The Philovores | Part 3
“Out,” I said. I sat up and tossed my phone into a corner of the room, where it landed with a few loud clunks. “We’re getting out. Give me your phone.”
“Why?” said Elizabeth. “What?”
“They’ll trace this back to your family, they’ll want to find you, they’ll track you with your phone, it’ll interfere with our investigation.” I snatched the device from her hands.
Our phones blared again. I looked at Elizabeth’s screen and saw a new message.
SHELTER IN PLACE. VIOLATORS SUBJECT TO ARREST.
“Right,” I said. I threw the phone over my shoulder, sprang off the futon, and rushed to the living room, Elizabeth dogging my footsteps. She flicked on the overhead light.
“Turn that off,” I hissed.
A moment later the light departed, and she was at my side. “What are we taking?”
“You’re taking food and water, because God knows how long we’ll be out there,” I said. “Kitchen. Go.”
“Shit,” she said. “I need a bag or something.”
“Check the closet.”
While Elizabeth raided the pantry, I gathered what I determined to be the most vital finds from the chest, identifying them in the darkness by the neat piles in which we had left them: the diary, the Arabic parchments and their translations, the Borellus. I also took the papers of my own on which I had copied the necromantic formulae or sketched the two diagrams. I donned my coat, which I had dumped without ceremony on the coffee table the day before, and stuffed all this material into the inside and outside pockets. I met Elizabeth on the landing; she carried a large canvas bag loaded with granola bars, cereal boxes, and water bottles, and her own jacket, a dark brown garment for which she had forsaken the blazer the previous morning, was draped over one shoulder.
The growl of a powerful engine came from the street outside. I held a finger to my lips, and we peered through the small, high window in the door.
A large truck with rugged wheels and a boxy frame trundled past. It was of a type I’d seen often on screens but seldom in reality.
“Soldiers,” breathed Elizabeth.
“National Guard, probably,” I said. “We’ll have to head into the woods and hope they haven’t set up a cordon too close.”
“There’s an abandoned house about a block from here,” she said. “I saw it when I walked. Isn’t that better? Not so exposed?”
I considered this.
“Alright,” I said. “Let’s go out the back. Where is this place?”
“That way,” she said, pointing south as we crossed the kitchen. “This street, but other side, just past the intersection.”
“Two fucking streets to cross,” I noted. We reached the back door. “This is going to be fun.”
Our phones, lying on the floor, came to life with a third performance of that awful emergency alert noise.
“Don’t check,” I said. “No time. They could beat down the door in ten seconds for all we know.”
I turned the knob and inched the back door open. The creaking it made was much too loud for my taste, and as soon as the gap was wide enough I stopped pushing and slipped out into the backyard. Elizabeth squeezed through after me, shivering in the night air. I closed the door as quietly as I could; she laid her bag on the ground, put on her coat, and picked the bag back up. At last we set off.
It was bitterly cold. My arms and legs erupted in gooseflesh despite the fabric that covered them, and my breath misted. We vaulted first one fence, then another, then another, Elizabeth dropping the bag on the other side before climbing over each time. My motions were careful and hesitant, lest the objects held in my pockets fall out, and once I came frighteningly close to taking the brunt of a piece of wood between my legs.
The final fence before the corner house presented a problem: it was chain-link and neck-height. We crouched next to it, sharing a look of consternation. A siren sounded close by, and a dim, pulsating flash of blues and reds reached our eyes. The noise swelled; tires screeched; the noise receded.
Somewhere farther off, an irregular series of gunshots resounded.
“Opposite side,” I said, flinging my hand in an easterly direction. “Now.”
We ran across the street and hid in the backyard of that side’s corner house. I noticed that clouds obscured the moon.
The lights in one of the windows came on, illuminating part of the yard with a yellow glow. I crouched against the brick wall, hoping that whoever looked out from behind the glass would not glance straight down. Elizabeth joined me, and I gripped her hand. She squeezed it hard. Her breath came fast and shallow.
After an agonizing couple of minutes during which nothing happened, I deemed it safe to begin creeping towards the low white picket fence that barred our access to the east-west street’s sidewalk. On the other side I could see our destination, brooding in pitch-black dilapidation, its partially ruined peaked roof standing in faint silhouette against the post-midnight sky.
In another slow, nerve-wracking minute we had reached the fence. I raised my head just above the top, my eyes flicking in both directions, and then lowered it again.
