Cthulhu Lives!: An Eldritch Tribute to H. P. Lovecraft

by Tim Dedopulos

  “Wild night, Friday, eh?”

  “What? Oh, yes,” James replied. Angus had been at Paul’s party. It might’ve been him who kicked off the nonsense with the tequila shots. James attacked his cottage pie.

  “Did ye get off wi’ Mel, then?”

  James stopped in mid-mouthful and grinned.

  “Oh aye,” said Angus, sceptically. He was from Bedfordshire, but claimed Scottish nationality on the basis of distant ancestry. His accent was a bit too forced – and had a tendency to vanish when he was excited.

  A thought struck James. “You’re doing physics, aren’t you?”

  “Aye, ye ken verra well.”

  “So could you do me a favour?”

  “Mebbe.”

  “I need to borrow a Geiger counter.” If that stone was radioactive, it would be good to know. Maybe he could sue his landlord for damages and never have to worry about his student loan ever again.

  Angus’s eyes were wide with astonishment. “What,” he asked slowly, “would ye be wantin’ wi’ a Geiger counter?”

  “Oh, the usual. Plus a five minute crash course on using it.”

  “The usual, he says. D’ye think we hand them oot like sweets?”

  “No, but you’ve got one? In your department, I mean.”

  “Aye...”

  “And could you, er, borrow one? In theory?”

  “Ye can borrow anything in theory, if naebody sees ye stuff it in yer rucksack.”

  “Well, then?”

  “Well, what?”

  “Can I borrow a Geiger counter?”

  Angus had a well-developed sense of mischief. James waited for it to over-ride his good judgment.

  “Ach, OK,” Angus said at last, “but it’ll cost ye.”

  “How much?”

  “Bottle of tequila.”

  It had been him. “Deal. This afternoon?”

  “Nae chance. Tomorrow, eleven o’clock, the green by St Michael’s. Jesus, I sound like I’m in a Le Carre novel. Come alone. Make sure ye’re no followed, and pay in advance. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  “And return it in twenty-four hours or ye’re a dead man.”

  Angus left, shaking his head. James finished his meal and went back upstairs. This time he went after newspaper records. How often had his street been mentioned in the press? Rarely, it turned out, and mostly regarding matters of no great significance. After being lured down a few dead-ends however, he found something interesting from 1944. The headline read Germans Dropping Chemical Bombs?

  One night during the Little Blitz – the Luftwaffe’s attempt, late in the war, to complete what they’d started in 1940 – a disturbance had occurred in his street. A woman had become hysterical, telling anyone who would listen that a ghastly apparition had manifested itself and carried off her lodger. The reporter, in a condescending tone, had ridiculed her tale. However, he did deign to speculate that the Germans might be experimenting with an abhorrent new type of bomb. Perhaps something which released some form of phosphorescent vapour that might be imaginatively interpreted by the highly-strung.

  No particular importance was attached to the disappearance of the lodger, who was described as an itinerant. The report noted that no structural damage was evident where the new bomb had supposedly fallen. This, it went on to say, was in keeping with the street’s reputation as a lucky one. During the Blitz proper of 1940, bombs had fallen north, south, east and west of it, leaving it an untroubled oasis of calm.

  James filed this piece of information away, and searched further. Nothing interesting. He tried a different tack, and found an article on place names. As he’d expected, Hobstone was presumed to have originally been Hob’s Town, but since the name predated any evidence of a settlement on the site, it was reckoned a mystery. So far, so laconic. There was a cross-reference to a piece of old folklore, though – a haunted forest. A young maiden had rashly wandered inside for a tryst with her beau, only to emerge alone and witless, babbling about “Phantoms from the Rock”. The source for this almost-forgotten tale, apparently, was Celtic.

  Clues. Bits of a jigsaw. But if you put them together just so...

  “Finish up son, we close in ten minutes.”

  James gave a start. It was one of the assistant librarians. He hadn’t heard the man approach. Walking quietly in a library became a habit, apparently. Despite students’ preferred hours, the library still shut resolutely at ten. Blimey. He’d been there twelve hours, and had missed an important lecture.

  He gathered himself together and left the library. What else had he missed? He looked at his phone, which had been on silent since he’d first sat down. Four missed calls, one from his mother, three from Mel. Six texts – Ralph, Ralph, Mick from the chess club, his younger brother, Mel, Angus. He opened the last. “Got it. Dinna forget the tequila.” Christ, the man even texted in a Scottish accent. He made a detour to the Asian supermarket popular for selling the cheapest booze. Then he called Mel.

  “Hi. Yeah, sorry, I was in the library... Looking stuff up of course, what do you think?... No... no... Ah, I’m really sorry, I can’t. I’m totally knackered... Yeah, of course I’ll call you tomorrow... Yes, really... Yeah... Bye.”

  He hung up, aware that the call hadn’t gone as well as it might have. He walked to the tube station, and made his way back to his digs.

