Creatures From Beyond
Edited by Terry Carr
INTRODUCTION
Human imagination has always been captured by the idea of what strange creatures may lie in waiting, somewhere beyond our ken—in the dark outside our caves, in the uncharted depths of the seas, in the infinite reaches of space.
After all, the history of humanity hasn’t always been one of brave, inquisitive explorers making discoveries—sometimes it was we who were discovered, by powerful predatory beasts forced to range beyond their former hunting grounds, or by strange birds like explosions of color in the air as they migrated to winter quarters.
The unexpected is always dramatic, the unknown always fascinating. And so our literature from the earliest times is filled with tales of dragons, rocs, unicorns, and sea serpents. In modern times, science fiction has looked out into space for strange beings, whether deadly marauders like the Martians of H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds or mysterious, almost godlike beings such as in Clarke and Kubrick’s zoo.
We still wonder: Are there creatures somewhere who are watching us? What might their purpose be? And what if they come to Earth?
Here is a collection of stories about such Creatures from Beyond, as imagined by some of the top writers of modern fantasy and science fiction.
—Terry Carr
THE WORM
David H Keller
We pride ourselves on having explored our planet, but at best we’ve only scratched the surface—quite literally, for the vast interior of Earth is still almost wholly unknown to us. What creatures might dwell there, burrowing inexorably through ancient rock? And if one of those creatures should come up to the surface, what then?
David H. Keller was one of the most influential writers in the early days of science fiction; trained as a psychiatrist, he concentrated on human emotions in his stories. As a result, stories such as “The Worm,” which he wrote nearly fifty years ago, are still powerful and moving.
The miller patted his dog on the head, as he whispered: “We are going to stay here. Our folks, your ancestors and mine, have been here for nearly two hundred years, and queer it would be to leave now because of fear.”
The gristmill stood, a solid stone structure, in an isolated Vermont valley. Years ago every day had been a busy one for the mill and the miller, but now only the mill wheel was busy. There was no grist for the mill and no one lived in the valley. Blackberries and hazel grew where once the pastures had been green. The hand of time had passed over the farms and the only folk left were sleeping in the churchyard. A family of squirrels nested in the pulpit, while on the tombstones silent snails left their cryptic messages in silvery streaks. Thompson’s Valley was being handed back to nature. Only the old bachelor miller, John Staples, remained. He was too proud and too stubborn to do anything else.
The mill was his home, even as it had served all of his family for a home during the last two hundred years. The first Staples had built it to stay, and it was still as strong as on the day it was finished. There was a basement for the machinery of the mill, the first floor was the place of grinding and storage, and the upper two floors served as the Staples homestead. The building was warm in winter and cool in summer. Times past it had sheltered a dozen Stapleses at a time; now it provided a home for John Staples and his dog.
He lived there with his books and his memories. He had no friends and desired no associates. Once a year he went to the nearest town and bought supplies of all kinds, paying for them in gold. It was supposed that he was wealthy. Rumor credited him with being a miser. He attended to his own business, asked the world to do the same, and on a winter’s evening laughed silently over Burton and Rabelais, while his dog chased rabbits in his heated sleep upon the hearth.
The winter of 1935 was beginning to threaten the valley, but with an abundance of food and wood in the mill, the recluse looked forward to a comfortable period of desuetude. No matter how cold the weather, he was warm and contented. With the inherent ability of his family, he had been able to convert the waterpower into electricity. When the wheel was frozen, he used the electricity stored in his storage batteries. Every day he puttered around among the machinery, which it was his pride to keep in perfect order. He assured the dog that if business ever did come to the mill, he would be ready for it.
It was on Christmas Day of that winter that he first heard the noise. Going down to the basement to see that nothing had been injured by the bitter freeze of the night before, his attention was attracted, even while descending the stone steps, by a peculiar grinding noise that seemed to come from out of the ground. His ancestors, building for permanency, had not only put in solid foundations, but had paved the entire basement with slate flagstones three feet wide and as many inches thick. Between these the dust of two centuries had gathered and hardened.
Once his feet were on this pavement, Staples found that he could not only hear the noise, but he could also feel the vibrations that accompanied it through the flagstones. Even through his heavy leather boots he could feel the rhythmic pulsations. Pulling off his mittens, he stooped over and put his fingertips on the stone. To his surprise it was warm in spite of the fact that the temperature had been below zero the night before. The vibration was more distinct to his fingertips than it had been to his feet. Puzzled, he threw himself on the slate stone and put his ear to the warm surface.
The sound he now heard made him think of the grinding of the millstones when he was a boy and the farmers had brought corn to be ground into meal. There had been no cornmeal ground in the mill for fifty years, yet here was the sound of stone scraping slowly and regularly on stone. He could not understand it. In fact it was some time before he tried to explain it. With the habit born of years of solitary thinking, he first collected all the available facts about this noise. He knew that during the long winter evenings he would have time enough to do his thinking.
Going to his sitting room, he secured a walking stick of ash and went back to the cellar. Holding the handle of the cane lightly, he placed the other end on a hundred different spots on the floor, and each time he held it long enough to determine the presence or absence of vibration. To his surprise he found that while it varied in strength, it was present all over the cellar with the exception of the four corners. The maximum intensity was about in the center.
That evening he concentrated on the problem before him. He had been told by his grandfather that the mill was built on solid rock. As a young man he had helped clean out a well near the mill and recalled that, instead of being dug out of gravel or dirt, it had the appearance of being drilled out of solid granite. There was no difficulty in believing that the earth under the mill was also solid rock. There was no reason for thinking otherwise. Evidently some of these strata of stone had become loose and were slipping and twisting under the mill. The simplest explanation was the most reasonable: it was simply a geological phenomenon. The behavior of the dog, however, was not so easily explained. He had refused to go with his master into the cellar, and now, instead of sleeping in comfort before the fire, he was in an attitude of strained expectancy. He did not bark, or even whine, but crept silently to his master’s chair, looking at him anxiously.
The next morning the noise was louder. Staples heard it in his bed, and at first he thought that some bold adventurer had come into the forest and was sawing down a tree. That was what it sounded like, only softer and longer in its rhythm. Buzzzzzz—Buzzzzzz—Buzzzzzzz. The dog, distinctly unhappy, jumped up on the bed and crawled uneasily so he could nuzzle the man’s hand.