Crypt of the Moon Spider E-Book

Nathan Ballingrud

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 118

Beschreibung

A young woman, committed to an asylum, undergoes a bizarre treatment that unlocks a vast well of power in this cosmic horror novella, perfect for fans of T. Kingfisher. Veronica Brinkley has been committed to The Barrowfield Home, run by Dr. Cull, to treat her depression. The institution is built on the crypt of a giant Lunar Spider, tended to by a monastic group of worshippers called the Alabaster Scholars. Dr. Cull is using the lunar silk from the dead spider to "repair" people's brains. As Veronica's memories are tampered with, she finds a surprising reserve of power within herself, upending everyone else's plans for her and stepping into a grand new role she had never imagined for herself.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Praise for Crypt of The Moon Spider

Also Available from Nathan Ballingrud and Titan Books

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Dedication

I The Barrowfield Home for Treatment of the Melancholy

II Dr. Cull

III The Alabaster Scholars

IV Charlie Duchamp

V Nebraska

Acknowledgments

I Red Hook, 1924

About the Author

PRAISE FOR CRYPT OF THE MOON SPIDER

“This short, surreal novella feels like a slice of a much larger story in the best way. A thoughtful meditation on personhood, judgment, and trauma. Not for the arachnophobic among us.”

SEANAN MCGUIRE, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE ALCHEMICAL JOURNEYS SERIES

“A wicked, pulpy, hideously gorgeous phantasmagoria that will leave you helplessly twitching in its grand web. Nathan Ballingrud once again demonstrates that he’s one of our finest writers.”

PAUL TREMBLAY, AUTHOR OF THE CABIN AT THE END OF THE WORLD AND A HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS

“Crypt of the Moon Spider is a superb and unnerving work of science fiction.”

OWEN KING, AUTHOR OF THE CURATOR

“Crypt of the Moon Spider is a Gothic fantasy where madness nests within madness of emotional vistas that are as bleak as bleached bones. Ballingrud’s immense talent shines, cold and furious.”

LAIRD BARRON, AUTHOR OF NOT A SPECK OF LIGHT

“Grisly and glorious; haunting and lovely and horrifying.”

SAM J. MILLER, NEBULA AWARD-WINNER AND AUTHOR OF BLACKFISH CITY

“Crypt of the Moon Spider is a beautifully wrought fever dream.”

PRIYA SHARMA, SHIRLEY JACKSON AWARD-WINNER AND AUTHOR OF POMEGRANATES

“We should give thanks we occupy a planet and its mysterious satellite with Nathan Ballingrud. His unbelievable (yet totally believable) dreams flay our souls yet reward us with his extraordinary insight into the human experience.”

STEPHEN VOLK, BAFTA-WINNING WRITER OF GHOSTWATCH

PRAISE FOR THE AUTHOR

“Stretch[es] the boundaries of the genre… It’s horrifying, but there’s beauty.”

NEW YORK TIMES

“One of the field’s most accomplished short story writers.”

THE WASHINGTON POST

“Nathan Ballingrud is one of my favorite short fiction writers.”

JEFF VANDERMEER

“Nathan Ballingrud is one of my favorite contemporary authors, and any time he’s got a new book out I run to the front of the line. His work is elegant and troublingly, wonderfully disturbing.”

VICTOR LAVALLE, AUTHOR OF THE CHANGELING

Also Available from Nathan Ballingrud and Titan Books

The Strange

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Crypt of the Moon Spider

Hardback edition ISBN: 9781803368801

E-book edition ISBN: 9781803368818

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First edition: August 2024

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

© Nathan Ballingrud 2024

Nathan Ballingrud asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

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.

To Dale Bailey

I

The Barrowfield Home for Treatment of the Melancholy

Looking through the small oval window of the twin-engine passenger shuttle which carried her over the moon’s gray and rubbled plains, Veronica recalled a local myth, which held that the moon was the inhabited skull of a long-dead god who once trod the dark pathways of space like a king through his star-curtained palace. Looking down upon it now, she could almost believe it. The moon seemed to exude a deathly energy, the way she imagined the bones of a holy animal might. It would not have seemed strange to see a population of ghostly horses galloping across the dusty expanse.

