That Which Should Not Be

by Talley, Brett J.

  I took his hand and shook it firmly. He handed me a ticket, and I turned hurriedly to leave. As I did, Dr. Thayerson issued a final warning.

  “Carter,” he said, “be careful. There is much in this world far beyond your present imagining. And not all of it is harmless.”

  I simply nodded my understanding from the doorway and turned to go.

  Chapter

  3

  As I stepped out onto the Green, a fierce north wind met me. With it came a smattering of snow flurries, harbingers of more to come I had no doubt. I returned to my room to find Henry waiting. He rose quickly to meet me upon my entrance.

  “Well, what did the old man say?”

  I gave him a wary look as I unwound the scarf hanging tightly to my throat. I had never lied to Henry before, but it appeared now was the time for firsts.

  “He needs me to collect something for him,” I said vaguely. Henry was my closest companion, and I trusted him completely, no matter what Thayerson said. But on the off chance Thayerson’s paranoia proved to possess a grain of truth, I thought the less Henry knew or suspected, the better for his sake, as well as mine.

  I packed quickly and light. I could not know how long I would be away. I assumed it would take some time to locate those individuals most familiar with the object in question. But as I knew little of what I was about to begin, I thought it best to avoid burdening myself with too much baggage. As I walked to Arkham Station, I barely noticed the strengthening north wind or the snowflakes falling in greater and greater quantity.

  I needed a story, a cover for my intentions. As I took my seat in the railway car, I realized the difficulty of my position. I was no detective, and nothing in my academic career had prepared me to imitate that profession. It struck me that the people of Anchorhead were perhaps, and even likely, unaware of the significance of what they possessed. In that event, it might be as simple as finding the local librarian and inquiring as to artifacts of interest.

  Of course, that begged yet more questions. Was the book in the possession of an individual? Was it held by the town in some collective capacity? If Thayerson was aware of its existence, would there be others on the trail, seeking it out, as well? If so, was I in danger? The last question fell upon me with a particular violence; it was the first time I had considered the possibility this exercise could end badly for me. I didn’t think on it long, however, as the sudden jerk of the train’s hesitant first steps out of the station jolted me from my thoughts.

  For the moment, I allowed myself to forget the challenges ahead as I gazed out of the car window. I could see very little. The snow was now falling in torrents, and I realized this was no ordinary storm. It had all the markings of a nor’easter. Now, I was traveling to a town with which I was practically unfamiliar, with night having already fallen, in the midst of a coming blizzard. It was as if dark forces were conspiring to defeat me already.

  My mind drifted, and I found myself thinking back to the earliest days at Miskatonic to one of the nights that defined my relationship with Henry. Henry would occasionally host parties to which he would invite those fellow students with whom we were particularly close. He was always a charming fellow, and I often noted people were drawn to him like metal flakes to a magnet. But in him also was an eccentricity, a fire that burned for those un-nameable creatures from beyond. And I knew that many of our so-called friends appeared only in the hopes that Henry would broach his favorite topic. His eyes would sparkle with a peculiar flame. One never knew what tales he might conjure.

  So it was that night. After much wine flowed and the conversation meandered from professors to classes to the young ladies of Hampstead that lies across the Miskatonic River, Henry spread his arms wide on the table, and I saw that particular light come into his eyes.

  “Did anyone read the Times today?”

  I glanced at the five men seated around the table. I saw in their faces the answer was no. I could not help but smile. I had read the Times, and I had no doubt of what Henry would speak.

  “Then, I suppose,” he continued, “that you did not see the story regarding Dr. Charles Ashcroft?”

  “I did not read the story,” said an unremarkable boy whose name has long since escaped me, “but all of New England knows he has gone mad.”

  “Yes, yes,” Henry said, waving him off, “but let us not get ahead of ourselves. That Ashcroft is mad is beyond doubt, but does one not wonder how a man such as he could lose his mind?”

  “Why don't you tell us, Henry,” I said.

