Dark Aeons

By Z. M. Wilmot

This collection of terrifying tales reveals the timeless horrors that lurk behind all of existence, bringing these eternal fears to chilling life. From ghost ships to faceless men, from mad winds to silver doors, from carnivorous rain to interdimensional fishers, and from succubi to visions of hell, this twisted collection of horrifying tales will leave no reader unchanged.
In "Parallax," a young man and an aging professor team up to defeat an interdimensional horror. In "Winds of Madness," a young boy suffers from a crippling, irrational fear of winds. In "Sally," a Pilgrim town bands together to cast out a witch.
In "Station Fourteen," a dying Lieutenant tries to warn mankind of a terrible horror close to home, and in "The Vessel" a Roman equestrian is stalked by a terrible black ship. In "Afflatus Divine," three individuals find their creativity hijacked and used for evil purposes, and in "The Silver Door," a young boy finds far more than he bargained for in the depths of his town's ancient library.
"Hell Factory" presents a terrifying vision of hell, and "The Derelict" chronicles a space scavenging team's wrong choice of prey. In "The Horror in Woods," a small town descends into the realm of terror, and in "The Parasite," a young girl descends into madness, sickness, and death.
Explore these and other chilling situations in Dark Aeons.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Z. M. Wilmot
• Release date: Aug 28, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476335490

Z. M. Wilmot

Z. M. Wilmot was born in Rockville, Maryland, but grew up in Carlisle, Massachusetts. He started writing seriously around the age of fourteen, primarily in the form of fan fiction set in the Warhammer Universe. In September 2009, Zachary (Zack) began working on his own universe, what he has dubbed the “Juxian Mythos.” In November of that same year, for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), he wrote the introduction to this universe, The Loneliness of Stars, his first novel. He is also a huge wargamer, roleplayer, budding esoteric, browncoat, GIRophile, and all-around geek. Major influences on his writing are H. P. Lovecraft (and his circle), J. R. R. Tolkien, David Brin, Dan Simmons, Vernor Vinge, and Lois McMaster Bujold. Other writers I enjoy include Tamora Pierce, Brian Jacques, George R. R. Martin, Scott Westerfeld, Orson Scott Card, and Terry Pratchett. Z. M. Wilmot listens to metal (Hammerfall, Nightwish, Avantasia, Sonata Arctica, Stratovarius, Turisas, Lordi, In Extremo, Eluveitie, Rammstein, Rhapsody of Fire, Luca Turilli, Apocalyptica, Sirenia, HolyHell), progressive and older rock (Rush, Kansas, Blue Oyster Cult, Supertramp, Jethro Tull), Irish folk (Lunasa, Solas, Gaelic Storm, The Chieftains, Bothy Band, Cherish the Ladies), and Nox Arcana when he writes. He himself plays percussion (mostly drum set), tin whistle, and bodhran. He also is a fan of Firefly, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Bones, BBC’s Robin Hood, Invader Zim, Trapdoor, Murder, She Wrote, and Phineas and Ferb. He likes tacos.

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Dark Aeons

Z. M. Wilmot

Published by Z. M. Wilmot at Smashwords

Copyright Z. M. Wilmot 2012

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Books by Z. M. Wilmot

The Jakken Trilogy

The Loneliness of Stars

The Light of Civilization

The Libel of Blood

Other Works

Dark Aeons

For a current and complete list of books, go to:

http://zmwilmot.com

Many thanks to my editors and literary advisors, Jacob G. Adams and Peter Merlin, who offered me their valuable insights into my writing on many of the dark tales that follow. This collection would not be the same without their help, and would doubtless have remained a horrible, jumbled conglomeration of letters that would have driven even the most stoic reader mad. Thank them for your sanity.

Introduction

This work of horror began as a single story, Winds of Madness, which was actually based upon a piece of fan fiction I wrote a long time ago. The story was an excuse for me to have fun with the English language, giving me the opportunity to describe outlandish scenes and a poor being's descent into madness, tossed about on indescribable winds. That initial, very short story morphed into the very first (and, in my humble opinion, the best) story of this collection.

