The Shadow of Earth

Note: The characters and events depicted here are wholly fictional, and any relations to real people or events are purely coincidental.

The presentation of the towns herein is simply for geographical reference and are in no way, shape or form indications of the reality of those townships or residents.

I, Heinz Reinkranz, write this letter on the 16^th of March in this year of 1902 to explain myself to those that doubt me.

In recent weeks I have been called many things, of varying degrees of veracity, and I wish to put to bed as many of these cruel rumours and stories as I can with my own words. Some will be pre-disposed to believe me, on grounds of their disbelief in my sanity, their bias or their ill-conceived notions of understanding of the world they think they live in. To those I simply say; believe what you will, for it cannot change the reality.

I left my home in Schleswig-Holstein in the late summer of 1900 on a journey without a defined purpose. I was in a slump in my professional and personal life and decided that some time away from the affairs of my regular existence would do me good. I squared such business away as I could, packed what items I needed for travel, and went north on foot to the border to Jutland of the Kingdom of Denmark. I spent a few days with a very hospitable family that lived much closer to that tempestuous border region than my own regular domicile and heard many interesting stories of local myth and legend. Many I recognised from my own childhood, albeit in different forms or under different names, but some were delightfully new to me, and I spent a comfortable evening by the fire, telling stories from my own village to the father of the house. My penchant for story and myth clear as day, the man offered to send me on to a cousin of his that lived in Northern Jutland. He believed that his cousin and I could learn much from each other and would find pleasure in each other’s acquaintance. I will refrain from sharing the names of this family man, for he is a kind man that would not deserve to be mingled into this sorry affair.

I thanked him for the idea and opportunity, for indeed I had little plans on where to go next. He wrote me a letter of recommendation and directions, and off I went. The trek through Jutland was bracing and consisting of all those natural pleasures that I felt, at the time, was just what my soul needed to be reinvigorated. Even if it cannot compare to the rustic beauty of my homeland, Denmark has a pleasant charm of its own, a sensation of a place where things take their time in their own way. It does the land a disservice that I shudder at the memory of it. Of the trek north I could say many things, but I will refrain from excessive details on this day, for the purpose of this letter is not to entice travellers to undertake the same journey that I did.

After a few weeks I arrived at a small hamlet called Nattebanke, situated on the southern shore of Nibe Bredning. If these names appear unfamiliar to the reader, trust that they did similarly to upon my first reading. If you have no map to hand, trust simply that, upon my cresting of the hill that overlooks the village, Nattebanke seemed a quaint and innocent hamlet on the bank of a fjord, such as many a village one might find in Scandinavia.

Some might say that my journey here wearied me and set my mind on a path to what befell me and which I, perhaps foolishly, shouted to the world in my writings. While it is true that my body felt the miles that I had travelled, my mind was as fresh and as sharp as ever. The fresh country air and the many vistas I had seen had done me much good. Alas, this was soon to end.

The village itself was simple and much like others in that part of the country; simple two-story houses with red or white walls placed around a central village square that held a well, despite their proximity to the waters of the fjord. The road that I had followed here was simple dirt, but as I approached, I delighted to find a cobbled road and occasional streetlamps, much like in a larger city.

Perhaps I should have read the mood more cleverly when I arrived at the border of the village, for I passed the first house and saw there an elderly couple sitting together on their porch. The man was enjoying a pipe and the woman seemed to simply enjoy the stillness. In retrospect I wonder if the people of that foul place enjoy anything but their diabolic ways, but I digress. My spirits were high and so I greeted the couple and turned to make my way over when I was fixed in place by a glare from the two elderly Danes. For a moment I looked back on my life in a vain attempt to discover what in my life I could have possibly done to deserve such undisguised ire from two complete strangers. When I collected myself, I decided their venomous glare and disposition must be the reason for the distance from the village proper and returned to the road leading to the cluster of houses by the shoreline.

