1816: The Year Without Summer - eBook

By Springate Dickon

1816 was a year unlike any other and without question it shaped the decades and centuries to come.  Most believe the palatable bland narratives of their history books, however the true explanations behind the various causes and events of that year were far more horrifying than they could possibly realise.  

Stories told from

• Language: English
• Publisher: Beyond Death Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Apr 6, 2019
• ISBN: 9781645707196

Book preview

1816: THE YEAR

WITHOUT SUMMER

12 Original Stories of Lovecraftian Horror

Edited by Dickon Springate

UNREDACTED CTHULHU ALMANAC – VOL I

Beyond Death Publishing Ltd

1816: THE YEAR

WITHOUT SUMMER

Beyond Death Publishing Ltd

Copyright © 2019 by Beyond Death Publishing Ltd and Dickon Springate, Brett J. Talley, Chuck Miller, Jonathan Oliver, Michael J. Sellars, K.T. Katzmann, Rob Poyton, K.C. Danniel, Geoff Groff, Charles P. Dunphey, Stacy Dooks, C.K. Meeder and G.K. Lomax

All Rights Reserved

First Published: April 2019

ISBN: 978-164570719-6

1816: The Year Without Summer

Contents

7      Prologue

8      The Sepulchred Conflagration

28      Documentation of Varied Scientific Endeavours

50      The Queen and the Stranger

72      Unkosher Meals

97      A Roving in England, No More

110      George and the Dragon

139      Sacrament

158      Restoration

181      The Empty Thing

204      Turner’s Apprentice

239      Dreams of Tierra Caliente

268      Journal of Able Seaman Garrick

288      Esoteric Tides

Foreword

by David Southwell

This book started on my sofa. Its editor and publisher is an old friend. Not just the sort of old friend you agree to write forewords for, but the sort you bury bodies with. The type of friend you would call on if you had got yourself involved in some eldritch malarkey and needed back-up.

I tell you all this not only for transparency, so that my bias toward Dickon is exposed and available for you to autopsy, but because I am ridiculously proud that 1816: The Year without Summer started on my sofa. There were no portents, no odd auguries, just good company and conversation.

One of the powerful beauties of the Cthulhu Mythos is that stories about it can happen anywhere in time and space and also way beyond those two fixed points of human perspective. It has endured beyond Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Bloch, endured beyond August Derleth, because it offers others everything to explore. Yet often much of the strength of a good mythos story comes from the specifics of where in infinity, when in time. The Lovecraftian stories that tend to snare our imagination, snag our memory, are not only ripe with sense of place and period, but because there is something at stake. It may be the sanity of one man or woman, it may be the fate of an embattled expedition or whole culture, maybe even a whole planet, but there is always something to be lost.

What is at risk, in the stories collected in this anthology, is the shape of history itself. Some say history is delicate, easily bullied into telling whatever story the powerful and victorious want. Some regard history as a skin of lies pulled uncomfortably taut over available facts to make propaganda drum. Yet most of us tend to agree on the established, if somewhat vague, form of past itself. We all know that, not only didn’t the world end on the 18th July 1816 as predicted in the Bologna prophecy, or even yesterday, but we can also agree and trace the trajectories from then which structure the now. As 1816: The Year without Summer shows, history as we think we know it is a sham, the whole outline of the old is at constant risk from the occulted force of the Cthulhu Mythos.

Remove a scientist or artist too early in the game and the whole shape of a society can be subtly shifted. Topple a queen, alter the course of a cardinal or break the mind of a key general and nations may fall. In these collected tales, we can see how it is not only the obvious battles of blood, fire and suffering echo across time, but the veiled engagement against forces far more ancient than man. Forces with their own much longer history have threatened our very existence, threatened to bend and end our own story as species.

Delve into any year in human history and it always becomes about an archaeology of stories. We are built on layers of memory, layers of narrative. As the included authors ably demonstrate, 1816 is a rich bed for any story excavator. The modern world is built on its inventions – whether Davy’s Lamp, Stirling’s Engine or Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. It is also built, as you are about to find out, upon the bones of the strangest of creatures, the trace evidence of the violent wreckage of cosmic forces deeply buried in our collective chronicling.

As a writer myself, I have an added reason for welcoming this collection beyond the pride that it started on my sofa, beyond the pleasure of reading a bloody good Lovecraftian story. It is the first book from Beyond Death Publishing, a company who from page one has consulted with authors, artists and audience on fundamental matter of fairness. By buying this book, you are helping to support the sort of publisher we writers need. Not just independent, not just creative, but committed to manifesting stories in an ethical fashion.

Now, stop reading words by someone you have never heard of, and start digging through the unredacted history of 1816.

Prologue

In April 1815, the centuries dormant volcano of Mount Tambora on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa suddenly and inexplicably erupted.