  Alone with the stone, James sat and stared and wondered. It seemed that the stone was older than the house, which had been built around it. But how much older? Had it really been around in the fifteenth century? If so, did the Celtic legend suggest that it was older still? A thousand years old? Two thousand? Ten thousand? It had clearly been cut and shaped by the hand of man – or, at least, by an intelligent entity – but how and why had it remained so fresh and sharp through the centuries? And what caused it to glow?

  He drew his curtains and turned out the light. The glow was still there, as before. Faint, bluish, mesmerising. Once again he got the feeling that the stone was somehow aware of him, and was returning his gaze. He got up and moved experimentally round the room. The glow followed him, or seemed to. He forced a laugh. It was just an illusion, like those paintings whose eyes followed you round the gallery.

  Nevertheless, it was unnerving. He turned the light back on and willed himself not to look at the stone. He tried shutting his eyes, but couldn’t. He tried sitting with his back to the stone, but couldn’t keep it up for long. He tried to distract himself by reading, playing the guitar, rampaging through Twitter, but his attention kept being drawn irresistibly back to the stone.

  “OK, time out,” he said at last. “This is not happening. I admit that this is a puzzle, but you,” he pointed accusingly, “are just a stone with some forgotten writing on. I may be trying to find out about you, but I am not obsessing. Not.” He pronounced that last word with determined finality.

  “Mind you, I am talking to you,” he continued. “OK, that does it.” He heaved the chest of drawers in front of the stone, pulled on his headphones, and selected the loudest track his iPod had to offer. He would not stare at the stone. He would not stare at the stone. He would not...

  Somewhere past midnight, he moved his chest of drawers out of the way, sat on the end of his bed and stared at the stone. Eventually, he reasoned later, he must have fallen asleep, and whilst he was asleep he dreamed.

  This time the dream, or the memory of it, was more vivid. He heard again the voice calling to him from some huge distance – a distance in time as well as in space, he now perceived. The voice wanted James to come to him. It was insistent, and not unkindly. “Come,” it said. “Come...” There were other words, too. He did not understand them, but instinctively recognised them as the words carved on the stone.

  In the dream, he was surrounded by shapes and colours, nebulous forms that
seethed and twisted and coiled round each other. They had no recognisable pattern, yet hinted at things just beyond his imagination. The colours had vivid and indescribable hues, impossible shades that belonged to no spectrum, visible or invisible. Colours that had no place in reality.

  “Come,” the voice said again.

  “Who?” he managed.

  “We are the Eternal. We are the Gate.”

  ♦

  For a moment, when James awoke, he wasn’t sure where he was – mainly because he was lying on the floor. Christ, I didn’t even make it to bed this time. He’d also now slept in the same clothes for two nights running. Even for a first year student, this was going too far. He looked at his watch. Nine fifteen. Just under two hours before he had to meet Angus.

  He staggered to the bathroom and took a long shower. Afterwards, he shaved. It felt good to restore his chin to pristine smoothness. He got down on the floor of the bathroom and did some press-ups, just to prove that he still could.

  Wrapping a towel round his waist, he headed to the kitchen and put the kettle on. Sam looked up from his cereal and wished him good morning. Dave sketched a wave whilst examining the inside of the fridge. Shower, shave, tea. James felt reinvigorated, so much so that when Ralph – also wrapped in a towel – burst into the kitchen and indignantly asked who’d had all the hot water, James just smiled.

  “Five minutes,” Ralph yelled at him. “You know the rules. And when are you going to do the washing-up, I’d like to know?” James suggested Ralph do something biologically unlikely.

  He went back to his room and managed to dig out a clean pair of boxers and two socks that nearly matched. By the time he walked out of the front door, he felt ready for anything.

  Two minutes later, he returned for the bottle of tequila.

  ♦

  Angus was waiting on the green. Even from a hundred yards away, he looked guilty. They made the exchange. The counter looked less impressive than James had expected. Angus briefly explained its use, so nervous that he forgot his Scottish accent. “If it reads up to here, that’s normal background. Ignore it. If it reads past here, run like hell. And if it reads here, then you’re in the core at Sellafield, and your troubles are over. OK?”

  “Piece of cake.”

  “Right. My arse is on the line, here. I might need this bottle just to steady my nerves. I don’t know why you want this, and I don’t want to know. If you’re building a bomb, I hope you die. But even if you do die, get this back here this time tomorrow, or I’ll kill you again.”

  James could tell that, underneath it all, Angus was desperate to know what he was up to. He decided to torture him by saying nothing. He took the counter back to his digs.

  ♦

  Since he had the house to himself, James decided to familiarise himself with the counter by waving it around in the kitchen. It clicked the way it did in films – normal background stuff, seemingly. There was a slight spike when he pointed it at the fridge. Possibly CFCs, possibly Ralph’s Irn Bru. Feeling like a naughty schoolboy, he wandered round the house, pointing the counter at each of his housemates’ doors. Dave’s registered the highest by quite a distance, for some reason.

  Eventually, James returned to the matter in hand, and went to his own room. He had no idea what he would do if the stone did turn out to be highly radioactive, but he had to know. He waved the counter round his room to check the background radiation. Normal. The he took a deep breath, and stepped up to the stone.

