Historical Lovecraft: Tales of Horror Through Time (28 page)

I never worked the fields again. When my wife died, I come here to the sanitarium, where I’ve stayed ever since. My two girls are grown and married now, but they take turns coming to visit me. They’ve taken such good care of me since the incident.

There’re days when I think I could leave this place, move in with one of them and have a life outside these walls, long as I stayed out of automobiles and away from oil fields. And maybe I would, were it not fer the dreams.

I dream, not of the world, but of the future. The future that Burke and I helped to bring about and that I’m powerless to prevent. I see a country criss-crossed with roads where thousands of automobiles drive every day. I see ships as big as whales, plying the sea with bellies full of black blood. I see a world of perpetual light and motion, powered by the unquiet dead.

Orrin
Gray
is a skeleton who likes monsters. His stories of cursed books, mad monks, and ominous paintings have appeared in
Bound for Evil
,
Delicate Toxins
, and, of course, at Innsmouth Free Press, among other places. He can be found online at
www.orringrey.com
.

The author speaks:
I actually spent a lot of my formative years right near where “Black Hill” was set. The real place was called ‘Oil Hill’. It was long gone by the time I lived there, its passing only marked by the occasional pump jack out in someone’s pasture. But there were photographs up here and there that showed what the fields had looked like back in their heyday. I always wanted to set a weird story in those old oil fields. When I started thinking about all that oil down there, made up mostly of ancient organic matter, dead but not inert, well, that sounded pretty Lovecraftian to me.

AMUNDSEN’S LAST RUN

Nathalie Boisard-Beudin 

A
mundsen tapped on his pilot's shoulder, indicating to Rene Guilbaud where they should attempt their sea-landing – a small, canal-like harbour in the huge iceberg below them. The Frenchman shook his head. Too narrow. Too short. Unable to hear his own voice over the noise of the motors, he made wide gestures to emphasize his meaning, tapping the sheet with the coordinates, as well. They were still too far from their planned destination yet. The
Italia
had foundered much farther to the east.

Roald Amundsen stamped his foot. Guilbaud raised his arms in anger. The explorer leaned over his shoulder and brought the drive stick sharply down. The seaplane did a mad dive as Guilbaud scrambled, screaming, to regain control of the aircraft. Then, all of the sudden, both engines stopped. Like that, while they glided into the iceberg.

Amundsen regained consciousness, his body’s pain a welcome indicator that he was alive. His first estimate told him his right leg was broken and a few of his ribs might be in the same state. The crushed-up cabin of the Latham 47 was obscenely embedded in the ice, making it unlikely that Guilbaud and Leif Dietrichson, his co-pilot, might have survived the impact. Amundsen had only managed that by racing to the back of the plane at the last minute, flinging himself down just before the impact. It infuriated him to think they could have floated to a stop in the small inner canal he had indicated to Guilbaud. But the Frenchman’s obstinate refusal had put them all in jeopardy, forcing him to desperate measures.

He dared not disobey the humming.

During his expedition of 1925 to the North Pole, he had encountered this giant iceberg and experienced technical difficulties in its presence. A radio breakdown, followed by sudden motor extinction, had nearly killed them all. By an incredible fluke, they had saved themselves, but lost a plane. While the team was clearing the ice for one of the two remaining planes to fly off, they had heard a slow, whining hum rising from the ice, like a chant, in particular at night. A commanding chant. Back then, and for awhile after their return to safety, they had dismissed the experience as a collective hallucination. They had existed on very little food in critical temperatures for a long time, after all. And icebergs do have their own noises, as they creak and float and melt.

However, back home, images of the massive, ‘S’-shaped iceberg, its humming calling to him in tones he thought he could understand, invaded his dreams. He woke in the mornings disorientated and passed his days looking for clues he did not recognize in books, newspapers and the odd film. Icebergs were not charted, as they tended to drift, but this one had a singular shape: tapering in its middle from an almost-square basis, with sinusoid lower banks forming what looked like natural harbours, with fairly shallow, underwater quay-like banks, possibly carved by a spinning current. The damaged seaplane had neatly severed one such quay and the iceberg’s course would have been affected by the loss of symmetry.

