avatarPaul Mansfield

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FANTASY

The Camera in the Cabin

Through a lens, darkly

Knight, Death and the Devil, 1513, Albrecht DürerNational Gallery of Art

Perfection

Have no fear of perfection–you’ll never reach it.

Salvador Dali

Dali, Dali, Dali. We need not fear reaching perfection. Our fears should be if perfection reaches us. I know, because perfection has found us, and it will consume us whole. Our loves, our hopes, our fears — all consumed in perfection’s unyielding maw.

That Fateful Day

Remember upon the conduct of each depends the fate of all.

Alexander the Great

It was a glorious day for a stroll in the woods. Or at least, I kept telling myself so. As a professor of science, my schedule and lifestyle keep me inside. After a fainting spell during one of my lectures, the university physicians demanded that I become more active and eat a proper diet. As this issue clouded my tenure with the faculty, I conceded their point. And, so, I ate proper meals at proper times as a professor should, and I hiked the hills and valleys of the woods surrounding my alma mater, Miskatonic University.

This day, I decided I would brave the woods, not just for an afternoon, but also a night. I felt confident, perhaps overly confident, that my day strolls had prepared me for this adventure. How wrong I was.

I began my trip from Arkham, where my university is located. I headed towards Dunwich. The university is full of stories about this wretched town, where poverty flowed like the waters of the mighty Miskatonic. The inhabitants were supposedly a secretive, xenophobic, inbred lot, but rumours and local prejudices wouldn’t deter me. I was supremely confident of my newfound hiking abilities and eager to champion the woods surrounding Dunwich. My colleagues described the woods to me as gorgeous, and the trails moderately difficult; perfect for my intentions.

It is late morning when I arrive at the start of my hike. I have studied the available topological maps intently and have selected a circular path that I should be able to traverse in half a day with ease. As this is simply the first of many hiking expeditions, I don’t want to overexert myself, but I also do not wish to take it too easy. I want it just right.

The car park is empty, which I did not expect. Perhaps it was a good idea to keep the hike short, in case assistance was not readily available. I park and retrieve my walking bag out of the back. I filled it with the essentials, as laid out by the Boy Scouts’ guide. Can’t be without the survival necessities.

With my walking stick in hand and my pack secured to my back, I headed into the great outdoors. The terrain is uneven, and the trails are untended, but the scenery is beautiful. The trees, the river, the flowers. Being able to see deer bound through open meadows, as they bounced back into the forest, was breathtaking. Little bunny rabbits and squirrels and birds. Lots of birds. The forest was alive with their song.

At least it was for the first hour. And then the wildlife disappeared. No bounding deer. No rabbits or squirrels. The birds stopped singing. It was deathly quiet. Too quiet. This part of the forest was so eerie, I considered turning around and going home. My stubborn streak kicked in, and I continued on. My imagination was simply playing tricks on me.

I was definitely running behind schedule, so my plan was to walk only fifteen minutes more, and then turn around. I didn’t want to be lost in the woods after sunset. That would be foolish, as I had only packed a day bag.

Before my allotted last fifteen minutes were up, I stumbled into a clearing in the woods. The stumble was literal, as I had tripped over a branch, and ended up face-first in a mud puddle. Wiping mud out of my eyes, my eyes beheld a cabin made of log, in the middle of the clearing. Thinking to myself how fortunate I was, I walked up to the cabin. Unfortunately, the previous occupant had left years prior. There were no recent signs of people anywhere. It was still in decent shape, but the years of neglect were showing.

Outside the front door was a rusty old pump. Since the mud fully covered me from my nose to my toes, I tried to get some water out of it. With a few hard pumps of the handle, success. There was running water, and I could clean up after a fashion. I washed my face and hands, and ran the water over some of my outerwear, cleaning as much mud as possible from them. Knowing that wearing these clothes wet was the key to catching pneumonia, I hung them from tree branches to dry. However, the wind was chill, so I decided that my best bet would be to go inside the cabin and wait for them to dry.

Pushing open the cabin’s only door, I enter the cabin with great care. I do not wish a repeat of my tumble, because of rotting floorboards or such nonsense. My precautions, while prudent, proved unnecessary. The cabin was in remarkable shape indoors. It was as though someone lived here still. I closed the door, so that the wind wouldn’t make such a racket, and explored my wondrous discovery.

