Why Death Abounds - 2nd Half
Entomophobia Horror
FIVE
“And I took the little book out of the angel's hand, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey: and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter.”
Revelation 10:10 KJV
The moment David begins reading the poem that opens the book, an unseen and despotic force focuses its attention on him from the formless place in which it lay. Inside the house, all of the soft groans and subtle creaking sounds of the background fade off into a predatory, crouching silence. Outside the house, nothing moves or shifts until a small cool breeze blows through, painting unknown hieroglyphs in the fields of flowers. Off in the woods, a weathered red shipping container full of bees becomes an agitated drone of fervently beating wings. David reads the nameless book and time slips by unnoticed, shoring itself up, back into whatever dark and impossible corner eternity lurks in. The innocuous shadows are rendered into horrid dysphemic shapes as they crawl across the ground with the rapidly setting sun. When next David looks up from the book, his eyes are red and dry and the outside world is dark. He has the overwhelming feeling of loss and disappointment, like he had begun some great epoch when he started reading, but never reached the grand culmination. He rubs his eyes. How long since he started reading? How long since he last blinked?… When he looks down at the book, it is open to the last page before the ones that were torn out. He consumed the entire thing in a manic state, yet he can’t remember anything he read. Again he feels that crushing feeling of loss, that he was immeasurably close to something - some vast and ultimate truth. He rubs his eyes and stands to stretch out his stiffened limbs.
He realizes it is too late to drive home, so he reluctantly walks back to his old room to stay the night. He pulls back the covers and crawls into a small yet familiar bed and finds himself staring up at the ceiling as the dark corners encroach slowly, overtaking his entire field of vision. He is exhausted and feels as though he has undergone an intense ordeal. When he closes his eyes in his bedroom, he opens them in his dreams. He is staring out on a two toned world split by a featureless horizon; the sky an empty roiling gray, and the ground an ocean of dark green glass. He knows he is dreaming and yet is still terrified. His feet are planted on a strange slat beneath the surface of the still ocean water. He knows, in some type of inborn and primal sense, that this water should not be disturbed. Yet every fiber of his being desires to run, to flee from this alien place. He looks down at his feet and sees a seemingly endless deep. As he looks through the slats just under the water, to the eternal depths beneath, a shadow shifts below. Words form in his mind, forgotten from the nameless book, yet filed away somewhere in his subconscious: “…What lay below…” There are more words forming in his mind when he sees something large seeming to swim upward toward him. The next words never form as David screams in terror and, disturbing the pristine surface of the primordial ocean for the first time in eons, he takes a step backward.
He slips soundlessly into the dim green water, falling down between the slats at the surface. An all-consuming quiet overtakes David as he sinks into the cold water. He looks above himself, grasping and reaching frantically for the light green surface as it recedes, the water growing darker and darker with his descent. The silence is shattered by an immense sound that can only have emanated from something prehistoric. It is low and prolonged and terrible. When David looks below himself in fear of that monstrous entity, he sees only darkness. Then, stretching forth across his field of vision, something even bigger moves in the depths. At the extent of his vision he sees a vast prehensile limb, reaching up out of the murky depths toward the surface. Directly below David, in the interminable depth, is a colossal maw yawning open so wide as to encompass the deep completely. He screams, expelling his lungs in terror. The reaching talon glides upward through the water, past David, and he sees it claw at the slats just below the surface. As David inhales the ancient waters, an ear-piercing screech cracks through the water. His dying thoughts feel like someone else’s as they sound off, a murmur in his mind, “… the darkness has both teeth and hands…”
David awakes coughing and spluttering and sweating. He vomits up water and is bent over with more wracking coughs. When he is finally able to breathe, he notices he is not in his childhood bed. He slowly raises his head and sees nothing, only darkness. Not the murky depths of that horrid place, but a complete black void of nothing: total absence. When he calls out, his voice sounds as though it hits a wall just in front of him. He reaches out but finds nothing solid. Hesitantly, he takes a few steps forward and the entire world shifts impossibly. Gray and hazy outlines erupt from nowhere and seem to unfold into a familiar landscape. He finds himself looking out on a colorless mirror of something vaguely familiar. He recognizes the back of his fathers house, yet it appears distorted and open in the strange way of dreams. As he walks forward, the world maintains its form and the fragmented words of that nameless tome continue again, “…it lay in the hidden places…” He enters the house and walks to his old room, opening the door soundlessly. David sees himself lying down in the bed, with a white-knuckle grip on the covers and eyes clamped shut heavily. A feeling of disconnection and disbelief spreads through him as he sees his sleeping body struggle in the throes of a nightmare. He tries to wake himself, to no avail, and so he leaves, unable to watch any longer.
