Everything the Darkness Eats E-Book

Eric LaRocca

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 231

Beschreibung

A haunting and horror-filled tale of loneliness, trauma and spiritual yearning from the award-winning author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke and Other Misfortunes. An insidious darkness threatens to devastate a rural New England village when occult forces are conjured and when bigotry is left unrestrained. After a recent string of disappearances in a small Connecticut town, a grieving widower with a grim secret is drawn into a dangerous ritual of dark magic by a powerful and mysterious older gentleman named Heart Crowley. Meanwhile, a member of local law enforcement tasked with uncovering the culprit responsible for the bizarre disappearances soon begins to learn of a current of unbridled hatred simmering beneath the guise of the town's idyllic community—a hatred that will eventually burst and forever change the lives of those who once found peace in the quiet town of Henley's Edge.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Cover

Praise for Everything the Darkness Eats

Copyright

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Also by Eric LaRocca

Prologue Wales, 1994 A.D.

Part One A Scarecrow after A Summer Storm

One Present Day

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Part Two He Sent Darkness and made the Land Dark

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Part Three If we were made of Honey

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Part Four An Invention of Skin

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Part Five Hymns for a Decaying God

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Epilogue A Final Hymn that only Ghosts can Hear

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Things have Gotten Worse Since we Last Spoke and other Misfortunes

The Trees Grew because I Bled there: Collected Stories

PRAISE FOR

EVERYTHING THE DARKNESS EATS

“LaRocca has conjured for us a mad, beautiful tale of dark magic, trauma and love, and how these things intertwine—this is an author in command of powerful narrative sorceries, and is deserving of your immediate attention.”

Chuck Wendig, author of The Book of Accidents

“Sherwood Anderson this isn’t. In Everything the Darkness Eats, Eric LaRocca has created a truly modern horror story that boldly illuminates the harsh realities of life in contemporary small town America. His Henley’s Edge is not your stereotypical community where everyone’s a neighbor and every neighbor’s a friend. It’s a town where depression and loneliness thrive, where intolerance and bigotry undermine civic institutions, where isolation turns even loved ones into strangers. Horror fiction doesn’t get more emotionally raw than this.”

Bentley Little, author of The Store and The Haunted

“LaRocca looks at the passive violence and prejudice underlying small town life with an unblinking eye, revealing how it can erupt into something truly monstrous—and then he somehow grafts that together with something profoundly dark and supernatural to create a unique and deadly beast of a novel with a double row of very sharp teeth.”

Brian Evenson, author of Father of Lies and Last Days

“Everything the Darkness Eats is an emotionally devastating novel of unflinching violence, lost souls, and cosmic horror. Eric LaRocca’s prose sings and his characters are heart-achingly true. Another brilliant work from one of horror’s fastest-rising talents.”

Tim Waggoner, author of We Will Rise

“A colossal feat of imagination and moments of pure magic delivered with style and tenderness in a way that gives Gaiman a run for his money.”

Gemma Amor, author of Full Immersion

“After already conquering short stories and novellas, it should be no surprise that more Eric LaRocca is even better. With his novel-length debut, he promises us a feast fit for Darkness itself, and, my God, does he deliver.”

Nat Cassidy, author of Mary: An Awakening of Terror

Everything the Darkness Eats

Print edition ISBN: 9781803366395

Signed Edition ISBN: 9781803367460

E-book edition ISBN: 9781803366401

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

First Titan Edition: July 2023

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Eric LaRocca asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Copyright © 2023 Eric LaRocca. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

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Also by Eric LaRocca

and available from Titan Books:

Things Have Gotten Worse Since Last We Spoke and Other Misfortunes

The Trees Grew Because I Bled There: Collected Stories

“Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.”

—Epicurus

PROLOGUE

WALES, 1994 A.D.

It was late in the afternoon on the third day in April when the Excavation Director—a large man with a pockmarked face named Mr. Pritchard—sent his nine-year-old son to fetch Heart Crowley and tell him they had found something.

Mr. Pritchard told his son that he would most likely find Mr. Crowley taking his afternoon tea, as was his custom, in the small tent they had constructed at the foot of the mountain— not only a place of refuge from the icy wind, but a sanctuary where they could catalog the artifacts they had uncovered.

If you could even call them artifacts, that is.

Nearly two weeks at the dig site and hardly any of the items they had unearthed were fit to appear in even the most tasteless sideshow attraction.

But finally—a sign.

Mr. Pritchard’s son scampered down the path, mountain wind beating hard against him and spiriting him further ahead as if he were being carried by an invisible gloved hand. When he came to the tent, he peered inside and found the room empty—maps strewn across the tables, digging tools left unguarded. As he circled the tent, he came upon a small embankment and stared down into it only to find Mr. Crowley on his knees sifting through a large tray of dirt.