Official records state that around 71,000 souls were lost in the immediate aftermath of the eruption, but this huge and tragic number is itself dwarfed by the final toll of more than a million lives that are estimated to have perished globally, due to the climate change that impacted and enveloped both hemispheres for the next three to five years at the very least.

Though only known to a handful, the real cause for this calamitous event began 1,000 years ago on the eastern tip of the Avalon Peninsula on the large Canadian island of Newfoundland.

The Sepulchred Conflagration

By G. Groff

Apaata stood patiently on the banks of lake Quidi Vidi, overlooking the seal breathing hole. In his mitted hands he gripped his long harpoon tightly as he waited for a seal to emerge from the icy depths below and come up for air. His vigil had already been over an hour long and to ensure his reflexes were sharp, he continued to make a series of tiny muscular trembles, just enough to warm them through without exerting them or disturbing his perch by the water’s edge and thereby alerting the seals.

Out of the distant mist that exists at the verge of the horizon, where blinding ice snow meet pale, puffy clouds, came a low rumbling. Apaata could not make out what was causing the noise, but whatever its origin, he could tell that it was edging ever closer. His seal hunting training, the calming watchfulness that had served him well for decades, ensured that he did not run, hide or indeed make any movement at all that would give away his position; he just continued with his internal flexes and waited nervously.

As the thunderous cacophony approached, it got louder, and although he could not hear any clear voices, Apaata felt sure that underlying the maelstrom was the repetitive sound of barely shod feet stampeding across the ground towards him. This explanation would have made sense, except that he knew heading eastward from the lake was nothing but craggy rocks and the never-ending watery expanse beyond.

Confusion and doubt wrestled in Apaata’s mind, until suddenly a giant dragon’s head emerged through the dense mist, complete with large, sharp teeth and flaming, midnight black eyes that also somehow appeared to glow with fury. Despite all his training, nothing had ever prepared him to face such an almighty foe, and even as the internal debate continued as to whether or not to stand ready and await this incredible fiend, he caught sight of a headlong rush of dozens of humongous, strangely garbed warriors, with round, wooden shields and long, blond hair trussed up and tightly plaited.

Quickly gaining ground across the fresh snow towards him, the intruders carried a huge wooden craft, the likes of which Apaata had never seen, though he guessed it must be a massive canoe like vessel, as it had sections for paddles along both sides, and its prominent figurehead was what he had earlier mistaken for a dragon. Judging by their clothes and outward appearance, these men were clearly foreigners from a distant land, as not only were they two heads taller than himself, but also, instead of wearing pelts made of caribou and polar bear skin, their garb matched their demeanour–dark, yet vividly colourful–not at all suitable for the biting, wintery blizzards.

Tensing in still readiness to fend off the first of the advancing invaders, Apaata suddenly felt a sharp stabbing pain as a wicked barb tipped arrow pierced the thick polar bear skin that he was wrapped in and embedded itself in his chest. Blinding pain coursed across his torso, followed by a second arrow strike, landing a little less than a handspan away from the first; this one plunging deeper as it punctured a lung. These new and unexpected sensations were all too much for Apaata, who had never so much as needed to raise a fist in anger before, and as his irrelevant harpoon fell from his limp hands and clattered noisily onto the ice, he tilted his head sideways to get a better look at what had struck him. This curiosity lasted only a second or two, as, moments later, his lifeless body flopped onto the discarded harpoon; felled by a single, cruel blow from a war axe wielded by a powerful, tattooed arm.

As his blood flowed out and instantly began to congeal and solidify on the freezing ice, Apaata was unaware that his death was only the first among many, as the berserking hordes encroached from the coast and mercilessly hacked their way through anyone that stood in their way in search of treasure, whether they resisted or not.

When these strangers at last chanced upon the Esquimaux settlement, they could not believe that so many people would live together with barely a rudimentary wooden fence encircling the encampment, presumably more to keep the cattle in than any invaders out. The dwellings were arranged in a vast, broken circle, perfectly and symmetrically aligned around a large central ice sculpture that seemed to be of a deformed whale with a long spear protruding from its snout; their god Katkannaalu, the staunch oceanic protector of their primary god, Sedna.

The invaders knew not the ways of the tribal elders, nor cared about the weak or feeble gods they worshipped, for these blond giants came from a harsh land where life was fierce and barbaric and their gods equally so.

With detached authority, they swooped down upon the community and overran the bewildered villagers, smashing and defiling the statue with their hammers and axes, until Katkannaalu’s former likeness was little more than a melting collection of slush and broken shards of ice.

Taking what little valuables and dried food there was, the strangers took turns in savagely violating some of the tribe’s diminutive young girls, before mocking the former deities one last time as they magnanimously strolled out of the village and retreated towards the coast from whence they came.