“Vehicle coming from the east,” I said. “As soon as it passes the intersection, we cross, because they’ll be looking where they’re going, and the people in this house will be watching them. I hope.”
“Okay,” whispered Elizabeth.
The vehicle proved to be another National Guard truck, and it drove by at high speed, its headlights penetrating the gloom with a great blank stare. We executed our plan, dashing across the pavement and hiding in the shadows behind the abandoned building.
We waited in breathless fear.
When it became apparent that no one was coming to accost us, I straightened up and motioned to the back entrance. We crept up to it, and I tried the storm door’s handle. It opened easily enough, but the heavy wooden door beyond was locked.
“I don’t suppose you have a hairpin or something,” I said.
“No.” Elizabeth felt inside her jacket. “Just the letter opener.”
“That won’t quite do,” I said. “Tell you what, we’ll wait for the next loud noise and I’ll kick the thing.”
Time oozed by like molasses while we stood there in the frigid night, Elizabeth blowing on her hands, my own jaw clenched to keep my teeth from chattering. At length I took her hands in my own and kneaded her fingers, trying to restore their warmth. She began kissing my neck, her lips cool but soft, her tongue trailing across my skin in voluptuous exploration. I pinned her against the inner door, taking a hand in each of mine and raising her arms above her head, and—
Gunshots rang out again in the distance, this time following a more regular pattern. Jerked back into alertness, I told Elizabeth to hold the storm door and stand aside; once she was in position, I attacked the inner barrier with a running kick.
It didn’t swing aside, but it gave a little, and I could hear decayed wood splintering in response to the strain. I heaved my shoulder against it, once, twice, and the wood to which the lock was fastened snapped. I stumbled into the house and snatched the swinging door before it could bang against the inside wall. Elizabeth tiptoed backwards into the hallway and shut the storm door as quietly as she could, then turned to me, her eyes wide. I motioned for her to clear the way and closed my door, pushing it against the frame. It hung slightly ajar when I removed my hands.
“Let’s go upstairs,” she said. “Some of the first-floor windows are broken, it would be easier to see us here.”
I found the bare, dusty staircase and ascended, tracing one hand along the wall. Elizabeth stayed just behind me, one of her hands grasping my coat.
Upstairs was a hallway that went in two directions. We turned right, and found ourselves in what had to have once been a bedroom, with boarded-up windows, a chest of drawers, and an empty bed frame. I could barely see; the meager light present was admitted by cracks between the window-boards and small holes in the ceiling.
Elizabeth placed her bag on the floor, I laid my coat on top, and we were on each other again. We twisted on the floor, our legs entwined, my hands tugging at her hair, hers dragging across my back, our lust tantamount to violence. She ended up on top, and, breathing hard, undid my fly and pulled my underwear down, rubbing her crotch against my knee the whole time. She cupped my balls with one hand, gripped the shaft with the other, and began to suck, and for a minute I was lost in mind-obliterating ecstasy. Then I came, and she withdrew, gasping, viscous white slime dripping down her chin.
She made little whimpering sounds of anticipation as I pushed her to the ground and pulled her pants down to her ankles. She parted her legs wide, and her vulva unfolded before me like a dissolving flower. She reached both hands under her shirt and fondled her own breasts as I licked her inner thighs, first right, then left. When I moved my tongue to the center between, she emitted a quiet, keening, repetitive moan, almost a cry. I kept going, moving my tongue with increasing speed and pressing my lips against the soft, inviting tissue with increasing force, and she started to shudder and writhe, her hips thrusting, an ever-greater wildness and intensity possessing the dark, luscious, honeyed music that issued from her mouth—
The music stuttered and changed.
Something intruded on the upper edge of my visual field.
I looked up, and my stomach turned to ice.
There it was, the philovore, glowing faintly in the dark, one hand on her shoulder, the other on the time-dirtied floor, its body in a crouch, its eyes closed, its mouth pressed to the side of her neck, sucking away the substance of her brain.
My thoughts fled, replaced by a dull, head-filling buzz. I sprang forward like a cat and attacked the awful beast, bit it, punched it, kicked it, scratched it, wrapped my hands around its neck and tried to squeeze, made valiant attempts to prise open its eyelids, to break its nose, to peel its lips back from my beloved’s flesh. My teeth chipped, my nails tore, my fists grew wet with blood.
