From the World's Decay
I wrote this four years ago, posted it here under the original title ‘Why Death Abounds’ but I split it into two parts because it’s basically a novella. This time it’s all one and renamed after a new poem that links the stories:
ONE
“and he hath brought us into this place, and hath given us this land, even a land that floweth with milk and honey.”
Deuteronomy 26:9 KJV
The smartly dressed lawyer repeats himself once more, “Yes, your father was reported missing seven years ago - I’m sorry, I was made to believe that you were notified?”
David stares skeptically at the man, then lets his eyes drift into a blank middle-distance before answering, “No… no, I wasn’t. Well, someone might’ve tried to contact me. My father and I, we aren’t, uh, weren’t, on the best terms.”
The lawyer doesn’t break his placid gaze, instead plowing through the potentially awkward silence, “Ah, well, that is regrettable. And I am terribly sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it does come with a sort of silver lining. As I stated previously, the statute for declaring a missing person, or persons, ‘presumed dead’ is seven years, of which time has since lapsed. That being true means that there is now the matter of your fathers last will and testament.”
David is brought out of his erstwhile stupor, back to the unanticipated subject at hand. “But you said presumed dead, doesn’t that change things somehow?”
The overdressed man remains unperturbed by the subject, continuing, “Legally speaking, it has little effect. Once you sign these documents, you will be the official owner of the property in North Dakota, including all of the possessions therein.”
David looks back to the lawyer dresssed like a knife and says, “And if I don’t want it? Can’t you sell it or something?”
The lawyer doesn’t miss a beat, answering in a friendly but rote speech, “Well I encourage all clients to first see the property and verify that there is nothing there they wish to keep before acting to sell. In this case I would judge it especially prudent, as there are several colonies of bees reported to be on the property - the value of which you can see here, in the file.”
David mechanically takes the proffered folder and asks incredulously, “I’m sorry, did you say bees? Like bumblebees?”
The implacable lawyer responds, “Yes, that’s right. Several colonies of honeybees are on the property, which, according to the file, are valued rather highly. If you wish to sell the bees apart from the property, at their listed value, you will have to claim ownership and then begin the process of selling them on their own.”
David opens the file and sees the listed value of his father’s honeybee colonies. His eyes open wider for a moment, then he closes the folder again. David inquires, “Don’t bees need taken care of? Has anyone been doing that?”
The lawyer, seeming to intuit David’s decision to sign, produces a pen from nowhere while answering through a fixed smile, “I’m sure I don’t know, Mr. Whitfield. All the more reason to inspect the property as soon as you are able.”
David clicks the pen and returns it to the glabrous hand of the lawyer. With that, he smiles and says something about being in touch, and then disappears.
David is distracted with thoughts of his father and his apparent disappearance that brought the lawyer to his door. Seven years? A feeling of unreality spreads as he shuts his door and returns to his kitchen table. While he will not mourn the loss of his father, he is met with an incongruity. It feels as if his father has just gone missing, yet he has actually been gone for seven years. David flips through the folder of information, as faint memories replay in his mind. With one hand he absently rubs his knee where small scars blotch the skin, and with the other he unknowingly traces a strange box-shape on the table. He can hear the intangible voice of his father, perfectly clear in his ear. David is kneeling on rice as his father stoically recites scripture, occasionally landing impersonal strikes with his leather belt. Seven years - Finally, a holy number in a context David can appreciate. And thirteen years since they last spoke, on the day he left. This realization doesn’t amuse him however, and he shivers slightly. He closes the folder, still rubbing his knee, and settles on the decision to drive up to the property tomorrow morning. He is brought out of his contemplative state by a buzzing noise: the distinct sound of an insect against a window. He stands from his table and walks over to the window with a napkin, intending to squash the fly. Once he sees the trapped insect, he realizes it is a bee or a wasp and opts for a safer route of removal. He carefully opens the window and the bee crawls across the spectral pane to the opening. It pauses there, flutters its filmy wings and then buzzes off into the outside world. David stares after the departing insect, the ghost of an uneasy feeling growing in his stomach.
The night is filled with strange dreams and cold sweats. In that liminal place, he finds himself standing on the property line of his fathers house in North Dakota. It resembles the place he grew up, yet dreams have a way of rendering the familiar into something alien and strange. The house bears a malignant cast, with every living plant seeming to lean away. The entire structure shivers and warps. The ground, rather than solid, is comprised of strange slats. David approaches wearily and finds a gaping hole in the ground at least 12 feet deep. He gazes down into the bottom and sees it is filled with withered old Bibles and other such old tomes. Atop the books stands a man, faced away, swinging a belt at some small indiscernible thing wreathed in shadow. He knows the man is Old Man Saul and he knows what the small shadowy thing is. He looks away, and sees the house quiver, then explode outward in a million humming pieces. Small shards of the house buzz around him like insects before bombarding his arm, stinging fiercely in a thousand places. He wakes up screaming and can still feel the thousands of tiny needles puncturing his skin. There’s the strong and unaccountable smell of bananas permeating the dark room. Touching his arm hesitantly, he finds it numb from the position he was laying in. He rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling, seeking rest in vain. As he stares up, the darkness in the corners seems to crawl and move. The shadows creeping inward, slowly encompassing the entire ceiling in a depthless black. Eventually, he passes into restless and unremembered dreams.