Following the completion of Winds of Madness, and in the midst of me reading a large amount of H. P. Lovecraft, I came up with the idea to write a number of short stories and novellas and put them together into one collection. Mr. Lovecraft's influence is especially clear in the novella Parallax, which bears a striking resemblance to his tale From Beyond, which I believe strongly and unconsciously influences my own work. The two tales, while based upon a similar idea, go in very different directions, and I personally feel as if the two are complements, and variations on a theme.

The process of writing and compiling this work has taken me about three years, and now the final product sits before you, dear reader. The tales contained in this volume are highly unusual, and the writing is often experimental in nature. I have focused, in many of the stories, on creating a nightmarish dreamscape, and the terrifying situations and places that the characters find themselves in is often more important than characters and plot in what is to follow.

From the prose poems of Dark Prophecy, The Parasite, The Playground, and Lord of Carrion, to terrifying visions of torment in Hell Factory and The Man in Amber; from the more standard horror stories of The Silver Door, Singing in the Rain, and The Horror in the Woods, to the science fiction tales of Station Fourteen and The Derelict; from the ancient Roman legend of The Vessel to the century-spanning Afflatus Divine; from the dark poems of What Walks Under Moonlight, The Loneliness of the Spheres, and Dark Aeons itself to the grotesque tale of Sally, and from the tiny Wolf's Key and Ascension, to the novella Parallax; this collection covers a wide range of writing styles and subjects. Every single tale contained therein, however, is bound together by the common thread of eternal horror, which plagues our dreams at night and our thoughts during the day, that always lurks at the just out of sight, and just in mind. Enjoy, and be afraid.

Z. M. Wilmot

Winds of Madness

I

He came to us on the eve of February the twenty-eighth, at precisely seven o’clock, one year ago. I remember the night well, for a terrible storm had been brewing all day, and the forecasts had promised us all a week to remember. Like most of our patients, he did not admit himself to our esteemed institute, but was brought instead by a worried mother.

I was on duty at the door, only having been acquired a couple of years past by the Institute, and I was quite taken aback at her grand entrance. She entered the reception area behind a filthy wheelbarrow, her muscular arms tightly gripping the rotting wooden handles. Moments before, the large doors had been flung open with such force that I had feared they would fly off of their hinges, and this mad woman had burst in. I surmised that she had taken the ramp to get to the level of the door, as the stairs would have been exceedingly difficult to mount with her vehicle.

But however she may have arrived here, she pushed her way through the doors, barely managing to keep her wheelbarrow level. Dirt and mud flaked off of the wheel and basket, falling to the polished white floor. I admit, for a moment I was rather peeved at the woman; having someone nearly break down a very expensive door and then lug an unseemly farming implement into the freshly-cleaned lobby of one of the nation’s most prestigious mental institutions was not something to warm the heart of an employee.

Nevertheless, I did my best to put on a smile for her and stood up from behind my mahogany desk. I politely asked her what she was doing here, and if she wished to obtain treatment for herself.

She shook her head mutely and pointed down at her wheelbarrow. Peering down over my desk, I noticed for the first time that there was a person lying inside that wheelbarrow, covered in all manner of foul-looking dirt and grass. He was curled up so that his entire person fit inside the confines of the basket, his head resting peacefully in his arms.

At that point, I became rather alarmed, and I rushed around to the front of my desk and knelt by the wheelbarrow. My God, woman, what have you done? I asked, horrified at her treatment of a fellow human being.

I di’nt der it, yer blind fool, she snapped at me, her voice having that drawling quality that was common amongst the peoples of the countryside. He done gone an’ di’ it ta’ hi’self, I tell ya’.

I looked up at the woman unbelievingly. So what you mean to say is that he went and got himself this filthy, and then crawled into the wheelbarrow and waited for you to push him here?

