil, and that poor, lost body is ripped and torn, and it shifts enough, just enough, for the man to crawl up to the new opening. The animals leave with their carrion, and the man is left alone to struggle out of the pit, yet weak as he is, it takes three days to claw his way to the surface. When he is found by spring travelers some hours later, they take pity on him, tie him to a horse and drag him to a doctor, and in his fevered state, the man sees only one thing: the face of his betrayer, whom he will not forget, and whom he will not mistake, no matter how time plays its mean-spirited tricks.

  And so the decades have passed, the world has changed, and here you are. Wrists bound, mouth gagged, sitting in your own filth. I dug this room for you. Ages ago, I dug it. It is larger than the tomb you constructed for me, but time was merciless, and idle hands are the devil’s plaything, as they say. I gave you twenty days for the time I was sealed at the bottom of my own pit. I can’t be sure that’s how much time passed, of course, but it seems a fair estimate. And then another three days, for the time it took to crawl back into the sun. Twenty-three days in all, and I’d wager you’d look upon a beetle as a feast at this moment. Would you not?

  I see your eyes behold my knife. And well they might. Does it look welcoming to you? No, I suppose not. It is not sharp, like yours; it is not clean, like yours. It is old, and crusted over with rust. The blade is dull and pocked. It will take much force for the thing to push through flesh. I imagine it will hurt fiercely.

  It is for you, of course. You know that. Not for the betrayal, no. No, that’s what your captivity is for. Retribution for my time underground. “An eye for an eye,” is what the Lord says. This is a fitting vengeance.

  But this knife will be stained with your blood all the same. And it’s your own doing. For aren’t you the one who put up himself as the wager in the game? “I’ll slit my own throat from ear to ear,” you said, or something as close as makes no difference. You claimed victory when it wasn’t yours. For isn’t the story of the three bandits widely known? Isn’t your treachery a burr in the mind of all who dwell in Anomaly Flats? Isn’t the story of your flawed kill a thing that trips off every common tongue? You’ve lost the wager, brother. Contest it if you will, but two of the three of us won’t consent to giving you the crown. We may have none of us won, but I lost my jewels. Our brother will no longer walk through the Lurchwood. And you…you must pay your price as well.

  Your hands are bound, but I will aid you. I must admit, yours is a throat I’ve long sought to saw.

  You stink of sweat and filth. But more than anything, I smell your fear.

  Be calm, now, brother. Your treachery has found you out. Tilt back your head, there. I’ll give what assistance I can. Expose your neck to the candlelight, for I’d not make an errant cut.

  Yes, cry if you must. It only steels my resolve. It does but perfume the air.

  I mentioned the knife before. It is rusty, and it is dull.

  This will not be quick.

  Dead Man’s Cave

  O come with me to Dead Man’s Cave;

  We’ll play our little game.

  And if you get your guts ripped out,

  You’ll have yourself to blame.

  The rules are short and passing fair.

  Now hear them and obey.

  The game is ghastly, yes, my dear,

  And this is how you play:

  Enter adorned with ribbons;

  Tie yellow ones in your hair.

  It was ever Jed Bent’s favorite color,

  And it’s his ghost that guards the lair.

  Do not scream if you feel his fingers

  Brush against your skin.

  It only means that he approves;

  The game can now begin.

  The object is quite simple, yes,

  And easy to enact;

  Just touch the back wall of the cave

  And leave with your soul intact.

  You’ll find the going dark, my dear,

  As dark and black as pitch.

  But do not try to feel your way,

  Or you may touch the witch.

  She rests beneath the dripping stone,

  Suspended in the air.

  The rope around her neck is rotting,

  So please, my dear, take care.

  Brush your hand along her skirts,

  And you’ll disturb her sleep.

  The rope will creak; the witch will cackle;

  And you’ll begin to weep.

  For if you wake the sleeping witch,

  You won’t believe the cost;

  She’ll weave a noose for your own neck,

  And then the game is lost.

  Past the witch, around the bend,

  You’ll find a cherry tree,

  But do not eat its fruit, my dear,

  For fear of the great banshee.

  It lives beneath the roots, you see,

  And if you pluck its fruit,

  It will scream its curdling cry,

  Then the game, I fear, is moot.

  The banshee’s shriek is a powerful thing;

  So high-pitched are its tones

  It brings the cave rocks tumbling down

  To smash and break your bones.

  Beyond the tree is a great, black pit.

  It’s where so many fell.

  You won’t drop for all eternity;

  Just ’til the fires of Hell.

  If you make it ’round the Devil’s Hole,

  You’ll think yourself quite shrewd.