Drawings and paintings filled the cabin, as well as art books, and other, stranger books I took little notice of. All the walls, except the back wall, had drawings and paintings tacked to them. The back wall, however, was empty, with nothing in front of it or tacked to it. The previous occupant had neatly stacked their art supplies — paper, brushes, paint — in a corner by the door. A table with a single chair facing the back wall sat in the middle of the room. A rudimentary bed was along one wall and an empty pantry against the other.

The wind howled through the open door, sending shivers through my frail frame. I closed the door, and darkness enveloped the cabin. But it wasn’t complete darkness. The sun glowed through the small skylight, brightly lighting up the back wall.

Fascinating.

If I sat on the chair by the table, images formed on the back wall. Images flowed along the wall, but I couldn’t seem to make them out. Eventually, as I stared longer and longer, I made out their form. They were showing the woods outside of the cabin. The clearing, the forest, the pathway — all in exquisite detail.

Imagine my shock when I realised that the entire cabin is a camera obscura. The small skylight must function as the camera lens, while the back wall serves as the photographic plate.

This cabin was definitely the home of a local artist. An eccentric. They must have used the camera obscura as the focal point for their studies. I will research their works when I return to the university, without a doubt. I am sure local galleries and the museum display their work prominently.

While I’m here, I may as well examine the artwork; they are so fascinating. So imaginative and full of surprises. They are especially dark for the period they are emulating. Beautiful woodland and pastoral scenes, reminiscent of the last century, yet filled with horrors. Bright flowers, rabbits, deer, with flowing brooks and streams, beside unimaginable terrors.

Beasts and demons and shapes with no actual form. And the colours. The vibrant colours in the air. Almost like they’re dancing. Like the colours are alive. Sentient. Indescribable in the English language. Perhaps some ancient language holds the words to convert the beauty, and the mystery, and the strange horror that one feels viewing these works of art. But I cannot do them justice. My vocabulary is far too limited. My mind is far too constrained by modern society. By polite society. Perhaps when we gathered around campfires to talk about the unknown monsters in the woods, we had the words to describe these horrors, but the automobile and the electric lightbulb have removed the need for these whispering descriptions, except as tales to frighten children and to giggle to.

The art and artist fascinated me. I could have spent a lifetime enjoying their work and perusing their bookshelves. The bookshelves were as eclectic as were their art. Books about art. Medieval tomes documenting strange worlds. Handwritten journals, which I assumed were the artists. How fascinating. Especially this ancient book, bound in leather, entitled Necronomicon. I must read it, explore it, understand it.

But it is too late now for reading. The sun has dropped behind the crowns of the trees, and it is too late for me to hike back to my automobile. I must make a meal from my emergency rations and stay the night. At least I’ll be dry and warm in this cabin in the woods.

After a dinner of lukewarm pork and beans and dry bread, followed by a flask of brandy, I am ready for some rest. But strangely, the cabin seems to be brightly lit. I look out the window, and the moon is shining down, brighter than I have ever seen her.

The moonlight flows through the window, and the images slowly come into shape. I can again see the woods outside the door, projected onto the cabin wall. While the image appears to be the same as earlier this afternoon, these were not the sprawling trees and gentle hills I had walked through. They were different, somehow. It was almost like the camera obscura hadn’t flipped the image upside-down, but had flipped it inside out. Inside out isn’t right. It’s the same woods, but with all the goodness removed.

As the image grew stronger, strange shapes appeared. Shapes not from this world. I’m a scientist and not a superstitious man. Cold, hard facts drive my brain. I have no time for the incoherent ramblings of the occult or the religious, but these visions were unworldly. They were malevolent entities. Filled with evil intent. But also innocent. I could feel the danger that they represented, but it wasn’t personal. They were not of our plane of existence. They inhabited our shadow world, but they noticed us in the same way we noticed an ant. Not as a sentient entity, but as something to squash if it annoyed us.

These are the images from the paintings, but they no longer bring me joy. They no longer fill me with wonder and amazement. Terror is a better description of what they bring. Fear. Doubt. Dread. yes, they fill me with dread. With anticipation tinged with fear and horror.

