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A lovecraftian tale about marsh-lights that aren't marsh-lights |
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Prologue: It was three years ago, I think. Three years are far too short a length of time to distance myself from such an event. Despite all the therapy and psychiatric drugs, I cannot forget that ghoulish time. I tried drinking, but it seemed like no matter how dulled my senses and judgment were and how clumsy my movement, this terrible occurrence remains clear like some relentless searchlight, piercing through the haze to sear my mind's eye. I tried every drug and substance available, to no avail. The rapid mindset of cocaine and its lesser brethren was nothing compared to the quickened heartbeat my terror induced in that hideous place. Any hallucinogen would simply trap me and force me to relive the terror amidst chaos and distortions rather than provide escape. Sleep is now my only refuge from these nightmares of the past. My lucid resolve always succeeds in steering my dreams away from that dark chapter in my life, perhaps a rare favor from my subconscious. I sometimes still have nightmares, but now they seem empty and edgeless against the fear I have found in waking thought as a B-Movie sci-fi pales in comparison with a Stephen King novel. It might have been just a bad reaction, a waking dream, a hallucination, maybe brought on by the stress, the foul gases in the air, or some toxic secretion of beast, insect, or plant. I say this to myself each night, lying through my teeth. For it could not have been a hallucination. No natural toxin could dredge forth such a horror, and even if it was, it could not have been. One does not share hallucinations. She saw it too. They saw it. I know I have left, but I fear any remote return, any semblance of that dreadful expedition. For this reason I had drained and destroyed the reflecting pool I so enjoyed in years before. For this reason I always carry a mirror about, and while it fills me with anxiety and takes every ounce of will to gaze in it, I am always relieved at what I see. I have recounted these events so that, should the nightmare ever rise again like a body in a polluted lake floating to the surface and wholly entrap me, my loved ones will understand the need to put me out of my misery. I, Henry Walton, now recount the ghastly tale that I can only hope against hope was not real. Nothing can ever be the same. Fair is foul, but I doubt that foul is now fair. It all changed after I went to do field research that fateful August, in the seeping bilge of hell they call Cooper Swamp. ----------------------------------I------------------------------ At the time, I was an assistant professor for a medium liberal arts college. Idealistic and a tad naive in my early twenties, I was at that awkward position in life where I was abruptly forced to enter the real world outside of campuses and academics and sort out what to do for a living. I had come full circle back to the university that I originally attended as this seemed to be the only field that had any desire for me with my Ecology major and a minor in rustic folklore. I never understood why the university bothers to employ full-fledged professors. I did nearly all of the teaching and I never even got any face-to-face contact with the professor I was supposedly "assisting." For all I know he could have quit several months ago. It was because of this unsteady position I was seeking to prove myself, some opportunity to verify my dedication and ability so I could be secure in my job and look forward to the effective paid retirement of full professor status. If only I knew what awaited me, I would have left the trail of my learnings altogether and find a safe profession sheltered from the fields of forgotten knowledge, such as a carpenter or auto mechanic. My assignment was to research folklore surrounding swamps while studying the complex interplay of swamp ecosystems. The place chosen was a small marsh less than an hour's ride away from university grounds named after some forgotten pioneer of the cooper family. The wetland biomes are filled with inspiring opposites and juxtapositions, and such conflicting natures make the grounds for the most seductive folk-lore. Water and land converge, life and death flourish, decay runs parallel to perseveration, and in the clouded darkness and unfamiliar noises rustic men paint tales that symbolize the bog duplicity by confusing illusion and reality, life and death. Swamps had always been seen as a source of evil and death, a quite natural association given the large amount of disease and decay which fills them. The swamps acted as a kind of chemical scapegoat, soaking up all the toxins and diseased carrion from the waterways and safely trapping in it the neutralizing mud. The low amount of oxygen tended to slow natural processes of decomposition, and the water was denser and easier to float it, constantly emitting bubbles of foul-smelling gases, the combined effect was that a person exploring a bog was not unlikely to meet a slime-covered but otherwise well-preserved corpse surfacing at them with a gurgle and a