  But oh, my darling, you forget

  About the Hungry Brood.

  A flock of birds with razor beaks

  Roost up there in the rock,

  Their feathers stained with crimson blood

  Of those who disturbed their flock.

  The birds of the Brood have a certain hunger;

  And they like their meals fresh.

  No? You don’t know what they eat?

  I’ll tell you: human flesh.

  With their beaks, they’ll gouge your eyes


  Like plucking figs from a tree.

  (It doesn’t matter, in the end,

  Since it’s far too dark to see.)

  Then the vile birds, they go to work,

  Nibbling at your skin.

  They tear and peel it from your meat

  In strips so thin, so thin.

  While you scream and cry and bleed,

  The birds grow ever bolder.

  They pick and peck your arms, your neck,

  Your legs, your chest, your shoulder.

  They feast until the meat is pulled

  And torn off all your bones.

  Then they fly back to their nests

  And digest you among the stones.

  The only way to pass the Brood

  Without paying the awful price

  Is to cut your wrist, drip blood on the floor.

  (A pint or two will suffice.)

  And now you’re reached the cave’s far wall.

  You’ve done it, my dear! How grand!

  You’re one few who have seen the back

  Of this ghostly cave firsthand.

  But before you turn to go, my dear,

  I’ve one more secret to share.

  I should have told you earlier,

  But temptation has made me unfair.

  You see, you’ve worked to stay alive,

  You’ve crept and whispered and bled.

  But no one alive can set foot in this cave.

  Do you see, my dear? You’re dead.

  Yes, just like me, you’re dead.

  The Invitation

  High on a hill in Anomaly Flats, beyond the Lurchwood pines and the Mists of Memory, there is an estate that lies in ruin. Great stone blocks, tumbled and split, are strewn about the grass, half-sunk in the wet earth, spotted with lichen, green and gray, and trapped under a net of thick, wandering weeds. Some timbers still stand, uneven and tired, blackened at the edges and weeping tears of soot, though most of the beams were destroyed in the blaze that finally silenced the house, which was more of a mercy than a tragedy. There, behind the once-grand staircase that now rises only four steps high and serves as a habitat for scurrying creatures with reflective eyes—do you see it? The great turret, once proud and strong, a standard-bearer of stone thrusting up into the sky, now toppled and crushed, its granite bits strewn about the untamed wild.

  This was Hillcrest Manor, the house of the Westridge family, a wealthy lineage that unwound itself from a point immemorial to any still living, and to many long-dead. It was a grand estate once, opulent and magnificent; a clean, gleaming castle in a dark and troubled town. With wood cut from the old-growth forests and stone mined from the town’s own quarry, the Westridges of old built this house to take the test of time, a test that proved too arduous, too cruel for either the building or the family to pass.

  If you tramp through the weeds, you can see how the foundation serves as a faded outline, a ghostly marking of the rooms where the footfalls of six generations of Westridges wore soft grooves in the floor. Here, the formal parlor; faded shards from the stained glass chandelier litter the ground, crunching and tinkling underfoot. There, the servants’ scullery, the crust of the foundation scorched forever black by three centuries of cooking-hearth fires. The library, the sitting room, the billiard room, the nursery—all gone now, burned and crumbled and rotted and shorn. Reduced to mossy stones reaching out of the earth like an ogre’s teeth. But oh, what a house it was in its former life! What a breathtaking palace—what an ostentatious manor!

  At every harvest moon, the Westridge family opened up Hillcrest to the public and threw such a feast, such a glorious fete, and all of the town was invited. The people of Anomaly Flats flocked to Hillcrest on these special nights, when the light from the moon bathed the estate in its beautiful, alien glow so that the stones and the rose garden and the timber and the carriages were all the same ghostly color: a mesmerizing wash of yellow and gray that made the Hillcrest palace seem ethereal and wonderful. The people would come; they would dance in the ballroom, and they would dine at the most magnificent tables, and they would drink deeply until they were well in their cups, and oh—what joyous times they were!

  Had you a sorcerer’s lens, some window of magic through which you could view the past, the Hillcrest that was would leave you stunned with awe. Can you see it? In your mind’s eye, as you unspool through time, can you picture the house? The heavy woods open up onto a crushed gravel path, lined on both sides with immaculate hedgerows interspaced between lush floral arrangements and warmly glowing torches. The path runs to the front entrance, a double door hand-carved from strong Missouri oak, with the Westridge family crest—two clasped hands before a yew tree, encircled by a laurel wreath—meeting in the seam between the panels. The doors are set into a massive wall of bluntly carved blocks, each one the size of a bull moose and twice as heavy. Stacked one atop the other, spreading so wide across that you feel you might grow dizzy from the sheer scale of it all, the granite builds itself up into a Romanesque castle, perfect in its symmetry, glorious in its detail. Tall towers stretch skyward at every corner, their huge, hexagonal windows paned with thick glass, tinted blue against the moonlight. Arcades run along both sides of the house, the arches high, the columns smooth. When you look up, you find that the wall seems to climb to Heaven itself, the roof disappearing behind the slight protuberance of a sculpted frieze, chiseled and molded by the most talented and saintly patient craftsmen in the county. Torches burn in every window, casting so much warm light that the entire manor appears to give off an unearthly—but eminently welcoming—glow from within.