The villagers who remained alive after the rampaging horde had left looked on in dejected misery at their fallen idol. As they began to console one, all thoughts and voices began questioning how Katkannaalu had failed to protect them, or, more worryingly, wondering if he had deliberately chosen not to.

As his waking eyes flew open, the elder village shaman, Kumaglak, came out of his trance and feared the worst. It had been the same frighteningly confusing dream vision that he had been plagued with for weeks, and though he still did not believe in any blond giants approaching from the frozen wastelands of the east, the repetition and violent nature of the dream troubled him deeply.

Trying to gain some context, Kumaglak rose and shuffled to the entrance of his hut where, having pulled aside the thick hide curtain, he could see, low on the horizon, the now familiar vividly colourful sunrise.

Kumaglak had still been young when the tribe had settled along the coast a handful of years ago, before the changes in the skies began. At first, the rose hues were so brilliant that the entire tribe gathered to watch the sun slowly sink below the horizon, however after months of similar dusks its beautiful novelty waned and nobody except Kumaglak observed it gradually receding back to normality.

It was a few weeks afterwards that the autumn feast was held and with it, the annual ceremony. Those in the tribe who wished to participate split into two teams; The Ptarmigans and The Ducks. A mark was drawn across the ground and a sealskin rope laid across it. The teams then gathered on opposite sides and took hold of the rope. Kumaglak stood next to the mark, raised his hand and looked to each team.

Upon Kumaglak dropping his hand, both teams began pulling on the rope in an attempt to drag the opposing side across the mark. Both struggled towards their goal for several moments, with neither seemingly gaining any footing, and as seconds extended into minutes Kumaglak watched on with a furrowed brow.

Finally, The Ptarmigans gained a small footing as The Ducks attempted to hold their position. What felt like hours, was only moments, as The Ptarmigans gained more footing, edging The Ducks closer to the mark. Then there was a snap as the rope broke and The Ducks collapsed backwards into one another. The Ptarmigans yelled at their victory as The Ducks rose to the feet to yell along with them.

Once the celebration had ceased, Kumaglak made his customary proclamation that the winning team would be a mark of the weather to come, and with The Ptarmigans as the winners, this indicated that a harsh winter was approaching. Only a few took notice of his expression as he finished and departed from the remainder of the ceremony.

Several days afterwards, Kumaglak, still wracked with troubled dreams, called those at the village to a tribal gathering. With the sunset behind him, he related the visions he had seen, doubt thick in his voice, but determined not to miss out even the slightest detail, less he omit some vital clue that the chief and his head advisors could make best use of. The chief and his council exchanged many subtle nods as Kumaglak relayed his visions, and even before he had left their presence, the pair were deep in hushed conversation.

As nightfall descended on the encampment, Kumaglak drank a sleeping draught of nettles and wild roots, desperate to prevent another night of interrupted slumber. His concoction worked and though he would forever regret this tiny act, Kumaglak fell into a deep, untroubled sleep.

It was not the everyday sounds of the community rising that woke him the next morning, rather the sound of heavy rock slamming and crushing a smaller boulder, occasionally skipping as a poorly aimed strike connected badly. Though unusual, due to his extended sleep, Kumaglak took longer to come fully to his senses. When he finally did so, it was with a possessed urgency that he hastily threw across his shoulders a thick fur-skin and dashed out into the freezing winds outside.

The vision that met his eyes was confusing at first, but as he scanned the horizon, he realised with horror and dread what had happened. What he saw first was the body of the fisherman Apaata, lying dead on a lattice stack of wooden logs, two arrow shafts visible in his torso. Beyond that he saw, standing by the pyre, the chief and his advisor, both holding a flaming torch in their hands and frantically urging all the remaining men, women and children of the tribe to destroy their talismanic ice sculpture as if their very lives depended upon it. Everything was exactly as he had seen in his dreams, with the calamitous exception that the culprits defiling their protector god Katkannaalu was not a group of strange, blond giants, but faithful tribesmen whom he had once called friends.

Trembling with frustration, Kumaglak threw himself at the enraged mob, intent on preventing further insult and humiliation to the likeness of their gods, however an accidental backwards blow sent the shaman tumbling to the ground, where he lay stunned and mumbling incoherently. The strike had clouded his mind and disorganised his thoughts, so he could not be sure if what he saw next was a genuine premonition, or just the effects of concussion, but in his mind’s eye, he saw a dancing fireball descend upon the settlement, leaving nothing but a crater of ash.

Bitter tears leaked from Kumaglak’s eyes as the full realisation struck home that not only had his chief completely misinterpreted his prophetic warnings, but the whole community had now blasphemously destroyed their god’s image in his name. What soul-rending retribution this might have he could not begin to image, but, like all tribesmen, he was familiar with his divine lore and knew well that neither Sedna not Katkannaalu were worshipped for their abundance of forgiveness and leniency.