Night after night, the dreams had plagued him with urgent-yet-undecipherable messages, until one day, he had stumbled upon an article recalling the so-called “Curse of the Pharaohs” that had afflicted the team of Carter and Carnarvon, fully illustrated with strange god-figures and a picture of the Pyramids. Amundsen immediately recognised the tapering pattern at the center of the iceberg in that picture, a realization that had sent him racing to unearth the history of such cold giants. A geologist from Oslo had confirmed that the huge ice mountains were very old, indeed – possibly as old as the earth – and must, perforce, like any mountain, contain many trapped organisms and skeletons inside their folds, remnants of ancient earth creations

Could the iceberg be some sort of grave? The idea had taken root in his mind and refused to budge, despite his stern, realistic upbringing. His dreams became more vivid, vague forms oscillating in time with the humming against a pyramidal background, with the noise level rising to a thumping rhythm, as of a heartbeat. A ruler was waiting for him, said the chanting dreams; a ruler was waiting in the mountain’s heart to rise again.

During the day, the explorer was able to dismiss the visions as ridiculous, a product of hysteria, but each night, they came back to haunt him until they became an obsession. Amundsen was nothing if not driven by a scientific mind and curiosity. It was all tosh, he told himself. He would find out the truth and be rid of this nonsense, once and for all. He therefore put together a plan for investigating the iceberg and its reality. However, the following year, he had been drawn into another run for the North Pole race and had to postpone his plans. He found that the exertion of that quest had calmed him, somehow – a point for the hysteria theory – and that his dreams were not so frequent then, or during the series of talks and conferences he had found himself propelled into by his victory.

The ice cracked under his weight and the pain caused by the slight movement flashed, sobering him greatly. What had he done?

It had taken him almost two years to come back. Two years, during which the dreams had returned, scaling the walls of his sanity, eroding his nights until he had driven his whole crew to their deaths. All in pursuit of a chimera! He attempted to stand up, helping himself with a bent part of fuselage. He should survey the plane, see if there were any other survivors. His first attempt to move was unsuccessful, the metal folding under his weight, his ribs screaming with pain. Crawling, then ….

He went over to the mangled debris of the seaplane, calling. Only silence answered. Silence and ... creaking? Sharper. Something more metallic like ... overheated motors. Cracking. Cracking ice cubes. He spun as fast as he could, to find himself facing a crystal-like pyramid. One of its sides had been breached by the crashing aircraft and it gaped open, slowly breaking down under the weight of the cabin. Had the iceberg been rock-solid, it should not have been affected, but the impact showed the structure to be hollow, as indeed, it had been in Amundsen’s dreams, minus the humming or fantastic-looking creatures. Peeking inside a crack, he could make out an inner wall, about a meter deep inside the pyramid. In the uncertain gloom of the never-quite-night of June, Amundsen could only guess at its volume, which – like the outer shell itself – looked man-made. Was it some kind of inner chamber?

He crawled closer to the plane, trying to see if he could salvage some food, some covers or others means to keep warm. Holding onto the shafts that supported the wings, he was finally able to stand and get his hands on two broken pieces of rod. He wrapped these with a piece of cloth to hold his leg stiff. Another piece would serve well as a cane, but as he was searching the wreck, a thick layer of clouds obscured the horizon, makeshift night for the Arctic Circle, and his lighter proved a feeble and insufficient alternative light source. He moved closer to the breached ice wall, which would serve as windbreaker for the night. If he survived the cold, he would be in a better position to start looking for valuables in the morning. A broken wing floater might serve as a makeshift boat to carry him away – possibly ….

Dropping a handful of papers on the ground, Amundsen sat as close as he could to the wall. It did not feel any colder than the walls of his rooms as a boy back in Borge and far less rough than the wood panelling he had nestled against then. He should not sleep. Without anyone to wake him, slumber in icy conditions might mean he would not ever wake up. Unfortunately, his broken limbs ensured he could not walk, or dance and stamp, or just keep himself busy, as he would normally have done in such circumstances, as he had done in the tremendous ordeal that had been the rescue of 1925. But then they had been a whole team, working night and day to clear a path on the ice so a plane could take off. They had kept moving in sub-freezing conditions and had taken turns to sleep. Yet, lack of food and rest had created this ludicrous hallucination that had brought him back here today. That had preyed on his mind for three years, nearly driving him mad, in the process. Humming, vibrating through his brain, though his bones, a plaintive chant with dark edges, where sacrifice was expected and exacted. He reflected that, in the present case, sacrifice had indeed been performed. Five men had died in the impact and he, himself, wasn’t in too brilliant a shape. His head felt warm, much too warm to be healthy, melting the ice next to him. His body shook slightly, pulsating softly with pain. And a rhythm. Startled, he straightened up, trying to decipher the new vibrations in his body. Yes, something was sending waves through the ice, a dull throbbing like bells calling servants to church. A summons, gathering speed in the gloom. Amundsen’s eyes had become used to the darkness and he could now see some light oozing from the pyramid, dark against dark, and fine pin-points of light dancing in time with the thrumming. Was he hallucinating, again? Maybe the light was an effect of concussion, from the shock?