Upon my arrival in the village square, I found that those distant-living folk were the norm, not the exception. Sullen glares met me from every doorway and street side stall until I wholly gave up greeting these strange folk. My Schleswig host had given a clear description of his cousin’s house and so I found despite being unable to ask for directions or guidance. The sullen disposition of the townsfolk had taken its toll on my own mood, however, and I was reticent to knock on the door. Steeling myself with the thought that surely the cousin of such a kind man could not be similar, I made sure to keep my letter handy and rapped on the wood with my knuckles. After a moment I heard heavy footfalls from within, followed by some mumbling question in the native tongue of that land, and then the door was opened. I could see the family likeness in the shape of the man’s face and the cast of his eyes, but there the family resemblance seemed to end. This man was practically corpulent and bald on top of his head. While the eyes resembled those of his cousin that I had met in that Schleswig-Holstein house, the sullen glare that met me simply reminded me of the walk through the town. The friendly and kind disposition of the far-off cousin seemed almost reversed in this man, and for a moment the difference stunned me.

My stupor was so great that I did not immediately respond to the man’s questioning as to what a stranger was doing on his doorstep. I was aware that a small crowd had gathered behind me and so I presented the man with the letter penned in his own cousin’s hand. His glare shifted from me to the paper and I could see his lips moving as the man read the contents. I did my best to remain in my place, eyes forward, as the minutes rolled by during this reading work. Finally, he lowered the letter and looked to me again. It seemed to me that his disposition had only worsened, but there was a new dimension to it, a resignation or acceptance. I introduced myself again in my best Danish and bowed. With reluctance clear in his tone, the man waved me inside and dispersed the curious crowd. I heard some question shouted in a dialect so thick that I could not understand, and my host replied in his own fashion. Knowing what I know now, I wish I could have understood what that Danish man had said, for if so, I might have continued to live, blissfully, in the light of ignorance.

I was led through the house to a room that is best described as a study. A fireplace stood cold in a far wall, and various tomes and scrolls decorated the walls. I considered the number of books and found it curious that the man had shown such difficulty in reading the letter from his own cousin. A woman came into the study with a tray of small crumbly cakes with a sugary frosting and cups of unsweetened tea. The cakes were lovely but the woman, the wife of the man as I later learned, bore the same sullen glare that had followed my every step since arriving here, which soured the experience somewhat.

Again, I decline to put names to these people as they are not wholly responsible for the events that transpired. For the purposes of reference, I shall call them Host and Hostess. I understand that they had children, but they do not feature in my experiences of that cursed place and I saw them only once during my brief stay.

With my host’s disposition as it was, I decided to venture a story from my homeland, that of the Feldgeister, hoping to soften his mood with talk. It worked, though not as well as I had hoped. Host listened with rapt attention, but when my story was finished, he asked for the most horrible creature or monster that I knew from my stories. Taken aback at first, I pondered the question over the tea. Despite his mood, I must commend my host on his patience as I worked it over. Eventually I could not decide between two stories, and so told of both, with his permission. First I told him of the Tatzelwurm, of which I am sure my German compatriots will be well aware, and of which my host had some passing familiarity, though he had not heard of the Tatzelloch as my village calls them. They are a series of deep caves and tunnels to the east of my birthplace where such a wurm was supposed to live in ancient times. We scoff at such rumours in these more enlightened times, but facts remain that few come back from those caves, whether alone or exploring in groups. Next I told him the ghoulish stories of the corpse-disappearances from the local cemetery over the summer of the previous year, and of the rumours and stories of the Nachtzehrer, those creatures that feed on corpses to sustain their hideous life.