Naw, I ain’t sayin’ that. What I’ma sayin’ is that he dun gone crazy, an’ he’s been scarin’ me an’ little Johnnyboy wit’ his talk of win’s an’ tings comin’ down’ from da’ sky. He dun’ and tried ta dig hisself a hole unnergroun’, tryin’ ta hide from da’ whatevers it is dat was tryin’ ta get at ‘im.

She leaned closer to me and whispered very loudly, He ain’t right in ‘is mind, no he ain’t. I wan’ yer ter help him out a bit, an’ see wha’s wrong wit’ ‘im.

I stood up straight and faced her, my considerable height allowing me to stare down at her. She didn’t back down in the slightest. After a moment, I nodded. Very well. I walked back to my desk and sat down. I beckoned for her to come forward, and took out a writing pen. What’s your name, then? I asked her, masking whatever the disbelief and anger moving through my mind.

Donna Marley, goo’sir. I nodded and wrote it down in the record-book.

And how exactly do you plan on paying your fees, Mrs. Marley?

She looked taken aback. Fees? I wa’ told dat dey look’d at yer fer free in da city.

I shook my head sadly at her. I’m sorry, ma’am, but not here. This is a private Institution. If you take him to one of the public ones…

She shook her head violently. Naw, naw, naw, that won’t der ‘tall. He needs the bestest care, I say. I won’ settle fer anytin’ less, yer mark my wor’s.

I sighed. I’m dreadfully sorry, Mrs. Marley, but I simply don’t have the authority to allow your son to be treated here.

She gave me a glare that would have raised the dead, her eyes burning like balefire, then rummaged about in her patchwork dress until she pulled out an old, wrinkled piece of paper. She held it out to me, hand quivering. I gingerly took the paper from her trembling fingers, fearing that it would crumble in my own. I brought it close to my face and peered at the scrawling script upon it. It read out to be a simple request:

To Whomever it May Concern,

It is requested that whomever is receiving this letter please listen to the words of the bearer of said letter, and carry out any requests that may be asked of you. You shall be reimbursed upon contact with me.

Your friend,

Donald Quersenn

I lay the letter down upon the desk. Donald Quersenn was the late founder of this institution, having passed away just three years prior. When I informed the woman of this, she nearly burst into tears.

Plers, sir, ‘e an’ li’l Johnnyboy ar’ all I has left! I can’ let ‘im jus’ waste away!

At that moment, my superior, Doctor Fairgen, walked in through the door that led to his office. He gave the woman an odd look, then turned to me, asking me who it was that stood before me so. I replied with her name and mentioned that her son needed treatment. At the mention of her name, he took a step back, and peered at the woman with a renewed interest.

Donna Marley, you say? She turned to him, seeing quite obviously that she would have more luck with him than me, and nodded. He spent another moment studying her, and then nodded, apparently satisfied. Admit her son, Dr. Jueger. We will be paid. I started to stammer a protest, feeling hurt that this woman had apparently beaten me, but stifled it upon the look that Fairgen shot me. Instead, I merely nodded and proceeded to take down the rest of the required information as she answered my questions.

Name of Petitioner: Donna Marley

Name of Patient: Darien Marley, Jr.

Age of Patient: 12

Reason For Treatment: Hallucinations, Irrational fear of wind, Desire to bury self under earth

Room Assignment: 412

Payment Methods: To be obtained at later date

This task done, I closed the record book and phoned the fourth floor, asking them to ready room number four hundred and twelve as rapidly as they could. After writing the new patient’s name next to his room on the housekeeping sheet, we waited in awkward silence for an orderly to arrive and escort her son to his new room. The mother bade the boy, who was seemingly unconscious, a tearful goodbye, and waited for the orderly to lift the boy out from the wheelbarrow and exit the room towards the stairwell. The woman waited until her son was completely out of sight before lifting again the handles of the filth-encrusted wheelbarrow and wheeling it out the door, roughly kicking it open, again causing me to fear for the structural integrity of its hinges.

