R’lyeth A Carpet Upon The Earth by Roger Leatherwood

The invasion came not from above but from below.  Grumblings became earthquakes and weather turned angry; the military were pointed up at the sky and had no recourse when the fissures opened and the first of the R’lyeth slithered awake upon the valleys and the river beds.

Small and oily feathered, the R’lyeth swarmed like a yellow pissflow of locusts across the land.  Guns were effective in slowing and angering them but not killing them.  An infinity of vermin spit and bit at the people in Missouri and Alberta, the Rhone and Imperial valleys.  Strategic nuclear strikes were considered until it was clear the unholy wash of 4-legged sloths, black and smelling and with those eyes, round and sad, were collecting.

They entered the cities as if attracted to the smell, the noise, the sweat and the flesh of humans.  Mobile killing moths, like shit on legs, the R’lyeth gnawed at buildings, ate limbs off women, fucked in basements and smeared terror and commerce akimbo across into the unpopulated fields and expanses.  Rendered inhabitable, downtown centers, skyscrapers, office parks and stadiums were abandoned for the cesspool of awakened invaders.

They seemed to come from the very soul of the earth yet had never been known before, creating disease and civilization to scatter.

The infestation was a carpet upon mankind. Those who thought they understood were murdered.  Leaders fled and tyrants lost their armies, forced to hold impossible beachheads against the dank mossy land that had come alive it seemed, in endless night and unquenchable ardor to nip, piss on and unsettle man’s hold on the thin surface.  A vanity of progress.   Families were torn asunder, men joined packs and women huddled against the rapists.

Word was only Antarctica and the North Pole had not been overrun.  A hazy mottled moire pattern painted the ports, the cities, the beltways and the Southern tip of Africa.  A virus of cancer organic upon humanity.

After the last of the infrastructure failed and the sewers flowed like wine upon the streets . . . when those still able had impregnated the nearest women, old or crippled or willing, a primal and doomed impulse tainted by the thought the cancer had infected their gametes as well . . . when no nations joined together, the angry gods infesting all life with, once the darkness fell as naturally as branches from an oak violated by a lightning strikes . . .

. . . the R’lyeth paused and were still.

And from the skies the new gods came, the Tgotha, in ships of water and unmolested.  They were large and they perched upon their rightful place upon the shit- and cum-stained ruins of the man’s immodesties and humilities, surveying the horde of R’lyeth, inconsequential and no longer needed, as were worshippers.  They were here to feed, not to preach.  They were not that kind of gods.

And the remnants of mankind from India to Peru bowed their heads and began to pray.

© 2013 Roger Leatherwood

Roger Leatherwood worked on the lower rungs of Hollywood for almost 20 years before returning to print fiction, where the stories he told were his own. His work has or will appear in Circa Literary Review, Siren, Skive Magazine, Oulipo Pornobongo, Infernal Ink, HorrorSleazeTrash and others. More can be found at rogerleatherwood.wordpress.com

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