These my host enjoyed to a greater degree, and his mood was much improved. Still, he told me that there were much greater depths of evil to plumb in the cosmos than the realms of the ghostly or fae creatures. I will not trouble the reader with the full descriptions of all that my host told, but he spoke of the ghosts and ghouls as creatures in relation to mankind. Either they came from us as spectral remnants or mutation, or they exist in the same layer of existence as us. At this I expressed both some doubt and some confusion, and to this my host compared us, not unkindly, to ants or other insects. We can effect change and we clearly exist, but there are beings much greater than us in every conceivable fashion. Does an ant look up at a human and understand us? No, it simply sees a greater existence, if it perceives us at all. I began to understand his point and shuddered at the thought of monsters created by beings that would be monstrous to us. Something that even monsters fear would be terrifying in the extreme.

In retrospect, I should have sensed the impending danger in the great smirk on the face of my Danish host. He offered to assuage any and all of my doubts if I would stay the night. Seeing as my host was now of a much greater disposition towards me and that my sojourn had no set schedule, I accepted his offer. Since the town was unchanged towards me, I whiled away the hours in the study with the tomes on the shelves. I soon discovered a possible reason why such a studied man would find difficulty in a simple letter; none of the books here were in Danish, and instead were a great collection of ancient tomes of lore in Greek, Latin and older tongues. Some I had seen before, but a great many were new to me. I wondered aloud if the man owned a copy of the infamous Necronomicon, but my host declined to answer.

Dusk came and the town was markedly different. Great bonfires were lit in places on the streets and the townspeople sat and talked in crowds around the square and adjoining streets. A chill wind flowed along the streets; the cold kept at bay by the fires. I think these bonfires must have been lit with means beyond those of simple beech, for soon the darkness swirled with patterns I had never seen before. I know my readers will think these were some sort of psychedelic incense, and I hope they are right, for that would greatly ease my minds on the events of that evening.

As the remnants of sunlight began to fade, a change came over the village. All heads turned to the east and my host suggested I follow. A noise followed that I found difficult to describe. It was like the keening of a whale, but monstrously titanic. At this I began to feel a great sense of foreboding that I would not shake for days to come. The keening came from the east and to the best of my knowledge there are no large whales in the waters around Denmark. I began to mention this peculiarity to my host, but he suggested I keep silent and watch. Then the horizon to the east shifted. I know that sounds strange, but I find it difficult to describe in any other way. I could not describe why, but my skin crawled at the sight, and I had to suppress a yelp of fright. It was like looking at the motion of waves in slow motion, but along the eastern horizon of the entire world. There was not simple darkness, but a blackness deeper than any abyss or night sky. It shifted and undulated forwards, eating up the night sky with its approach. I say it, for I do not believe that what I saw conforms to any laws of biology as we understand them, nor possibly even the laws of the cosmos. What I had initially thought to be great pillars of black smoke standing out even against the night sky turned out to be titanic legs, rising and falling with the movements of a monstrous carpet of abyssal flesh. I stumbled and fell when I realised what I was seeing, and the smirk that my host had born this entire time grew into a wide, horrible smile. I hesitate to even call it a creature, for that would imply a kinship with cows or wolves or birds. This was wholly different, a gargantuan horror beyond the knowledge of civilised man. Even as the townsfolk cried out in either horror or adoration, my host mocked my knowledge and my worldview. The horror had nearly engulfed the moon and half the night sky when I regained my feet and fled out of that hamlet, running west as quickly as I could, hoping in vain to catch the sun’s light and the safety it would offer from the reality I had seen.

I know not what comes immediately after, for I must have lapsed into unconsciousness in my terror. I awoke the following day in a ditch, with only the clothes on my back. I returned home, always making sure to be inside by the time the sun began to set.

It is here that I close this letter. I hope it finds the reader well and that some measure of sympathy and understanding can be extended to me in light of the events that transpired. Now I must depart from my writing station, for I see the sun beginning to dip below the horizon and I fear that no longer can I stand being about or even glimpsing the world outside after the departure of the sun. It is not the lack of light, or darkness as laymen would call it, that I fear. No, it is what lives in the shadow of the Earth that was the cause of all this and shall remain a pox upon my mind till the day that I die.