splash out of the water for a very frightening effect. It was these occurrences that lead to stories of the bogey-man, (bog-man), as many experts in the field believe. Another intimidating feature of the bogs was the tendency of swamp gases to ignite briefly creating eerie floating balls of silent flame. Medieval peasants saw these inexplicable lights and told stories about will-o' wisps or corpse candles, supernatural lights that tried to trick people into following them then abandoning them in the deeper parts of the swamp. At the time I scoffed at such a melodramatic few of simple methane fires, but after what I have been through I can only bitterly chuckle at the grotesque understatement. -----------------------------------------II--------------------------------- On the edge of the swamp dwelt a small community of lower class degenerates who subsisted mainly on a combination of fishing, farming, a combination gas station and diner, and occasional government hand-outs. I hired three of the locals, a middle aged couple to act as guides, and a young girl who owned the least-dilapidated motorboat in the village. The couple referred to themselves as Hans and Guinness Cooper. They were both balding and mottled by wrinkles and patches and the occasional odd growth, not to mention numerous scars. Between the two of them I could count a total of nine teeth. They each had the grim, resigned look of somebody who has remained alive many years through sheer stubbornness and rustic determination. The woman's thinning hair was untidy, soiled, and bright orange, combined with her worn and feeble frame so that I could not help but be reminded of some wild bird with bright plumage designed to frighten predators. The man had a sour look that made him seem constantly as if he had just realized the piece of meat he was chewing expired several days ago. He had a shotgun slung by his side, and at his belt was a holster containing a silver-handled axe with a single quartz gem set in it, no doubt the only valuable thing he owned. Jane Yoth was different. She looked healthy, alive, as if she had merely been drugged, beaten up, and abandoned in the swamp a few weeks ago rather than having lived their for the short span of her life. Her skin was light, but not the unhealthy pale common to people who live in such dark and dreary places. Her hair was dirty blond somewhat unkempt, cut just short of shoulder-length. Her clothes slightly torn and stained, gave of a sense of tomboyish charm. A five-pointed star token held she was robust and plump, around 175 pounds, but her softness was backed by sturdy muscles. Despite the belief that I had long ago overcome foolish adolescent impulses, I fell in love with her the way that a boy of 17 falls in love with a new girl every week, that longing which is no the less passionate for its fleetingness. Any thoughts of romance or lust were halted when I met with her eyes. Those cold, grim eyes, those bitter eyes that had seen things to dark and terrible to bear, eyes forever stained by some traumatic terror. A chill came over me and with a single shudder all passions emotional and physical drained from my body and sank into the mud. As this went through my mind, the man turned to me and asked in a thick dialectic accent why I wanted to come into the swamp. "I'm doing research here," I replied simply. "There 'taint nuthin in thar worth searching for," he said. "I'm studying bog ecosystems and local folklore." The man gave a wince at "folklore" and his wife frowned. He repeated his discouraging remark. "Look, I'll pay you well. Just take me out their and I'll decide what I want to look for." The girl just sighed. The man and woman reluctantly got into the boat with me, and the man brandished his axe. "Whatever you do, take care not to pay the marsh lights any heed. They can be tricksome things." I gave an indulgent nod, assuming he was subject to the standard superstitions of his people, with no idea of the experience from which he spoke. ----------------------------------III------------------------------ The journey into the swamp was not a pleasant one, even by the low standards of such areas. Despite my academic interest in the marsh ecosystem, it was not very appealing to me in my first hands-on encounter. The whole place stunk. It stank across the known spectrum of foul odors; from the chemical stench of sulfur, to the raw reek of rotting flesh. The bubbling mud rose from swamp gases and slurched in a nauseating caphony. The steady dripping of slime recalled the splattering noise made by thin vomit. Aside from the vague movements in the waters, I could see no sign of vertebrate life, not so much as a single frog. Perhaps the lack of frogs explained the overabundance of insects. The air was constantly filled with buzzing clouds of mosquitoes, gnats, and other blood-sucking creatures. The swamp also had some as of yet undiscovered fiendish relative of the cricket, which made a loud, constant brain-rattling noise that sounded like “neek-breek,” and I half-jokingly dubbed them the neeka-breekers. As we got deeper into the swamp, I began to notice some odd phenomena. The swamp gas seemed to vary from its