Straining to get up, he turned his eyes again to the breach in the wall. The inner volume was luminous! He could clearly see it now, an obviously man-made structure carved with designs he could not quite discern. The pin-points were more active there and their chanting – could it be that they were the source of the chanting? – more vehement, more insidious. He wanted to go inside the pyramid and join them. He could tell they were angry at his delay, but at the same time, his body had frozen, the hair at the back of his neck risen in clear warning. His head felt like a spinning top, tossed between emotions, his teeth chattering and his eyes too-widely opened. He called out, a muffled cry smothered by biting his own tongue.

The humming had stopped, the lights frozen in their ballet. A second, two, three. And then they rushed to the breach, pushing him aside on their way out. They twirled angrily into the absent night, furious wasps looking for a target, and went straight to the seaplane. Amundsen saw them disappear into the cockpit and immediately heard the metal complain. He felt warmth on his face. His hands touching his cheek felt sticky. Blood? The lights had come so close; could they have cut him? It certainly sounded like they were wreaking havoc in the shattered aircraft, which was whining and moaning against their assault. He dared not get any closer to see what was happening. Not that he needed to. After a few minutes of furious activity, the broken plane lit up in a brief flash and disappeared, shimmering dust falling slowly to the ice where the huge, metal carcass had been moments before. The lights were still there, forming some sort of spiral that shot up straight towards the sky before coming back down just as quickly, zooming past Amundsen into the pyramid. Inside, their dance took on a savage rhythm, a frenzy illuminating the whole structure. The explorer could nearly make out the patterns on the inner building, twirling designs like flowers or tentacles. Or the diaphragm shutter on a camera. Meanwhile the lights seemed ready to swarm again, gathering in a spearhead formation, their buzz strong and urgent, attacking the whole structure in waves. An aperture slowly unfolded on the inner structure, letting darkness seep into the chamber, absorbing the noise and light in slow, oily ripples as Amundsen looked on, frozen into place. Something darker than night moved into the room, advancing in tentacle-like movements from the opening, smothering the lights, one-by-one, slowly coming closer to the breach. Viscous gloom reached out from the crack, feeling its way upward.

Amundsen felt it brush against its face and flung himself backwards. He fell heavily onto his back, his leg sending agonizing pain through his body. His mind was solely focused on escaping, as fast and as far as he could. Crawling backwards, his eyes fixed on the fissure, he searched for the broken wing-float he had found earlier and pulled aside, finding the structure just as darkness began oozing from the pyramid towards him. Pushing the fragile vessel into the water canal, he pulled himself on board just in time. But he had nothing to paddle with and his hands were of little help in pushing him farther out to sea. Gloom reached the water’s edge and pooled on the surface, rising into a large, murky wave that lapped at the floating shell, seized it and flung it back hard against the wall of the pyramid.

With his back broken, but still alive, Amundsen looked on as darkness retreated to the inner temple, passing over his supine body. For a moment, he entertained the illusion that he was safe. Crippled and cold, yet saved somehow. Then the pyramid started pulsing into the night, humming once more in a stern rhythm, lighting up once again. Suddenly, it dissolved in a chanting blizzard of light and ice shards, tearing at the feeble night, tearing at him, tearing at the universe, until there was nothing left and everything once again fell silent.

Nathalie Boisard-Beudin
is a middle-aged French woman living in Rome, Italy. She has more hobbies than spare time, alas – reading, cooking, writing, painting, and photography – so hopes that her technical colleagues at the European Space Agency will soon come up with a solution to that problem by stretching the fabric of time. Either that or send her up to write about the travels and trials of the International Space Station, the way this was done for the exploratory missions of old. Clearly, the woman is a dreamer.

The author speaks:
Icebergs are mountains created from water that might be as old as the Earth or beyond; who knows what secret of our ancestry they might contain in their folds? Is this what makes the white-and-blue giants creak and moan about like heavy ghosts? On the other hand, on the 18 of June 1928, Antarctic explorer Roald Amundsen disappeared without a trace as he was out on a rescue mission. His body has never been recovered. In such absence blooms a story.