“Mr. Crowley,” the boy called, waving his arms in the air. “They found something.”

Mr. Crowley was on his feet in a matter of seconds, climbing up the small ridge. As he approached, the boy couldn’t help but notice how much older Mr. Crowley seemed to appear despite his age—his mouth constantly pulling downward, the swollen pouches of excess skin beneath each of his eyes. He resembled something not unlike a fresh cadaver that had yet to become smartened by a skilled mortician.

The boy began to lead Mr. Crowley further up the mountain path toward the rim where most of the excavation crew had gathered. As they neared the summit, the young boy turned and noticed Mr. Crowley’s pace slowing to a crawl, his eyes seemingly transfixed by the neighboring mountains curtained with low-hanging mist—the primordial landscape screaming at the both of them as a rainstorm shower passed over.

Finally reaching the ridge where the crew was waiting, the young boy watched as Mr. Crowley greeted Mr. Pritchard with a look of uncertainty. Mr. Pritchard merely passed a helmet to Mr. Crowley and motioned for him to venture inside the small crevice they had opened in the nearby patchwork of boulders.

The boy filed inside the small chamber after the others had followed Mr. Crowley and Mr. Pritchard. Flashlights tore bright glowing halos in the darkness, the walls shimmering wet and viscous-looking like the black, oiled skin of some underwater creature.

“Where is it?” Mr. Crowley asked the director, panting like a dog in heat from his recent climb.

His way of asking seemed more akin to a petulant toddler seeking gifts on a holiday than a benefactor who had sunk nearly half his savings into funding this dig.

Mr. Pritchard answered, aiming his flashlight at a section of the wall in front of them. “Look.”

Mr. Crowley’s eyes followed the pool of light and arrived at a primitive drawing etched into the rock. Although it might have been rudimentary in construction when compared with the Sistine Chapel, the illustration was gloriously ornate in design. It was an etching of a group of people standing in a circle as if in worship, a bright light at the center of their gathering and a giant shape—acreator—sprawling from the middle of the light. Ancient hieroglyphics and other symbols were scrawled beneath the illustration and resembled the vague outline of a prayer.

Mr. Pritchard’s son watched as Mr. Crowley’s mouth hung open.

“You found it,” Mr. Crowley whispered.

The boy watched as his father flanked Mr. Crowley and wiped the dirt from his brow with a small handkerchief.

“What is it?” Mr. Pritchard asked.

Mr. Crowley inhaled deeply through his nostrils, drawing in thousand-year-old oxygen, and seeming to straighten at a newfound vitality coursing through him.

“It’s an invocation.”

Mr. Crowley’s eyes snapped to Mr. Pritchard and seemed to widen with hideous intent. Mr. Pritchard’s face furrowed, quizzically studying him, when suddenly he seemed incapacitated. Mr. Crowley’s stare intensified until Mr. Pritchard dropped to his knees, the poor man’s body convulsing as if in the throes of a grand mal seizure.

Some of the other excavation crew members tried to hasten to his rescue, but Mr. Crowley merely raised a hand and commanded them to halt. They obeyed, their eyes dimming and glazing over as if hypnotized.

The boy watched helplessly as Mr. Crowley circled his half-dead prey. Mr. Pritchard’s body seized and spasmed like a drowning insect.

Finally, with the flick of his wrist, Mr. Crowley seemed to command Mr. Pritchard to explode—bright scarlet ribbons fountaining from the gaping hole he had opened where the man’s head once was. Mr. Pritchard’s headless body slumped to the ground like a discarded child’s toy, his clothing dyed dark red as more blood pumped from the severed wellspring deep inside him.

Mr. Crowley turned on the other diggers—waving his hand at them and exploding each of their heads as if they were mere balloons. Heads burst like swollen sacks of meat tethered to dynamite, blood splattering the cave walls and dripping like fresh paint. Headless bodies tumbled forward, arms flailing helplessly as if attempting to undo what could never be undone.

When he was finished with the others, Mr. Crowley cornered the boy where the two walls met.

The boy did not cry or plead with him.

Instead, he sank to his knees and merely waited for it to be over—for the dome of his skull to mushroom like a nocturnal plant in twilight’s bloom and to be swallowed by thought as red as sunset.

ONE

PRESENT DAY

If by some inexplicable force of sorcery, Ghost Everling’s skin suddenly became as transparent as a sheet of cellophane, the young man wouldn’t even consider objecting. He wouldn’t seek out a cure, wouldn’t consult with physicians or skin specialists to remedy his peculiar ailment. He wouldn’t even act surprised or feign terror the way others might.

