No Light in August: Tales From Carcosa & the Borderland (Digital Horror Fiction Author Collection) (15 page)

We didn’t
catch his meaning, even when he repeated himself. It took a moment for it to
sink in. There was silence for what felt like a very long few moments.

“Oh,” Osif
deflated. “Where’s it from, then?”

1999

“How’d you
get roped into going?”

Her name
is Alena, and she isn’t quite what Sasha expected. She didn’t conform to what
he’d assumed. This seemed to happen a lot in his life.

His dad
had told him he’d find the army rewarding, instead of a bad dream he couldn’t
wake

up from.

“Dad put a
gun to my head, more or less,” he told her. He left out the part about his dad
actually having a gun — something he’d kept from Afghanistan.

“Sucks to
be you.”

She
smiled, puffed out smoke from the joint she’d rolled, and handed it to him. He
remembered the foil packet he still had, thought about saying something about
it, but decided he’d get stoned first and see where it went from there.

The weed
was strong, almost sickly smelling, and the smoke he inhaled felt thick and a
little oily. Sasha swore it left a coating on the back of his throat, but the
knot in his stomach started to unravel itself, so he ignored it.

They were
above the dance floor, in what Alena said was a lab from the fort’s old days as
some kind of weird experimental station. From here, the music was reduced to a
continuous throb, muted enough by old stone so they could hear each other
speak.

Swaying,
he pushed himself up and went to look down. Strobe lights blazed through the
crowd, freeze-framing a forest of arms and gyrating bodies through a cloud of
cigarette smoke and steam rising from sweat-soaked bodies crammed together.
Everyone seemed to be having a good time.

“Come
back, you’ve still got the joint, man,” Alena said, almost rising, but stopping
when he turned and made his way to her.

Sasha
leaned against the wall and slid back down beside her. His feet went out from
under him and he dropped the last few centimeters, but held onto the joint,
which he duly passed to Alena.

“Don’t
they throw you out if you do drugs?” “I don’t think they care much.”

“Really
does suck to be you.” “Please stop saying that.”

“Shit,
sorry man.” She started snorting, but at least covered her mouth in an attempt
to hold it in.

“Why come
to this place?” He took the joint when she offered it and puffed. It felt
better the second time.

“Why not?
It’s kind of cool, no?” “In a fucked-up kind of way.”

“That’s
the point,” Alena told him. She might been trying to explain something to a
child.

Maybe it
was the weed – most likely it was the weed – but Sasha started to consider how
naive he might be. His thoughts unbuckled in his head, and he thought for a
moment that he was; it at least explained how easily his dad had talked him
into joining up.

“All my
life, I did what people told me,” he said. “I never thought it was anything
bad, not until it was.”

“What do
you
want
to do, man?”

Looking at
Alena through a high wasn’t the best way to see her. Sasha would’ve loved to
get to know her in a different place. Not a rave, but to talk to her
clear-headed and in the light of day.

You
take the moments you can get.

“Something,
anything; just not that.”

“Then do
it,” she said, like it was the simplest thing in the world. “I can’t.”

“Why not,
because of your dad?”

“He’d
throw me out, and it’s not like I have anywhere else to go.”

Alena
flicked ash from the end of the joint and leaned forward. Sasha thought maybe
she was tired of his chat; she was, but just not in the way he thought.

She turned
and placed her hands on the ground on either side of him. He closed his eyes,
because he thought it was what you were supposed to do.

2014

David
found himself almost home; it took him a moment to realize he’d unconsciously
followed the familiar streets back to his door. The thought to find somewhere
else to have a drink had occurred earlier, but it looked as if his heart wasn’t
in it.

Fuck
.

Stopping,
he dug his keys out of a pocket. There was so much crap inside, he had to root
around for them.

“Hey.”
David turned. A younger man, maybe mid-twenties, was standing at the edge of
the pavement, looking at him. “You lost, need help?”

Was he
swaying or something, or did he look out of place at this time of night? “No, I’m
fine, thanks.”

The man
took a step forward. “You sure? You seem kinda down.”

I am,
but there’s nothing you can do about it, man
. “Really, I’m fine.”

“Okay.
Say, do you have a cigarette?”

“Sure.”
Keys in hand, David reached for his packet. Looking back, he saw the young man
was closer than before, but his features were more or less hidden by the patchy
street lighting. “Here.”

“Thanks,
got a light?”

David took
out his lighter and ignited it, cupping the flame in his hand. The gesture was
automatic. The guy kept his hands low, close to his sides, but David caught
sight of something round and metallic in his hand. “What’s that?”

He held up
a small canister with a nozzle and face mask at the end. “This? I need it for

work.”

“You a
paramedic or something?” David was about to slip another cigarette from the
pack,

but never
got the chance.

A hand
shot around and gripped the back of his head as the black mask came over his
mouth and nose.

1916

The rock
has remained a rock since it arrived, and we’ve seen no sign of whatever
remarkable properties it may have. I sometimes wonder at the effectiveness of
our state, Maria.

Practically,
it makes little sense to send something of this nature to us. Nevertheless, we
followed the procedures outlined to us by the Institute. The labs adjacent ours
are no longer in use, and the three of us examine the bloody thing with a
couple of assistants to hand. So far, it has remained nothing but a piece of
stone.

