Goat Mother and Others: The Collected Mythos Fiction of Pierre Comtois (32 page)

Then I saw two of the creatures emerge with Carol between them. My first instinct was to go to her, but that was impossible with the yawning chasm that stretched between us. As it was, I had to watch as her naked form was led to the edge of the precipice. She no longer struggled, and I could see by her tangled hair and filthy skin, crisscrossed with fresh scratches, that the fight had gone out of her. She simply stood between her two captors, head bowed a little as they raised their arms and intoned something. I’d been so centered on Carol that I hardly paid attention to the thoughts that pushed their way into my brain. Then I heard something that jolted me back, something that filled me with the same dread I’d felt in reading some of those old books back in Labuan…the name of Cthulhut. I looked around wildly, the image of a crude woodcut rising back into my mind. I wanted to scream out, but something held me back. I fought it, and managed a weak, “Carol, Carol…” She must have heard that pitiful call, more a plea for help than a summons to action, because her head lifted and she spotted me.

Her lips parted. “Vic? Vic! Oh, Vic, help me! Please, help me!” As if her words had triggered it, there was a sound from far below. At first it was like water sloshing, then it was a moist crunching of shells beneath a sudden weight, a slithering.

“The blood of the woman will enliven the Great Cthulhut. Cthulhut. Cthulhut.” The words droned through my brain, becoming stronger and stronger. “Release us from your bondage, O Great Cthulhut. We offer you this rare morsel in appeasement. Have mercy, great Cthulhut.”

“Vic!” She was struggling now, as her two captors seized her arms and legs and began to lift her, kicking and screaming, over their heads. They approached the ledge.

“Carol!” I screamed one last time as they hurled her bodily into the abyss, trailed only by her last, raw, wrenching plea that ripped my soul to shreds: “Viiiiiiiiic!” It ended when her body hit the mountain of sea creatures and tumbled a little way to the water’s edge. I could see her broken limbs moving feebly in the uncertain light, and in an unemotional zombie-like state, I saw what had caused those earlier sounds as great Cthulhut flowed. I say flowed, because all he was was a massive, gelid, tentacular mass, mercifully hidden even from the hardened gaze of his loyal servitors. The ponderous creature slowly crested the mound of shellfish and allowed certain of his arms to reach for his offering. One greasy tentacle slipped under Carol’s body, encircling it, and as it began to drag her toward one of the several orifices that suddenly opened in its body, her head must have lolled on its broken neck to face the creature whose appetite she was fated to satisfy. Her nerveless face twitched and I realized that she was fully aware of what was happening. Unfortunately, this time, she couldn’t even scream. But even in the catatonic state in which I found myself, somewhere there must have resided a safety mechanism, a psychic fail-safe that protected me even when the rest of my body had shut down. I felt a tightness in my chest and a sudden pain that stole my consciousness.

I don’t know how long it’s been since that night. The night I died. All I know is that I’ve been somehow reborn or reanimated into a kind of living death, kept animate by the dreams of Great Cthulhut. Like my fellow treasure hunters, castaways, and explorers…Lopez, Donovan, Guerrera, Angstrom, and the rest…I exist only to please Cthulhut, hoping that someday he might tire of us and release us from his bondage. Even now I hear his hellish call, and the last vestiges of my self control vanish…I weaken…I weaken…Great Cthulhut…Cthulhut…R’lyeh is your City…Cthulhu Fhtagn…

udson Porter stood with his shotgun cradled in the crook of his arm. It was only a few hours past dawn on a late autumn day high up in the Vermont hills. The sun had still not quite cleared the treetops, as its rays slanted down through the forest at an almost horizontal angle suffusing the woods, with its yellowing foliage, in the curious orange-yellow glow it took at that time of year. Judson cocked his head to listen, but there was nothing to hear except the soft sursurrance of the wind in the trees and the dry rustle of leaves just trembling in anticipation of their fall to the already leaf-matted ground. A tree creaked suddenly and Judson’s gaze snapped in its direction, then nothing. He’d set off for some hunting before dawn, leaving the pick-up a mile or so back along the interstate, but hadn’t fired his gun all morning; not that he really expected to. Hunting was just an excuse to come out to the forest and enjoy the silence, to breath the cool, fresh air that came down from the nearby mountains. He’d found this path leading into the forest from the side of the road and felt it as good a place to start as any, and was really beginning to enjoy his walk, when it was abruptly cut off.

