The Eldritch Case Files: Revelations of the Dark Mother, Part 1

The moon was huge like a cold portrait, illuminating the forest trail. It twisted and turned, leading onward into the dense forest. Here upon the trail darkness prevailed, it crept along like a living thing, a dream given life, walking with earthen feet.

The trail opened upon a clearing, given life by the glow of the moon. Standing stones littered the clearing, seemingly placed by random, ranging in size from a foot high to chest height of an average adult man.

At the epicenter was what appeared at first glance to be a long flat stone, at closer examination one would discover runes or glyphs etched into the porous stone. Lichen grew there, obfuscating most of the symbols, making it difficult to decipher.

The moon shone down kissing the scene with its ghostly light. I entered the clearing and made my way through the labyrinth of standing stones to the center and stood before the flat stone.A gentle breeze caressed my cheek, feather light, sending a slight chill through my body. I pulled my trench coat closer to myself, adjusted my fedora and glanced around with a critical eye for detail.

Minute details then became apparent, some of the trees appeared to be moving of their own accord, limbs bending against the chill night breeze, a breeze too light to make those limbs move.

Tendrils of mist began to seep up and coil around the stones, more flowed like water from out of the dismal forest, pouring over the standing stones like waves, creeping along as slow as grave moss to coil around my feet and legs.

There was an eeriness to this unnatural mist, ethereal. Summoned from some dark incantation by eldritch forces. It sent a shiver racing up my spine from my core, awakening some dark deep fear in my mind. A passage from an old text written by the mad prophet Sir Howard Phillips Lovecraft, “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”

I spun on my heels and grabbed for my revolver, pulling it free from its holster as the creature crashed into the clearing. But when I spied the creature I froze in place. I can’t begin to explain what the thing looked like without sounding insane, because it still brings a chill to my mind and body when I think of it and makes me feel insane. It looked much like a tree in many ways, a trunk, and limbs. But that was merely camouflage.

The truth of the matter was those appendages that I first thought were limbs were in fact large thick tentacles that undulated slowly and coiled about invisible things in the air. They ranged in color from varied shades of dark brown to shades of dark green, obviously to fool anyone looking upon it that those were tree branches and leaves, and the swaying of those were because of the wind or sudden breeze. The base of the creature (or the trunk if you like better) was like a white oak or basswood.

It shambled toward me on four stubby legs that ended in hooves. A great maw split it open in about the center. Jagged teeth filled it row upon row like that of a shark.

Trembling, I took a shot at it and it went wide. The creature continued to barrel down on me. I took another shot, cursing my first bad aim. This one went wild also and it was almost upon me. I dove behind the flat stone and rolled to my back and squeezed the trigger. This shot rang true, taking the creature in the left leg, blasting a hole through its knee cap. Not taking the time to see if it had wounded the thing, I belly crawled around the corner of the flat stone and got to my feet.

I hurtled one of those standing stones, using my off hand to propel myself over it and I landed on my knees, skidding across the ground and came to rest at and of those stones. I spun around and scanned the area for the thing. It was still coming for me but slowly now, pulling its dead leg behind it as it got closer. I took aim and pulled the trigger of my revolver, scoring another shot on the creature, leaving a quarter sized hole just above what passed as its lips. It staggered to a halt, falling to its left side against a standing stone about my height.

I crept closer to it and kept my revolver trained on the thing. The thing was enormous, easily thirty foot tall. I glanced around to see if it had any friends and when none came forward, I began to walk past the thing. I pointed and put another bullet in the creature for good measures and began the long walk back to my car.