by Josh Shiben
Chapter 1
Dreams and Nightmares
“Imagine the web of a spider – intricate and delicate, but wholly inanimate. A web cannot speak, a web cannot think – it is a thing. It has no senses of the world, no means of observing the world, and no means of conceiving of the world. No eyes, no skin, no ears.
Now imagine that same web, but alive. It is still blind – an imbecile groping in darkness. It is still deaf – unaware of songs of nature that surround and even pass through it. It is aware only of itself, and even then, wholly within itself. The blind observer attempting to measure his own face in a mirror. With its perceptions limited exclusively to its own internal measures, it cannot hope to gain any true understanding of its real form.
Now suppose a fly were to land on this web. The ultimate goal of the web is achieved! To capture an insect is the sole reason this web exists. You could call such a capture its life’s work; its purpose. But what does the web perceive? An alien thrashing through its innards. Terror. Invasion. Such is the life of those who cannot understand the world in which they live. Drawn by fate for purposes they cannot fathom, towards goals they do not even realize they have.”
-Gregori Weder
The room was bright, with harsh, halogen light piercing the air. Detective David Burfict watched the naked man seated before him with a mixture of unease and interest. “You sure you don’t want a lawyer, or a doctor or anything?” The man nodded. “And you understand that we’re going to record this? All of it.” Another nod. A fly buzzed somewhere in the room, tapping against the light arrhythmically. Burfict watched as the man’s tongue licked where his lips once were and then retreated behind his bared teeth. Something had torn his lips off, leaving nothing but a leering grin in the place of his mouth. The torn meat on his cheek was ragged, but not bleeding – the wounds were a few days old - too fresh for much healing. The man’s nose was intact, although the skin just below it was shredded red hamburger. Bits of saliva mixed with blood dribbled from his chin in a pink slime, adding a shock of color on the man’s otherwise gaunt, pale face.
David pushed the button to start the recording and began, his eyes tearing themselves away from the wounds of the man sitting in front of him. “This is the recording of the confession of Nathan M Sullivan, 27, on the night of June22nd.” He looked up at the figure seated across from him. “Whenever you’re ready.” The words seemed to hang in the air, and for a moment neither man moved. Two more flies had joined the other one, buzzing stupidly among the lights. Metallic glints shimmered off of their fat bluish bodies, and blots of darkness danced wildly across the walls.
Finally the man spoke. His ruined mouth opened and shut, but only gibberish came out - a garbled language of grunts and consonants. “Krck’ron grunsntch’tak rl’ynoq kllnsh. Iä! Iä! Shub-Niggurath! Koln’grth! Grnr’urck kngg’urn fth’ok!” Spittle trickled down his shredded chin as he worked to make the noises without his lips. Burfict looked at the two-way-mirror and shrugged. Samuels and Grange were probably back there laughing at him for having to interview the crazy this time. It always seemed like he drew the short straw when it came time to do this sort of thing.
Abruptly the gibberish stopped, and Burfict turned back to Sullivan, his stomach tensing – something wasn’t right. Above Sullivan hovered a now massive swarm of blue flies, lighting on him at their leisure. The man was sitting perfectly still, his dark eyes having developed a blank glaze, as flies lit upon the gaping wound on his chin. Burfict paused for a moment, looking for a sign of breathing, before the scent of rotten meat and carrion struck him like a sledgehammer. He turned, gesturing wildly at the two-way mirror and shouted to the back room. “Samuels! Get the fuck in here!” He waited in silence a beat for the door to clang open, but no one came. Panic gripped Burfict as the intercom remained silent. David had the sudden sense of being utterly alone.
Sullivan fell onto the floor, and the cloud of flies followed him, feasting on his rotten body as it crumpled into a heap. Burfict stood up and backed to the door, his eyes never leaving the corpse on the floor. His senses were assaulted by the scene before him; the smell so thick he could taste it – rancid and spoiled; the sound of the flies a roar, echoing through the tiny room. Thousands of tiny wings beat at the air in a chorus of carrion, and Burfict heard the dead man’s words again in the vile cacophony. “Iä! Iä! Shub-Niggurath!” boomed into his ears, over and over. Without taking his eyes from the body sprawled on the floor, Burfict groped for the doorknob, found purchase, and swung it open. He turned to leave the interview room, only to see three hooded figures standing in the shadows, blocking his path. Yellow, tattered robes hung from their shoulders, and their ragged hoods hung low, shrouding their faces in darkness. Fear gripped his throat, and he felt his pulse pounding in his ears in perfect rhythm with the mad chanting of the insects. David tried to turn, to will his body away from those hooded beings, back into the interview room, but his stubborn flesh remained rooted to the spot.