For Ghost, invisibility had already claimed him long ago.

He conceded there was something uniquely strange that occurred when you lost a loved one. Something that wasn’t in the literature he had read in despair or the self-help podcasts he had listened to on his morning walks throughout his neighborhood. Something that had hollowed him out and rendered him as “unusable goods” to any woman or man that would have him.

Although it had only been three years since his wife, Hailey, had passed, Ghost figured he knew all there was to know about invisibility. More specifically, he knew all there was to know about being left behind—the phone calls of condolences from family that became less and less frequent, the friends that had shied away from him as if fearful they might be touched by the same sorrow too. Everyone around him seemed to move on, while Ghost remained trapped in place.

Yes, trapped.

Ghost knew everything there was to know about traps, too.

Some of them don’t appear until later in life, as if secreted beneath underbrush like the iron mouthpiece of a hunter’s snare.

He couldn’t go a day without glancing in the mirror and being reminded of the trap that had demanded his body three years ago—a wraith of guilt wrapped around his neck the way an infant chimpanzee clings to its mother. He could scarcely forget the moment when he first realized it was there— a thin wisp of white smoke curling about his throat, claws of vapor as finely delicate as Chantilly lace plugging his nose and ears.

From there, it only grew.

Although invisible to others, the tiny nymph-like parasite constantly made itself known to Ghost. Whether it was ladling thoughts of despair into his mind or suckling from the roots of sadness it had planted deep inside him, the spirit clung to its gracious host without thanks and the two lived as if they were one—as if they were somehow welded together by some complex, invisible arrangement made of bone and any separation would prove fatal.

Ghost seldom complained when the tiny spirit that owned him would nest inside the scar across his face that never healed— a dark line, rusted brown with dried blood, as though he had been struck by lightning. He hardly had the energy to object when his little companion would circle his permanently bloodshot right eye, coiling in there and lazing like an earthworm in a bed of dirt.

For Ghost, his body was nothing more than a compost heap—a crude patchwork of abused anatomy that even the most impulsive surrealist wouldn’t dare commemorate on canvas. Ghost knew full well he was a monster, a horrible mutation handmade by grief. At least much of the sorrow he carried was invisible to most.

He thanked God for that.

After washing himself and drinking his morning coffee, Ghost swiped his cane from the coat rack and limped out to the garage where his old Chevrolet had remained parked and lifeless for the past three years. He eased himself into the driver’s seat and sat there for a moment, swirling the keys in his hands and deliberating whether or not to use them.

Of course, he had had the dreadful thought before— jamming the keys into the ignition and waiting for the garage bay to fill with smoke while he gasped for air. Something in him had whispered that it would be painless, that he would be reunited with his love and all would be forgiven— all would be as it had been before. However, there was a smaller, quieter part of him that had challenged him, that had warned him it would be pointless because, even to God, Ghost was invisible.

If that was the case, where would he go? Ghost certainly never wanted to find out.

After calling the local taxi company and waiting for half an hour, a yellow cab pulled onto the lane’s shoulder and idled in front of his house. Propped up by his cane, Ghost limped out to the cab, exchanged a few polite greetings with the driver, and then directed him to the Henley’s Edge Memorial Hospital.

As he sat in the back seat, he gazed out the window and watched as they passed people and houses he had known all his life—things he had once found comfort in for the mere sake of their familiarity. But somehow the houses began to look different, as if brick, stone, and stucco had been miraculously replaced with rubber or elastic—as if they were slowly melting away like burning candles. Even the people he once knew looked strange, memorable faces now thawing until almost unrecognizable as if forever caught in a blurred snapshot.

Ghost had quickly realized that grief had not only changed him but had remade the world the same way a child might manhandle a clump of wet clay.

Although things in the town of Henley’s Edge hardly ever changed, the way in which Ghost saw certain things could never be undone.

It wasn’t long before the taxi pulled up to the hospital entrance, Ghost tipping the driver a few extra dollars before climbing out of the idling car and limping into the already packed waiting room. Passing through rows of chairs filled with patients, Ghost approached the front desk and was greeted by a petite receptionist with a face caked with so much makeup that only an embalmed cadaver could compare.

“Name,” she barked at him.

“Ghost Everling.”

“How do you spell it?” she asked, fingers already flicking across her computer keyboard.

“Like the thing that goes ‘boo.’ ”

The receptionist scowled at him, clearly not amused. “What seems to be the trouble?”