It didn’t move, and it didn’t react.
Its body showed not the tiniest hint of damage.
Thirty seconds after it had appeared, it detached itself from Elizabeth and raised its head. Before its lips closed, I saw a gently throbbing, faintly luminescent mass of furrowed white flesh in its oral cavity. Some minuscule far region of my mind still capable of coherent thought reasoned that this had to be the organ with which it fed.
It looked almost like a brain.
The philovore turned to face me and opened its eyes. They shone like white stars.
I wrapped my arms around its neck and held tight. It ignored me and, in one motion, straightened up and stepped into its own dimension.
For a moment I beheld a landscape of awesome beauty and terror. Glaciers of opaque white glass, some towering miles above others, stretching beyond the horizon. A sky that looked like fresh snow or TV static. Philovores everywhere, as far as I could see, standing on the glass like statues, twisted into strange and grotesque tableaux.
Not all of them were frozen. Some were moving.
The next moment, that little rational fragment of my brain realized that, if the philovore to which I clung pulled me all the way through, I might not be able to get back. I let go.
As the scene faded, I fancied I saw one of the more distant philovores stepping forwards and vanishing into thin air.
I landed on my back in the upstairs room of the abandoned house.
I lay there for a long time, my eyes shut, not wanting to move.
“Cal…”
A flood of sorrow washed through me when I sat up and saw Elizabeth, pants still around her ankles, hands still under her shirt, unbuttoned jacket spread beneath her, eyes half-open, head jerking in weird motions. She’d lost control of her bladder, and a dark puddle soaked the jacket’s and shirt’s bottom portions.
I crouched over her, stroking her hair with an unsteady hand. Tears dripped down my nose and landed on her cheek.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, over and over again. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Her mouth worked, but she couldn’t quite manage to respond. Her eyes gazed desperately up at mine, bewilderment, yearning, and reproach shining in them all at once.
Don’t be happy.
They were everywhere now.
I fished in her jacket and withdrew the letter opener, then turned away from her. I laid my left hand palm-up on the floor, gripped the handle with my right, pressed the tip of the blade to a spot near the base of my index finger, and dragged.
Spasms of agony shot through my hand and up my left arm as blood welled from the wound. I tossed the letter opener aside, then tore off a piece of my shirt and tied it around my palm. Proper treatment was not a priority.
In the absence of encephalopathy and incontinence, physical pain and mental sorrow would have to protect me.
For the next few minutes I re-dressed Elizabeth with as much gentleness as I could manage, leaving smears of blood where the involvement of my left hand was necessary. I extricated her hands from her shirt, readjusted her bra, and helped her out of her jacket. I tore off the bottom of her shirt in a strip, leaving the unsullied upper portion on her body, and used the discarded portion and the jacket to dry her buttocks and thighs. Finally I pulled her lower garments back up to her waist and, after removing the occult materials from the pockets, bundled her in my own coat.
I cradled her then, crying, her head in my lap, her hand once in a while giving mine a squeeze, while she looked up at me as if begging me to bestow upon her the power to stand and speak.
I pictured her brain, riddled like a sponge.
I saw that my semen still stained her lips.
God in merciful Heaven.
I wet my thumb and wiped it away, slowly and carefully, until I could see no traces. Then I kissed her. Her response was weak, halfhearted, but at the same time she squeezed my hand.
“Sleep,” I murmured. “I’ll stay with you. I’ll look after you. I’ll stay for the rest of your life.”
She squeezed my hand again. Her eyelids fluttered closed, and I kissed each one in turn.
Soon her breathing grew deep and even. I kept my vigil, my right hand holding hers, my bloodied left leaving a stain on her coat-covered shoulder. Her face was gaunt and beautiful in the darkness.
After a long while I drifted into fitful sleep.
Sunlight gleamed through the cracks in the window-boards and the holes in the roof when I awoke. Impotent rage crashed upon me as I recalled the events of the night. Elizabeth still slept in my lap, and I moved quite gingerly as I backed out from under her, holding her head aloft until I could rest it on her crumpled-up jacket. This makeshift pillow stank of urine, but it was the best I could do.
The dull throb of pain in my left hand had diminished considerably, and, fearing the philovores would come if I grew too comfortable, I padded downstairs, gathered a handful of glass shards, and returned to Elizabeth’s side.
She was still asleep. Good.