The rest of the night passed uneventfully, aside from the pouring rain that began to fall not five minutes after Mrs. Marley left. I wondered how she was faring through the rain; it was falling harder than I had ever seen it fall in this season before. It was only later that I learned that she had, in fact, drowned in a ditch just outside of the city. I never learned what became of her Johnnyboy.

II

An incident like that is not something easily forgotten, and whenever I had the time to spare, would follow the interesting case of the young Mr. Darien Marley. He went through seven doctors in his first year, none of them able to help him in the slightest, and all of them unnerved by his queer manner of speech and his terrible imaginings. Of those seven doctors, only two still work with us today. Three of the seven resigned shortly after their time with young Darien, and two of them were killed in mysterious accidents. The young man acquired quite a reputation at the Institution, and most doctors became afraid to touch him.

Why we kept him I shall never know. His bills were paid by an anonymous donor, presumably a relative of Mr. Quersenn, but I was discouraged from questioning it overly much. I learned to be content with reading the doctors’ reports on him for the first year of his residence with us.

I was promoted out from my secretarial position to that of a real doctor shortly before Darien’s first year at the Institution came to a close. I had been educated at a rather prestigious Psychiatric Institute, and I had been rather unhappy when the only work offered to me was that of a secretary. Nonetheless, I had accepted the job, seeing no better opportunities available at the time. I had been working that job for nearly two and a half years before Darien Marley was wheelbarrowed through the Institution’s front doors.

Mere minutes after I was informed of my promotion I was given my first patient, and it was to be none other than Darien Marley. In preparation for my first meeting with him the next day, I reviewed all of the files that I had read so many times, in an attempt to come up with my own diagnosis and solution to the boy’s problems. Of course, I had about as much success as Darien’s previous doctors.

As I began to look over their reports, I realized that it would take days to go through every little detail of what they had to say about the child, so I was forced to content myself with a brief summary of each doctor’s experiences and thoughts on the child, in the form of a short paragraph on the front page of their full report.

Dr. Henry Kuttner (Still Employed): The boy babbled about voices on the wind. He seems to believe that they are trying to steal him away, and take him to a place he calls Seeraith Bolow – or at least that is the best way I can transcribe his words. He likes to be as close to the ground as possible, so I requested for his bed to be moved down there. I think he would be better on a lower floor, but we are so full now that he cannot be moved. He is incoherent much of the time, and frequently goes into hysterics, during which he attempts to dig through the floor. On April the second, the boy attacked me, and I was re-assigned on my request by the administration.

Dr. Daniel Bigelow (Resigned): I can’t stand the child. He unnerves me more than any other patient I have ever had, though I have been told I had more success with him than my predecessor, Dr. Kuttner. Kuttner described him as being incoherent, but to me everything he says is perfectly clear, just nonsensical – what is this Seerayth Bowlo he talks about? I cannot for the life of me surmise as to how he got the thought into his head that the winds will carry him to this place. Did he have some traumatic event in his past? If he had living relatives we might chance to figure this out, but alas, he has none. No matter what I do to help him, he remains unchanged. I have tried everything. I chose, on April the 29th, to resign from my post at the Institution and seek work somewhere that does not keep me working on hopeless cases.

Dr. Matthias Hemmell (Dead): The boy has issues – his fear of the wind has no known source. He tells me that the voices speak to him, and sometimes show him what they want to do to him. So far he has not been able to describe what it is the winds want with him, other than to take him to some dreadful place. He also seems to have an absurd fascination with blood, and has on several occasions bitten himself until he bleeds, so that he may draw strange symbols on the floor with his own life-force. NOTE: Dr. Hemmell was killed in a car accident on March the 28th.