Its origin
is the most interesting thing about it, though not relevant to us. For
something that did not originate on this world, it is the most banal thing one
could encounter. You wouldn’t look twice at it on a beach, except perhaps to
notice its vitrified appearance.

It looks
as if it was melted and then left to grow cold and solid again; it has an
almost organic look to it, and something of a sheen under the right light.
Still, I think its previous researchers attributed an unrelated event to it.

None of us
can see how this thing could have possibly caused any problems. Medvedev is
entirely convinced it could have. I think Osif is more or less prepared to
believe, but requires some evidence first. I, however, remain skeptical.

Something
bizarre happened today; I have yet to determine what it does or could mean.
Despite my earlier entry, Maria, I am not above reevaluating my opinion in the
face of new evidence.

We were in
the lab: myself, Osif, and Medvedev. We’d dismissed the lab assistants as the
work itself was nothing we were not able to do ourselves.

“Careful,”
Medvedev told me.

This has
been his watch word since the rock arrived. I was in the process of removing a
piece of it for study under a microscope, while he loomed over my shoulder.

“We’re not
geologists,” I said, gently using a rock hammer to chip away at it.

The doctor
was kind enough to back away as I went to the microscope and started looking at
the efforts of my work. Magnified, they were simply pieces of rock. They were
dark and mottled in an interesting way, but otherwise unremarkable.

I was
tired. Pulling myself away, I pinched the bridge of my nose and rubbed at my
face. I regret to say, Maria, I haven’t shaved in a few days. I can imagine
your disapproving look; I miss it.

When I
returned to the microscope, I caught the fragments in the final stages of movement.
They were still when I left them; it was as if they knew I was coming back, but
could not move fast enough before I put my eye back to the optics.

At first,
I did not understand exactly what I saw. I stepped back again and waited
several minutes, while Osif and Medvedev were otherwise occupied.

I saw the
same when I looked again.

“Doctor,”
I called. I didn’t care which one turned or answered me. They both did, and
there must’ve been an odd look on my face, if the way they stared at me is
anything to go by.

I
explained what I had seen.

“You’re
tired,” Osif said, perhaps believing it and perhaps not.

He looked
first and only slowly drew his head away. We waited and Medvedev took his turn,
although he kept looking for a time after the motion of the samples must have
surely stopped.

We three
stood in silence. What they thought, I cannot say; for myself, I can say I
began to reconsider my earlier views. Any thought it may have been a result of
tiredness quickly evaporated once I saw both of their reactions.

It is no
longer simply a rock.

1999

They took
the pills after sex, though given the high that rose up from the pit of Sasha’s
stomach, he felt it might have been better to take them before. His mouth felt
dry and he couldn’t stop his lips from

moving; it
felt great, better than great. He talked a mile a minute as Alena led him down
the empty corridors of the fort.

Letting go
of her hand didn’t feel like an option; his own felt like it was melting into
hers.

Things
zipped forward in sharp bursts, punctuated by bright bursts from the dance
floor coming through cracks in the walls. The light seemed to search them out,
snaking its way through the crumbling stone, but always just missing them.

At first,
he’d been jittery, the high stuttering to life before rising with an easy glow
that filled him up to the top of his head. Sasha forgot what fear was — or
maybe he couldn’t remember exactly how to feel it for the time being.

“I never
slept with a girl before tonight,” he said to give his twitching mouth something
to do.

The
unrestrained openness didn’t seem strange at all.

His teeth
squeaked; his jaw clenched. The more he thought about it, the more it happened,
so he focused only on Alena’s hand. Snippets of the music tunneled into his
ears, snatching his attention for moments; the sounds were disjointed, but
alluring.

Does it
all sound like that, all the time?

“Where are
we going?”

“Wherever,”
she replied, then pulled him into the gloom towards a vaguely rectangular
opening only visible because it was darker and more defined.

“Wait,” he
said. She was panting, maybe from the cold or the drugs, it was impossible to
say. There was a crack, like a twig breaking, and a strip of light came on in
her hand; it nearly blinded him. “Why didn’t you do that before?”

“Never thought,”
she said with a laugh. The light bled through her hand. Washed out and empty,
it was colder than the strobes looking for them through the old walls.

“What’s
down there?” “Who knows?”

His hand
melted into hers again, sinking more willingly into the grip this time because
of the absence of it.

They made
it maybe a dozen or so steps down before a door rose into the light to block
their way. It was old and rusted as far as they could see. Alena waved her hand
around and up and down.

“Big
enough?”

Sasha
snorted, pressing himself against her back for warmth, feeling as if he was
able to take some of hers and give her some in return. He thought he could
stand like that for as long as it took — for as long as it took for Grozny not
to be there in his tomorrows.

Thinking
about it unsettled the buoyancy of the high — not pulling him down, but
dampening the feeling. Logic pooled in; a kind of rambling understanding that
if he worried, he would sink somewhat and the good feeling would be soured.

He pushed
his nose and mouth into the nape of her neck as she fiddled with something on
the door. Alena smelled of sweat and smoke and beer, tinged with something
sweet.

“Got it,”
she whispered. Her lips were snakes writhing across her face and her eyes
looked to be all pupil, drinking in the light from the glow stick.