by Gary Fry
“I think I…I must have suffered another of my…episodes,” he explained, his voice broken as much by deceit as disorientation. He felt lucid now. Moments later, he leaned to one side and snapped shut his laptop, hoping the manoeuvre wouldn’t make him look guilty.
His wife was yet to reply, which made him feel under scrutiny. He glanced up, but instead of her usual knowing gaze, he perceived something more unsettling, a species of brittle discomfort. It forced him to speak at once.
“What…is it, Christine? Are you okay?”
It was only now that he realised she was holding her iPhone, a sight that reminded him of the photographs, especially one vivid image of a greenish figure, inadequately illuminated by moonlight, clinging to a cliff-side the way a child might address a dinner table, face pressed forwards to reach treats on top. But then George observed his wife’s expression, which had assumed another mood, that of a doctor about to deliver devastating news to some terror-stricken patient.
“Christine? What’s wrong? Tell me. Come on. I can see it in your eyes.”
After several more seconds, during which she swayed from side to side, his wife sat beside him on the bed, still holding her iPhone, its large screen exposed like an inhuman fingerprint. Without speaking, perhaps believing that she’d primed him during their holiday in the northeast of England, she triggered the camera’s playback function.
The display revealed nothing controversial, just the room they were in. But then the lens zeroed in on the film’s subject, and George wasn’t slow to observe that it was himself. He was slumped on the ground, dressed in the shirt, tie and trousers he’d put on after taking a shower following the long sightseeing walk today. He and his wife were preparing to dine in the hotel’s restaurant, until something had got in the way: a faint, a fall, possibly even a blow to the skull. But could concussion account for his subsequent behaviour?
After sitting up – eyes rolling back, hands raised to sweep the air, mouth stretching as wide as his jaw was deep – he cried words whose only transcription was, “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!”
This was soon repeated, each utterance gaining disconcertingly in volume.
“PH’NGLUI MGLW’NAFH CTHULHU R’LYEH WGAH’NAGL FHTAGN! PH’NGLUI MGLW’NAFH CTHULHU R’LYEH WGAH’NAGL FHTAGN! PH’NGLUI MGLW’NAFH CTHULHU R’LYEH WGAH’NAGL FHTAGN!”
But George recalled none of it.
Once the recording ended – almost three minutes later, when the figure onscreen finally lapsed into abject silence – Christine put down her iPhone and grasped one of his hands.
“Please don’t worry about it,” she said, even though her voice trembled. “I felt frightened at first, but it’s as Dr. Kilroy explained, isn’t it? The tumour was always likely to cause such random outbursts, with garbled language.”
He said nothing, simply looked at her. Deep in his brain, maybe even the part intruded upon by Cthulhu’s malignant replicant, he saw that hideous creature draped over Whitby’s cliff-top, muscles bulging, wings flapping with severity. Its tentacle-burdened face was pushed against a tiny building close to the edge, one scarcely lit by the lighthouse from which this image had been captured by two young men, who’d suppressed their evidence in fear of public complications.
Until now.
Until George had discovered their secret.
But no, he hadn’t merely discovered it. However unwitting his actions were, he was continuing the work begun many years earlier by someone who’d been drawing upon an account of which George still lacked any understanding.
He wondered how long he’d have to wait before his former academic colleague delivered the translation; this suddenly seemed more necessary than ever. George thought that he might email the man a polite reminder the moment he’d set Christine’s mind at rest, with more lies to add to so many existing ones.
CHAPTER NINE
They’d stayed in Sweden for three days and then flown south for a further three in Ghana. George had always been intrigued by the continent of Africa and wanted to visit at least one part of it. He’d chosen this one after a recommendation from an ex-colleague, who’d claimed that the country’s complex mix of ethnic tribes and rich culture offered a good blend of pleasures.
Their hotel was a classy place just outside the capital city of Accra, and during their first few days they’d enjoyed fine cuisine and plentiful drink, complemented by guided tours of local attractions, including the Black Star Monument, the impressive Planetarium, and the architecturally striking National Theatre.
On their final day, George had decided that he wanted to experience more authentic African life, away from sanitised tours targeted at holidaymakers. After hiring a car, he and Christine had driven north to a huge lake bordered by Digya National Park and chanced upon a group of tribal Ghanaians who, following a brief negotiation on George’s part, had agreed to let them attend a ceremony planned that evening.
George had learned about similar events on the Internet, while awaiting a reply from the academic translating his Norwegian document. After receiving an “out of office” message from the man’s email account, George had assumed he must be away on annual leave and was possibly carrying out the task he’d promised. It was only lingering paranoia that made George feel as if the guy, now in possession of “too much knowledge”, had mysteriously disappeared, just as Jens Amundsen had after reading the same material.