TWO
“… My father hath troubled the land: see, I pray you, how mine eyes have been enlightened, because I tasted a little of this honey.”
1 Samuel 14:29 KJV
David awakens in a clammy state of dishevelment with the wisps of a dream that evaporates as he tries to recall it. He gets dressed and leaves before the dawn stretches its blinding arm up over the horizon. He is driving for several hours, past lonely houses and through the occasional city. He calls to have the electricity restored at the house, then he drives in silence. The quiet hum of the tires against the asphalt lulls him into a mindless stare. He can’t help but feel like he is being pulled back to the house he grew up in, that unseen forces are at work to bring him back. He comes close to turning around twice. The exterior world speeds by in a brownish-green blur; the landscape, a topographical rug being quickly pulled out from underneath him. Suddenly an animal runs across the road and David is forced to jam his foot onto the brakes. Startled out of his monotonous drive, he looks around and realizes he is on a road with nothing in either direction, ahead or behind. A dense wall of trees lines the road on either side, and there are no road signs or markers of any kind. David pulls out his phone and is unsurprised to see it displaying no signal. Something seems to pull slightly at his memory, that maybe he knows this empty road. He rolls down his driver-side window to look backward, but still sees nothing. More disconcerting is that he hears nothing either: no animal or insect, car or person. He makes the only real choice he has, to drive deeper into these eerie woods and farther down this ominous road. He tries to think of what his driveway looked like, or the street he grew up on, but the memories feel hazy and ethereal.
He drives for what feels like an eternity, watching the ubiquitous tree line encroach closer and then recede slightly as he speeds by. He passes an abandoned house that is so completely overgrown and decrepit that he nearly mistakes it for part of the forest. On and on he drives, until finally his phone buzzes with the sudden reception of service. David grabs it and inputs the familiar address: 40 Forest Lane. The GPS loads and then shows the house as being three miles behind him, which is impossible because he would have seen it. But there was nothing back there, just woods. He looks in his rear view mirror at the empty zenith of the road, the point in which all the lines converge into a vacant speck. It couldn’t be back there, but he turns the truck around and follows the road back until the GPS unceremoniously posits that he has arrived. He looks around and sees nothing. Then, he sees the depressed ruts of car tires in the grass, leading to a slight break in the trees. There in the grass is a small sign with a Bible verse burned into its grain. It reads, “He will not look upon the rivers, the streams flowing with honey and curds. Job 20:17” It’s subtle and the message is eerie, yet he’s surprised he missed it. More than that, he truly can’t understand how he has no memory of this driveway. He pulls the truck off the road and into the heart of the woods. It doesn’t feel familiar in the slightest.
The trees are much closer now, their spindly oppressive limbs forming a cage overhead like the petrified fingers of ancient creatures long forgotten - or perhaps never even known - hiding the gray sky from view. The lane continues this way for enough time that the rear view resembles the fore view. The only sounds to be heard are the crunching of stones and gravel under the tires, and the occasional snapping of twigs. Ahead, he can see sunlight and an apparent end to the nefarious wall of trees. When his truck finally emerges from the tunnel of reaching branches, David finds himself in an unfamiliar clearing. Fields of flowers stretch off to the right and left and he slowly drives his truck through on two narrow tire tracks that have been worn through to hard earth. Out in the center of one field of flowers is a stack of boxes that David recognizes as bee hives, though he doesn’t see any activity. At the end of the flower fields are several rows of fruit trees that also have a stack of bee boxes in a slight clearing, but he still hasn’t noticed any bees. Then he sees the rear of his familiar childhood home. A swirl of negative emotions roils around in his stomach. He pulls up to the small shed his father would fill with canned things, and he shuts off the truck. Then there is nothing: the sound of dead air. It feels as though the windows are up, and he will open the door to a clamor of insectile chirrups and aviary caws. Yet his window is still down. David sits for several agonizing minutes, hearing only the innate whine of his own ears. Not even a zephyr disturbs the atavistic silence.
When he finally convinces himself to move, he is met with the feeling of everything shifting its focus to him: as though every branch, rock, and board is watching. The gravel drive crunches under his boots, and his keys jingle loudly as he flips through them for the right one. He mounts the back porch which wraps around to the front, and the boards seem to groan and agonize over his every step. He reaches the door quickly and finds himself shaky. He tries his key in the lock, but it doesn’t turn. His father must’ve changed the locks at some point. Checking the old spot first, he finds it vacant of any keys, as expected. He thinks for a moment and considers where Old Man Saul would have hidden his spare. He checks under the mat, in the light by the door, in the rafters, and behind the wood burned sign reading, “‘And all they of the land came to a wood; and there was honey upon the ground.’ 1 Samuel 14:25”: he does not find the spare key. His father must have become paranoid in his old age. Just then he notices a crease in the plastic siding next to the door. He bends it back and pulls the siding away and finds a small hide-a-key mounted to the wood there. He removes the key and opens the door to be greeted by a host of strange things. The first is the state which the house was left in: there are papers littered across the floor and pinned to the walls, open books on nearly every surface, and dirty dishes strewn about. The second thing he notices is the overwhelmingly sweet smell of honey, mixed with something rotten and foul. Then there is the drawing.
