The Things from Below, or: why you should never ask me for uplifting responses to strange occurrences

BLOT: (23 Dec 2010 - 02:15:54 AM)

The Things from Below, or: why you should never ask me for uplifting responses to strange occurrences

Before I get into the meat of the story, let me give a slight bit of background. Some myths—and I'll use this term broadly to encompass even things that might be deemed true or at least true-ish, but absorbed into the structure of legends and folklore—and regional, ethni-specific, or otherwise narrow in spread and focus. Many of them are in a second category, shoring traits and ideals with other myths but being fairly unique to certain areas and times. Then you have those that are very widespread. Let's call these "common myth structures", or CMS. Some very CMS include flood stories, vampires, and dragons. Another that is not quite as common, but still frequent, is the "crucified and pierced god" structure: Odin, Jesus, Prometheus. Even as far back as classic Egypt, 4500 years ago, you had Osiris who was killed and whose body was found washed up and embedded into a tree. Rescued from it only to be ripped into shreds and then brought back to life. Certain elements in our stories repeat throughout human history as surely as any other trait: eye colors and skin tones and what have you.

You could then set aside something that might be called "un-common myth structures". Myths that repeat throughout time and places but are not super-frequent. One such myth might be best called "The Things from Below". What are these things? Depends on some factors. One of the Japanese myths about fox spirits is that they will try and imitate humans but are unable to do proper faces, and so walk around without faces or with misshapen ones. The fairy-tales of Europe included things that looked almost, but not quite human. Sometimes having too large of eyes, or too pretty of skin, or otherwise something that did not look right. There are some African tales and African-American tales of things that wear human skins, as well as tales about things like plat-eyes that just can't quite get it right. Around the 19th century, especially late, some horror writers and ethnologist types started discussing these myth structures. One famous musing in fictional form is Arthur Machen's "The Novel of the Black Seal", which describes a somewhat ironically named fair folk. Ramsey Campbell has turned to this idea a few times, especially in novels like Midnight Sun, The Overnight, and Creatures of the Pool. Neil Gaiman taps into the myth structure in Coraline as the rat-things in the other-world sing: "We were here before you rose/ We will be here when you fall." In "The Broadsword", Laird Barron discusses something that crawls in the dark and is waiting for our Sun to dim so that it can casually claim the planet, currently living in its inhuman tunnels with flesh like walls and acid dripping environs..

The structure is becoming more prominent: creepy, squishy pale things with malformed faces (if they have faces) that drip from our air-vents and plot the time when mankind will be washed from the earth. Things that existed before man and are now hiding in the hidden cracks and are waiting for man to go away. Mostly small, childlike in appearance, but otherwise horrible in an utterly alien way. There has been much debate about which myth structures currently being developed will spread past our times, and a lot of folklorists are chiming in on the vampire. Except many vampires nowadays are not really vampires, there are just rich and successful men (almost always men) who happen to drink blood. Zombies are nominated, but too few people even care of the myth structure of the Romero-esque zombie for that to hold. I think the "Things from Below" might have a chance. They are more insidious as horror myths go, often even infiltrating the vampire and zombie and alien invasion and swarm and whatever stories, where they are hinted to be the cause. Ancient evils, small twisted things, and infectious agents? We love all of those nowadays. Not to mention that Machenian, Lovecraftian, and even Dunsanian horror has stood the test of a century and all of them hint at little, odd things behind the curtain.. Time will tell.

When a friend recently told me a story of his car having footprints on it after a snow storm, I mentioned The Things from Below, and we went back and forth half joking. Get this, though: a two sets of footprints were left on his car in the middle of a late night snow storm. And there were none around his car on the ground. One set was small, toddler sized shoe prints. The other? Smallish human feet. Bare feet. Only a couple of prints on top of the car, none dismounting. Sure, the most logical answers are (a) someone was screwing around and making fake footprints or (b) someone took their kids for a walk in the snow and lifted them up on his car (possible (c) a small bear). At any rate, I imagine few people would find it too hard to picture something short, amorphous, crawling. With little mock feet and mismatched eyes. Giggling like a child in its too-old face. Hiding in the cold, playing in the white snow that mostly camouflages it.

As Ramsey Campbell wrote: "That's one story about when the ice comes out of the dark." To play, you know, for now. Until our sun dims sufficiently that it all is for ice and time, and in that long stretch of nether-centuries, the quiet little clicks and sighs will drift out from the discarded carapaces that were once the accoutrements of man.

And that, everyone, is why you don't come to me for a nice explanation for a strange occurrence. I'll get that far off look in my eyes, and start talking about stuff like this.

LABEL(s): Horror

BY WEEK: 2010, Week 51
BY MONTH: December 2010