As he took a seat with his wife among a large number of smiling natives (several other white tourists were in attendance, presumably having arranged similar access to this event), George recalled a further observation made by Professor Lovecraft at Miskatonic University in the USA. The scholar had claimed that primitive tribes, uncorrupted by modern modes of thought, were more in tune than others with the Great Old One mythology. They might even share communion with Cthulhu, the way George appeared to right now, leaving him closer in spirit to the Ghanaians’ traditions than he felt comfortable with. The moment they all started dancing, his psyche, delicate lately even at its best, grew increasingly alarmed.
Something about the incessant rhythms produced by musicians equipped with drums and whistles refused to let his mind assimilate the events accompanying them. In a dusty plain situated alongside a glittering lake, countless tribesmen and women cavorted, each dressed in yellows, oranges and reds. Some carried knives, others water jugs; most sang strange words as a chorus-leader – an older man with a corrugated ribcage and many rings through his nose – coordinated activities, arms held aloft, as if to indicate the velveteen sky with its sparkling canopy of stars.
It was a warm evening, but George was convinced that as the ceremony became increasingly manic, a soft wind grew stronger, tossing about the leafy tops of nearby palm trees and throwing up scatterings of sand. He was less certain whether the dancers demonstrated impossible feats, such as levitation or prolonged exposure to fiery torches. All the same, the shortage of light this late in the evening had offered George these impressions, or perhaps his mounting tiredness had.
Once the dance routine had come to an end and the music had died with a drumbeat like a failing heart, George drew upon his recent lack of civility, his devil-may-care attitude. By this time, the other white people were preparing to leave and even Christine was suggesting that they should both do likewise. But George was now determined to sustain the ceremony beyond its usual span. As the many Ghanaians began moving away, satiated after praying to their Gods in such a striking manner, George stood and, drawing the words effortlessly from fractured memory, cried, “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!”
At first he received little response, just a sort of shocked silence as countless pairs of dark eyes swivelled to identify the source of this disturbance. A long silence followed, during which George felt Christine grip one of his hands, as if to say, “What are you doing, darling?” But he refused to withdraw. Feeling lucid, unlike when he’d uttered identical words in Stockholm several days earlier,
he spoke again with even greater volume.
“PH’NGLUI MGLW’NAFH CTHULHU R’LYEH WGAH’NAGL FHTAGN!”
On this occasion, his words did elicit a reaction. Almost in unison, the countless native Ghanaians, who’d passionately participated in a tribal ritual, began muttering frantically to each other, profound unease flickering across their faces. It was as if someone had just revealed a terrible secret which this group of closely bonded people had yet to admit even to themselves, let alone to outsiders. And now George was yelling it under indifferent astral bodies.
His wife had begun tugging at his arm, urging him to back off, to quit what she must believe was another illness-induced act. But George had rarely felt more focused. Maybe the tumour had gifted him with stubborn resolution. All he knew for certain was that his words had had a profound impact on the primitive people up ahead and that the myth must be less obscure than he and others had suspected. Professor Lovecraft, it seemed, had been correct.
As the group’s leader paced forwards from the pack, perhaps seeking to calm his peers by engaging with George, Christine finally got her way. She sounded frightened when she whispered, “I want to leave, now,” and George had no wish to trouble her any more than was necessary.
As they departed, the dark-faced man looked on with jaded eyes and for George this confirmed a new realisation: Cthulhu existed, or at least more than just a few madmen north in the world believed It did.
CHAPTER TEN
George and his wife were staying in Riyadh, at a hotel with modern facilities. After exploring the city on the first day of three they’d spend in Saudi Arabia, Christine had claimed to feel tired, the brief time lag from Africa having caught up with her, and that she’d like to take it easy. George had agreed, but as his wife had gone off to enjoy a sauna and then a manicure, he’d stepped outside, eager to respond to a curious pressure in his skull, one which demanded that he move away, regardless of the concern Christine would express later after noticing that he’d vanished for a considerable period.
Riyadh was half-contemporary, half-baroque. Smart modern architecture – media studios, telecommunication centres, a sprawling university – stood against ancient temples and mosques. The temperature was high this March afternoon, heat haze rising from roads packed with revving vehicles and excitable pedestrians. This was possibly one of the noisiest places George had ever visited, but none of that interfered with the presence in his skull – not quite a voice, but something similar – instructing him to go this way and that way and then this way again. He felt as if he were in a trance, and people all around him the denizens of some dream-world, muttering gibberish as he passed.
By the time he’d obeyed at least twenty wordless instructions – it was like having a satnav system inside his head – he’d reached the city centre’s perimeter, where manmade properties ended, yielding to acres of sandy terrain infrequently occupied by buildings and roads leading across it like veins through the human body. The latest symptom of his illness, possibly induced by minor jetlag, had directed him along a winding lane flanked on both sides by stone-built shacks of a hermetic bearing, each boasting arched windows, low roofs, and chimneypots which smoked solemnly with fragrant scents.
At the end of this passageway stood a dusty expanse of broken rock; it was into this that the voice in his skull suggested that he should advance. George, no more than a passenger bound to an irresistible process, remained wary, knowing that a great number of Middle Eastern inhabitants were hostile to Westerners. Indeed, of all the international disputes the planet suffered right now, those in this area were potentially the most explosive.