The forms moved closer to the wall, almost as if sensing they were being watched. Maybe they knew I was in here. Maybe there was another camera obscura showing me to them. I hope not. I recite a foolish prayer from my childhood, just in case. “The Lord is my shepherd,” when the form is right beside the cabin.

The door handle creaks and moves slightly, as if someone or something is testing it. Despite my nearly paralysing fear, I leap to action and quickly lock and barricade the door with my body. I hold on tightly to the handle, hoping that my efforts will stop them. The handle goes quiet. The portal, for want of a better word, disappears, as clouds obscure the moon. Rain falls. Cool, saving rain, washing away my fears. It looks like the rain will last until morning when I can again go out amongst those woods — those haunted woods — and find my way home.

Hope Lies

Hope lies in dreams, in imagination, and in the courage of those who dare to make dreams into reality.

Jonas Salk

Waking from a fitful night’s sleep after I had barricaded the door to the best of my limited abilities, I quickly returned whence I came. There was no joy in this hike. No wandering off path to explore a patch of wildflowers. A deer bounding across my path brought terror, not joy. I could only wonder what was chasing him so, to cause his flight. Something had damned this forest, and I must escape its grip.

My return hike — almost a dazed run, passed quickly on the clock, but stretched an eternity to me. When I returned to my automobile and climbed inside, safe and sound, I breathed an immense sigh of relief. The car roared to life on my first attempt, and I was off, back to safety, in a flash.

I was returning to my classes. Back to my studies. Back to normalcy. Or so I hoped and prayed. Why does life so often dash our hopes upon grim reality? A giant trickster in the sky? Perhaps the pagans were correct in their belief of trickster gods.

No matter how much I attempted, I could not block the visions of that night from my mind.

What few friends and acquaintances I had kept their distance after I began telling them of my adventure. Their voices murmured sympathy and support, but their eyes grew mocking. They whispered when I entered a room, and would fall silent if I came too close. At many a dinner, they would ask me to recite my journey, but I could feel them mocking me, their hands over their beastly smirks, nudging each other, barely suppressing their giggles.

My research went untended, as did my classes. The complaints, small at first, became overwhelming, and forced the once tranquil administration into action. Termination loomed, but it was of no matter. Not when these dark forces were at work.

I spoke to the local priests in search of a spiritual explanation, but they had none. The philosophers at the college simply laughed at me and called me a lunatic.

There was talk of the Asylum. Of electroshock and drug therapy. Of surgeries, that might help me. Lobotomy, I believe they called the procedure. But I knew the medical world held no cure.

This was not a job for physicians, or priests, or philosophers, or administrators.

There are daemons loose in those woods, and I must stop them.

The Descent

In the middle of the journey of our life, I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost.

Dante Alighieri, Inferno

The way will be hard, and dangerous, I am certain, but I must walk it. Alone. Not by choice, but by necessity. None believe me. They laugh behind my back. They stare and point at me. Now, they’ve laughed in my face. This task falls to me alone. Me alone, to save the world from the monsters on the other side.

I made my way back to the cabin, hiring a driver to take me to the trail had, and hiking the remainder. It took several trips for me to carry all my provisions. I had stocked enough supplied to last me for at least a month.

I knew I had until the next full moon — the blood moon — before the reckoning. Before the monsters would roam the earth unhindered. I must find the answers in the cabin. In the books, or in the paintings. Somewhere in the cabin.

With such a short time — less than a fortnight — I threw myself into the study of the ancient, the arcane, the impenetrable. I pored over the diaries, the manuscripts, the drawings, the paintings — the cabin in toto. But the volume I studied the most was the dreaded Necronomicon.

The Necronomicon was the key to the mystery that I had unwittingly stumbled upon, and deciphering its archaic ramblings and rantings was the key to preventing the horrors seen from crossing over. The enormity of the task before was daunting, but fortunately, the cabin’s previous occupant had detailed in their journal all of their work.

I spent all my time reading and attempting to understand the enormity of what was about to befall mankind. And, most importantly, to find a way to prevent it. To my shame, the task before me was so all-encompassing that I neglected my physical needs. I never washed, rarely ate, never shaved, and I wore the same clothes for days on end. I became as one with the locals. Wild-eyed, filthy, and unkempt. But I was making progress. I could save the world.

