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The Knock

A Short Lovecraftian Story

By R. D. Scott-TaggartPublished 6 years ago 4 min read
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Henry Carter froze at his desk, the candle flickering next to him after his sharp intake of breath. His heart pounded against his chest and his lungs felt as if they would burst from the tight hold he kept on his breath, ears straining to hear in the silence, eyes searching in the darkness pressing against the feeble glow of his candle. He had heard it, he was certain he had. Admittedly, he had been dozing off as he finished writing down his story in the journal. He wouldn’t put it past himself to be imagining it. It was a sound that had haunted his dreams since he returned from his expedition to the Arctic; the wailing and the dreaded words, garbled and perverted by the nature of the one who spoke them.

Henry allowed himself to breathe as the burning in his lungs became too intense to bear. No sound reached out to him from the dark, save the rain softly hitting the window and the fevered beating of his own heart in his chest. Relaxing slightly, he placed the fountain pen in between the pages of the journal as a marker and closed it, turning to pick up the candle by its holder and carry it over to the fireplace, hand raised in front of it, cradling the flame so that it did not blow out and leave him alone in the pitch black. He felt as if the darkness was encroaching on his personal space, invading and malevolent in its purpose. He set the candle down on the mantelpiece and proceeded to gather logs and kindling and place them in the grate, striking a match and lighting the kindling. The fire crackled into life, flames licking the logs, singeing them where they touched. Henry threw himself back and collapsed into the wingback chair opposite the fire, shadows dancing around him as the fire illuminated and elongated parts of the room, making it seem alive with dystopian architecture.

Henry closed his eyes and massaged his temples. He sat for a while, calming himself and contemplating. The 1881 expedition was fresh in his memory even months later; some might say it was because he was reliving it through writing it down...if he had spoken to anyone since he got back, that is, even firing his household staff. Henry knew better than what people would say. There was not a chance he could ever forget what he had experienced. The cold, barren wasteland he had travelled to follow rumours of a discovery that had doomed an expedition, leaving only one survivor who had later been committed to the asylum for his insane ramblings. The exploration into the ice caves with his man Derleth, who was never to be seen again, likely lost in the darkness of the spiraling icy descent. Finding himself totally alone and without sustenance, Henry retreated into the very caves Derleth had disappeared into, muttering to himself about some sort of calling, echoing from the deep. Henry had hoped to find some sort of food source, even daydreaming about finding a rat or some similar creature. And a creature he had found. Unable to see what it was in the relentless darkness of the cave, he had quickly snapped its neck, using his hunting knife to carve open the scaled skin and feast on the strange, stringy flesh within. What he felt of the creature was strange; a serrated mouth, turned sideways in the creature's angled face, no eyes to speak of, but three limbs with bulbous, slimy endings and sharp tentacle-like feet, covered in suckers that would have rippled as it moved. Filled with the fibrous, metallic meat, he had slept. Yet he had been woken by a wailing, like that of a mother for its child. He sensed a much larger presence than the previous creature, but one just as strange. Henry had begun to back off until a gentle glow filled the cave, illuminating the unspeakable horror before him. He heard the gargled, hissed sentence. Then he ran.

Henry opened his eyes at a knock from the front door. Carrying his candle from the mantelpiece, he left his study and made his way down the stairs. As he reached the entrance hall, something heavy fell through the letter box and sounded a metallic echo across the room. He stepped cautiously forward, looking at the item. It was a hunting knife, covered in a black, viscous substance with a monogrammed ivory handle showing the initials: H.R.C. It was the knife he had left behind in his flight from the Arctic caves. Henry stood in the hall, paralysed with fear. The front door handle turned and the door slowly swung open, revealing the towering horror on the doorstep. The serrated sideways mouth moved bizarrely and hissed.

“I told you I’d find you, Henry Carter.”

monster
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About the Creator

R. D. Scott-Taggart

An author in her mid-twenties with a love of all things, dark, creative and fictional!

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