Dr. Herbert Weighton (Resigned): I lasted longer than all three of my predecessors, by some miracle from above. I doubted at first their words, but I see now that they told no lies; he writes on the floor in his own blood, drawing strange symbols that I cannot hope to recreate in writing, so complex were they. He appears to believe that the symbols will protect him when the winds came to drag him off to Seerayth Bolow. I have done some research, and concluded that the name he mentions sounds vaguely Gaelic. Could it possibly be spelled Cireadh Bolough? He will not answer. Halfway through my tenure, he withdrew into total silence, and would not speak. A week later, a terrible windstorm blew through the county, and the boy kept the entire building awake with screams of terror. I was forced to stand in front of the window in order to calm him even in the slightest. I could not take it anymore, and on July the sixth, I resigned from my post, giving the Institution my advice that the child be dropped, as he is not able to benefit from our care.

Dr. Xavier Donalos (Dead): I requested that Darien’s window be boarded shut and the walls of his room padded to be soundproof. Somehow the Institution was able to pull out funds for the former, but not for the latter. The boarded window seemed to help him greatly, though he still felt the urge to paint the wood with his own blood. My blood wouldn’t do; I offered once to do it for him, and he violently resisted my suggestion, attacking me physically. He accused me of being in league with the winds. NOTE: Dr. Xavier Donalos was killed in a fatal fall down the stairs on September the 2nd as he went to hand in his resignation after Darien assaulted him.

Dr. Matthew Brighton (Still Employed): The child is very seriously disturbed. I, at my own expense, did what my late predecessor tried to do, and padded the walls of his room so as to make them soundproof, in order that he not hear the wind. I swear that the boy must be getting into my mind, for I noticed that shortly after I padded his room that the winds in the area picked up frightfully. Undoubtedly it is just my nerves. The boy claims that the winds can and still will reach him, and that I have only delayed them. When I asked him why the winds wanted to take him, he responded with a physical attack. I was re-assigned immediately on December the 18th.

Dr. Benjamin Nevai (Resigned): Young Darien has gone through quite an astonishing array of doctors. I fear what may happen to me if I stay on with him for too long; I think I shall resign before anything too terrible happens. He continues drawing sigils in blood all over his room, and tells me how the winds will rise to sweep him away, towards that Cireadh Bolough place he babbles about. I asked him what would happen to him there, and instead of assaulting me physically like I had thought he would, he told me that they would strip him of his soul and send it spiraling upwards to the stars where their light would burn it forever. I think the boy is driving me mad as well, for I too have begun to hear voices upon the wind. I have resigned from my post on the basis of my own apparent failing mental health on January the 14th.

And so, on January the 15th, I was to pick up where Nevai had left off. I immersed myself with the writings of my predecessors, and set about devising a plan of attack. It seemed that the one fatal flaw all of the boy’s previous doctors save Nevai had possessed was an inability to gain the boy’s trust. I thought that if perhaps I pretended to see what Darien himself saw upon the winds, I might be able to present myself to him as a kindred spirit, and so gain insight into his very soul in order that I be able to reach out to him, and help drag him out of the abyss of terror that he had fallen so deeply into.

III

I first visited him on that morning the 15th, at precisely eight o’clock. The door to his room was closed and locked, as per standard Institute policy. In my left arm I carried a simple writing pad, and in the fingers of that hand I tightly gripped a freshly sharpened pencil. I raised my right arm and closed my fingers into a fist, drawing back my wrist to knock. I hesitated a moment, fearing that if I failed my career would be doomed – or that perhaps something far worse would happen to me.

Pushing those thoughts aside, I gently tapped upon the door to his private room with my knuckles. For a few moments there was no response, and so I rapped upon the door again, with more force this time. At this second knocking, a timid voice reached my ears, asking me who it was. I responded by saying that I was his new friend, after a moment of hesitation as I deliberated on how to describe myself to him. The relationship that I wished to develop with Darien was not that of a patient and doctor, but rather that of a pair of close friends.

You mean you’re my new doctor? The voice was slightly bolder now, and I winced at the words I heard it speak, forcing me to throw out the idea of a relationship of friends.

Yes, if you wish to think of me in that way. May I come in?