Every piece of furniture has been pushed away from a space in the center of the living room. In the empty space there is a white chalk drawing, scrawled in lurid arcs and crazed lines. The shape of it can’t even seem to be registered by a human eye. The longer David stares at it, the more it seems to contort and squirm into other shapes. It is sort of like an imperfect cube, with every face being misshapen and detailed with strange markings. He can’t explain why, but it scares him. He has goosebumps on his arms before he finally pulls the large rug overtop of it. He takes stock of the room and then moves to the kitchen. There are a few jars and dishes on the counter, along with something rotten sitting on a plate. He makes his way back to the bedrooms and peaks into his fathers room first. Not much has changed in 13 years, it looks to be in the same state of disarray as when he left. Then he looks into his old room, and finds it in the exact state he left it: well organized and cleaned, save for the thick patina of dust accumulated through years of disuse. He walks back out to the living room and grabs a thick industrial-sized trash bag, throwing away dishes and scraps of paper with scribbles and drawings on them. As he works, he vaguely organizes the papers and books into two piles; those written by his father, and those not. Despite intending only to get rid of the filthy plates and dishes, he finds himself staring out over a mostly clean and organized living space 45 minutes later.
THREE
“… and he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion, and behold, there was a swarm of bees in the body of the lion, and honey.”
Judges 14:8 RSV-C
The living room now consists of three mounds, three summations of the final years in his father’s life. A pile of garbage and rotten food, one of old esoteric texts, and a third of strange inanities scribbled out by a failing mind. Each grave mound serves as both headstone and obituary to the forgotten life of his father: ‘Here Lies Saul “Old Man” Whitfield: Angry in Life, Mad in Death’. Yet, he does not lie here and it begs the question - what happened? The disappearance does not bother David emotionally, but rather practically. Some of the items he sorted through do bother him emotionally. There are dozens of old books, including several translations of the Bible, and several books he doesn’t recognize. David sits down on the floor by the stacks of books, more out of curiosity than anything. As he reads the spines of the books, and flips through a few of the pages at random, he is surprised at the contents. The first few are simple King James Bibles and other translations, along with the occasional book about bees, but the texts become stranger as he glances through them. He finds collections of apocryphal texts known to be rejected by certain branches of Christianity. There are different prints of theologoumena, books and stories not held as inspired by any church. Then he comes across several unknown tomes of the occult, some with names he knows and others with foreign titles. There is a thin text called ‘The Book of Lies’ by Aleister Crowley, another much larger book called ‘Three Books of Occult Philosophy’ by Cornelius Agrippa, a strange text called the ‘Grand Grimoire’ by Pythagoras, and a few other blatantly occult texts mixed into the pile.
There is one book however, that sends shivers radiating up his spine, reminding him of the crazed chalk drawing on which he sits. The book has no name or title on the outside, but the first of its yellowing pages says, ‘Forrey’. Perhaps the author? As he holds it in his hands, he feels goosebumps rising on his arms. It is bound in a heavy gray colored material not unlike slate, and the color and quality of the pages speak to a very old printing date. Or perhaps, not printed at all?... When he holds it at a certain angle, the ink glares slightly, indicating it may have been handwritten. This Nameless Book reads much like a religious text, with flowery old English. He reads at random, flipping his way through. He sees terrifying sketches and indecipherable images, unfamiliar equations and alien words. When he flips to the final sections of the book, he finds the last two dozen pages hastily torn away. He closes the book and sets it aside, wishing to distance himself from it, then he moves over to the pile of papers. There are a few hastily written reminders, and many vague lists of words. A little less than half of the material pertains to beekeeping, while the rest is composed of indecipherable ramblings and sketches. The handwriting becomes more fevered and less legible as the notes shift further down the twisting path of paranoia.
David rubs the back of his neck while he looks at his fathers papers. Shapes of imperfect cubes and hexagon patterns are littered across the floor. With a shiver he recalls the nameless gray book and the white chalk shape under the carpet. He wants to be away from the two things, so he stands and wanders through the house, reliving memories he’d rather not have lived the first time. Before long, he wants to be away from the house as well, so he decides to investigate the hives outside. He exits the front of the house and is immediately confronted with a pile of dirt and earth, the edge encompassing the porch. When he steps off the porch and looks to the other side of the dirt, he sees a large hole in the ground. As he draws closer, he is aware of an irrational fear that he will find his father’s decomposing body. Approaching the hole, he notices a few things: it appears to be six feet in depth, and was dug by hand. There is the remnant of an impression in the dirt wall at the bottom, it seems to have been a crate or chest of some kind. Could it have been a coffin? No, too small… He shivers and pushes the thought aside. David suddenly remembers a flash of the nightmare he had last night; of his father in a hole. He feels the goosebumps returning on his arm and the hair on his neck stands on end. He stares down into the hole then attempts to stave off the chills by rubbing his arms. He can’t help but wonder what strange dealings his father was involved in before he vanished.
