The Thing From The Beyond

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents..." - H.P. Lovecraft

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Dear Walter F. Baxter Esquire,

I pray that this letter finds you well and that you are still in good health after that dreadful business in Kashmir. I was given your name and address from a mutual friend who recounted several of your exploits and endeavours into the pursuit of the unknown in such vivid and exciting detail. I hope so very dearly that perhaps your expert knowledge on the daemonic will aid me in my quest for answers and, above all, give me some sense of peace in my troubled soul.

It begins in the summer of 1877.

I still recall that hot year as though it were yesterday. Why, the very cobblestones seemed to writhe and sear in their concrete foundations, under hoof and wheel! My dear sister, Mildred, was merely eight years of age and myself, I had eleven summers under my belt.

The incident occurred in late August at Brighton. Mother had taken us both to the beach for several days as we found lodgings within a boarding house owned by a withered yet sharp peregrine of a woman named Bennett. I distinctly recall her observing myself and Mildred with her strangely far-apart eyes and her hooked nose, calling after us in a shrill voice about running in the hallways of her open abode.

Brighton was glorious.

Its beaches were swarmed with workers escaping the choking smog and numbing monotony of the factories and Mother was no different, taking her leave from the textile factory that had already claimed her left middle and ring fingers as gruesome prizes.

The people were dull faced and yet their eyes were bright as they smiled and shared the waters and sands with each other. Why, the stalls and markets at Brighton were such a joy to traverse! So many different and beautiful wooden toys and dolls, all handcrafted by the vendors themselves, and not to mention the hard-boiled liquorice sweets! Truly, an exhilarating experience.

Yet, I do not write to you, Mr Baxter, to recount my fond memories. No. I write to you to recount the dark memory of that year; the year that changed everything. The unbelievable occurrence that I know will make you shake your head and question whether this sorrowful spinster is losing her mind to madness! It is such a bizarre and unsettling occurrence that even the very notion of putting that dreadful day to paper troubles my soul deeply.

The occurrence seeped into our world on the last day of our holiday. The heat was simply too much for Mother and so, she retired to the drawing room to rest, allowing my sister and I to visit the busy beach one last time before we boarded the train back home, northwest to Tidworth.

The blazing sun beat down upon our heads with incredible ferocity but we made sure to lather ourselves in the topical borax, camphor and alum ointment which Mother had prepared in order to protect our skin from the wrathful heat. Of course, we were still to wear our bonnets and aprons, making us suffer even more. Our little legs led us down towards the ocean front - a natural choice, since the stalls and markets were closing and we had no more shillings left in our allowances to spend, you understand.

Little Mildred was the first one to notice that things were awry as we travelled down through the rush grass to reach the sandy shores, choosing to avoid the popular pathways to take a detour approaching the beach more directly from our lodgings. It was unconventional to say the least, as the grasses tore and grabbed at our aprons and ribbons but with no adult there to chastise us until we returned home with our frayed clothes, 'twas a rather exhilarating adventure for our childish hearts and minds!

And yet, as we pushed through the final stretch of the rush grass, we found the sandy oceanfront and pier to be entirely deserted. What luck! Or so we had thought.

'Twas a calm evening, pleasant as the sun slowly began to fade over the ocean's distant horizon, bathing the waters in its heartwarming hues of scarlet and cerise, sharing its final glow of heat with the world before it retired. By all rights, the shore should have remained as crowded as during noon! And yet, we found ourselves entirely alone on the golden beach. I cannot speak on my dear sisters behalf but I know that for myself, I did not think anything of it at that time.

We made our way down the sandy knolls, closer to the slowly receding tide. 'Twas good that the water was retreating as Mildred was dreadfully afraid of the depths, you see. However, my pulse began to race and the breath in my lungs began to dance quicker as we approached the water. I believed it to be my childish excitement at having the full coast to ourselves but alas, it was my spirit warning me.

"Winnie," Mildred's voice reached me through the silence, almost as quiet as a mouse, "why is the world whispering? Is it afraid to speak? Should we be afraid too?"

Her question took me by surprise and yet, as I absorbed her query with a confused and yet curious mind, I began to realise what she meant.

"Oh, don't be silly!" I scolded and yet, I gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. "We have nothing to be scared of."

My words were bold but in my heart, I was beginning to realise that Mildred was entirely correct in her assertion. The world seemed to be cowering in fear.