Can I stop you? I jotted down a note on my pad – Remarkably quick-witted.

I chose to ignore his comment, and warned him of my imminent arrival. I removed my key-ring from my pocket and inserted the proper key into the keyhole. I gently pushed the door open, just enough for me to enter the room, and then locked it behind me. It was only then that I looked upon the room in which I stood, that I had read so much about, and yet had never seen before with my own eyes.

The first thing to catch my eye was the window – or the space where a window should be. Like Dr. Donalos had mentioned in his reports, the window was boarded up completely by seven thick wooden boards positioned horizontally across said window, completely blocking any view of the outdoors.

The walls of the room would have been a bright white, like the rest of the Institution, had not they been covered with light blue padding. The padding was completely bare, and devoid of any features other than the crevices indicating where one pad ended and another began. To my right, in the corner farthest from the window, was Darien’s cot. It was a standard cot; about two feet off of the ground, with uniform white sheets, pillow, and comforter atop it, all made very neatly. The edges around the rectangular outline of the cot were raised in order to prevent distraught patients from too easily falling onto the hard floor. I wondered for a moment, as Doctor Kuttner claimed to have moved the boy’s bed to the ground. Perhaps a later doctor had failed to mention the fact that they raised it again, for whatever reason. If they had, it did not appear as if Darien had slept upon it at all.

Upon turning my attention to the floor, I must confess that my breath caught in my throat and I thought I might faint. While I had read about the strange designs that Darien drew upon the floor in his own blood, it was not until that moment that I understood what Dr. Weighton had meant when he said that he had no hopes of transcribing the symbols before him.

It is hard now to describe them; they were a vast collection of swirls, filling up almost all of the floor-space in the room, and were most concentrated in the areas closest to the window. I could make out no other discernible patterns to them other than a relatively clear space under his bed (though it is important to note here that swirls of blood surrounded the entirety of his cot) and the door, where I now stood.

Just like the time when I had first seen young Darien, the boy himself was the last thing I noticed. He was rather small – by this time he was thirteen years of age – and white as bone. His entire body trembled slightly, and he looked at me with an odd mixture of excitement, intelligence, and fear. He was kneeling on the floor near his bed, his hands clasped together in his lap.

I smiled down at him, ignoring the bloodstained floor as I walked towards him, arm extended. He did not rise or extend his own arm in return, but merely stared at mine. After a moment, I withdrew my offered hand, and squatted down on the floor in front of him. May I call you Darien?

He shrugged and gazed down at the floor. I repeated my question, and he shrugged again. Sighing, I marked down another note on my pad: Largely unresponsive.

You can call me Dr. Jueger. Moments after pronouncing this statement, I took it back. Or if you prefer, you may call me Jonathan. He did not respond at all to this, not even with a shrug.

I’m going to ask you a few simple questions now, if that’s all right with you. Again, he ignored me completely. Though I was rather put off, I hid my emotions and I began to question him, mostly about his past and his family. I say began here because I did not meet with any success at all. I asked him my first question, did his mother treat him well, dozens of times, over and over again, until it became a mantra. He did not react to me at all, and I underlined in my notes the word unresponsive.

As time passed, Darien began to shake ever more violently, until I ventured to touch him lightly on the shoulder, and ceased my questioning to inquire as to what was the matter. The instant my fingers touched the thin fabric of the gown he was wearing, his head jerked up and he stared directly into my eyes. I found myself unable to look away, and felt as if I was drowning in those deep blue eyes of his, pulled beneath the waves by some great serpent. The instant he blinked, I seized my chance and looked away. I stood up hurriedly. His gaze followed the movements of my head, but I forced myself to not again look into his eyes.

Darien, what’s wrong? I asked, trying to keep the fear from my own voice. His trembling grew more violent.

They don’t like you, Jonathan, the boy said. His voice was a high-pitched vibrato, and I sensed equal parts fear and wonder in it. "They think you’re here to take me away from