  His jaw dropped as the needle did. Zero. Zilch, nix, nada, niente – the counter had stopped clicking, and registered absolutely no radiation whatsoever. Nary an alpha particle nor a gamma ray to be found. At first, he feared that the counter had stopped working. He would catch hell if he returned it broken. But when he pointed it at other parts of his room, it resumed its sporadic clicking.

  The stone, however... He shook his head in disbelief. He was no great shakes when it came to science, but that was impossible, surely? That something – anything – could be completely non-radioactive?

  He switched the counter off and sat down. He stared at the stone. It stared back. No, it was doing more than just staring – it was mocking him. Mocking him...

  One minute later, he was sprinting up the street to-wards Homebase.

  ♦

  James returned with a club hammer and a masonry chisel. Major wall work would take a lot more explaining away than stripped wallpaper, but he had to get to the bottom of things. First, he had to clear the brickwork surrounding the stone. The plaster was old, and came away easily in great chunks. Soon there was a pile of plaster on the floor to go with the wallpaper that he’d not yet cleared away.

  Beneath it, the brick wall was flush with the stone. He hesitated. If he’d been wrong in his assumptions, then he was about to hammer his way through to the house next door. The neighbours were fairly tolerant, but they wouldn’t take too kindly to him demolishing part of their house. But he had to be right. He’d checked many times.

  A thought struck him. Directly above his room was Sam’s. He went up there and knocked, gently. No reply. Guiltily, he opened the door and looked inside. Sam’s room was prim, neat and ascetic, but that was beside the point. The window was the same size as his own, and exactly above it.

  Carefully, he paced the distance from the window to the end of the room. Ten, eleven, twelve – and a bit. Allowing for the thickness of the wall, that matched the external measurement of thirteen. It was just his own room that was smaller than it should be. That meant that the false wall couldn’t be load-bearing. He smiled to himself. Studying architecture was good for something after all.

  He went back downstairs, confident that there was a space behind the bricks. Still, he hesitated, uncomfortable with wanton destruction. After wrestling with his conscience, he decided to remove one brick so that he could see behind it. Selecting a likely candidate, he set the blade of the chisel against the mortar securing it, and gave it a tap with the hammer. A small chip of mortar fell away. He continued hammering.

  After some fifteen minutes, it became clear that removing a single brick from the wall was going to be easier said than done. Driven by frustration, his blows became stronger and less precise, until in frustration he lashed out with all his strength – and missed his mark. Instead of the end of the chisel, he struck the stone directly. He dropped the hammer, partly because of the numbing shock that ran up his arm, but mainly because he feared that he might have damaged the inscription.

  His fears proved unfounded. Though he examined the stone minutely, he could find no trace of his blow, not the least scuff-mark or indentation. Intrigued, he placed the blade of the chisel directly against the stone and struck it with the hammer.

  Nothing.

  He struck again, harder, and then again with all the strength he could muster. He was no Arnold Schwarzenegger, but neither was he a seven-stone weakling. Even if the stone had been forged from solid titanium, he ought to have been able to scratch it at least. But there was no mark to be seen.

  He ran his hand over the stone, trying to work out what it was made of. Since it didn’t look like metal, he had thought of it as a stone, but now that he examined it more closely, it didn’t seem like stone either. It was as smooth as silk. He could not detect the slightest blemish or rough patch anywhere on its surface. Some sort of miraculous new polymer, perhaps? But no. How could that be, given that it had been hidden for a century or more?

  ♦

  After another hour of work, James had to stop, as the sound of the front door heralded the return of at least one housemate. The unwritten rule was that a closed bedroom door was to be treated with respect, but even so he could hardly expect to hammer away undisturbed. He checked his phone again. More missed calls. He’d been so distracted that he hadn’t even heard it ring. Out of duty, he returned the call from his mot
her. He assured her that he was alive, well, and just about solvent, but rather busy, sorry. The other calls he ignored, including one from Mel that promised to be too complicated to face. Instead, he brooded, and stared at the stone.

  Late that evening, he surfaced in the kitchen for some overdue sustenance. Had he really forgotten about lunch three days in row? He supposed he must’ve done. Judging by his shelf of the fridge, he’d forgotten about shopping too. Eggs and a couple of sausages that were only just past their sell-by date. He clattered away with the frying-pan.

  The noise attracted Ralph. “You OK, mate?” he asked James.

  “Yeah, sorry. Been a bit distracted lately.”

  “More DIY?”

  “No. Well, spraying a bit of anti-fungal stuff to discourage the mould. Nothing else.”

  “Better not be. I don’t want the landlord coming round and throwing a wobbly. I like it here.”

  “I promise not to demolish the place.” James smiled weakly.

  “If anyone’s going to demolish the place, it’ll be an architect,” Ralph said. “So what is on your mind. Not working too hard?”

  “Well –” James was momentarily at a loss, then gave the most convenient answer. “I’ve got this project I’m working on. It’s causing me grief.” It wasn’t technically a lie. He hadn’t said that the project was related to his course.

  “Is that so?” Ralph asked. “Well, hard work’s all very laudable and that, but you need an evening off from time to time. Come into the living room. Football’s on, and we’ve got some beer.”