The Eyes

Author’s Note:

This is the third short story in my Cosmic Horror universe. It also was read by the fabulous Libby Hawkins and you can listen to the story on my podcast.

Mable Jeanne was a rather unlucky woman. She never won a contest, she always lost at the slots, and she could never seem to guess how many marbles were in the jar despite how sure she was of her counting. But, despite this, things always seemed to work out.

It was ironic then that her last name was Fortuyn. She considered this as she drove down Main Street in her truck - a gift for a birthday a few years ago from her late wife, Eva. 

Beside her sat a beautiful pure white dog. Its head hung out the window. Its tongue lolled out of its mouth and bounced as it panted. It was some kind of husky, or maybe a malamute. She didn’t really know dog breeds. What was most striking was its eyes. They were like two pits of darkness where smoldered small embers, like a campfire when water has been thrown on it. 

“I told you that you would enjoy this,” she said, smacking its flank gleefully. 

The dog pulled its head back into the car, paws resting on the arm rest. 

“You should try it,” said the dog. Her skin crawled, and her hair stood on end.

“No, thank you,” she said, gulping in a breath. “I don’t want any bugs in my teeth, dear.”

The dog stared at her for a moment. Its eyes never blinked. Not since it was hit by that car. It stuck its head outside as they came to a stop and it sniffed the air. 

Fog, thick and dense, pressed in on them on all sides. Mable could hardly see more than the length of her headlights in front of her and even then, they were practically useless. Across the square loomed the ancient oaks and pines of the park. 

On the floor of the front seat sat the thing-o-meter, as Mable had come to call it. She found the slim metal box with its silver dials and rabbit ear antennae when going through Eva’s stuff. It had been hidden in the very back of a cabinet that Mable had been too short to bother with. It was the first of many strange things of Eva’s she found.

The thing-o-meter began to beep, a compass-like indicator on the front fluttered too and fro, eventually pointing toward somewhere on their left. 

“I feel the Mother nearby,” said the dog. Mable shivered.

As the dog pulled away from the window, Mable noticed that there was a clump of flesh and some white hair stuck in the window groove. She said nothing.

Normally the park was filled with tourists, but it was deserted today. Phantoms of fog drifted past, sweeping through the trees.

Mable opened the door for the dog and it hopped out and began to sniff around the car. She picked up the thing-o-meter and slung its strap around her neck. She opened her trunk and took out her shotgun. This wasn’t one of Evas, it was hers. She loved shooting, and often out-shot the younger folks down at the range.

She patted the gun and checked that it was loaded. She grabbed the box of ammo and stuffed it into her sweatshirt pocket. 

“She is in the park,” said the dog, its tail wagging, “I can smell her and her children.”

Mable cocked the shotgun and said, “Lead on.”

The dog padded forward, nose to the ground. Mable had to almost run to keep up. Its white coat blended in with the fog. They crossed the square and entered the park. She heard rustling in the tall bushes that lined the entrance. 

A squirrel, perhaps. But she had learned that more likely than not, it was something far worse.

Mable sat on her front porch. A soft breeze blew down the street, rattling the pines. She looked up and smiled at the bright blue sky. The mountains were glowing with that special verdant glow of spring. 

When Eva had first brought her up here from their home in Atlanta, it was in the spring. She remembered how excited Eva was when they finally reached the top of Mount Lithia and looked out across the valley. 

Sure it was beautiful, but it was nowhere near as beautiful as Eva had been that day. 

Mable smiled, and took off her glasses to wipe the moisture out of her eye. She sniffled and set them back on straight, turning to the tattered book she had found in Eva’s things, in a box marked WORK THINGS.  Recipes for Long Life was embossed on the cover in fine gold lettering. The author’s name had since been worn away. 

She stared at a recipe for beetroot soup, the lettering impossibly small, and let her mind drift. She thought back to the day they bought this house. They planned to retire here and relax in the town’s famous hot springs. 