David turns away from the hole and notices the front door of the shed, slightly ajar. He walks over and pushes the door open, once again needlessly anxious. He stares into the small room, every sinister corner darkening with malice. He slowly walks inside, mostly to prove to himself it’s harmless. His face bumps into something and he yelps slightly, reaching out to feel what it was. He finds a harmless string hanging from the ceiling. He vaguely recalls a thin pull-chain hanging from the lights in here, so he pulls on it and hears the satisfying click as the room floods with light. He is glad he called on the drive up to have the electricity turned back on. Before him there are dozens of shelves from floor to ceiling stocked with an iridescent amber: jars of pure honey lit by harsh fluorescent light. On the side of the room is a small wooden workbench with several empty jars and one with honey in it. Above the workbench is a placard of wood with a Bible verse burned into its surface: “And with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee. Psalm 81:16” After looking around the room, David approaches the workbench. On it he finds a leather bound journal his father must have kept. He takes it and flips it open to the beginning, finding an entry about the state of his beehives. He closes it to take it with him. He is about to turn and leave when something strange catches his eye. He lifts the jar of honey from the workbench and holds it closer to his face, in direct white light. Suspended in the center of the amber liquid is a large bee, perfectly preserved. A Queen perhaps? David stares at the insect held in abeyance, turning the jar carefully to see its every minute detail. Setting the jar back down on the workbench, he clicks the pull chain, ending the quiet hum of the filaments above, and exits the small shack.
David walks away from the shack toward a cluster of trees with a hive in their midst. It is a stack of crates nearly as tall as himself, resembling a tower of over-sized shoe boxes. He walks under the branches of dying trees and up to the hives, noticing that there are no bees flying about. Placing his ear against the hive, he hears nothing and feels only the cold wood. He attempts to open it, but there’s a sticky resistance. With some prying and working his fingers under the top, he manages to wrench it open. Inside, there are rotting frames and rodent nests, but no living bees. As David makes to replace the lid, he hears a faint buzz. A single bee hums its way over to the hive from deeper in the woods, landing silently on the lid he is holding. It lands and crawls about, then remains very still except for the near-imperceptible movements of small insects. When it takes off again, it hovers just in front of his face almost conspiratorially. It slowly flies off in a lumbering straight line, and without really thinking, David follows it. He can easily track the small trundling body as it seems to graze among the plants, steadily migrating northward. He finds himself mesmerized by the flight pattern and soothed by the buzz.
Several minutes pass by unreckoned as David follows the small pollinator turned pied piper. A subtle shift in the soundscape brings him out of his hypnotic trance. It sounds like a distant engine idling mildly. The closer he gets, the louder and more invasive the sound becomes until it seems to be more of an unceasing roar, like the drone of an airplane prop. Then he sees the source of the noise, though subconsciously, he already knew what it was. Ahead of him, tipped into a large hole in the earth, is a red shipping container. It juts out of the dirt like a compound fracture; the bloody bones of a mutilated earth. The metal of the container seems to morph and meld as he watches. The ever-changing texture, the byproduct of thousands upon thousands of bees flying around and crawling on the surface. When he sees it, David stops completely and realizes with trepidation that he isn’t wearing any protective gear. He backs away in shock and fear, the spell of the lone mesmerizing bee lost in the horrifying sight of thousands more. Yet, the horde of buzzing insects is still mesmerizing, in its own way: the way of all terrifying things. David peals his eyes away and begins looking around until he sees his fathers house. He takes one more look at the strange sight, then walks away from the vibrating grounds of the hive. He has more questions than before, and decides to seek answers in the mad ramblings and leavings of his estranged father, Old Man Saul.
FOUR
“is it a small thing that thou hast brought us up out of a land that floweth with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness, …”
Numbers 16:13 KJV
David can recall other kids at school whispering about his father, unkindly bestowing the moniker ‘Old Man Saul’. He has very few fond memories of his childhood, and so represses them all equally. Walking back up to his childhood home, there is an inward warring of his subconscious against his memories: things long buried rearing their ugly heads in pursuit of recognition. David steps inside the house and feels a chill that has nothing to do with the temperature. He glances at the carpet, and the chill spreads. Knowing the foul secret it covers, he shivers at the thought of that contorting cage-like shape. He walks over to the pile of his fathers papers and unceremoniously sits himself on the floor next to them. Once down, he begins pouring over the papers, actually reading each one before setting it aside. The first paper he grabs has dimensions written out in a careful hand. When David contemplates the size, he realizes it is likely the measurements of a shipping container. He looks at the pile of papers and spots a drawing that looks to be of the same dimensions. He grabs it and finds a well drawn blueprint for converting just such a small space into an underground bunker. He sets the paper aside, once again wondering what made his father so paranoid. He blindly grabs another paper and finds it is a grocery list, but based on the amounts and items, it was to stock the bunker. He finds several other papers pertaining to the bunker and its contents. After several minutes of carefully reading papers regarding his fathers holdout, he comes across a short journal entry written on the back of a photo. The picture features an old building he doesn’t recognize, and the journal entry baffles him:
Can’t find origins of the book. The name Forrey is tied to the occult. Family goes back hundreds of years, same as Cartwrights. Maybe Ogden or Jonathan for author?