She craned her neck, trying to look ahead. She was eager to see the forests. Ever since she was a little girl, standing in the swaying grasses of the Nebraska plains and gazing up at the gray shadows on the moon’s face, she dreamed of a day she would be able to go there to see the great woods for herself.

“Galileo thought they were oceans,” she said.

Her husband shifted in the seat beside her. “Galileo what?”

He hated it when she started talking about something without reference, as though they were already in the middle of a conversation. He was a surgeon by profession—a Man of Science, he often said—and believed everything had its antecedent. She knew it was a bad habit, but she supposed it didn’t matter much anymore. The bad habits would be taken away very soon.

“Nothing,” she said. “Just thinking out loud.”

He gave her one of his thin smiles: a compression of the lips which suggested cultivated patience, as though he were indulging a child’s whims. He clasped her hand and gave it a light squeeze. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“I’m not afraid.”

But she was. She felt a curious sluggishness, a kind of separation, as though she’d become loosened from time and was jostling in its socket. She was afraid the wrong movement or word might disconnect her entirely, sending her reeling backward over the course of her own life. She did not want to live through it a second time, so she closed her eyes and thought hard about staying precisely where she was.

Her husband joined his other hand with the first, engulfing her own. “Veronica, it’s true. There is nothing to fear here. It’s a new beginning.”

She nodded, but kept her lips clamped together. What wanted to come out was nothing she wanted to say, and nothing he wanted to hear. She tried to believe him. This was 1923, after all, not the Dark Ages. She was not coming here to have an exorcism performed. She was coming here to be cured. It was expensive and he had spent a great deal of money to give her—to give them both— this chance. She was determined to be grateful.

“It’s going to be all right, isn’t it?” she said.

“Of course it is, pet. Of course it is. You’ll see.”

“What if I can’t be saved?”

He put his finger on her chin and turned her head toward him. He had his professional face on, the one he showed patients whose legs he was about to hack off. It was a face that lied. “Of course you can be saved,” he said.

She turned away, looking out the window again. Then, unexpectedly, she felt the first thrill of happiness she’d known in months. “Look!”

As the shuttle sped to the night side of the moon, the forest at last appeared beneath them, stretching out in hungry miles with a deep green splendor, like the stilled waters of an ocean after all, leaves steady as stone in the unmoving air.

They flew over this expanse for several minutes, until the light from the sun winked out behind an outcropping of rock and they passed completely over to the moon’s hidden face. A hard wind kicked up, buffeting their little shuttle. Her husband gripped her hand tightly; he disliked flying, and this adventure would set his dreams at a disagreeable pitch for weeks to come. She felt a flutter of delight at the thought, and stamped it out immediately.

As the shuttle sped on, the forest’s character changed. A strange, white effluvium seemed to coat the trees, blowing in wispy banners in the gusting wind. At first she couldn’t understand what she was looking at. Then it dawned on her that the forest was covered in a vast system of spiderwebs, cast over the canopy of every tree, so that it seemed they were flying over a ghostly wood, a revenant returned from darkness in a terrible glamor.

* * *

Barrowfield Home was a massive, rectangular gray building sitting among the web-shrouded trees, a great block of stone as incongruous to the setting as a sailing ship. Four stories tall and as smooth as marble, seen from on high it offered no consolation to the eye or spirit: no variation in color, no embellishment, no cheerful banner or window box of lunar perennials. It was a building constructed only to do a job, which was to warehouse people. It might as well have been a prison for criminal masterminds.

An expansive grassy clearing had been excavated from the woods out front, and as the shuttle maneuvered into landing position, Veronica saw that the space had been designed to accommodate outdoor activities for the patients as well as to provide a landing area for the shuttles. There was a badminton court, a small running track, and a massive water fountain, along which sat a small handful of idlers. White-garbed members of the staff hovered nearby like a congregation of spirits.

Other than the grassy field, Barrowfield Home was completely enclosed by the forest. There seemed to be no way in or out of the place except by shuttle.