“I came here last week because I kept getting these intense headaches,” he explained, shoving his index finger between his front teeth out of nervous habit. “They gave me some meds for it, but they’ve started up again and I’m getting a little concerned. This is the second time this month and I just want to be sure it’s not something serious.”

The receptionist grabbed a nearby clipboard and pen and slid them across the counter toward Ghost.

“Fill this out,” she said, snatching the phone as it rang and pressing it against her ear. “We’ll be right with you.”

The tiny spirit perched on Ghost’s shoulder orbited his head for a moment and then pulled his ear down to its mouth.

“She probably thinks you’re just another pathetic junkie,” the spirit hissed at Ghost until he swatted it away, its shapeless form dissolving as if it were made of wet cotton.

The little wraith rematerialized not long after, sprouting from beside Ghost’s other shoulder and whispering into his ear: “Looking to score some dope. Typical trash.”

Ghost, face heating red, glanced back at the receptionist, as if fearful she had somehow heard.

She couldn’t have.

But what if she did? he worried.

“I’m not looking for new meds or anything like that,” he assured her, sensing the muscles in his throat flexing as he swallowed nervously. “I’m just—I just want to make sure everything’s OK.”

The receptionist stared at him blankly, perhaps more annoyed than anything else. “Sir, have a seat. We’ll be right with you.”

Of course, it wasn’t the assurance Ghost had longed for, but it would have to do for now. The little spirit was hardly tempered, winging about his head the same way blackflies circle a horse’s snout.

Ghost retreated from the front desk and found an empty seat near the waiting room window. Glancing up from his clipboard, his eyes were caught by a young mother and daughter seated across from him.

The little girl was perhaps no older than seven or eight—a frightening age as the nightmarish specter of adolescence hangs just overhead. He reasoned that innocence had already deserted the poor child as he saw the girl’s arm had been broken and bound in a cast scrawled with messages and drawings from her friends and family. Even worse, when she lifted her head, he noticed how both of her eyes were dim and clouded milky white. If any innocence remained in the poor child, it was as shriveled and desiccated as a flower abandoned beneath a heat lamp.

Ghost marveled at her. There was something about the child, something that quietly told him she knew she was a monster just like him—something that confessed to him she felt invisible, too.

He watched her as she coveted a small balloon in the shape of a seahorse, looping the balloon’s string around her index finger and pulling tight until the end of her finger was swollen blackish purple. He watched as she squeezed the balloon tighter and tighter until—pop.

She jumped, startled at the noise. Then shrank and began to cry when she realized, as little tattered pieces of balloon showered her like confetti.

Ghost leaned forward in his seat, debating whether or not to intervene. He glanced at the mother, comforting her child while quietly fighting off disapproving scowls from loitering patients. Finally, his feet made the decision for him. Ghost staggered across the aisle and knelt in front of the child.

“There you are,” he said. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

The little girl shrank from him, unsure. She clutched her mother’s arm, sticking her thumb in her mouth.

“I was told there was a beautiful little princess somewhere here,” Ghost said, wincing as he leaned against his cane for support. “I was told I had to give her three wishes.”

He noticed how the child seemed to straighten, her face softening at the mention of the word “wishes.” The corners of her mouth began to crease with a smile.

“What’s your name?” he asked, glancing at the mother as if testing her comfort.

The little girl eased back in her chair, quiet. The mother tugged on her daughter’s arm, smiling and urging her to play along.

“What’s your name?” she asked her.

The little girl popped her thumb out of her mouth and flashed a wide, toothless grin. “Piper,” she said.

“Princess Piper. That’s exactly who I was told to find,” Ghost said. “I’m so happy I found you because I think I have something you’ll want.”

Ghost flourished his cane, pushing the tip into the palm of Piper’s hand so she could feel it.

“You see, I have what’s known as a ‘magic stick.’ It grants wishes,” he explained. “Three of them, to be precise. But the only trouble is—the wishes can’t all be used at once. You have to spread them out.”

Ghost glanced at the mother. She merely observed, amused.

“So, if you could have anything in the world right now— what would it be?” he asked her.

Piper considered the question for a moment, her lips moving quietly. “I’d want the doctor to hurry up, so my mommy and I don’t have to wait so long.”

Ghost simpered softly. Yes, perhaps there was some innocence remaining within her, after all. He thanked God for that. “Now, you have to rub the stick three times and say, ‘I believe.’

Ghost pressed his cane into Piper’s hand, and she pushed her open palm against it three times. “I believe,” she whispered.

Without warning, a gray-haired nurse entered the waiting room, her eyes squinting at her clipboard. “Piper?” she called out, scanning the room.