David sets the note aside. He wonders what it means while rifling through the papers, then he recalls a strange genealogy with hasty circles around certain names, one of which was Forrey. He quickly locates the weathered page and sees the name. He traces the lineage toward present day, and finds a difficult to read notation in his fathers hand, “Thomas Forrey = Thomas Ward”. The notation means little to David, but appears to have meant something to his father. From there down, the Forrey name is replaced with Ward, effectively erasing the line. Strange… Why had this meant so much to his father and why was he looking into it? David begins to feel once more that he should not have come, opting to sell without visiting the property. He pulls another paper out of the stack and finds schematics for a strange beehive that looks more like a trough. Scrawled in the margins is a short shopping list that reads, “hive tool, smoker, wood chips, pine needles, feeder, sugar, bee brush”. David places the note on the pile of things he’s read, then grabs a small notepad.
He flips through the few lists and phone numbers, and finds another journal-like note from his father. It is written in a fairly clear hand, which makes the content even more disconcerting, since it was written in a more clear-headed time. The note reads short and clipped, but still chilling: “Broke ground on the bunker today. Found an old book buried in front of the house. Could this be a sign from God? It speaks of hidden places, so it must be.” The malignant gray book without a name is undoubtedly the one his father found. This perhaps explains the two giant holes outside, but it doesn’t explain much else. Then another handwritten note catches his eye, because it isn’t in the same handwriting. This is a fine cursive script that looks superannuated in its flourishes. The edge of the paper is ripped and yellowed and aged. David realizes it is likely a page from the unearthed and nameless book. It has been written on top of and turned into a palimpsest by his fathers strange interjections. It takes him some parsing through, but he reads the contents of the torn page and is left staring blankly at it:
We found the key which we sought for. They are stones, pieces from the pillars of that terrible cage of which even myth only ever dare allude. The hidden places can only be accessed through the stones, and they shan’t be tampered with lightly. Ye cannot imagine the horror, the power, and the beauty of that which liveth in the lifeless void. Far more than frightening, are the denizens of that place. They seem not bound by laws of our world, but wholly able to do as they wish. This hidden space may function in ways heretofore unknown. The stones must be preserved, lest further study be hindered. We sojourned only once, and that merely as an unintended consequence of physical contact with a stone.
David does not understand what he’s reading, and he rereads it a half dozen times. He wants to laugh at the outlandish writings, but finds it chilling in the same inexplicable fashion as the chalk shape under the carpet. Then there are the musings of his father, hastily written in the margins. There are references to the lineage of Forrey, something about a stone, and continual ramblings about hidden places. The degradation of his fathers sanity is most visible in these scratched out notes. Despite wanting to write off all of the documents here to the ravings of a deranged man, he finds himself anxious and concerned. There is also a mounting sense of dread as he realizes he needs to go back to the nameless book and he needs to read his fathers hive journal. He lays eyes on the gray book in the pile on the other side of the carpet. The shadows seem darker around it. Worse still than the strange habits of shadows around it, there is the unmistakable feeling that it is in fact watching him - that it has been from the moment he stepped inside, and perhaps even before that. David leans over and reluctantly takes hold of the book, though it feels as though it takes hold of him. Is he imagining it, or is it unusually cold to the touch? He flips open the book to the page that reads, “Forrey” and then gingerly turns to the first writings. The whispering sounds of the old pages against each other seem to speak of things better left unsaid: profane truths never meant to be known. There is a malformed cube sketched on the first page, then the book begins. It reads like an older religious text, not unlike the King James and Catholic bibles. He reads the opening lines of the text and slowly forgets his surroundings as he feverishly consumes the words.
FIVE
“And I took the little book out of the angel’s hand, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey: and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter.”
Revelation 10:10 KJV
The moment David begins reading the poem that opens the book, an unseen and despotic force focuses its attention on him from the formless place in which it lay. Inside the house, all of the soft groans and subtle creaking sounds of the background fade off into a predatory, crouching silence. Outside the house, nothing moves or shifts until a small cool breeze blows through, painting unknown hieroglyphs in the fields of flowers. Off in the woods, a weathered red shipping container full of bees becomes an agitated drone of fervently beating wings. David reads the nameless book and time slips by unnoticed, shoring itself up, back into whatever dark and impossible corner eternity lurks in. The innocuous shadows are rendered into horrid dysphemic shapes as they crawl across the ground with the rapidly setting sun. When next David looks up from the book, his eyes are red and dry and the outside world is dark. He has the overwhelming feeling of loss and disappointment, like he had begun some great epoch when he started reading, but never reached the grand culmination. He rubs his eyes. How long since he started reading? How long since he last blinked?… When he looks down at the book, it is open to the last page before the ones that were torn out. He consumed the entire thing in a manic state, yet he can’t remember anything he read. Again he feels that crushing feeling of loss, that he was immeasurably close to something - some vast and ultimate truth. He rubs his eyes and stands to stretch out his stiffened limbs.