Her husband caught her eye and gave her a cold little smile.

The shuttle dropped abruptly. She felt a crushing wave of vertigo as it spun hard to port. The engine whined under their feet, filling the cabin with thunder. They landed with a hard jolt, snapping her teeth shut.

“Good Christ,” her husband said, his face blanched.

The ground crew opened the hatch, and the cabin filled with the crashing noise of spinning rotors, the decelerating engine, and the stink of diesel. The open hatchway was a cauldron of steam and light; it looked like an artist’s rendition of the entrance to Hell.

A rough-looking, heavyset man stepped aboard. His body looked pale and unfinished, like something wriggled up from the earth. Like a grub. He was smartly dressed in white-and-cream-colored clothing, creating a dissonance she found both grotesque and mildly disquieting—a worm wrapped in a gentleman’s waistcoat. He limped toward them and said, “The Brinkleys, right?” His voice was coarse and uncultured, thickly Brooklyn; Veronica felt it presented a poor first impression of the Home. “My name is Charlie Duchamp.” He extended his hand, but her husband only stared at it, as if he were being offered a damp tendril.

“We had a terrible commute,” he said, unbuckling himself. “Your pilot flew like a Hun. Is he auditioning for a circus?”

The grub—Charlie, she reminded herself— laughed, and quickly stifled it. “Yeah, sorry about that. I’ll talk to him.” He turned his attention to Veronica and took her hand into his own. It was warm and dry. “You’ll be staying with us awhile.”

“It would seem so.”

“You’ll find us most accommodating. Right this way please.” The words were rehearsed from a script. They sounded all wrong in his mouth.

Charlie retrieved her valise. They disembarked and he led them across the field to the Home, which hulked into the black sky. The trees walled them in, gathering darkness beneath them like heavy skirts.

Inside, the lighting was dim—“Too much light agitates the patients,” the grub said—and the décor minimal. The foyer was cathedral-like, vaulting two stories overhead. Everything was made of polished moon rock, dark gray burnished to a glistening shine, like the chamber walls of an underground lake. A grand reception desk was positioned to their left, and several hallways led further into the building, disappearing into tangles of flickering shadow. White-garbed attendants occasionally moved silently from one hallway to another.

Her husband allowed himself to be guided to the receptionist’s desk, where, with the scrawl of his signature, the custody of Veronica Brinkley was transferred from himself to the Barrowfield Home for Treatment of the Melancholy, where she was to be treated until sane, however long it might take.

“Do you want to meet the doctor?” Grub directed the question to her husband.

“No need. His reputation is sufficient to me. I trust he’ll correspond with me when the time is right.” He turned to his wife and gave her a chaste kiss on the lips. “I love you, pet. I’ll see you again in no time at all.” He glanced at Charlie. “Keep me apprised,” he said, and then he walked briskly to the door, his footsteps echoing off the high stone walls.

Veronica suffered a wave of nausea. She closed her eyes and lowered her head, determined to keep her dignity. She heard the door open, followed by the sounds of the shuttle’s rotors carving the wind. Then the door shut again, and silence engulfed her.

* * *

She halted at the entrance to her room. It was a cell. There could be no other word for it. The walls were carved from the same stone she’d seen in the foyer, but here the rock was dull and unpolished. A small cot—the sort you might give a housemaid—was situated in the corner. It bore one thin pillow, and the threadbare sheets were turned down in a sad imitation of a welcome. A chamber pot lurked underneath. A small chest of drawers was placed to one side, against the wall. There were no mirrors here. There were no windows.

She stepped back reflexively and was brought up short by Grub’s hand pressing into the small of her back.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said, his dull voice close to her ear. “But it ain’t that bad. The key to Barrowfield is in here.” He thumped the side of her head with one thick finger. “You can let yourself out any time.”

“How?” she said. Her voice quavered, which only frightened her more.

“By letting go of your madness.”

“But I don’t know how.” She could feel tears coming again, and this time she knew there’d be nothing she could do to stop them. She didn’t want to be weak in front of such a disagreeable man, but she’d come to believe that weakness was inherent to who she was.