The wings of the insects were still screaming that accursed chorus, but somehow Burfict could make out the faintest whisper from the hooded being closest to him. “Dream deep, Last Son. Your fhtagn is almost at an end. Eschaton approaches.” The voice was quiet but deadly, the light caress of a viper flitting over your leg, the distant roar of a predator.
David felt nauseous as panic rose from his throat. Revulsion and terror gripped him in equal measure. The way the figures stood - the stoop to their backs and the turn of their heads – it was all just so inhuman. Unnatural, like a crude machine. Abominations. David couldn’t see their forms beneath the shadows of the robes, but he knew that something terrible gazed out at him from the darkness. He screamed, his voice echoing off the walls, joining the mad buzzing of the flies.
Burfict awoke in his bed trembling, his ears still ringing. He had broken out in a cool sweat, and the pale moonlight glistened off of the goose bumps on his forearm. It had been another one of his dreams, the ones he saw before something terrible, but he’d never had one quite so vivid or nonsensical. He lumbered out of bed and slumped down at his desk where he began writing down everything he could remember before wakefulness stole the memory away.
“Nathan Sullivan… corpse… flies…” he murmured quietly. He’d had these dreams since he was a child; always about something vicious, and always true. As a boy, he’d thought they were simply nightmares, fantasies turned to terror. He didn’t realize the truth behind them until when he was older, when he happened to be in the room while his father was watching the evening news. David had seen a man from his dreams. Stanley Warrant was taken away by police after the body of a local boy was found in a nearby dumpster. David had dreamt the dumpster, had seen what happened in the dark alley behind it. It was days before he slept again, years before the sleep was sound.
As he grew, Burfict noticed other ways he was different. He could feel people – their minds, their moods, even their souls. It was an instinctive action, reaching out and affirming other humans, almost testing them. He would plumb the depths of person and feel their life-force, taste their moods and persona. This second sight, coupled with his nightmares, had made him a very effective detective, particularly on the more brutal cases. His closure rates for the strange or violent cases were always the highest. It was almost unfair - those minds were always so raw, so easy to find, as if the violence had left their souls spattered in crimson. The only hard part was finding enough evidence to conclusively prove what he had already seen.
“torn lips… bite? Gibberish…” Finally he finished, rubbed his eyes and looked at the clock. It was 4:00AM. Almost time to wake up anyway. David sighed, and prepared for work. Whatever trouble lay on the horizon, he would be prepared.
From the journals of Dr. Alan Kaspars
9/21
New patient came in today by the name of John Baldassare. I’m really not even sure where to begin with this guy. According to the police report, he was found running naked through the streets of Gatherstown,
screaming and cutting off large sections of his own skin. He’d managed to remove most of the skin from his scalp as well as large areas off of his chest before he was restrained. He’s lucky the police were so close, or he probably would have killed himself right there in the street.
They brought him to the hospital, and aside from the missing skin and blood, he was given a clean bill of health. No drugs in his system, no brain damage, nothing. This was all a while ago – since then, they’ve patched him up the best they could and checked him out of the hospital. He’s sedated now, but I’m really not sure how to approach him at this point. I hate to use restraints, but with someone this potentially violent, we might not have much of an option.
I went through his effects, looking for anything useful. Pretty standard stuff – a driver’s license, voter registration card, a Tuscaron University Library card, and a couple of business cards. Just his name and contact information. On the back of one business card he had stuffed into the cash section, he had written “Stephen Melker - 1288 Juniper Lane.” I thought at first that might be the name of someone I could contact to talk about John prior to his episode, but I did some digging, and found out that the man’s been dead for over ten years. Cut his arms and legs in half lengthwise with a circular saw. I’m not entirely sure how he did it - I guess he started with his legs, and managed to maintain consciousness long enough to cut his arms in half too – all the way up to his elbows. He must have mounted it to a table of some kind. Bled out almost immediately. Apparently 1288 Juniper Lane was where he was staying. I don’t want to make any assumptions, but given the nature of his injuries and the fact that John had information linking him to a violent suicide makes me suspect that this Melker was perhaps the inspiration behind John’s episode.
Anabelle is the orderly on station in the mornings, and as such, she’s been made responsible for changing the wrappings over his injuries. I happened to be in the room while she was doing it, and I caught a glimpse of his head. He’s missing his entire right ear, and has a massive scar running along the top of his head where the skin graft meets his original face. You can tell which skin he removed, because the hair wasn’t growing back there and it was paler than the rest of him. The grafts must not include the hair follicles - it makes him look like Frankenstein’s Monster.
The orderlies have to change his dressings every day and add some antiseptic to the scars. The doctors said there really shouldn’t be much of a chance of infection, but better safe than sorry, I suppose. Anabelle’s a saint for doing it though – I’m not sure I could handle it. I’ve never really liked the sight of blood.
Wish I hadn’t seen it, because now I don’t want my lunch.