I lacerated the back of my left forearm with a piece of glass, careful to avoid the veins. My entire body tensed, and I bent my head towards the floor, keeping silent with a great effort of will.
A few minutes later I managed to unclench my muscles. I turned to my studies.
All that morning I practiced, memorizing the summoning circle and its mirror image, drawing each in large scale with my own blood, learning the chant to say over them, the same words for each, but not daring to speak it aloud after I had drawn them, even though the diagrams were said to be useless without the special paint. I burned into my mind the incantations of Borellus. Elizabeth woke near noon; I fussed over her, stroked her hair, dried her tears and hid my own; she refused food but took little sips of water. She had not regained bladder control, and I kept her clean as best I could, though the stench in the room grew steadily worse as the day progressed.
It got worse outside too, and on occasion I peered through the window-boards to see snatches of increasingly desperate scenes.
A mob screamed at a group of soldiers, spewing vile abuse and exhortations, until a philovore appeared right in the middle of them and seized a young man. The crowd scattered save for one middle-aged woman who beat at the winter-white being to no effect.
A grizzled old redneck marched down the street with a rifle, took aim at a philovore perched on a rooftop, and fired until his clip was out. A couple seconds later, the creature disappeared, and he let out a whoop of joy, at which point it reappeared right next to him and fastened its mouth to his neck.
A tank rumbled down the street, the man in the turret shouting into a bullhorn, instructing the population of Valeford to stay in their homes and await evacuation. Then a philovore materialized in the turret, and he stopped shouting.
In the afternoon I turned my attention to the problem of how to close the gate and send the invincible brain-eaters back to their white expanse. I scrutinized the diary, the pages of Borellus, the incomplete translations of the Arabic manuscript. I squinted at my most recent renderings of the mirror image to ensure they were precise—they were. As far as I could tell from Peter Curwen’s notes on the manuscript’s contents, he had been correct to think that the mirror image, drawn with the same paint and addressed with the same ritual phrases, would seal the philovores away. So why had it failed?
As the sun began to wane in earnest I realized that only one course of action stood a chance of revealing the answer, the very course to which Peter had not resorted even in his most desperate straits.
I looked out between the window-boards. I could smell smoke on the air. The old redneck still lay near the edge of the street, gibbering and waving his arms, unable to rise.
I looked at my own arms, scored all over with long glass-cuts, at the dark stains showing through my pants. I felt the prickling heat and suffocation of pain and crusted blood on my face.
I hadn’t a choice.
I went over to Elizabeth and took her hand in mine. Her brow creased with worry as her eyes darted over my mutilated visage.
“I’m sorry,” I told her. “I had to, just to keep them off. I have to go get rid of them now. Send them back. I’ll come back for you.”
“I’ll…” she stammered. “I’ll…”
“I love you,” I said.
She gave my hand a tight squeeze. I responded with a lengthy kiss.
“Rest,” I said, by way of parting. “I will be back.”
Never had I thought I’d say that while being so unsure of it.
I left a water bottle next to her, kissed her once more, and walked out of the room, across the short hall, and down the stairs. Then I traversed the first-floor corridor and exited the ruined house via the back door.
Outside I found an eerie calm interrupted by short spikes of frantic activity. People lay on the streets, some—mostly children and the elderly—dead, others reduced to half-paralyzed lunacy, flailing on the ground, crawling, sometimes rising and walking a few paces before crumpling again. A fire raged on the other side of town, sending up columns of gray smoke. A fifty-something man ran up to me and started screaming in my face.
“What’s happening?” he shouted. “What are they?”
“Don’t be happy,” I replied.
“What?”
“That’s how they get you,” I told him. “They get you when you’re happy. Now get lost, I’m busy.”
He followed me and yelled at the back of my neck, spittle flying from his lips. “How do you know? What are you doing? Are you in on it? Are—”
I whirled around and punched him in the throat, leaving him kneeling on the street, making weird choking noises. As I walked on I scored my shoulders with glass.
When I reached the cul-de-sac, I saw a contingent of ten or twelve soldiers in the front yard of the old house, guns out, firing. Three philovores were among them, one already feeding. Two more crouched on the roof, still save for an occasional motion of the head.
One soldier aimed his automatic at a philovore and sprayed it with bullets for a good ten seconds. The creature simply stood there without reacting. The bullets ricocheted, and another soldier fell to the ground, holding his leg.