He realizes it is too late to drive home, so he reluctantly walks back to his old room to stay the night. He pulls back the covers and crawls into a small yet familiar bed and finds himself staring up at the ceiling as the dark corners encroach slowly, overtaking his entire field of vision. He is exhausted and feels as though he has undergone an intense ordeal. When he closes his eyes in his bedroom, he opens them in his dreams. He is staring out on a two toned world split by a featureless horizon; the sky an empty roiling gray, and the ground an ocean of dark green glass. He knows he is dreaming and yet is still terrified. His feet are planted on a strange slat beneath the surface of the still ocean water. He knows, in some type of inborn and primal sense, that this water should not be disturbed. Yet every fiber of his being desires to run, to flee from this alien place. He looks down at his feet and sees a seemingly endless deep. As he looks through the slats just under the water, to the eternal depths beneath, a shadow shifts below. Words form in his mind, forgotten from the nameless book, yet filed away somewhere in his subconscious: “…What lay below…” There are more words forming in his mind when he sees something large seeming to swim upward toward him. The next words never form as David screams in terror and, disturbing the pristine surface of the primordial ocean for the first time in eons, he takes a step backward.
He slips soundlessly into the dim green water, falling down between the slats at the surface. An all-consuming quiet overtakes David as he sinks into the cold water. He looks above himself, grasping and reaching frantically for the light green surface as it recedes, the water growing darker and darker with his descent. The silence is shattered by an immense sound that can only have emanated from something prehistoric. It is low and prolonged and terrible. When David looks below himself in fear of that monstrous entity, he sees only darkness. Then, stretching forth across his field of vision, something even bigger moves in the depths. At the extent of his vision he sees a vast prehensile limb, reaching up out of the murky depths toward the surface. Directly below David, in the interminable depth, is a colossal maw yawning open so wide as to encompass the deep completely. He screams, expelling his lungs in terror. The reaching talon glides upward through the water, past David, and he sees it claw at the slats just below the surface. As David inhales the ancient waters, an ear-piercing screech cracks through the water. His dying thoughts feel like someone else’s as they sound off, a murmur in his mind, “… the darkness has both teeth and hands…”
David awakes coughing and spluttering and sweating. He vomits up water and is bent over with more wracking coughs. When he is finally able to breathe, he notices he is not in his childhood bed. He slowly raises his head and sees nothing, only darkness. Not the murky depths of that horrid place, but a complete black void of nothing: total absence. When he calls out, his voice sounds as though it hits a wall just in front of him. He reaches out but finds nothing solid. Hesitantly, he takes a few steps forward and the entire world shifts impossibly. Gray and hazy outlines erupt from nowhere and seem to unfold into a familiar landscape. He finds himself looking out on a colorless mirror of something vaguely familiar. He recognizes the back of his fathers house, yet it appears distorted and open in the strange way of dreams. As he walks forward, the world maintains its form and the fragmented words of that nameless tome continue again, “…it lay in the hidden places…” He enters the house and walks to his old room, opening the door soundlessly. David sees himself lying down in the bed, with a white-knuckle grip on the covers and eyes clamped shut heavily. A feeling of disconnection and disbelief spreads through him as he sees his sleeping body struggle in the throes of a nightmare. He tries to wake himself, to no avail, and so he leaves, unable to watch any longer.
The sky and the ground are both a textureless pitch-black, adorned by colorless features that appear familiar yet unknown. He wanders out into the woods, toward the shipping container, without knowing why. There, in a large hole, is the toppled shipping container, no longer red but a lifeless gray. The container sits half sunken into the ground, and a new set of words materializes in his mind, though he doesn’t know them or what they mean. His lips form the words, despite no willful act of his own “… this is why death abounds…” His eyes wander far away to see things that are not there. He is brought out of the unprompted reverie by the feeling of something tugging on his hands. He feels something heavy pulling on his arms, and when he looks down in fear, he sees that he has it backwards. Nothing is pulling at him, rather he is gripping the doors to the storage container and pulling on them to open. Before he can react, the doors open with a stymied heft and a muffled groan. There is nothing inside the container, but the darkness terminates at the back wall. The wall looks to be a black gateway, cut out from the material of reality. Through that doorway, things seem to move and shift and crawl. He is drawn in closer by an unseen force, feeling as though he is wading through mud. When he reaches the back, he hesitantly reaches a hand toward the doorway. His hand disappears into the vacuous gate, his arm terminating at the wrist. Once his hand disappears through the immaterial pool, he feels something. He slowly withdraws his hand, and it returns grasping something. He blinks once and sees himself reaching out toward a plain gray void. No, not a void, rather his bedroom ceiling: he is lying on his back staring up, with one hand raised in the air. He can feel the ghostly sensation in his fingers, as if he is holding… something, yet he can’t remember what it was.
SIX
“For the remembrance of me is sweeter than honey, and my inheritance sweeter than the honeycomb.”
Sirach 24:20 RSV-C
When David finally realizes he is awake, he lowers his stiffened arm. He is sweaty and cold and tired. When he thinks back to his dreams, the memory is hazy and fading rapidly. By the time he is back in the living room looking out on the piles of papers and books, he cannot remember any part of his dream. It feels as though the memory is receding into a dense fog and the more he tries to remember, the further it retreats. Instead of a memory, he is left with a vague impression of fear and an ominous mantra he doesn’t understand, “…the darkness has both teeth and hands…” He knows he has seen this phrase somewhere, but he cannot recall where. This reminds him of the journal he found in the shed. He sits at the kitchen table with a fresh cup of coffee he feels lucky to have scrounged up. He brings the journal to the table and flips it open, skimming through dozens of formulaic journal entries. Each one mentions the state of the hive, the amount of honey produced, the quality of the Queen, and if any varroa mites have been found. His father appears to have taken this hobby very seriously. As he reads through the entries however, the paranoia slowly becomes more visible.