A white dog emerged from a bush across the street and darted across just as a truck swerved around the corner. Mable gasped and closed her eyes. She heard the thud and the yelp. She felt her stomach drop. An acrid taste of fear spread across her tongue.

She opened them and saw the truck speeding away. The poor animal lay broken in the street. She threw the book down and hitched up her dress as she practically leaped down the porch steps.

When she got to the animal, its breath came in ragged starts. Its hip looked broken and it whined softly as she bent over it. She couldn’t leave it in the street. She knew a veterinarian down the street. She’d call him. 

She stood, gently lifting up the dog. It was surprisingly light in her arms. Perhaps it was the adrenaline. She carried it to the porch and gently laid it on the settee.

She ran into the kitchen and poured some water into a glass and grabbed a rag. She picked up the phone and tried to remember the vet’s number. She sighed in frustration and slammed the receiver down.

As she carried the glass and rag outside, she almost slipped on that book. She swore, apologized to no one for it, and bent down to grab the book. 

Her hand stopped.

The book had fallen open to a page that read Recipe for Restoring Life to the Dead. She couldn’t help herself but read further. There was a picture of a circle surrounded by strange symbols that seemed to squirm like worms whenever she tried to look at them. 

 It called for the page with the circle to be torn out of the book and stuffed into the corpse’s mouth. It then gave a phrase to say and that was it. Mable crinkled her brow. She picked up the book, unsure of what she meant to do with it and set the water down on the ground.

The vet could wait.

She tore the page with the circle out, careful to memorize the phrase. She twisted it into a small roll and pulled open the dogs mouth. She couldn’t see it breathing any more and its eyes had turned glassy. The mouth slowly opened and she stuffed the paper inside, wiping the spittle on the rag. 

She then said the words. They spilled from her mouth like oil, and she felt her stomach turn. She dry heaved and spat something black and slimy onto the porch. It wriggled toward the dog.

She screamed, scrambling backward, her hand landing in a pile of ash where the book had once been. 

The black slime-something flowed up the leg of the settee, doubling in size as it did so. It pushed itself into the nose, mouth and eyes of the dead dog, disappearing into its flesh.

Mable felt her heart race. She sat frozen to the spot, leaning against porch fence, eyes fixed on the dog’s face. 

It twitched. There was a snap and the hip popped back into place. The bone disappeared under the flesh. The dog shook violently. Its spine flexed unnaturally, almost in two. 

It then collapsed with a low sigh into the settee.

Mable licked her lips. She pulled herself to her feet and gripped tightly onto a column. 

The dog sat up, its head bowed. It let out a wheezing sigh and lifted its head to regard her. Its eyes were two pools of black, with two pinpricks of hellfire in the center. 

“I should thank you,” said the dog, its voice a claw of frost in her mind. Mable shuttered.

“What are you?” she said.

“I have forgotten my name, so long have I been in that book.”

“You were… you were in the book?”

“Yes, Bound there for endless eons. A prison built by my enemies.”

“Who are they?” Mable shivered, despite the warmth of the day. It seemed to her the shadows had darkened around her, as if the sun had retreated behind a cloud.

“My enemies? Many.”

The dog stepped off the settee awkwardly and walked toward Mable, its tongue lolling out of its mouth. Its back leg still dragged slightly, but it improved with each step. 

“I am hungry,” said the dog, its eyes fixed on her.

“I have some chicken in the fridge,” she said, quivering. 

The dog stopped and turned its head, distracted by some scent on the wind. It closed its eyes and huffed the air in and out of its nose. 

Mable let go of the column and stepped around the dog and into the house. She went to the fridge and pulled out the chicken she had been defrosting. She heard the screen door open behind her and the dog was standing there, drool hanging from its lips. It stared at the chicken. 

Mable put it on a plate and set it not he floor. The dog trotted over and began to devour the chicken, its lips smacking loudly.