All the same, as the tumour in his brain issued more guidance, George didn’t cease walking until he reached an opening of sorts, carved into a rock-face at the foot of a vegetation-free hillock. Was he supposed to enter here? He believed so. What would he find inside? There was only one way to find out.
Looking left and then right, seeing nobody in the area who presented a threat, he offered his wife a brief thought. Realising that his investigations were currently more crucial, he finally entered what must be a cave.
As soon as the dark shut off the sunshine, George recalled the email he’d received the previous night. His former colleague, the expert in Scandinavian languages, had almost finished translating the document sent just over a week ago. The man had suggested that George should prepare himself to reflect on some bizarre material, which had caused the academic to wonder whether the manuscript was fiction. George had explained that it probably had been invented, but little more than that; he was eager for the guy to complete what would surely provide the final knowledge he required to make sense of the whole story.
He edged along a narrow corridor, whose floor descended and roof grew lower as he advanced. By the time he reached the end, where almost complete darkness clustered, George felt as if he was much deeper in the earth than he’d been before entering this silent chamber. How he could be sure about this, he had no idea, because there was no perceptual context to judge against, no stable horizon or proximate objects enabling him to anchor his body to the location.
Unable to see anything around him, he pushed one hand into his trouser pocket and removed his mobile phone. Once opened, the device cast a harsh light around him, lending life to the passage without exposing all that the place might harbour in its twitching alcoves. A number of symmetrical stone blocks stood nearby, each making him believe that the trancelike state he’d endured outside was a convincing dream, one in which geometry was about to play havoc with his expectations, rendering up down, left right, and gravity a game of unpredictable diagonals.
The blocks remained mercifully stable and he soon noticed an imposing pillar directly ahead. It was about his height, and its upright bore elaborate carvings, all toothy fish and lithe beasts, their bodies wrapped around each other. These creatures were locked together in either licentious bliss or intense warfare, but none held George’s attention for long. It was the figure standing at the head of this post which commanded that.
He’d seen this thing before, in photographs uploaded to the website he’d reviewed, documenting what little was known about the Great Old Ones. Its author, drawing principally upon Professor Lovecraft’s research, had suggested that a number of carvings existed in the world, each depicting great Cthulhu, the supposed leader of an ancient group of mythological beasts. Some of these sculptures, created during a period of dreams suffered by artists, poets and madmen back in the 1920s, had been found in North America’s Deep South, in West Africa, in the Far East, in Greenland, and in many other parts of the world. But many believed that the legend’s most committed adherents existed here, in the Middle East, and that this region was most likely to boast evidence of such devotion.
This conclusion was certainly supported by what George saw in front of him. Holding up his phone, guiding its torchlight, he observed a handcrafted facsimile of a thing it would surely do no man good to witness in the flesh. The monster was identical to those he’d seen depicted on that website and in the photographs of the entity he’d observed pressed against England’s northeast coastline, face-tentacles thrust deep into a cliff-side building. Here were the same tremendous limbs, diaphanous wings, greenish bulk, and a head bearing multiple sensory organs.
It was Cthulhu. Drawing him like some terrible sickness across an entire city. And showing him again how real It was.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
In New Zealand (where they’d stay for four days), the time-lags between each leg of their tour finally caught up with George. Believing that he’d functioned for over a week on adrenalin induced by intrigue, he realised that he needed to take it easy, in case a medical complication arose.
He’d got himself into trouble with Christine after leaving her that day in Saudi Arabia, going missing for what had turned out to be an impossible six hours. Had he actually spent so long exploring that Middle Eastern city? That was apparently true, even though the episode had felt as if it had t
aken only a fraction of that period. Like the Whitby foghorn whose bullish cry always sounded delayed, perhaps time wasn’t behaving normally right now, minutes bleeding into hours and hours haemorrhaging into days.
After travelling around the Auckland area before leaving for South America, their final day came upon them. One evening in mid-March, as the UK surely sat in the cold and rain, George and Christine dined outside the ranch they’d hired near the city, enjoying the final throes of the country’s summer. Everything felt topsy-turvy, largely because of their location on the opposite side of the globe. They were also aware that, over halfway through their holiday, which had served as something to focus on after George’s terminal diagnosis, their lives were set to decline. There was just Chile and the USA left to visit, before returning home to an uncertain period during which George might last for years or maybe just months. Time passed quickly, and the important thing, as George had learned lately, was to savour every moment he had left.
They enjoyed steak that evening, cooked perfectly by Christine, and a fine wine fermented from local grapes. After eating, George took his wife’s hand and led her to a small lake, where they sat in the shade of a tree, observing the intense sun setting over a distant horizon. It was late and yet wonderfully warm, which made them realise that, however much strife existed elsewhere on the planet, the world could be a wonderful place and shouldn’t be casually dismissed.
George turned to Christine, took another sip of the delicious wine, and then said, “I love you, darling. I love you so much.”