Before him yawned a gash in the earth that bisected the path. He leaned over and saw the little stream rushing at the bottom in a soundless current. About three feet below the edge of the cliff face were the remains of an old, washed out bridge, its ancient timbers in a tangled heap at the bottom of the ravine. One stout beam, however, remained more or less in place as it clung to the near side of the gorge and reached over to the opposite side in moss-covered desperation. Judson eyed it, then the other side where the path he’d been following continued on into the light spattered forest beyond. Disappointed that such an interesting walk could be interrupted so soon, he determined to at least give the tenuous crossing a chance.

Keeping a careful hold on his gun, Judson slowly lowered himself the few feet to the embedded beam. At last, his foot found firm hold on its soft surface and soon, he found himself seeking a comfortable position on the end of the beam. Inching slowly forward, he was soon satisfied with the beam’s firm setting and quickly crossed to the far side. After a short look back at the way he’d come, he turned and faced the path.

Due to the great many pine trees that dotted the forest here, the floor of the wood was thickly matted with brown pine needles liberally mixed with a variety of leaves. Combined with the browned and yellowing leaves still in the surrounding trees, the sunlight seemed to make the forest glow, and gave the feeling that it should really be late afternoon rather than early in the day.

He was just about to start along the path again when something out of the ordinary caught his attention. Just off the trail, half hidden by some low-slung branches, stood a stele about three feet tall. He reached out and lifted away one of the branches, exposing the stone to fuller view. Judson grunted at the plainness of the object. On it was carved a peculiar five-pointed star. He’d half expected an announcement that the stone marked a state or county line, but there was nothing of the sort. Looking at the star, he decided it reminded him of the warding plaques he’d sometimes seen on barns in Pennsylvania, meant to protect the structures from bad luck. He let the branch fall again and stepped back onto the trail.

As he moved deeper into the forest, the trail narrowed and closed up behind him. Looking closer, he could tell that at one time, the path had been a fully developed roadway. To either side of him, he could still make out the double troughs caused by ancient wagon wheels that were now overgrown with saplings whose trunks were nearly two or three inches in diameter. Farther in, he saw where the banks of the road must have been and the larger trees that had grown up and worn them away. He remembered the stories he’d heard of old farming communities deep in the hills that had simply died off earlier in the century as the rest of civilization passed them by. Soon, he thought he could make out the old furrows of long abandoned fields among the maples, poplars and oaks that grew off the trail.

Something thumped heavily to the ground off to his right, like the sound of a dull shot in the heavy silence. Judson whirled, aware that he’d instinctively leveled his shotgun in the direction of the sound. Feeling foolish, he lifted the barrel of his gun and simply peered through the fringe of underbrush at the side of the trail and tried to see what had caused the noise. At last, he’d decided a squirrel must have dropped a chestnut when he saw something deeper in the forest. It was a building of some sort. Festooned with years of accumulated leaves and fallen branches — if it hadn’t been for its unnatural, man-made lines, he never would’ve spotted it.

Judson hesitated and looked around. There was no evidence that anyone had been about the area in many years, maybe even decades. His curiosity piqued and not a little desirous for a bit of adventure, he stepped through the shrubbery and slowly made his way among the more widely spaced trees toward the structure as it’s true nature slowly made itself apparent. As he drew closer, Judson discovered that the building was actually an old farmhouse. It had once boasted two stories but the second floor had long since collapsed into the first. The remains of an old well and several out buildings still stood off in different directions and as he drew closer, a barn revealed itself standing behind the house.