The philovore vanished. A second later, it stepped out of its curtain of thin air right behind the soldier with the automatic and started to feed.
As I entered the woods, following a small trail that began some distance away from the ancient dwelling, I heard cries of “Retreat! Retreat!”
The forest at sunset was a sinister, shadow-haunted place, the dry crackling of needles and leaves underfoot and the distant sounds of panic in Valeford providing the only counterpoint to the primeval silence. The broadleaves had mostly shed, but the conifers still partly blotted out the darkening sky. I saw no animals; they had either gone into hibernation or, sensing that something here had gone grievously wrong, decamped for safer pastures.
Not that any pastures would be safe for long. Not if the philovores continued their pattern of spread.
I followed the markers Peter had specified in his diary—a fork in the trail, a gnarled oak, an old, moss-covered stone bench—until, about twenty paces away from the path, just beyond the point where it crossed a little creek with a rotting wooden bridge, I came upon a clearing about ten feet wide. At one end of this space was a large lichen-encrusted boulder half-buried in the dirt. The clearing itself, though carpeted with dead leaves, was oddly bare of undergrowth, and the plants that bordered it were stunted and sick.
I took several deep breaths before beginning.
“Nathaniel Curwen!” I intoned. “Yi-ái níg-nagáh-galáh, Yog-Sothoth hai-yí ligéb-goléb fi-yái throdóg-maróg! Uáh-yi-áh!”
For long moments nothing happened.
Then a sulfurous stench reached my nostrils. I backed away a step, almost gagging.
The ground in the middle of the clearing bulged.
A skeletal hand pushed its way up through the dirt, the bones held together only by sinews and gangrenous scraps of flesh. It was followed by an arm, the grayish-brown bone showing under meager tendons and strips of meat. Then came a shoulder, and a skull, lower jaw missing, eyes still there, swivelling back and forth before they focussed on me.
The creature did not speak—it possessed no organs by which to do so—but words resounded in my brain.
How dare you raise me in this state! Foul ape whose mouth is not fit to propitiate my master!
I addressed it with as much calm as I could muster. “Why didn’t the mirror image work?”
You mean to tame me? You, who have never before called upon the all-in-one and one-in-all? My unworthy grandson knew better than to call me up tame!
The other arm emerged, and the half-covered skeleton pressed its palms against the leaf-strown ground in an effort to wriggle upwards.
“Peter Curwen called up the joy-eaters. He could not control them, so he tried to send them back. The sealing spell did not work. Why?”
An awful rasping sound echoed in my brain. It took me a second to realize that this was a laugh.
That fool could not translate to save his own life! Had he been able to do so without my help he would have known that the last men who could command the joy-eaters died millennia before his birth!
“You tricked him,” I said. The thing had freed half its chest now, and was twisting back and forth with frantic eagerness.
He would not raise me! He knew the taming spell with which you raised me would not hold me! You will be the first man I destroy!
It made eye contact with me, and I found I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. My mouth worked uselessly.
The joy-eaters will kill my unworthy grandson! They will eradicate the apes! They will cleanse the Earth, and my master will take me to a higher world unmarred by the accursed stains of mediocrity and mortality!
The rotting abomination was free up to the waist.
I longed only for the satisfaction of seeing the squalid hordes of the living join me in the ground, but you have granted me a greater boon! Perhaps I shall not kill you. Perhaps I shall make you my slave, and take you to the higher realm, where you will learn to respect my master! May all those who—
A philovore stepped out of the air next to Nathaniel Curwen, bent down, and fastened its mouth directly to his skull. I broke eye contact; I could move again. The exultant echoes in my head changed to faint, pitiful moans.
Half a minute later, the philovore let its prize fall, straightened up, looked at me for a moment, and disappeared.
The sorcerer’s broken voice whispered in my brain: No… no… no…
I walked up to the stinking thing and laid the toe of my shoe on its upper jaw. “Go on. Freeze me. Throw off the taming spell. Call on your master.”
No… you cannot…
I placed one foot on the creature’s neck vertebrae, grasped the skull with both hands, twisted it off, and held it before me.
NAAAAAAaaaaaaaah…
“Maybe now we can make some progress,” I said. The skull was weak and brittle where the philovore had sucked. I pried away a fragment of bone and prodded the gray tissue inside with a threatening finger. “How do I send the philovores back?”