* * *

Though he could not possibly have known it, at that exact moment, at the furthest edge of the solar system, two floating asteroids collided. The larger of the two barely had its orbital trajectory perceptively altered, while the dwarf asteroid fragmented into a number of spinning shards; two of which seemed to speed up as they shot out across the void and headed unerringly towards planet earth.

For almost a thousand years, the two earthbound shards flew ever closer, defying the shifting gravity wells of celestial bodies as they came; their cores slowly heating up, despite their surroundings, almost as if they were no longer simple far-flung impact debris but eldritch messengers traversing the cosmos with a singular mind and hellish purpose.

It was not until mid-1815 when the leading shard entered the earth’s atmosphere a few months ahead of its smaller twin companion; somehow navigating a direct route that sent it tumbling out of the sky without a single telescope observing its fall. With its abnormally fiery core burning fiercely, it plunged into Mount Tambora, Indonesia, reigniting its century-dormant heart and causing one of the largest and most destructive eruptions in the history of man; sending up noxious gases that blackened the sun and, ultimately, led to countless deaths for years to come.

A few months later, as the climatic changes were still being felt all around the world, the smaller twin entered the earth’s atmosphere, though none below could see it. Its intent was not to cause mass carnage and fear, but the more focused goal of complete and total obliteration of an Esquimaux settlement, long since abandoned by its original occupants and now settled and built upon by westerners boasting European descent.

* * *

August 19, 1914

Gaubert N. Beaumonts

Chas. E. Goad Company

Montreal, Quebec

Mr. Beaumont,

Enclosed, please find several sheets of notes comprising what appears to be a short journal that was discovered during our insurance survey of St. John’s, Newfoundland. As the condition of the writing is poor, likely due to the age of a century, I have taken the task of typing them in completeness to the best of my ability. There are a few sections where the ink is incredibly faded and thus illegible to my eyes. While there is no assigned date, the contents suggest a date shortly after the fire of early 1816.

Among the notes was a German newspaper published in December 1816, which contained an article mentioning the discovery of a new comet by astronomer Jean-Louis Pons, during late January of that year. Although some research has determined that this comet would have been too faint to be visible to the unaided eye, the date would corroborate with the story.

Additionally, the library has archived newspapers, including some dating back to the early 1800s. Of interest is the first publication after the fire, in which, among the dead, is an Elias Abner, aged 54.

The nature of the contents seems fantastical even to myself, yet oddly enough, there are a few corroborated details. Amazingly, if demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt, this would provide an explanation for the unusual number of fires that have plagued the city over the last 100 years.

Sincerely,

Bryan Randal

Civil Engineer

* * *

Here is my account of events as they occurred, to the best of my recollection, of the great fire that nearly consumed our city, St. John’s. I fear the experience is about to take its toll on my mind. I wish to record it in writing while I am still able to recall the details.

Old Elias always had keen eyes, even in his dotage. It was he who came to me claiming to see a light in the frigid nights of late January. I could not see the damn light, even when he attempted to point it out among the stars. I do not think it would have helped if I had seen it.

Days later, he approached me claiming to see luminous strands radiating from the light, though I could see nothing and told him that the haze was playing with his eyes. I was certain that his brain had gone soft. He continued to watch the evening skies for those strands and seemed fevered when he claimed that they were extending across the sky.

It was on the evening of February 12 that the madness seemingly began, with Elias making a commotion at my door, rousing me from sleep. If I thought that he was deranged before, tonight he was truly mad. He was obviously frantic, shouting about that damn light again. He pulled me into the street and pointed down towards the government offices. I could see that his hand was trembling as he said that one of those luminous strands had spiralled down from the sky and come down near King’s Beach. I laughed at him at first, but was then shocked, as I could certainly see an otherworldly radiance from the streets, illuminating the sides of the buildings in a violet glow. I could hear a rising drone and, looking at Elias, I saw that he heard it as well. At that moment, a blast of heat assailed us and, even at our distance, we could see that the buildings were engulfed by fire. We rushed down the street, towards the flames, calling an alarm as we ran. Once we were there, we could see that the fire had already consumed the wharf and was quickly spreading to other buildings. How it leapt from building to building seemed supernatural, as it defied the winds. Elias shrieked when he looked down Water Street. At first, I thought it was the shock of seeing our city burning, but now, I suspect it was something that escaped my attention.

I am not certain how much time elapsed, for it seemed that dozens of other people had suddenly arrived at the growing inferno. Everyone went to action and started a bucket brigade until the hand tub arrived. I immediately began helping.

It took me several minutes to realize that Elias was not near me. I paused for a moment to look for him among the