usual orange color to a soft white or a sickly green, and these oddly colored balls of swamp gas were lasting far longer than any I had ever observed. They moved about with a curious darting and bobbing motion that seemed wholly ignorant of prevailing air currents. I even fancied that they were following us, but due to their disorienting tendency to darting in and out of view and lack of distinguishing features these irrational suspicions were impossible to disprove. The locals seemed to regard the lights with familiarity and caution, as a desert nomad eyes a scorpion or a native Floridian considers a large alligator. For the third time the old man proclaimed his warning not to trust my sight while the swamp lights were abroad, backed up by his wife, while the girl driving the boat just stared grimly. I still did not believe the old fairy tales about will o’ wisps and their various synonyms, but as I watched those eerie silent lights, dancing about with an almost intelligent pattern and direction, I felt an empathetic shiver of inner fear and understood how an uninformed peasant must have felt watching such a gaseous apparition defy the basic laws of nature he knew. -----------------------------------IV------------------------- I took out my camera to record this peculiar swamp gas. As I fumbled with it, my finger slipped and my spare film roll splashed into the mire. I reflexively looked for it in the toxic mud and staggered with a shuddered that threatened to upend the minute vessel. Keeping pace with the tiny vessel was a grim shape matching me with its empty stare. I blinked and flinched with surprise, until I realized that it was my own reflection. Something about it seemed…different in that cool, unearthly light. My skin looked grey and waxy, and it seemed to be peeling in some places. My face was stretched and gaunt, the skin missing from my lips so that my mouth showed bare teeth dripping with a sluggish bleed from the nearby exposed flesh. There was a large gash right along my throat, a hole in one cheek, one eye lidless and staring covered in filmy white and the other entirely absent OH GOD NO! With a violent shudder and a choked scream I wrenched myself from the horrid reflection. Desperately I grasped my face, feeling around, and even poked myself in the eyes to be sure they were both intact. I looked around, but the old man merely fixed me with an angry leer. The woman grabbed my arm with her bony hand, her face pained by an expression of concern. “Are you all right? You really shouldn’t look at the water too long…the fumes can make your head funny and the light plays tricks.” “No…I mean, yes, I think I’ll just lie down for a bit,” I said, filled with a sense of foolishness even before my dread had fully passed, unwilling to admit to something so irrational and childish. My higher mind eagerly pounced upon the “logical” explanation, allowing me to calm down somewhat, but I still found myself staring intently at the bottom of the boat to avoid glimpsing the reflective surface. -----------------------------------------------V----------------------------------------------------------------------------- We slowly petered along for some hours before the motor slowed and ground to a halt. The woman poked an oar into the water and confirmed that it had become too shallow to continue by boat. As that though flickered through my mind I was instantly doubled over with gut-clenching nausea, reeling with a new fear. Of course I had known all along that the mire would become too thick and we would need to wade, but the full significance of this had not connected with the freshly repressed memory of the hideous reflection until now. As I got out, I made a singular and focused effort to calm myself, lest I slip and drown in the stinking mud. I stared concentrating at a tree in front of me, zeroing in as though some universal secret was inscribed upon its bark, and quietly hummed a nursery rhyme to myself. I felt the trembling of my hands increase and instantly stopped, instead reciting the periodic table. Nursery rhymes were never really that pleasant to me, even as a child, always full of depraved things like infants falling to their deaths, and had been used to great effect in half the horror films I had ever watched. As I slowly felt the eager filth swallow up my feet, I mused that few things in fact could have been distorted to a greater level of mockery and nightmare in that eerie bubbling atmosphere than such a lilting childish tune. As soon as I got my footing, I made sure to keep my eyes locked straight ahead, even at risk of stumbling or tripping, so as not to risk catching my reflection in the waters below. This was not so much a deliberate choice as a subconscious reaction that my conscious mind eagerly approved. I tried to focus my eyes on the path ahead, but whenever I strayed to glance at my companions I noticed their eyes where likewise carefully aligned with the horizon and avoiding the waters below. It might have been my imagination, but it seemed that the balls of swamp gas were getting closer to us. The water began to ripple under them as they circled faster while moving closer, ignorant of or in