~
Fruit tree hive is doing very well, may add additional honey super. The honey has a definite fruity tang - would like to experiment with this more. Varroa test yielded nothing, praise the Lord. Queen appears healthy and active, fresh eggs in the correct frame - fully capped.
Healthy hive.
Flower field hive is making a new Queen, can hear the difference in buzzing. Royal jelly is a fascinating thing. Honey production is fine, though not as many eggs being laid. If new Queen does not turn around the hive, may have to buy one. Found a few mites in the test, but not an alarming amount. Considering burning the whole hive to be safe. Maybe if new Queen fails.
Struggling hive.
Woods hive is doing well, should provide a sizeable boon of honey this season, though not as good as last year’s windfall. Won’t require a super, but should fill out the current. There is a small hive inside one of the trees out here, I think this hive may have swarmed and split. May try to get them into a hive box. May not be worth the trouble.
Healthy hive.
Truck hive is doing very poorly, a worrying case of DWV - will have to burn it and replace it sadly. Hopefully hasn’t spread to neighboring hives. The Lord giveth and He taketh away.
Burn hive.
Garden hive is doing well. Propolis was so thick,
it broke my wooden hive tool - need to make another. This hive passes all self-functioning tests - should thrive without intervention.
Healthy hive.
~
David reads the careful script of his fathers early entries. After reading a few, he begins skimming through. He realizes the handwriting begins deteriorating, and flips back to the first noticeable difference. He reads the entry leading up to it, and then a few of the ones with poor legibility. Strangely, the language becomes more drawn out and descriptive while the hand writing becomes more shaky and imprecise. The entries take on a disjointed and haphazard feel as the quality deteriorates:
~
Woods hive is thriving - need more healthy hives to be self-sustaining. At least three of them meet the criteria. Final trip to market this week, then cutting off contact. Broke ground on bunker but started to rain.
Truck hive is lost cause. Will torch it when time allows. Shipping container has been delivered. Will begin fitting it immediately. Should be ready by years end, Lord willing.
Found a book buried in front of house. Decided to move bunker to woods.
This book is a gift from God, I have only just begun reading it, but I feel as though my eyes have been opened.
My intentions have been deemed worthy and I have been blessed with the truth. The book is a wondrous revelation, I cannot stop reading it. I will never let it out of my sight. Such incredible truths.
The book speaks to me sometimes, when it is dark. It whispers to me. It says ‘soon, very soon’. I weep at its silence and I weep at its words. When death kisses the earth, what else is there to do? No… the book is everything. It tells me what to do. Who am I that I should be called to such a task? Yet, here I am, Lord - send me.
I am ready now for the promised land Do not dispose of me before the place is reached The work is nearly done despite the swarming of the bees They are jealous for my attention
They want the book for themselves but they cannot have it they cannot have it THEY CANNOT HAVE IT
The book must have chosen this place in the woods guiding my hand this hole in the ground I will open the cage at last The bunker is a door the hole a gate the way is down
I will open the cage
I am coming for you Lord I will release you from your cage Protect me be thou my shield and though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death you maketh me to lie down in green pastures though death crouch in waiting like a lion for the darkness has both teeth and hands this is why death abounds yet I will fear no evil I will open the cage
~
The final words of the entry seem to break a subconscious dam in David:, a mental block formed by his sleeping mind to shield him from things too difficult to bear and too foreign to understand. It breaks and seems to let in a flood of inky darkness, and suddenly he is overwhelmed. He remembers the content of the gray book which he feverishly consumed in a manic state of delirium, he knows what the horrid chalk drawing is and why it gnaws at his soul, and he recalls every rancid detail of the awful nightmares that have plagued his restless nights. He stands so abruptly that the chair topples over, breaking the quiet morning with a thud. No, not morning any longer… he looks about with wide eyes and finds the world cloaked in the dark of night, or perhaps something even darker. His eyes return to stare at the words of the final entry, “… this is why death abounds…” The penultimate words of that dreaded poem that opens the nameless gray book… and now he remembers the truth of the universe: a truth once known by every person but collectively hidden away during the unchronicled past by crippled minds in a desperate attempt to prolong their feeble existence. He remembers and wishes he didn’t. David wept.
SEVEN
“He who is sated loathes honey, but to one who is hungry everything bitter is sweet.”