You cannot…
I stuck my finger in up to the second knuckle.
GAAAAAAaaaaaah… no more… do not take more from me… you must perform the ritual from… the other side…
“The other side?” I said. “What does that have to do with the mirror image?”
The mirror… is useless… I fooled him… you must take the concoction and perform the ritual in their dimension… you will never have the time…
“Can I get through by holding on to one of them?”
Yes… but you will never have the time… they will surround you… you would have to be the most miserable man on Earth to stand even a chance…
An idea sparked in my mind, and a wave of nausea rolled over me.
“The original diagram,” I said. My voice seemed to come from very far away. “With the white paint, in their dimension.”
Yes… but you will never do it… they will sniff out your joy and stop you… you are doomed… we are doomed… my master, my master, help me…
The soft, susurrating whine began to speak strange words. I countered with my own.
“Ogthród ai-yíf gebíl yi-hái Yog-Sothoth náh-ganíg ai-yí zharó!”
NAAAAAAAAAA—
The mental scream broke off, and the skull in my hands crumbled into bluish-gray dust.
I wiped my palms on my shirt and set off towards the town, from time to time ministering to myself with one of my glass shards.
I had a plan.
I knelt by Elizabeth in the darkness. She was asleep again, the water bottle lying on the floor next to her, a damp spot next to its mouth. I laid a hand on her forehead and stroked the bridge of her nose with my thumb.
Her eyes opened.
“I’m back,” I said, my voice quiet. “I might have figured out how to stop them. I have a chance, at least.”
“G-good,” she stuttered.
I kissed her, first on the edges of her mouth, then full on the lips, which parted in response. Her hand found my thigh and gave it a gentle caress.
I broke the kiss, lifting my hand from her forehead. “I know we’ve just met,” I said, “but I really do love you quite a lot. No matter what.”
She closed her eyes, but a faint smile touched her face.
I plunged the letter opener into her neck, throwing my full weight upon it, pushing it as far as I could—her eyes snapped open—I withdrew my weapon and repeated the motion, again and again, twisting the blade, making it all the way through, then probing elsewhere, digging, until the blood gushed from her throat. Convulsions ran through her body, her feeble fingers scraped at my arms in an attempt to stop me. She tried to speak, but only liquid gurglings emerged. The look she gave me was one of utter devastation and despair. I did not turn away from her gaze.
It took her several minutes to die.
Out on the street full night had fallen. A wide swath of Valeford was now ablaze, the flames nearing the center of town, and the stench of smoke was thick in my nostrils. I walked quickly, arms rigid, barely thinking. Somewhere in the chaos of the past twenty-four hours—I was honestly not sure when—I had lost my glasses, and the slight impairment in my vision rendered the fire a hazy, throbbing glow. Objects right in front of me, though, I saw with diamond clarity.
I witnessed the strangely magnificent sight of a helicopter unloading on a philovore with a chain gun. The creature stood still with brutal nonchalance, its head tilted up at its mechanical assailant, as the bullets bounced off its body and shredded the street around it. After a short period of this, it disappeared, and then the helicopter began to spiral out of control, heading towards the ground. The fireball that ensued when it crashed into a two-story house nearly knocked me off my feet with its shock wave, and I felt singeing heat at my back. I rolled a few times on the pavement, checked to confirm the absence of ignition, and went on.
Six soldiers lay on the grass in front of my destination. One wasn’t moving; the other five were dragging themselves inch by inch in the direction of the cul-de-sac. I paid them no heed and headed straight for the side door. As I flung it open and entered the house I heard a great far-off explosion somewhere to the east.
I strode through the laundry room, down the hall, and around the corner, switching the lights on as I went. I rushed down the stone steps and activated the garish fluorescent bars on the ceiling. There was that huge jar of white paint, sitting on the desk, waiting for me. I crossed the room, picked it up with both hands, and hugged it to my chest.
Now to find someone—
A philovore materialized in front of me. It turned its head forty-five degrees to look directly at my face, opened its eyes, and paused.
Its eyes closed. It stepped forward, closer to me, but began to disappear.
I leaped at it and caught it by the arm before it could vanish fully, and in another second I was in the white dimension, kneeling on the cold milk-colored glass, a great puddle of paint oozing from the shattered jar in front of me, my aching left hand still holding the philovore just above its wrist.
It had stopped moving. I let go and plunged both hands into the paint.