defiance to centrifugal force. One of them suddenly darted very close, so close that forcibly caught my attention then dove and splashed the water surface. I stumbled and shielded my eyes, and when I opened them again I realized I was now staring down. The water on the patch where the swamp gas splashed was not hot; in fact I could see it lined by the floating chunks of rapidly formed frost. I had no time to contemplate this, for my diabolic doppelganger quickly appeared through the murk, gaping up at me. I turned my head to look away, but as I did so a new monstrous visual made itself clear. The old man was also reflected, his withered face stretched into a feral, almost dog-like mouth, pieces of rotting flesh caught between its needle like teeth, one of its claws clutching a cracked-open bone as the tongue greedily eased out marrow from it. The old woman appeared twisted, elegant and yet somehow wild, sinister, eyes glowing inhumanly, skin bleached white, ears sharply pointed, back hunched, hands clawed, and a fresh trickle of blood running from the fangs. The female boat owner was parodied as a bare skeleton, unhindered by flesh, marked by only a few dead weeds and swamp mud dripping from it. I barely kept my balance as I staggered and retched, far too frightened to scream. There was one reflection their with no human counterpart, a skull with a candle in it that seemed to be giving off far to much light…a skull…a skull directly under the accursed ball that I knew could not be swamp gas. I gasped out a gargled moan that mixed terror with mad rage, and whipped out my pistol. I fired six shots into the fray. Most of them missed, of the three that hit only one seemed to have much of an effect on the hellish lights, causing the light to weaken and forcing something out of it with a sickening but satisfying squelching sound. The lights all seemed to flicker, and their mocking circle changed into an erratic but feverant bobbing and swiveling. The girl turned to me with a grave expression and, speaking for the first time, said “You should not have done that.” ---------------------------------------------------------------VI------------------------------------------------------ The circling lights were fiercely weaving closer, like a pack of wolves closing in for the kill. One of them lashed out and seared my hand. I expected to feel a burning sensation, but the effect was opposite. It bit like frostburn, bitterly cold, sucking the heat from my hand so violently the skin cracked and bled. The water beneath seemed to ripple and churn eagerly. I turned to see the old man go down with a gasp, his face contorted with unimaginable horror to the point where his features seemed to sprain and tear from the sheer violent force of the fright they were attempting to convey as he was pulled thrashing into the mire. A few splashes and bubbles came up, but after that nothing more. The old woman stared dumbfounded, blankly, numb with shock, gripping her hands. The frequency of the things around me was increasing when I saw a glint of silver. Unthinkingly I grabbed it, yanking out of the water the axe that had been dislodge from the man's belt and swung it with all my might. I struck, hitting with greater accuracy and strength than I thought possible, as if the very tool itself assisted my strike, and the shining blade cleaved straight through one of the ghastly lights with a hideous squelching sound. The thing faded as it splashed into the water, and I caught a brief glimpse of wrinkled gray substance splashing into the water. The lights seared with increase intensity as if angered by the assault on their comrade and swarmed about me. I found with each successive slash and my mounting panic, I missed worse and none of the hits I made had any serious damage like that of the first blow. The girl, who I had forgotten in the frenzy of the attack, quickly ducked under some of the spectral glows and grasped the weapon from me, expertly hacking with it to score a wound and two killing blows in less than half a minute. At this dramatic assault the others swirled back and bobbed nervously as if considering the prospect of further attack, then drifted off back into the shadows of the marsh with an air of mortal contempt. "More will come later," she said, and without a word she led me back to the boat where we proceeded to make a hasty departure. -------------------------------------------------------------------VII------------------------------------------------------------------------------- They did come. Even as we worked to dislodge the boat from the muddy shallows, more of the ghastly illumination began to shine through the fog. It edged towards us slowly, but every moment it seemed to be growing in purpose and vigor. The moment we were free, she set the boat to its fullest acceleration, driving the motor for all it was worth, churning through the noxious waters with all the lurching and skipping of a panicked rodent. Even as we speed onward, we seemed unable to evade our phantasmal pursuers. Less than a minute after we outran one we found the frail vessel careening towards another cluster of the hideous orbs. Whether they were dispersed