  “Oh, I shall, my good Carter, if only you will stop interrupting me.”

  The other men at the table laughed, and Henry smiled wickedly at me. I could not help but grin.

  “Four months ago,” Henry began, “Dr. Ashcroft left Boston, as I am sure you no doubt saw in the papers, on a scientific expedition for the ages.”

  Henry removed a pipe from his jacket pocket and struck a match. We all watched as he lit the tobacco within, waiting patiently for him to continue.

  “He arrived,” he said, extinguishing the match with a flick of his wrist, “on the northern shore of the continent of Antarctica with forty men, as many dogs, and a month’s worth of supplies and provisions.”

  He then glanced up, looking at each man, starting with the one nearest him and moving down the table, as if to make sure we understood. He knew we were all well aware of Dr. Ashcroft's fate.

  “Three months later,” he continued, “a British whaling ship came upon a man on the far western shore of the continent. The sailors on board described him as a wild savage. Alone. Starving. And no doubt completely mad. We were all horrified, of course, to learn this man was none other than Dr. Ashcroft himself.”

  Henry paused and sipped his wine. The others looked around the table. They were anxious to hear the rest. Word of Ashcroft’s fate had reached Arkham, but not the details. Henry appeared to have them, and their curiosity was irrepressible.

  “The British,” he continued, “passed Ashcroft off to an American clipper ship rounding the Horn from San Francisco en route to Boston. The ship’s doctor attempted, as best he could, to learn what had befallen Ashcroft and his men. To learn the fate of the thirty-nine who had set out across that ice-locked desert. But whatever ailed Ashcroft was beyond his feeble talents, and the words that streamed from his gibbering lips were as ineffable as the shroud of horror that hung like a mask upon his face.”

  “Tell me Henry,” I said, interrupting, “how is it that you know of all this? I have followed the news of Ashcroft’s disappearance and rescue and learned no more than the barest details. Yet, you seem to know it all.”

  “Yes, Henry,” said one of the others, “is this just one of your stories? An imagined tale for our amusement?”

  Henry looked up at me as he held his pipe between his teeth and smiled.

  “My dear Carter,” he said between puffs of smoke, “patience is indeed a virtue you lack. But if you will allow me a moment, I will explain. This is no idle talk, and if you open your mind you may yet learn much about the ageless and ancient worlds that predate our own.”

  I merely nodded, and he continued.

  “I know of what I speak, my good friends, because Dr. Ashcroft was moved from Boston to the Arkham Asylum two weeks ago. He lies not three miles from where we now sit. The learned men of Boston could make nothing of his ravings, but those doctors of Arkham, bred and trained at fairest Miskatonic, their minds are not closed to the sprawling mysteries that engulf us. From Dr. Ashcroft’s seemingly mad ramblings, they drew forth a story, one which I will now relay.

  “Dr. Ashcroft and his men set forth across the wasteland of the Antarctic with more than sufficient supplies to reach their goal, the southern pole. They would attempt a more southerly route than the expeditions before them, bypassing the Dome Argus where so many men have lost their lives. It was in that uncharted, cold waste that Dr. Ashcroft met his destiny. He should have known, he said, to turn back when he and his men came upon a mountain ran
ge where no mountains should be. He should have seen that something had gone horribly wrong. That the expedition had stepped into a world that presented impossibilities that ours does not hold. But when he viewed those peaks whose crest would look down upon the mountains of the Kathmandu, he saw nothing but an obstacle to be conquered. So he began his ascent, and his men began to die.”

  Henry paused then, for his pipe had extinguished. He struck a match, and as it flared, the light illuminated the room which had gone dark, casting for a brief moment furtive shadows that seemed to be watching us before darting back into the darkness.

  “Every day they would climb, and each night they would make camp on the slopes of those fearful mountains. And then the light of the pallid sun would peak over the Antarctic horizon to show a camp of fewer men than when it had left them the night before. Some would simply disappear, perhaps stumbling off to their death in the cold waste, driven mad by the chill that could be beaten back but never defeated. Strange, then, that they left no footprints to mark their passing. Unusual that their tents were in perfect order.