The sky and the ground are both a textureless pitch-black, adorned by colorless features that appear familiar yet unknown. He wanders out into the woods, toward the shipping container, without knowing why. There, in a large hole, is the toppled shipping container, no longer red but a lifeless gray. The container sits half sunken into the ground, and a new set of words materializes in his mind, though he doesn’t know them or what they mean. His lips form the words, despite no willful act of his own “… this is why death abounds…” His eyes wander far away to see things that are not there. He is brought out of the unprompted reverie by the feeling of something tugging on his hands. He feels something heavy pulling on his arms, and when he looks down in fear, he sees that he has it backwards. Nothing is pulling at him, rather he is gripping the doors to the storage container and pulling on them to open. Before he can react, the doors open with a stymied heft and a muffled groan. There is nothing inside the container, but the darkness terminates at the back wall. The wall looks to be a black gateway, cut out from the material of reality. Through that doorway, things seem to move and shift and crawl. He is drawn in closer by an unseen force, feeling as though he is wading through mud. When he reaches the back, he hesitantly reaches a hand toward the doorway. His hand disappears into the vacuous gate, his arm terminating at the wrist. Once his hand disappears through the immaterial pool, he feels something. He slowly withdraws his hand, and it returns grasping something. He blinks once and sees himself reaching out toward a plain gray void. No, not a void, rather his bedroom ceiling: he is lying on his back staring up, with one hand raised in the air. He can feel the ghostly sensation in his fingers, as if he is holding… something, yet he can’t remember what it was.
SIX
“For the remembrance of me is sweeter than honey, and my inheritance sweeter than the honeycomb.”
Sirach 24:20 RSV-C
When David finally realizes he is awake, he lowers his stiffened arm. He is sweaty and cold and tired. When he thinks back to his dreams, the memory is hazy and fading rapidly. By the time he is back in the living room looking out on the piles of papers and books, he cannot remember any part of his dream. It feels as though the memory is receding into a dense fog and the more he tries to remember, the further it retreats. Instead of a memory, he is left with a vague impression of fear and an ominous mantra he doesn’t understand, “…the darkness has both teeth and hands…” He knows he has seen this phrase somewhere, but he cannot recall where. This reminds him of the journal he found in the shed. He sits at the kitchen table with a fresh cup of coffee he feels lucky to have scrounged up. He brings the journal to the table and flips it open, skimming through dozens of formulaic journal entries. Each one mentions the state of the hive, the amount of honey produced, the quality of the Queen, and if any varroa mites have been found. His father appears to have taken this hobby very seriously. As he reads through the entries however, the paranoia slowly becomes more visible.
Fruit tree hive is doing very well, may add additional honey super. The honey has a definite fruity tang - would like to experiment with this more. Varroa test yielded nothing, praise the Lord. Queen appears healthy and active, fresh eggs in the correct frame - fully capped.
Healthy hive.
Flower field hive is making a new Queen, can hear the difference in buzzing. Royal jelly is a fascinating thing. Honey production is fine, though not as many eggs being laid. If new Queen does not turn around the hive, may have to buy one. Found a few mites in the test, but not an alarming amount. Considering burning the whole hive to be safe. Maybe if new Queen fails.
Struggling hive.
Woods hive is doing well, should provide a sizeable boon of honey this season, though not as good as last year's windfall. Won’t require a super, but should fill out the current. There is a small hive inside one of the trees out here, I think this hive may have swarmed and split. May try to get them into a hive box. May not be worth the trouble.
Healthy hive.
Truck hive is doing very poorly, a worrying case of DWV - will have to burn it and replace it sadly. Hopefully hasn’t spread to neighboring hives. The Lord giveth and He taketh away.
Burn hive.
Garden hive is doing well. Propolis was so thick,
it broke my wooden hive tool - need to make another. This hive passes all self-functioning tests - should thrive without intervention.
Healthy hive.