thickly throughout the swamp or possessed some superior means of uncanny locomotion I cannot say. It was several minutes before I realized that we had cleared the bulk of them, my retinas still stained with swimming imprints made by those eldritch blurs. As we began to slow down, the grip of terror upon my mind slackened enough for some thoughts to flow. I struggled to form some questions, but I could only retch out scattered words. “Those…lights…he… water…looked…image…that…what?” She turned to me, and spoke slowly. “I don’t know what they are. I just know they’ve been here for a long time. They rise out of the swamp, and they…their light…” she trailed off, unwilling to speak of it any more than was necessary. At that moment, the boat hit a small stump and lurched violently. The motion caught her off guard, and she was nearly thrown out of the boat. As I grabbed her, I felt unusual resistance, as if she was being tugged down. When I yanked her safely into the boat, she turned towards me, face as calm and silent as ever, but her eyes were bloodshot and open far wider than I would have thought possible. She grabbed the oar and began swinging it madly, thwacking it against the water as if to beat the swamp itself into submission. I tried to restrain her, but she was strong with hardship-forged muscles, and she bit savagely into my arm until I was forced to let go. As I felt the boat rocking with her rapid motion, I closed my eyes, still fearing the reflections on the water. I noticed then a sulphur-yellow glow, shining through my lids. I opened them and lurched backwards, finding one of the nightmarish lights right in front of my face. I bent to grasp the axe and I felt the creature strike against its back. As well as the searing cold, I felt a slimy mass brush against my back. I wasted no time contemplating this new information. I swung at it in the fever of panic, three, four, maybe seven blows, not pausing to see if I had struck true. Even as it fell to the marsh, seemingly destroyed, I swung another blow at it in my aggressive panic. Only when the light vanished did I turn my attention back to the boat and its other occupant. She seemed to have calmed down now, though she was shivering. I doubt if she even remembered the episode. I paused to think about what had happened to send her into such frenzy. Was there some other enemy to contend with? Even as I dreamed up innumerable potential abominations reaching out of the mire to drag us under, I felt the nagging sensation of a recent memory, trapped just below the surface, some terrible truth I had hidden with these idle fantasies like a corpse half-buried in filth. I knew it must be important, some clue that would mean the difference between survival and a grisly death, but I was already to laden with fear and revulsion to probe what deeper horror I had repressed. I was psychologically trapped, cornered by two fears. I felt unable to risk not remembering, yet I dared not uncover it. As I closed my eyes, focusing to break down my mental defenses, I heard a sound that in this fell bog of contagion was as beautiful as a celestial anthem. It was the gurgling of fresh water. One of the many streams that fed into this hellish place was nearby. At once I reached back and increased the speed, eager to escape into open day. Even as my goal neared, my heart was filled with despair and dread. Just above the river’s mouth was a bulging swarm of the unholy spheres. They seemed to quiver and roll with silent daemonic laughter. I tried to turn the speed down so the boat could turn, but my fingers were numb with panic, and I mistakenly set it to maximum power. The boat tore forward like some profane steed delivering us to our dooms. Even as time seemed to slow, we were gliding towards them all too fast. The vessel struck a sharp, slanted rock and became airborne, the axe went soaring from my hand, and in that one moment I knew utter despair. ------------------------------------------------------VIII---------------------------------------------------- In that final moment, the axe hurtled right at the center of the grotesque cloud. The startled glows parted in the split second at which the boat soared through them, landing with a jarring crash upon the rocky bank and splitting in three. I do not know how long I laid there. They tell me when I awoke in the hospital that along with the minor fractures from the crash I had signs of frostbite and severe shock. I seemed mentally at ease until the nurse came in with dish of water to wash myself with when I slapped it out of her hand, flailing and shrieking that I must not look at it. I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress syndrome and intense phobia, and I spent several drugged years in an asylum. After that I started regularly seeing a psychologist, and the therapy was going well until I had a relapse. The well-meaning doctor had stirred up in my mind that recollection which I had fought so hard to repress. It was the thing I witnessed. I saw with wild eyes what had happened to the old man, what grisly monstrosity dragged him under. It was his reflection. THE END |
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