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Abraham Portman was dead.
I held the mangled corpse, unable to move, shaking with some unidentified yet visceral emotion as I stared down at the pool of blood seeping closer and closer to my sneakers. No. No, no, no, he can’t be dead, he can’t-
My breath caught in my throat as a twisting in my gut nearly caused me to fall over, painful and prolonged. Something felt horrifyingly wrong, like my blood didn’t want to stay in my veins anymore and was attempting to mutiny. I coughed out a choked, sobbing breath, looking around in a wild panic for someone, anyone, but there was-
There was someone.
No, not someone. Some thing. And as I continued to watch the shadows of the woods, the twisting, ripping sensation in my gut only intensifying, a picture started to piece itself together in my mind – a picture I really didn’t want to see. A picture I wished had never come to pass, or never even been thought into existence at all.
Abraham Portman had just died in my arms.
‘Find the bird, in the loop.’
But he hadn’t just died. He had been killed. Eviscerated by a nightmarish hellbeast with too many tongues and a shriveled, corpselike body. My grandfather had just been murdered by the unholy offspring of Cthulu and a zombie, and here I was, crouching uselessly over his body.
And there was the Creature, staring me down with a hollow wrath in its eyes.
‘On the other side of the old man’s grave.’
It emanated a sense of Wrongness, its bulging eyes feeling hollow and empty. It didn’t have that shine, that spark to it that every other human being had, because this was not a human being. It was something other, something awful and not right. And it was coming towards me.
“Oh man. Oh Jesus. Oh Jesus. ” Without looking behind me, I could easily identify the voice as Ricky’s, babbling something about finding a pulse and calling the cops and ‘did you see anything in the woods’, as if I wasn’t staring down the very noticeable monster at this exact second with panic in my eyes and a deep-seated fear in my soul.
‘September third, 1940.’
The light was too dim. I knew Ricky had a shotgun, and it may have been the stupidest decision I would ever make, but I raised my phone light in the Creature’s direction and shouted something, and in a blink, the air was rife with the pap-pap-pap-pap of bullets firing from Ricky’s .22 as he filled the wraith with lead. But that twisting feeling, that sensation of wrongness was still there as I saw the Creature fleeing into the woods, and that was the last thing I remembered before I passed out on the forest floor, collapsing into a puddle of mud and the blood of a dead man.
oOoOo
Ricky didn’t remember what we – what I had seen in the woods that night.
And since he couldn’t corroborate my statement, there was absolutely no way I was going to tell the cops that some horrifying Lovecraftian nightmare spawn had killed my grandfather. That was the kind of thing that got people locked up in mental hospitals, the kind of thing that got you put away somewhere you wouldn’t be coming back out of.
The cops questioned me extensively about that night, and now my father was watching me like the hawks he was so interested in, but I hadn’t told them everything. As far as they were concerned, I’d seen a ‘dark figure’ attack my grandfather, and I’d been too far away and too startled to get close enough to see it. And in my defense, I hadn’t actually lied to them about everything . I had been too far away, and I had been too startled, but those only prevented me from actually being useful, not from seeing the face of the attacker.
Plus, it was the kind of thing that Ricky could neither confirm nor deny, which meant it was the perfect scapegoat while I tried to figure out what the hell was really going on.
And now, cleaning out the magazines in my grandfather’s house, my dad was looking at me like he thought maybe I did belong in a mental hospital. Granted, he definitely didn’t know about the Thing, with the tongues and the shrivelliness and the dead shrunken eyes, but he did suspect something was off. All week, he’d been trying to talk to me about seeing a ‘doctor’, and citing some article he’d read about ‘open and healthy communication’, as if that were something our family did. He was trying, sure, but our family just wasn’t like that. I did my thing, and my parents did theirs. Someday I’d probably be expected to inherit the business, but with any luck it would go to a cousin and I could find something I actually wanted to do with my life, an endeavor I hadn’t had much success with yet.
My thoughts were still a turmoil of guilt and confusion, only exacerbated by the fact that we were going through Abraham Portman's possessions with such nonchalance, as if he had just quietly passed away instead of been brutally eviscerated.
“Hey, champ,” my dad said, inadvertently interrupting my inner monologue. “How’s the cleaning coming?”
I shrugged sullenly. “...Fine, I guess. I don’t see why I can’t keep any of the magazines.”
My dad’s attempt at a cheerful expression became rather pinched. “Now, son, it’s not healthy to hold onto the past. You’ve got to let go, like those books your mother read say.”
What, the ‘Child Trauma for Dummies’ books and those uncited news articles you like? I’ll take my chances. “Maybe… just a few books? Just, um, to remember him by. Y’know, honoring memory and stuff.”
He didn’t look convinced in the least, but I didn’t say any more, simply looking him in the eye and waiting for the response. Finally, he sighed, waving a hand towards the open door. “One box, and that’s it. And I hope I won’t see you staring at it all day, or it’ll have to go for the sake of your health.”
Yeah, yeah. My ‘health’, your reputation. Nobody wants a nutjob son. I nodded dutifully. “Got it. Thanks, Dad.”
I was gone before he could blink, skittering out of the suffocating room and making a beeline for my grandfather’s bedroom. I wasn’t sure why I felt the need to go in there, but it felt important that I be the first to enter, not my father or my aunt. If I got there first, I could at least try and save some of his possessions… though I didn’t really know why I wanted to do that so badly, either.
He was gone. There wouldn’t be anyone coming back for his stuff – there wasn’t anyone who could, or who would. At his age, all of his old friends had long since died, and if there were any left, they certainly weren’t in contact anymore. But… it still felt like a betrayal to let my grandfather’s treasured possessions be destroyed.
And if nothing else, there was at least one thing I knew I could save. Or rather, one box of things.
In my grandfather’s room, it only took a few minutes before I found exactly what I was looking for. A cigar box, tattered and worn from years of use, small enough to fit in one hand with ease. I dusted it off and slid it open and started to thumb through the contents, mindful of how fragile the old material would be. Some of the photos were familiar, like the invisible boy, the levitating girl, and the boulder lifter, but past those were five I’d never seen before.
There was a brittle photograph depicting a girl trapped in a bottle, something that could’ve easily been accomplished with a double exposure. It was a similar case with the next two photographs – a ‘levitating’ baby suspended in front of a shadowed doorway, probably being held by someone out of sight, and a dog lying on its side with a male face pasted over its own – but I was still loathe to write them all off as just… mockeries. It didn’t feel right. And sure, maybe I was crazy for thinking that, but something about it just didn’t sit right with me, to think these photos were all faked.
But no. That was obvious proof of my newfound insanity. What kind of person would actually believe this nonsense?
You would, whispered my traitorous subconscious as I quickly shoved it down. And so would your grandfather.
Yes, because he was-
He was-
He wasn’t crazy. Maybe I was, but I just… couldn’t believe it. If that made me even crazier, for refusing to acknowledge reality, then maybe my father’s ‘concerned’ looks were right after all.
All things considered, I was honestly shocked I’d not been sent to a therapist after the ‘traumatic event’ known as my grandfather being ripped to shreds in front of me, but since I’d kept it to myself about the Creature, they had no reason to believe I wasn’t grieving normally like everyone else was, and they had even less reason to think I was well and truly bonkers. Besides, sending their only son and the supposed ‘company heir’ to a therapist would’ve been bad press for my utterly traditionalist parents.
Sighing, I took the cigar box and shoved it into my pants pocket, then went to look for something else I could take. My dad wouldn’t have let me keep the photographs, but for some reason, I didn’t want to let them be taken away.
And besides, what my parents didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.