David reads the careful script of his father’s early entries. After reading a few, he begins skimming through. He realizes the handwriting begins deteriorating, and flips back to the first noticeable difference. He reads the entry leading up to it, and then a few of the ones with poor legibility. Strangely, the language becomes more drawn out and descriptive while the hand writing becomes more shaky and imprecise. The entries take on a disjointed and haphazard feel as the quality deteriorates:
Woods hive is thriving - need more healthy hives to be self-sustaining. At least three of them meet the criteria. Final trip to market this week, then cutting off contact. Broke ground on bunker but started to rain.
Truck hive is lost cause. Will torch it when time allows. Shipping container has been delivered. Will begin fitting it immediately. Should be ready by years end, Lord willing.
Found a book buried in front of house. Decided to move bunker to woods.
This book is a gift from God, I have only just begun reading it, but I feel as though my eyes have been opened.
My intentions have been deemed worthy and I have been blessed with the truth. The book is a wondrous revelation, I cannot stop reading it. I will never let it out of my sight. Such incredible truths.
The book speaks to me sometimes, when it is dark. It whispers to me. It says ‘soon, very soon’. I weep at its silence and I weep at its words. When death kisses the earth, what else is there to do? No… the book is everything. It tells me what to do. Who am I that I should be called to such a task? Yet, here I am, Lord - send me.
I am ready now for the promised land Do not dispose of me before the place is reached The work is nearly done despite the swarming of the bees They are jealous for my attention
They want the book for themselves but they cannot have it they cannot have it THEY CANNOT HAVE IT
The book must have chosen this place in the woods guiding my hand this hole in the ground I will open the cage at last The bunker is a door the hole a gate the way is down
I will open the cage
I am coming for you Lord I will release you from your cage Protect me be thou my shield and though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death you maketh me to lie down in green pastures though death crouch in waiting like a lion for the darkness has both teeth and hands this is why death abounds yet I will fear no evil I will open the cage
The final words of the entry seem to break a subconscious dam in David:, a mental block formed by his sleeping mind to shield him from things too difficult to bear and too foreign to understand. It breaks and seems to let in a flood of inky darkness, and suddenly he is overwhelmed. He remembers the content of the gray book which he feverishly consumed in a manic state of delirium, he knows what the horrid chalk drawing is and why it gnaws at his soul, and he recalls every rancid detail of the awful nightmares that have plagued his restless nights. He stands so abruptly that the chair topples over, breaking the quiet morning with a thud. No, not morning any longer… he looks about with wide eyes and finds the world cloaked in the dark of night, or perhaps something even darker. His eyes return to stare at the words of the final entry, “… this is why death abounds…” The penultimate words of that dreaded poem that opens the nameless gray book… and now he remembers the truth of the universe: a truth once known by every person but collectively hidden away during the unchronicled past by crippled minds in a desperate attempt to prolong their feeble existence. He remembers and wishes he didn’t. David wept.
SEVEN
“He who is sated loathes honey, but to one who is hungry everything bitter is sweet.”
Proverbs 27:7 RSV-C
The abhorrent truth has implanted itself into his mind to fester like some sort of malignant infection. He feels the weight of the night sky pressing down on him, even through the walls of the house. The thought of exiting terrifies him to the core, yet he is being drawn by an irresistible urge. Pulled in by a need stronger than life: the need to know. When David finally blinks away his tears, he finds himself looking down on the nameless book, opened neatly to the beginning verse. He cannot remember getting or opening the book… As he strains to remember retrieving it, he becomes aware of a low and intense sound. A buzzing noise that seems to emanate from the book, and the walls of the house: perhaps even from inside his own head. Within moments he is standing at the door, looking out at the woods, feeling pulled in, as if on a hook. He looks at his hands and sees that he is holding the gray book, and he cannot remember having taken hold of it. He steps off the porch and walks toward the foreboding tree line, feeling as though every night star is one in a number of infinite piercing eyes watching his every move.