  “But not all the tragedy that befell Ashcroft’s men was unexplained. Any attempting such an ascent would face mortal dangers. And on an uncharted slope those dangers were compounded by the unknown. How many fell into a yawning abyss, crevices that would appear and then seal themselves in seconds, entombing the screaming man below in eternal silence? Only Ashcroft knows, I suppose. But what we know is this — within a week, Ashcroft was left alone with whatever infernal powers had sought and procured his men’s undoing and left him behind. As if they wanted him to seek. As if they wanted him to find.

  “There could be no turning back. Ashcroft was high upon the mountainside and far from the eastern sea. He pressed on, though he couldn’t have done so with much hope. It was then that he came upon a cavern carved into the side of the mountain. He plunged into the Stygian blackness within, feeling his way as best he could. Stumbling often, he rose to his feet only because of the command he heard within his own mind to continue. So powerful it was that even though he wished death to come, he would not simply fall to the ground and let it take him. Then, a vision seemed to creep into his mind. One of light, just beyond his reach. He made his way towards it, sometimes on his feet, sometimes crawling on his hands and knees. It was no vision, but his salvation. An opening. He rushed towards it, but when he reached the precipice, he saw the thing that drove him mad.”

  At that moment Henry fell silent, placing his once again extinguished pipe upon the table. My fellows sat leaning forward in their chairs, anxious to hear what maddening vistas opened up before Ashcroft. Only I remained relaxed, grinning smugly at Henry as he weaved what I assumed was an entirely manufactured tale. But then he continued.

  “Who can describe properly what Ashcroft saw in the gray half-light in that valley? He could not. Not truly. Nor could his brain properly process it, as the very sight shattered his mind forever. What did he see? A citadel, nay, a city of unimaginable proportions and expanse, stretching forth in that hellish valley between the mountains. Cyclopean stone blocks of a hew and craftsmanship he could not know, cut from the earth eons before the Great Pharaoh raised his eyes to the plain of Giza and found it worthy of grandeur. Ruined towers and walled fortresses, dwellings of such size and dimension one might wonder if the mountains themselves did not call them home. All locked beneath solid sheets of ice. But it was not that which broke his mind. No, it was the thing that lurked in the titanic abyss, the infernal pit that lay in the center of that most ancient city. The thing that called to him in a voice that was not of man. The thing that, as he stood frozen in place from terror and wonder combined, began to rise.”

  Once again Henry stopped. He sat quietly in his chair, as if he had relayed nothing more than a somewhat interesting anecdote from class.

  “And?” I finally asked. Henry raised an open palm as if in apology.

  “And, that is all,” he said. “Ashcroft remembers nothing from that moment until his arrival in Arkham. Whatever followed was too horrible, too monstrous for the mind, even one as strong as his. What he saw there . . .well, I pray to God we never know.”

  I looked around at my compatriots, and I saw true fear in their ashen faces. I smiled and said, “Bravo, Henry, you have truly outdone yourself this time.”

  “I’m not surprised, Carter, that you would disbelieve Ashcroft’s report. Disappointed perhaps, but not surprised.”

  “Henry, please. It makes for a fantastic story and, from the looks on our friends’ faces here, one that no doubt has a great power to instill fear.” I saw the other men look down and blush. Fear was not an emotion to be lightly shown. “But what is more likely? That Dr. Ashcroft stumbled upon some Atlantis of antiquity only to witness a scene that drove him mad? Or that the expedition ran into great difficulty and when he was found, Ashcroft, half-starved and probably fully frozen, imagined a vast host of impossible visions?”

  “Ah, but if that were true,” Henry said, gesturing to me with his pipe, “wouldn’t we expect that some of his men would have survived, as well? His dogs? His supplies? But it was only him. A man of some, though not exceeding, age, who managed to survive while all else perished?”