As the dog ate, Mable went into the living room where she had the box of Eva’s stuff open and sitting on the coffee table. She looked inside, wondering what else her wife had collected without her knowing. 

In it was a strange metal device with a small display at the top, and what looked like a compass embedded in the middle and two antenna.  The compass seemed broken as it lazily spun about as she shook the device. There was also a leather journal marked NOTES.

She lifted out the journal. It was filled with drawings of strange surreal creatures, and notes written in Eva’s hand describing them. They were dated going all the way back to before they had started seeing each other. Throughout it Mable saw mentions of some sort of organization that Eva only ever mentioned obliquely, or as They, with a capital T. 

She took out the metal device and looked for some kind of switch. There was none. She noticed movement out of the corner of her eye and she looked up and gasped. The dog stood beside her, head cocked in curiosity. 

The device began to hum and beep, the arrow on the dial spun and pointed at the dog. A number appeared in a display the top of the device. 1439.

“What is that?” said the dog.

“It’s a thing-o-meter,” said Mable, trying to sound confident. The dog said nothing.

The device hummed again, beeping louder. A shadow passed over the window, plunging them into near absolute darkness. The dog sat up and growled, looking toward the window. The fur on its back stood up. 

Outside a bank of fog rolled down the street. She watched as the house across the street disappeared, then the car parked outside it, then the street, her garden, and the porch until all she could see was dark gray. 

The dog continued to growl. The thing-o-meter crackled and beeped. A number whirred across the display. 25000. 

Mable furrowed her brow and watched the arrow on the dial spin and point toward the window. It ticked along, slowly turning to point toward the door. 

There was a hollow thump as something smacked against the door. She felt her face drain and her heart drummed in her ears. There came another thud and the door shook. She couldn’t move, fear rooted her to her spot. The device beeped louder now, angry and insistent.

“Do you have a weapon?” said the dog, its voice shocking her from her stupor. 

“A gun - In the closet,” she said. She stood, tossed the device on the couch and dashed to the closet. She felt her hand shake as she undid the lock on the gun safe and took out her shotgun. She grabbed some shells from the safe and loaded the gun and cocked it.

The door shook again and one hinge broke from the frame. Mable planted herself, and aimed the gun. She took a deep break trying to steady her hand. She had her pride after all. Whatever was out there was going to get a face full of lead.

The door shook and the last hinge shattered, sending shards of wood skittering across the floor. The door crumpled to one side and something black and slimy, covered eyes that blossomed open into mouths with needle fangs slid through the door. 

It stunk like rotting garbage and wheezed a high wine. 

Mable didn’t let it get closer before she pulled the trigger. The door exploded and the creature wailed, sending a shiver up Mable’s spine. It sprung toward her, a mass of jaws and she fired again. 

She hit it square on and it burst, spraying black acrid goo over the foyer. Mable lowered the gun and scanned for movement. A part of the creature still writhed on the ground, pulling itself toward her. Small needle like tendrils pressed out of its flesh and the one eye that had survived stared at her with a malevolence that shook Mable to the core. 

The dog barked and lunged scooping up the blob of fetid flesh in its mouth. It squealed and oozed black slime that spilled to the ground, hissing as it hit the wood of the floor. The dog shook its head and gulped it down. Black ooze dripped from its mouth as it turned to Mable.

“There will be more,” said the dog, “we must kill the mother to prevent further infestation.”

“What was that thing?”

“An Eye. A being from a different dimension. Once my kin, I suppose.”

“Your kin?” Mable’s finger rested on the trigger.

“Yes, now my enemies. I can smell the mother. She sent the fog. Bring your weapon and that device.” The dog leaped over the shattered door and down toward her car.

Mable licked her lips. Her mouth had suddenly gone dry. She reloaded the gun and grabbed more bullets for safe measure. She stuffed the journal into her pocket and lifted up the device. 

“What had Eva been doing?”