Suddenly, Judson found himself standing on what must have been the drive that led from the old road up to the farmhouse. He changed course slightly to take advantage of the easier walking and continued on. A great pine tree towered to his right and, nearly wrapped around it, testifying to the violence of the collision, were the remains of an old wagon, its frame a rotted shambles but no less recognizable with its tongue extending alongside of and past the trunk of the tree to where the bones of the team of horses lay half buried in the humus of the forest floor. Judson stopped and rubbed his chin in puzzlement. Clearly, the evidence indicated that the wagon had crashed into the tree, but did the crash kill both horses pulling it as well? It seemed unlikely, but what other explanation was there?

Turning from the strange sight, he went over to the front door of the farmhouse. The door had long since fallen away and one look inside showed nothing of interest save for the ruins of the upper floor as it lay in a moldering heap in the center of the house. A few trees had taken root amid the rubble. To the rear of the house, the barn still stood, relatively intact and Judson was able to push one of the pair of doors open and step inside. Immediately, he caught the suggestion of a foul stench that he assumed was the residue of all the animals once kept there, but immediately dismissed the idea, for the smell wasn’t quite like any manure he’d ever smelled before. Suddenly, the longer he smelled it, the worse his body began to react, in no time, his gorge began to rise and he was forced outside again in order to escape it. In the fresh air again, he had the opportunity to turn and notice that his hasty exit had been through the missing rear portion of the barn, whose planks and timbers were scattered for dozens of yards all about the rear of the building, as if something had once exploded

It was while staring at the rubble that he found the colorful ward. Stooping, he pulled the circular plaque from beneath some boards and looked at it. It was as he’d first thought: the plaque bore the same colorful and intricate pattern as the wards he’d seen before on Pennsylvania barns. Also, like the stele farther back along the road, it sported a peculiar five-pointed star, except that this star was more faded, more hastily made, and somehow incomplete. His thoughts where interrupted by the snap of a twig behind him. He dropped the plaque and turned quickly, this time catching sight of a wild-looking dog slinking back into the trees about a hundred yards away. He knew he hadn’t imagined things before. He continued to watch the spot where the dog disappeared and presently saw it again as it eyed him in turn. By its feral appearance, Judson surmised that it had once belonged to someone in the area and had long since become wild. It seemed more frightened than frightening, so he ignored it. Shrugging off the last vestiges of his nausea, he walked back toward the front of the house and up the path toward the old road, pausing again to wonder at the crashed wagon before going on.

Repressing a sense of vague unease, Judson followed the remnants of the old drive out to the road and continued his leisurely walk. Around him, nothing had changed except for the height of the sun above the horizon, but he nevertheless felt something was now different than it was only an hour before. The ancient road began to bend slightly up ahead and as he approached the corner, it widened too, almost to what must have been its original width. Then, on the side of the road, he saw yet another horse drawn wagon, dilapidated and rotting, sitting on the side of the road. This time, its bed was piled high with a family’s belongings that had long since crumbled into an almost indistinguishable lump. Once again, he saw the skeletal remains of the horses that pulled it lying side by side before the wagon.

But he hardly had the time to wonder at this new puzzle when he looked up at the road ahead, now visible around the bend, and saw an astonishing sight. The old road was crammed with every sort of wagon, cart, and buggy imaginable, all in various states of disintegration and decrepitude. Some were smashed into trees, some into each other, and others simply stopped in the open, each with its compliment of dray animals and, Judson saw as he continued to walk in stupefied wonder, the remains of every other kind of farm animal imaginable: cows, chickens, pigs, oxen. It looked to him for all the world like one of those old photos from World War II of roads choked with the remains of fleeing refugees after they’d been hit by attacking aircraft. It all appeared more eerie in the silence of the surrounding forest as he began to thread his way among the ruined vehicles that were, in any case, half buried in the leaves and pine needles of decades of accumulation. At last, he emerged from them on the other side and continued down the road, which remained at its original width until it debauched onto the outskirts of what was once a tidy little farming village.