Ghost and Piper’s mother locked eyes for an instant, the mother eyeing him with a look of “are you serious?” Piper leapt up from her seat, waving down the nurse until she finally approached them.

“I’m just going to take her height and weight,” the nurse explained. “I’ll bring her right back.”

Grabbing Piper by the hand, the nurse guided Piper through aisles of waiting patients and steered her out of the waiting room.

Ghost gripped his cane, steadying himself and flinching as he rose from his knees.

“You’re lucky she didn’t wish for a pony,” Piper’s mother said. “She’s been asking for one lately.”

Ghost flashed an uncomfortable smile. “That’s when you would’ve intervened, right?”

“You seemed to be doing fine just on your own.” She offered her hand. “I’m Gemma.”

Ghost took her hand, shaking it.

“Ghost,” he said.

She looked at him queerly.

“Yes,” he said. “Like Halloween.”

Gemma stammered, unsure, as she guarded herself with politeness. “What an… unusual name.”

“My mother’s choice,” Ghost explained. “Something she always thought of.”

Gemma eyed him, as if he had stopped speaking mid-sentence. “Ghosts?”

Ghost lowered his head, turning away.

Of course, he was an expert in telling the story his mother had often told him when he was little—how on the night he was delivered, his mother claimed to have seen something: a spirit in the hospital room window. She had told him how the ghost was as blue as hydrangea, petals of its body dripping as if in the excruciating process of molting away. Perhaps the most unbelievable part of her story—how the spirit had told her that her child “belonged to them.” Ghost had always wondered if that’s why his mother was so protective of him when he was a child, as if fearful that he might be snatched away at any moment by some otherworldly trespasser.

Of course, he knew the story well, but he certainly didn’t know Gemma well enough to tell her. She might have him committed. Besides, the way she looked at him, the way she studied his bloodshot eye, his permanent scar—all seemed to tell him that she couldn’t quite make heads or tails of him. He was glad to be an enigma to her. He knew full well if he stayed longer, she would see him for what he truly was—a monster.

Just as he was about to excuse himself, she uncrossed her legs and swiped at his hand.

“I’ve seen you around town, haven’t I?”

Naturally, it was possible. He had lived in Henley’s Edge all his life—thirty-three years. Although he could have been certain he would have remembered seeing someone as beautiful as Gemma.

“I walk in the mornings on Cobble Road sometimes,” he said.

“By yourself?”

Ghost nodded.

Gemma motioned to his cellphone. “Why don’t you take my number?”

Ghost stammered, unsure. He could scarcely believe it. After he passed his phone into Gemma’s hands, her fingers flicked across his screen as she entered her number. Then, when she was finished, she passed it back into Ghost’s hands.

“We could walk together sometime,” she said.

Ghost sensed himself quiver slightly. The very idea of being alone with Gemma somewhere felt indecent, as if the thought were a corrosive chemical eating away at the memory of his beloved Hailey. Of course, he had occasionally entertained the idea of seeking out new companionship—especially late at night, when the rooms in the house felt especially vacant as if they were tombs. Whether his companion was male or female, he was and always would be invisible—invisible to the women he adored because he sometimes preferred men, and indistinguishable to the men he cherished because he was known to adore women. Comfort could be found nowhere. He figured Gemma, too, would abandon him if and when she learned of his dalliances with other men.

It was only a matter of time.

It wasn’t long before Piper was delivered by the nurse back to her mother in the waiting room. Gemma exchanged pleasantries with Ghost before leaving, encouraging him to call her the next time he might fancy taking a walk.

Not long after they left, another nurse entered the waiting area and called for Ghost. As he made his way out of the room, he sensed the tiny wraith glued around his neck gorging itself on the hopelessness that had gathered there. Ghost conceded there was so much to eat, and there was hardly a day that went by that his little invisible companion went without feeding.

He’d love to starve it, would love to leave the pathetic creature famished and writhing like an insect pinned inside a Petri dish—shriveled up and withered away like a crop of wheat in a summer drought. But that would mean destroying the tiny parasite, willfully denying it until its very existence was nothing more than a dark smear on the world.

And then, what?

He’d merely be left alone with his sadness, his only remaining company—despair. There were many hardships Ghost could endure, but that was certainly not one of them.

TWO

Those in the town of Henley’s Edge that knew Ms. Sylvia Childers and called her a friend were keenly aware of the old woman’s aversion to blood.

Such revulsion was the stuff of legend, as many could scarcely forget the moment when the dear woman passed out at the annual July 4th picnic simply because the innards of Mrs. Endicott’s strawberry rhubarb pie resembled those of a human artery in full bloom.