The dog kept a constant pace through the park. Mable was careful to follow as close and as carefully as she could. This “Eye Mother,” as Eva had termed it in her journal, had been infecting the town for some time. It likely had spawn everywhere. It probably knew they were coming. 

The dog stopped turned to face a bridge over the river that ran through the park. 

“The nest is close,” said the dog. 

Mable took out the thing-o-meter and saw that the needle was pointing directly across the bridge, toward the grassy knoll in front of the bandshell. She had found a mute setting, but the display flicked across a number 500000. She immediately had a sinking feeling. 

The gun in her hand felt small.  She had a strange sensation of fear. She guessed her ancient ancestors felt very much the same when going up against a mammoth with only a spear. 

“You will need to destroy the anchor,” said the dog. “Without it, it cannot survive in this world.”

Mable nodded. She didn’t know what the hell an anchor would look like.

The dog padded forward, head low, ears alert. Mable checked that the shotgun was loaded and she followed. 

The knoll was deserted. Thin wisps of fog curled around her feet. The fog absorbed the sound of her footsteps so that they sounded muffled and distant. 

A man stood on the stage of the bandshell, facing away from them. He wore a black suit. His shoes and the hem of his pants were covered in mud, and his hands were caked with something dark and glossy. Mable didn’t want to consider what that could be.

She aimed the shotgun at the man’s head. The dog snarled.

The man turned to face them and Mable gasped. His face was gone, as if sloughed off and an eye-covered creature sat where it should have been. Small tendrils anchored it in place, burrowing into his flesh. The thing pulsed, glowing green, and a small trail of ichor spurted from a tendril, spilling down the man’s chest which was covered in the black liquid. 

“Hstkhk stchhrhhcts hrktsk,” it keened in a high voice. Mable felt a wave of nausea threaten to overwhelm her. The man lifted his hand and she saw more eyes and needle-mouths creeping down his arm. 

She fired. 

The man’s head exploded in bile and blood. The thing screamed. Mable felt her hand burn and begin to blister. Some of the black ichor had landed on her. Her hand shook but she took aim again.

She fired the second shell and the man’s chest exploded. The creature screamed long and high, rattling her brain in her skull. She heard the trees shake and drop their leaves. The black ichor covering the bandshell pooled together. The remains of the man’s body dissolved into slime.

The ooze swelled, growing more jaws and eyes that bloomed into jaws. It swelled in size until it scraped against the roof of the shell. Mable fumbled to reload. Shells plunked to the floor. 

The dog began barking, and its body shifted and cracked. Its muscles bulged as it nearly tripled in size. Its skin split to reveal something dark and pulsing beneath its flesh. Its eyes glowed brighter and its jaw contorted so that it was filled with thousands of jagged teeth. 

The dog roared and leaped at the column of slime and mouths. It tore a chunk out of its side, causing the creature to scream again in rage and pain. 

Mable finally slid two shells into the shotgun. The anchor! Where is the damn anchor! She scanned the bandshell as the dog leaped backward to dodge a tendril as thick as her torso. 

Her eye was caught when she saw the town’s seal embossed on a plaque at the foot of the bandshell. It rippled as she looked at it, as if struggling to get away from her vision. It was like that book! 

She aimed and fired. The plaque shattered. The creature slowed and slowly dissolved into ash, letting out one long, low cry. The dog panted and with each breath, shed its transformation until it was simply a white dog with eyes that glowed like embers. 

The blood and the body remained. 

The dog sniffed it and said, “It is gone.”

They drove down Main Street as the fog began to lift. The dog hung its head out the window, smelling the breeze. Mable smiled.

“What do you plan to do now?” she asked it.

“Find and destroy my enemies,” said the dog. Its voice wasn’t as shocking to her anymore. It felt less like falling into a frozen lake and more like accidentally turning on cold water instead of warm in the shower. 

“Yes, well, you may need some help with that.”

The dog looked at her and wagged its tail.

Mable smiled and laughed.

Perhaps, she thought, I am lucky after all.