  “Well, if you expect to bring logic into the discussion, how would that same man have made the trek from southern Antarctica to its western shore and survived? Surely such a thing is impossible.”

  “And thus you have hit upon the most compelling evidence for Ashcroft's story. It is impossible, whether his men fell by natural causes or were hunted down by some fell beast. Ashcroft should be dead. Yet, he is not. Something must have saved him.”

  “So, the very force you believe killed Ashcroft's men and stole his sanity delivered him safe and sound to be rescued? Why? For what purpose?”

  “No purpose but its own, I assure you. Why did it bring him to that dead city? Why did it lead him to the steps of an ancient necropolis, only to deliver him from its clutches? I cannot say. All I know is that it did, and that is enough for me.”

  At that point I simply sat back in my chair. There was nothing more to be said. Soon our friends had departed, and I was left alone with Henry.

  “That was quite a story you told tonight,” I said. “Do you believe a word of it?”

  Henry laughed as he poured two glasses of brandy.

  “Some of it. Do I believe that Ashcroft saw something fantastic? Certainly. Is every word he spoke the truth? Unlikely. That is where we differ, Carter.”

  “Where? That I do not give credence to insanity?”

  “No,” he said, “that you do not recognize that in all things there is at least a grain of truth. And that makes Ashcroft's story truly remarkable.”

  “You are from another age, Henry. Another age altogether.”

  “Yes, that may be true,” he said, handing me my glass. “But the ancients knew certain things, Carter. Yes, I see what you are thinking. They were superstitious. Fearful. Hateful and destructive at times. But they knew man is not meant to understand all things. They knew man is not capable of understanding all things. And there is wisdom there, wisdom that we would do well to heed.”

  In truth, I did see much wisdom in his words. But I simply could not believe. I was, and remain, a man of faith. But that faith was the limit of my belief in the supernatural. I was, as Thomas of old, condemned not to believe, lest I see. Alas, a time would come when mine eyes would see and mourn because of it.

  Why did that story come to mind in those lonely moments on the north bound train from Arkham? Why did it leap to my mind, unbidden and uncalled? Fate’s foreshadowing perhaps, as fate’s hand was constantly upon me that night. Fate, or perhaps the power of the Book.

  The train chugged north, through the darkened countryside, over the Miskatonic River and into the river valley itself. It passed sturdy rock walls and ancient gabled barns; thick, untouched forests and domed hills. Then the dark, churning wilderness gave way to what looked in the shadow to be an endless flat pl
ane — we had reached the sea. The combination of the black night and thick snow made it impossible to see the tempest no doubt rocking its surface. I saw the lighthouse of Anchorhead before the dimly lit houses came in view. Its powerful beam swept across land and sea like a single, great eye casting its gaze upon all within its sight.

  The train jerked and spasmed as it pulled slowly into Anchorhead station, a desolate edifice consisting of no more than a platform and a darkened shack. I was the only person to alight from the train, and there was, to my eye, no living soul in the vicinity. This might have bothered me at another time, but the north winds were now roaring fiercely from the sea with such violence that none with a sound mind would have ventured into their midst. There were, of course, no stagecoaches to be had either, and so I began what I hoped was a short walk to the nearest inn.

  I found it not fifty feet from the station. I entered quickly, pressing the door forcefully closed against the now raging wind outside. I turned to see an elderly woman glaring at me from behind a solid oak desk.

  “Good evening,” I lied.

  “You need a room, I suspect?” she snarled.

  I told her that I did, and she begrudgingly obliged me. I paid her for two nights with the promise I would likely stay for more. She spoke little, using the minimum amount of words necessary to show me the location of my room and its arrangements. I realized as I placed my bag upon a bedside table that I was quite famished. I hesitated to venture back into the howling maelstrom rocking the panes of my windows, but it was evident that either I must or go to bed hungry. The innkeeper brusquely indicated there was a tavern only a short walk away, a quaint place located on the shores of the sea. I took her up on this suggestion and stepped out once again into the swirling darkness.