Everything was so quiet. The beach had been shrouded in a veil of cotton and suffocated by the heat. Yet, Mr Baxter, I assure you that at no point in time did either of us actually notice the aural vibrancy of life fading from the world. Such a strange thing, indeed! How could one not notice such a bizarre and utterly confounded occurrence? No gulls cried out above our heads, no crashing of waves against the rocks or the gentle lapping as they rolled in to caress the sandy beaches. No joyous cries of summer merriment and gaiety. It were as though we had stepped into a place where time did not exist - the world around us appeared frozen and yet, we moved with such normality.

As I became painfully aware of the silence, the realisation crept up over my body like a wave of white spiders, soft and gentle, tickling my skin and yet also sick and ghostly, quietly gnawing their dread deep into my bones. I cast my gaze out over the ocean - it was behaving oddly, as though the incomprehensible cloak of indigo stretching out over the vast horizon was a mere lake. No waves, no froth; just strangely silent ripples. During this short window when I had become aware of the deafening silence, I realised that the sun had practically almost sunk below the horizon. The sky that had been a mirage of beautiful watercolour just moments ago had now bled into deep Prussian blue! And that water that had been receding back out with the changing tides was now rising once more, coming in close to the sandy beach.

And, would you believe it? The water itself seemed almost to glow. A trick of the light, perhaps, but the more I stared, the more unsettled I became. A gentle phosphorescence of bizarre but beautiful golden light seemed to hang just underneath the water, as though the ocean itself were harbouring some grand source of light beneath its drowning depths. But, perhaps the most troubling of all, the water seemed to be bubbling, as though the body of water were slowly beginning to boil!

In a stupefied silence, I turned to address Mildred and saw her eyes frozen above us. With a great apprehension, I followed her gaze and that as my eyes wandered skyward, I saw the reprehensible thing from the stars.

Someone - or something - had sliced a massive rectangle out of the blackest pitch and suspended it somehow in the air, as though God Himself had cut a part of the world out and erased it from existence. Around the edges of the inky object, it appeared the colour was being sapped from the sky; why, it looked as though the sky was turning grey and dull around it.

'Twas a queer thing, peculiar and unfriendly in appearance. As I stared, unable to move or speak, I had this great feeling that this thing was its own master, its own entity, its own twisted and vile consciousness. Despite the thing being so black it seemed to absorb the light around it, I knew it was observing us somehow, cold and calculating as it peered at us from beyond the vast, unknowable swathes of space and time.

But how could this thing be here? How could it exist in our great England and take up such a space in our world? In our universe?

I distinctly remember a feeling of great, uncontrollable anger and hatred soaring up from the pits of my stomach, despite my young age, as I stared as this unholy thing. It wasn't right, you see! It shouldn't have been there! It couldn't be there! It needed to go back immediately to whichever dreadful distant and cold, dead sky-world it had sailed from. As you understand, Mr Baxter, there is simply no place for such things in our beautiful and good world!

Why, I gazed up at that horrific, forbidden thing, watching it pulsate with loathsome energies as it stole the light from our world. It hung over the ocean like a cruel black maw, ravenous and detestable, devouring everything it could: illumination, sound, even the joy in our innocent hearts. I could not tear my eyes from the thing and its sharp, wicked angles and unspeakable geometry as it shivered in the dying light.

I could feel its words, sir. It was whispering to us. Dark and forbidden things, unknowable ideas and fractal profanities, dreams of death and destruction, all pouring into our young and impressionable minds. It tried to wrap its choking, unseen tentacles around our brains and poison our minds with thoughts of the unthinkable. I could not understand its ungodly rasping words and yet I knew, somewhere deep in my soul, that this thing wished us both only the most excruciating harm. It eyed us enviously, repulsed by the blood pulsing through our veins and the air filling our lungs. It writhed and quivered in ghoulish abhorrence at the hearts beating in our chests.

Those whispering daemonic chants... They were commands, Mr Baxter. This thing wanted us to walk and walk and walk. Yes! Straight out into the ocean to stand underneath it and yet, to do such an act would have dragged us under those dark waters where we would be washed asunder, never to surface again!

It wanted us both. It wanted our souls. Of that, I am quite certain! For what nefarious and diabolical purposes, I do not know nor do I ever wish to know.

Mildred, as you will recall, was quite terrified of water. And yet, when I was finally able to tear my attention from the detestable thing, I saw her wading purposefully out into the midst of that glowing and peculiar still sea water. She moved in an oddly straight line, directly towards the thing, as though it were also sucking her free will. I called out to her several times and yet my voice never reached her. It seemed as though she were an automaton, lifeless and controlled.