The silhouettes of the trees are sinister veins of black spreading from the necrotic earth, up into the ancient night. The gray book seems to vibrate with intensity and the omnipresent drone of buzzing grows louder in his head. It is the sound of a ravenous plague of locusts, or the resounding wail of an angry horde of cicadas: it is a terrible insectile groan that presses louder with each step, matching the pulsing beat of his own heart. The book is cold in his hands. He can feel the wrongness of it, but he knows he couldn’t drop it if his life were dependent on the act. The eyes of nature watch as David walks nearer and nearer to the woods - or is it coming nearer to him? He is no longer sure if he is exerting his own will in moving closer, or if something else is: a doomed marionette drug forth to enact a final denouement by some loathsome black-string puppeteer. He can hear the external drone of the bees now, off in the distance, their fervent buzzing melding with the arterial drum of blood in his head.
He lumbers mindlessly forth, into the black woods. He can hear a voice - his own voice, perhaps - reciting the poem of that nameless book. All the alien and unceasing noise melds with the poem in a cacophony of sound. Then, he is standing before the shipping container. He takes a step forward and hears a loud crunch. At the same time, all sound ceases abruptly, leaving a vacuous empty space where a powerful droning once was. There is the overwhelming buzz emanating from within and without, and then there is nothing. No sound of any kind. David looks at his feet and sees the unmoving bodies of honeybees, each of preternatural size. He feels as though something is now watching his every move, and he fears the gaze of that thing. He doesn’t know why, but he finds himself setting the book down on the ground. It is as if he is a passenger in his own body, watching the choices and actions from some darkened and removed place deep within himself. Once the book is on the ground, David feels a weight lift, as though some terrible affliction has been excised from him.
The entire world has gone quiet. David steps forward, slowly and softly crushing the unavoidable forms beneath his boot; their exoskeleton crunch, the only sound in the world. As he approaches the hive, he becomes aware of a radiating heat, and perhaps even a glow, flowing from the container. He is close enough to touch it now, and he reaches out, placing a palm lightly against the corrugated metal. It is warm, almost hot even. He climbs onto the square face of the doors, now feeling the desire to know in all of its potency. He pulls desperately at the latch, but there is a thick and viscous resistance. He will never be able to open this door on his own. Just then, there is a horrendous sound like the rending of flesh; a squelching, tearing, suction. David falls backward off the container and watches in terror as an unseen force opens the hive. The sticky seal gives way as the container's two heavy doors slowly swing wide open. Both doors then begin to fall away on their hinges, and slam into the sides of the container, sending a horde of angry insects up out of the hive. Bees are thick in the air and their agitated droning is oppressive, yet he pays them no mind. David climbs up onto the container and steps onto the hive, sinking down through the honeycomb like a sweet warm mud.
He begins digging with his hands, burrowing deeper into the hive while thousands of honeybees cause the air to vibrate and shake. The hive has been built in a natural descending formation, and David claws his way down in search of answers. He is covered in a thick and raw honey that makes it difficult to move. The bees are buzzing away with a loud, hellacious roar. But David isn’t worried about the bees. He knows they are merely the canaries in this coal mine of death. He thinks he knows what they are safeguarding, what nature has sought to hide away. Yet, he must see for himself. He has an all-consuming desire - a burning need - to get to it. He rips and tears his way through layers of honeycomb and wax until his hand grazes something hard. He digs away at it and slowly reveals a wooden shelf-like structure. He burrows his hands deep into the waxy substance, his fingers prodding something rubbery. A strange and unaccountable feeling imposed from without, tells him that this is the object of his search. The bees drone on and crawl about with vibrating wings, generating a heat that causes David to sweat profusely.
With eager fingers and sweat-slicked skin, he excavates a fleshy mound that resolves itself into a human hand. He digs and scrapes and claws away until the front of his father is exposed from the honeycomb. His eyes are hollowed out caverns and the Queen crawls slowly out from inside the skull. His father’s skin and hair have been preserved by wax and honey, and the look of terror that his father’s life ended with is still palpably visible. Clutched greedily in the fingers of the other hand is something thin and fine. As David uncovers the hand he gets stung for the first time. It burns like a small, hot needle piercing his skin. Then there is the strange and unaccountable scent of bananas. Immediately, thousands of blinding hot points of pain explode all across his body. The bees expend their life in nature's final attempt at burying what should not be. David’s swollen fingers finally uncover his fathers claw-like hand and he finds it full of papers. His vision begins to darken at the edges and the pain becomes unbearable. He is barely able to register the torn edges on the few dozen pieces of paper. He sees, through pain-blurred vision, the instructions for a ritual, ripped out from the nameless book. Then everything turns black.