  Can you hear the servants setting the table for supper? Can you smell the roast duck, the freshly baked bread, the spiced plums, and the crackling chestnuts? Do you see the shadows waltz in the parlor, hear the gay laughter of family and friends over the sound of strings and oboes warbling out from the Victrola? Do you see the small glimmer of a cigarette from that third story window, where the chambermaid leans out and bumps her ash into the rose bushes below?

  Now the great doors open with a terrible rumble, and the footman ushers you inside. Gaze up in wonder at the polished, honey-brown timber that arcs high through the entry like the ribs of a wooden leviathan. The same wood is laid along the floors, covered by deep red carpets from the East Orient, rugs of extraordinary size and exquisite softness. Fires crackle in almost every hearth, and the sconces drip with crystal fringe. As the doors are pulled closed behind you, you give yourself over to Hillcrest, mesmerized by its beauty, entranced by its unfathomable size. You let the house swallow you into its heart; you must see all you can see, touch all you can touch, smell all you can smell, adore all you can adore, for this house, this impeccable dwelling, is a true wonder of the world, and you will never see its like again.

  Yet time drags us forward. Torches burn out. Light gives way to darkness; glory gives way to despair. The house crumbles around you now, the mortar flaking and falling like snow, the granite gives itself to entropy, the stones crashing to the earth, the wood cracking and splitting and crumbling away where the termites feast and the mold dissolves the timber to pulp. The roof collapses…the towers fall. The bedrooms crumble as the pantry catches fire. The ruins catch quickly, and the flames of Hillcrest Manor can be seen from miles in all directions. The smoke is a storm unto itself. And when there is nothing left to consume, the fire sputters out. The scorched earth sends up weeds; the mosses begin to grow, and there is no one left to weep over the ashes, for the Westridge family line has been snuffed out, one by one.

  The last living heirs perished while screaming in the flames.

  The decimation of Hillcrest, which took place before you were born, it was the final stroke on a masterpiece of ruin. The Westridges, isolated by nature, aloof by virtue of wealth, were kind enough benefactors of Anomaly Flats�
��after all, in addition to their harvest moon soirees, they funded the town’s first roads and the Anomaly Bijou, when it opened as a playhouse so many years back—but they lived like wildflowers in a sprawling garden of paradise, flourishing in their own soil, never creeping far beyond their bounds, and thriving in the days of sunshine and water, but withering to dry leaves and brown stalks when unmoving clouds gathered across their sky.

  The misfortunes began when Leopold Westridge, the cold, quiet patriarch, received a strange visitor one evening, almost two centuries ago now. The woman who came to call was old, wizened; some claim she was a witch, and who can say? Perhaps she was. None of the family recognized her, save perhaps Leopold himself, who was ever after silent on the matter. He invited her primly into the drawing room, and the things of which they spoke behind closed doors are unknown, but after some time, the doors were thrown open, and Leopold Westridge dragged the old woman out into the foyer by her throat, threw her roughly onto the hard gravel outside. Howling in anger, the old woman gathered herself up and spewed a string of epithets in a vile language alien to the ears of Leopold and his kin. Then she spat on the great stones of Hillcrest Manor and melted away into the darkness, never to be seen again.

  Who can say what happened to the old crone? Perhaps she succumbed to death out there alone in the night…or more likely, she wove her treacherous magic to other houses in other forgotten corners of the world. What is known is that Leopold fell ill the very next night after casting her out. His health began to evaporate over the course of the next month like water in a barrel, slowly…agonizingly, until he was all dried up and empty. The people of the Flats whispered about gypsy curses—and cursed, the Westridge family may well have been, for Leopold did not survive the full cycle of the moon; and not a fortnight after he passed, his eldest son and heir, Percival Westridge, was trampled to death by his own horses in the stable. His daughter, Theodora, was crushed beneath a fallen chandelier while reading in the parlor later that month, and Wilfred Wainsworth, a second cousin to the family, drowned in his own bath while visiting Hillcrest the following winter.