I couldn’t help but marvel at the glorious beauty of the place, even as I hastened to find an unoccupied stretch of glass large enough to feature the diagram. The endless cliffs, crags, and plains of opaque white shimmered like frozen seas. More of the philovores were moving now, and there were fewer in my immediate vicinity. The snowy canvas of the sky seemed to breathe, its odd, staticky surface triggering pain in my head when I tried to focus my eyes on it. At the absolute zenith of the heavens hung a pale purple globe, and it too was breathing, its circumference undergoing infinitesimal expansions and contractions.
I found a clear patch and knelt, extending paint-soaked hands and drawing a series of circles and isosceles triangles identical to those of the original diagram on the floor of Peter Curwen’s cellar. The correct size and proportions of the construction came easily to me, as if the learning process of the past two days had not taught them to me but, rather, helped me to remember them. As I worked, my peripheral vision caught philovores gathering around me, not feeding yet, but curious, pondering whether to commit their taste buds to this unpalatable meal.
I made the final daub and drew back, surveying my creation. It looked—it felt—correct.
A philovore grabbed my shoulder.
I cried out.
“Arák-hatá nyár-latá granék-talády Yog-Sothoth granády tán-kurán!”
As I finished the phrase, the philovore bent its head to my neck and fastened its terrible pseudopod to my skin. A burning, stabbing cold ran from the point of contact right up into my brain, which felt like a ball of pounding ice inside my skull as my vision blurred and my limbs turned to jelly. I barely croaked out the last syllable—“rán!”—before my voice collapsed.
But even as I fell prey to that ravenous frigidity, the entire scene, philovores, diagram, vitrine glaciers and snow-staticked sky, rose to the upper edge of my vision as if it were a waterline beneath which I was sinking. A deep, resounding crack, like calving ice, seemed to reach my ears simultaneously from within and without, and in my chest I felt something like a tree uprooting. The white landscape faded, as did the burning cold in my neck and head, and the next moment I was in the cellar, balled up on the floor. I raised my eyes, shrank bedazzled from the cruel brightness of the ceiling lights, and sank into oblivion.
I came to strapped to a bed in a moving vehicle. My wakefulness was sudden, as if a switch had been flipped, but I couldn’t trace it to a stimulus. A man’s face loomed over me—wrinkled skin, thick glasses, untamed tufts of gray and white hair.
“I’d like your consent to read your mind,” he said. “It’s very important, for reasons that require a lot of explanation, that I and some other people know right away how you were involved with the events in Valeford. You can say no, but that would be bad. Please trust that I’m trying to help you.” Throughout this little speech he maintained full eye contact.
I closed my eyes. “Go ahead.” As if I had something to lose.
I felt an age-papered hand on my forehead. No unusual or unexpectable thoughts or sensations invaded my consciousness. I wondered, feebly, why he’d asked permission.
Time passed. I listened to the sound of the vehicle’s engine. I wished I could drown in it.
The man’s voice jerked me from half-sleep. “It was him.” He’d removed his hand from my forehead. “He learned how to repair the boundary with no prior abnatural experience and did so at great personal cost. I strongly recommend we keep him in the tank.”
A woman’s voice, sharp as metal through bone, garnished with a southeast European note: “What was the cost?”
My eyes were open. The old man met them again, and in his gaze I read that I should not speak, should not twist my head to try to see that voice’s source.
He broke eye contact. “He killed the woman he loved just before he went through,” he said.
“With no prior abnatural experience,” said the woman.
“Yes.”
A kind of buttery smirk crept into her tone. “We’ll keep him.” Then, her words directed elsewhere: “Raise the field and tell them we’re good!”
A slippery sensation went through me, difficult to comprehend, dodging categories, something like a psychic ear-pop, and there came an infrasonic hum that made the back of my neck prickle. The ceiling at which I stared was metal, each side curving to join in the middle—a giant half-cylinder. I turned my head to the right—the wall was metal too.
“Rice twenty-one-one,” said the woman I couldn’t see. “It’s been a long time.”
The old man spoke to me quietly. “R-E-I-S-S. Retrocontinuous erasure in sapient systems. A global mind-wipe. Almost no one will remember, almost no one will be able to perceive the scars.”
“But we’ll remember,” I said. “We’ll perceive.”
“Yes.” He paused. “Calvin Light. I’m Arthur Besk. It is, despite the circumstances, a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”