This thing intended to devour her! Whether physically or spiritually, I cannot say but I knew I had to run to her and I did. I waded out into the water as fast as I could. You will recall, Mr Baxter, how I made mention of the water beginning to boil, yes? Well...the strangest thing... That water was cold, sir. It was not boiling at all. Where those bubbles were emanating from, I have not the faintest of ideas.

I reached Mildred before the water was above her chest and grabbed for her. As my hand touched her arm, a great noise roared over our heads and we were both momentarily deafened, as though a sudden pocket of pressure was exploding.

As I crushed my eyes closed, things returned as they had been. The slow rhythm of the waves began to drift into my ears as the water began to move gently around us, pushing and pulling our small frames. Gulls cried out and circled overhead, and as I opened my eyes once more, I found that the sun had not yet set and instead, hung low, almost where the detestable and diabolical slab had been.

Poor Mildred began to panic but we made it back to the safety of the shore - the poor child had a habit of fainting when she was overwhelmed but somehow fainting seemed impossible this time. The thing was simply too much for her small mind to comprehend.

The shore remained empty of people, however, and with our soaking aprons and bewildered minds, we did not speak a single word to each other until we had dashed all the way back to the lodgings and locked ourselves in the drawing room where our mother still slept.

Mildred was never the same. Her sensibilities were shot after the despicable event and...well, sir, we tried to help her but it was outwith our knowledge and expertise. She was committed to Sidbury Hill Asylum, on the outskirts of Tidworth. She has never spoken one word since the terrible day in Brighton. Whatever that thing was, it shattered her mind. Perhaps she got too close or... Oh, Heavens above, I despair, sir!

Now, Mr Baxter, all of this took place twenty-six years ago and I understand that there is not much investigative work to be done regarding the memoirs and recollections of past events. However, I write to you with the utmost urgency for that accursed thing has appeared once more.

Just the other morning, I awoke at dawn to enjoy the mist settling over the moors as it is wont to during the Autumn mornings and as I pulled back my curtains, behold! There it was: that same, unearthly, cosmic apparition, the phantom from the ocean! Hanging low over the pasture where my cattle graze; why, I found three of my bulls in the locked horse stable and five of my dairy cows cowering in an upstairs part of the barn. Please understand, this part of the barn is inaccessible unless you traverse up the ladder. How on God's green earth is one dairy cow - let alone five! - to climb up this brittle wooden ladder? It makes no sense, I tell you! And for the bulls to escape the locked pasture and wind up in another locked stable...well, I am at a complete loss.

It appears the thing has returned to haunt me.

How I wish that the uninvited visitor had only called once, however, it appears to me every week. Sometimes only mornings but recently, it has called in the evenings too. I can turn my face from it and close my windows but the voices! I cannot stop the forbidden, rasping voices with their unthinkable commands! They whisper to me as though a hoard of phantoms lingers at each ear, you see. And in those moments, I never seem to recall quite what was commanded of me. So far, however, I have been able to stay away from the thing. My doors and windows remain locked. In the coming days, I will petition an advert in the local newspaper seeking a lodger. I need someone here to snap me out of this surreal, cosmic madness just as I seemed to do Mildred all those years ago.

But this is not what troubles me. Why, just this morning I have received some greatly troubling news. Mildred has vanished, Mr Baxter. Vanished! From her locked cell in Sidbury Hill! Impossible! And reports of black shapes in the skies! The skies!

I must find her but I fear that this dreadful thing now comes for me too. 'Tis a punishment for almost allowing her to drown all those years ago, is it not? But then, such a cosmic and horrible entity cannot possibly be divine. And yet, my mind is drawn to those descriptions of angels and I cannot help but wonder...

Yet, you have an incomprehensible knowledge of the daemonic and I am certain you will be able to assist my mind in understanding the origins of this sanity-consuming horror. I must know what it has done to my sister!

You have my contact details and I do look forward to arranging our meeting, Mr Baxter, as there is much and more I could explain to you but I will leave this letter for now as I am becoming aware of that deathly absence of life in the world.

The silence is returning once more. I must go to this entity and observe it once more. It calls to me.

The words... It wants... I cannot...

Ah, there it is. The bittersweet silence of arrival. It is here. I can hear her now. So clearly. Mildred. She wants me to finish this letter immediately and so I shall. She wants me to go to her in the great beyond, in the depths of space and time. She says I can save her, if only I will approach the void. Yet, her voice...is not her own. The phantoms, Mr Baxter, they are whispering to me once more. It is here. I cannot wait for your response.

Please forgive me.

Yours truly,

Winifred Darnly

Sept 1903