Short Fiction · The Unnamable (2/2)

Manton, though smaller than I, is more resilient; for we opened our eyes at almost the same instant, despite his greater injuries. Our couches were side by side, and we knew in a few seconds that we were in St. Mary’s Hospital. Attendants were grouped about in tense curiosity, eager to aid our memory by telling us how we came there, and we soon heard of the farmer who had found us at noon in a lonely field beyond Meadow Hill, a mile from the old burying ground, on a spot where an ancient slaughterhouse is reputed to have stood. Manton had two malignant wounds in the chest, and some less severe cuts or gougings in the back. I was not so seriously hurt, but was covered with welts and contusions of the most bewildering character, including the print of a split hoof. It was plain that Manton knew more than I, but he told nothing to the puzzled and interested physicians till he had learned what our injuries were. Then he said we were the victims of a vicious bull⁠—though the animal was a difficult thing to place and account for.

After the doctors and nurses had left, I whispered an awestruck question:

“Good God, Manton, but what was it? Those scars⁠—was it like that?”

And I was too dazed to exult when he whispered back a thing I had half expected⁠—

“No⁠—it wasn’t that way at all. It was everywhere⁠—a gelatin⁠—a slime⁠—yet it had shapes, a thousand shapes of horror beyond all memory. There were eyes⁠—and a blemish. It was the pit⁠—the maelstrom⁠—the ultimate abomination. Carter, it was the unnamable!”