Proverbs 27:7 RSV-C
The abhorrent truth has implanted itself into his mind to fester like some sort of malignant infection. He feels the weight of the night sky pressing down on him, even through the walls of the house. The thought of exiting terrifies him to the core, yet he is being drawn by an irresistible urge. Pulled in by a need stronger than life: the need to know. When David finally blinks away his tears, he finds himself looking down on the nameless book, opened neatly to the beginning verse. He cannot remember getting or opening the book… As he strains to remember retrieving it, he becomes aware of a low and intense sound. A buzzing noise that seems to emanate from the book, and the walls of the house: perhaps even from inside his own head. Within moments he is standing at the door, looking out at the woods, feeling pulled in, as if on a hook. He looks at his hands and sees that he is holding the gray book, and he cannot remember having taken hold of it. He steps off the porch and walks toward the foreboding tree line, feeling as though every night star is one in a number of infinite piercing eyes watching his every move.
The silhouettes of the trees are sinister veins of black spreading from the necrotic earth, up into the ancient night. The gray book seems to vibrate with intensity and the omnipresent drone of buzzing grows louder in his head. It is the sound of a ravenous plague of locusts, or the resounding wail of an angry horde of cicadas: it is a terrible insectile groan that presses louder with each step, matching the pulsing beat of his own heart. The book is cold in his hands. He can feel the wrongness of it, but he knows he couldn’t drop it if his life were dependent on the act. The eyes of nature watch as David walks nearer and nearer to the woods - or is it coming nearer to him? He is no longer sure if he is exerting his own will in moving closer, or if something else is: a doomed marionette drug forth to enact a final denouement by some loathsome black-string puppeteer. He can hear the external drone of the bees now, off in the distance, their fervent buzzing melding with the arterial drum of blood in his head.
He lumbers mindlessly forth, into the black woods. He can hear a voice - his own voice, perhaps - reciting the poem of that nameless book. All the alien and unceasing noise melds with the poem in a cacophony of sound. Then, he is standing before the shipping container. He takes a step forward and hears a loud crunch. At the same time, all sound ceases abruptly, leaving a vacuous empty space where a powerful droning once was. There is the overwhelming buzz emanating from within and without, and then there is nothing. No sound of any kind. David looks at his feet and sees the unmoving bodies of honeybees, each of preternatural size. He feels as though something is now watching his every move, and he fears the gaze of that thing. He doesn’t know why, but he finds himself setting the book down on the ground. It is as if he is a passenger in his own body, watching the choices and actions from some darkened and removed place deep within himself. Once the book is on the ground, David feels a weight lift, as though some terrible affliction has been excised from him.
The entire world has gone quiet. David steps forward, slowly and softly crushing the unavoidable forms beneath his boot; their exoskeleton crunch, the only sound in the world. As he approaches the hive, he becomes aware of a radiating heat, and perhaps even a glow, flowing from the container. He is close enough to touch it now, and he reaches out, placing a palm lightly against the corrugated metal. It is warm, almost hot even. He climbs onto the square face of the doors, now feeling the desire to know in all of its potency. He pulls desperately at the latch, but there is a thick and viscous resistance. He will never be able to open this door on his own. Just then, there is a horrendous sound like the rending of flesh; a squelching, tearing, suction. David falls backward off the container and watches in terror as an unseen force opens the hive. The sticky seal gives way as the container’s two heavy doors slowly swing wide open. Both doors then begin to fall away on their hinges, and slam into the sides of the container, sending a horde of angry insects up out of the hive. Bees are thick in the air and their agitated droning is oppressive, yet he pays them no mind. David climbs up onto the container and steps onto the hive, sinking down through the honeycomb like a sweet warm mud.
He begins digging with his hands, burrowing deeper into the hive while thousands of honeybees cause the air to vibrate and shake. The hive has been built in a natural descending formation, and David claws his way down in search of answers. He is covered in a thick and raw honey that makes it difficult to move. The bees are buzzing away with a loud, hellacious roar. But David isn’t worried about the bees. He knows they are merely the canaries in this coal mine of death. He thinks he knows what they are safeguarding, what nature has sought to hide away. Yet, he must see for himself. He has an all-consuming desire - a burning need - to get to it. He rips and tears his way through layers of honeycomb and wax until his hand grazes something hard. He digs away at it and slowly reveals a wooden shelf-like structure. He burrows his hands deep into the waxy substance, his fingers prodding something rubbery. A strange and unaccountable feeling imposed from without, tells him that this is the object of his search. The bees drone on and crawl about with vibrating wings, generating a heat that causes David to sweat profusely.
With eager fingers and sweat-slicked skin, he excavates a fleshy mound that resolves itself into a human hand. He digs and scrapes and claws away until the front of his father is exposed from the honeycomb. His eyes are hollowed out caverns and the Queen crawls slowly out from inside the skull. His father’s skin and hair have been preserved by wax and honey, and the look of terror that his father’s life ended with is still palpably visible. Clutched greedily in the fingers of the other hand is something thin and fine. As David uncovers the hand he gets stung for the first time. It burns like a small, hot needle piercing his skin. Then there is the strange and unaccountable scent of bananas. Immediately, thousands of blinding hot points of pain explode all across his body. The bees expend their life in nature’s final attempt at burying what should not be. David’s swollen fingers finally uncover his fathers claw-like hand and he finds it full of papers. His vision begins to darken at the edges and the pain becomes unbearable. He is barely able to register the torn edges on the few dozen pieces of paper. He sees, through pain-blurred vision, the instructions for a ritual, ripped out from the nameless book. Then everything turns black.
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