By day, I would read and scour the painting and drawings. By night, I would watch the obscene horrors — that I can only assume are from Hell itself — relayed on to the cabin’s very walls. It was like a moving magic lantern show, only broadcast by Satan himself. But after careful study of the documents in the cabin, I soon realised that the Satan that was taught about by the Christians, who I once numbered myself among, was a simple charlatan and trickster. A mountebank selling patent medicine compared to the real horrors that awaited humanity.

With only a few days left before the blood moon, I truly understood the enormity of the task, and my inadequacies. All I could do was sit with the Necronomicon open before me, to the page where it describes what my minister called the Apocalypse, and weep.

I finally understood Dante’s plea to abandon all hope.

I sit and weep for humanity.

The Valley of Evil

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.

Psalm 23:4

I sit and stare at the wall, now that the sun has fallen. A simple bare, wooden wall that the monsters and gods and god-monsters will come through. The bare, wooden wall that separates our existence from the realities of the universe. From the horrors of realities.

If others knew, the knowledge would drive them mad. It drove me mad. If I had been amongst polite company, they would have restrained me, locked me in a padded cell, filled me with drugs, drove electric currents through my brain, cut out pieces of my brain with sharp knives or dull spoons. But in the Asylum, there would have been a hope of rescue. Hope of escape. But not from here. Not from a fate worse than Arkham Asylum.

My fear is overwhelming. It has a physical presence. I can see it and I can smell it and I can taste it. It is the scent of death and the taste of decay. Death comes for us all. My fear cries like a wounded deer, fearful of the wolf, yet unable to stop. It is the lament of the dying, and I know I am dying. Tonight, I will meet the monsters again.

The moon is full, and it will be as red as the blood of humanity, crashing, wave after wave, on the shores of forever. The scientist in me says it is normal, as the smoke from the wildfires consuming the Miskatonic Woods causes it. But in my heart, where the fear lives — where it grows, fertilised by my imagination — I know better.

The Acolytes of Him-Who-Is-Not-to-Be-Named have chanted their oaths; sacrifices made. The portal will open, and they will come again. There is no way to escape these terrors. I can only hope that my sacrifice suffices to save our world for another millennium.

The ancient tomes and grimoires tell me I have the power, but I fear they lie. I fear they are in league with the monsters. With our unknown gods. Wizards and mystics and witches have pondered these fates for centuries, and they still know nothing. I hold their nothingness in my hands, and can only hope that I am enough.

How did I come to be the only one with this terrible knowledge? Who am I to hold humanity’s fate in balance? What monstrosities will I face? Why has fate made me the gatekeeper to these horrors? Where will I get the courage to face them, instead of running and hiding with my terrors and fears? When will they arrive? The questions continue to run through my mind. My scientific mind. My formerly scientific mind, before the shocks and the drugs, wore away my defences, and I can see the horrors I faced before in their authentic forms.

As before, the moonlight flows through the cursed window, and the Old One’s world takes form. Unlike the last time, there are many indescribable shapes milling around the door to the cabin. What are they waiting for? Why do they not come in? I see a form moving towards the door. It is huge and hideous. I cannot describe it, but some part of it — an appendage of some sort, maybe a tentacle — reaches to the door and pulls it open. The wall shakes, and the image shimmers in ways that I cannot describe. A tentacle — yes, a tentacle — comes through the shimmering light. I look down at the Necronomicon in my hands and realise that I am powerless against the horror that comes through. I throw them down, and I run.

Sane to the end

If I am mad, it is mercy! May the gods pity the man who in his callousness can remain sane to the hideous end!

H.P. Lovecraft

I still run, as our great cities fall. The nameless ones follow me wherever I go. Yet, I run. The only thing keeping me alive is my fear.

My fear.

And yet, I know they will find me. Even alone, in the cold island cave, yards from the shore.

They will come, and all I have left is my fear.

I based the story upon Rod Castor’s July writing prompt for the Fantasy Shorts publication and the works of H. P. Lovecraft and fellow Lovecraftians.

Unfortunately, my tale grew too large for this publication (1,000-word maximum), so I published it here instead.

Paul Mansfield is a writer, a photographer, a guitar player, a philosopher — some he does well, some not so well, but he still tries them all. You can follow him on Twitter @pmansfield.

If you like this story, try this Science Fiction tale.

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