No Light in August: Tales From Carcosa & the Borderland (Digital Horror Fiction Author Collection) by Digital Fiction Page A
Authors: Digital Fiction
Tags: United States, Literature & Fiction, Horror, Short Stories, British, Genre Fiction, Short Stories & Anthologies, Single Authors
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swimming, but it didn’t mean whatever was in the smoke wasn’t going to
it.
When I
bumped against a wall or crossed a floor as she led me deeper and deeper into
the House, I realized at least this much wasn’t an illusion.
The House
felt too old, some of the rooms more so. There was a definite layering to the
place. Rooms we entered from the hall felt younger somehow, and each subsequent
one we passed through seemed more aged than the last. It was as though the
House had grown from a single core and we were making our way towards its old
heart.
Through
the haze and low lighting, I saw more bodies. Some were lying prone, while
others writhed on top of each other. Their movements suggested something
snakelike or reptilian, and they took no notice of us.
Underneath
the smoke, I caught the smell of sweat and something I can only describe as
sex.
Something
raw and musky, mingling with the drug smoke to create a heady fug in the air,
though it wasn’t entirely unpleasant and even stirred my crotch despite Cassie
still holding my hand. As if sensing it, she gripped my hand tighter and pulled
me after her. I stumbled and bumped into someone emerging from the haze to my
right.
He’d moved
so effortlessly that I didn’t see him until it was too late. I jerked back to
avoid him, yanking hard on Cassie’s arm and causing her to stumble in a half
turn.
The face
peering at me was old, had once been beautiful; enough of the features remained
to tell me as much. Once aquiline and narrow, almost elfin, whatever had been
done to him was systematic in its approach. The scarification and alteration
was too linear and ordered to suggest anything other than someone performing
surgery, or making art in a way, I suppose.
Before I
could say anything, Cassie hauled me towards her, while gently pushing the
scarred man out of the way with her free hand. He never said a word, but kept
looking at me the whole time with an expression I couldn’t discern.
It wasn’t
anger that I’d knocked into him. There was more pity in it, but I didn’t have
time to wonder why he would look at me like that. Cassie led me on, deeper into
the House.
The rooms
we passed through grew more and more ancient-looking, the walls like old stone
now warped and cracked with age. Mold grew in black curtains from the corners
on down, visible by freestanding halogen lamps that cut through the haze and
darkness.
There were
no people in this part of the House. It didn’t feel empty so much as abandoned,
the kind of place people only came when there was a reason to go.
“Thought
we were going to join the party,” I said, nodding my head back the way we’d come.
“The real
party is in here.”
The door
was like any other door, though in truth, it was a sign in its own right. I
realized we’d passed dozens on the way, scrawled on the walls in faded graffiti
that must have been lurid once. Crazy geometry told me we were no longer close
to any street in the city, despite never having ascended or descended a level.
There was no way the House could be so big, but I walked its length and I think
it really was.
I stepped
in front of Cassie and opened the door.
When I
crossed the threshold, pulling Cassie behind me, my ears popped and I felt like
I’d jumped off the ledge of a building. My stomach jumped to my chest, the way
it does when you drop from the summit of a rollercoaster. It only lasted a
second, but a second can last forever under the right circumstances.
The room
inside was normal, for lack of a better word. Normal in size and proportion,
given what I had seen of the front of the House from outside; it could’ve
fitted correctly.
Any sense
of normality to it ended there, though.
The walls
were smeared in faded black paint, the kind you still see in nightclubs
sometimes
— the ones
that haven’t tarted themselves up, at least. It was lit with black light, with
so many strips it was more than enough to see by.
My eyes
adjusted, and my head
it.
When I
bumped against a wall or crossed a floor as she led me deeper and deeper into
the House, I realized at least this much wasn’t an illusion.
The House
felt too old, some of the rooms more so. There was a definite layering to the
place. Rooms we entered from the hall felt younger somehow, and each subsequent
one we passed through seemed more aged than the last. It was as though the
House had grown from a single core and we were making our way towards its old
heart.
Through
the haze and low lighting, I saw more bodies. Some were lying prone, while
others writhed on top of each other. Their movements suggested something
snakelike or reptilian, and they took no notice of us.
Underneath
the smoke, I caught the smell of sweat and something I can only describe as
sex.
Something
raw and musky, mingling with the drug smoke to create a heady fug in the air,
though it wasn’t entirely unpleasant and even stirred my crotch despite Cassie
still holding my hand. As if sensing it, she gripped my hand tighter and pulled
me after her. I stumbled and bumped into someone emerging from the haze to my
right.
He’d moved
so effortlessly that I didn’t see him until it was too late. I jerked back to
avoid him, yanking hard on Cassie’s arm and causing her to stumble in a half
turn.
The face
peering at me was old, had once been beautiful; enough of the features remained
to tell me as much. Once aquiline and narrow, almost elfin, whatever had been
done to him was systematic in its approach. The scarification and alteration
was too linear and ordered to suggest anything other than someone performing
surgery, or making art in a way, I suppose.
Before I
could say anything, Cassie hauled me towards her, while gently pushing the
scarred man out of the way with her free hand. He never said a word, but kept
looking at me the whole time with an expression I couldn’t discern.
It wasn’t
anger that I’d knocked into him. There was more pity in it, but I didn’t have
time to wonder why he would look at me like that. Cassie led me on, deeper into
the House.
The rooms
we passed through grew more and more ancient-looking, the walls like old stone
now warped and cracked with age. Mold grew in black curtains from the corners
on down, visible by freestanding halogen lamps that cut through the haze and
darkness.
There were
no people in this part of the House. It didn’t feel empty so much as abandoned,
the kind of place people only came when there was a reason to go.
“Thought
we were going to join the party,” I said, nodding my head back the way we’d come.
“The real
party is in here.”
The door
was like any other door, though in truth, it was a sign in its own right. I
realized we’d passed dozens on the way, scrawled on the walls in faded graffiti
that must have been lurid once. Crazy geometry told me we were no longer close
to any street in the city, despite never having ascended or descended a level.
There was no way the House could be so big, but I walked its length and I think
it really was.
I stepped
in front of Cassie and opened the door.
When I
crossed the threshold, pulling Cassie behind me, my ears popped and I felt like
I’d jumped off the ledge of a building. My stomach jumped to my chest, the way
it does when you drop from the summit of a rollercoaster. It only lasted a
second, but a second can last forever under the right circumstances.
The room
inside was normal, for lack of a better word. Normal in size and proportion,
given what I had seen of the front of the House from outside; it could’ve
fitted correctly.
Any sense
of normality to it ended there, though.
The walls
were smeared in faded black paint, the kind you still see in nightclubs
sometimes
— the ones
that haven’t tarted themselves up, at least. It was lit with black light, with
so many strips it was more than enough to see by.
My eyes
adjusted, and my head
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