Dreams of Eschaton

by Josh Shiben

Chapter 4

  Shadows and Spiders

  “In the blackest hour of the darkest nights, one can still see should they look hard enough.

  I know. I have tried.

  I saw her then, in the corner where the darkness was most thick.

  The Fateweaver. The World Spinner.

  I lay trembling in awe and terror of equal measure, gazing at the shadow within the shadow.

  I watched as she wove, and saw the web in all directions.

  Past and present, here and there, it passed through all. Became all. Was all.

  When day broke, the corner was empty. But it has never been truly empty.

  She is always there in every corner. In every now she sits and weaves and waits.

  This I know, because I have seen it.

  I have not slept in months. If only to see her again.

  I think of that night and tremble.

  In love.

  In fear.

  In despair.

  My Spider Queen, I wait for you.”

  -Unknown Author, Nekrodeus de Antichronos

  The autopsy would take hours, and while Samuels and Grange wrapped up scouring the barn for anything useful, Burfict took an image of the scroll and traveled to Tuscaron. Upon arriving, he entered the McComas building, and took one flight of stairs up to the History and Religion department offices. Dr. Tanya Brown sat at her desk, reading a manuscript of some kind and making notes in the margin with a red pen. David had found he could rely on her being here, even in the hot summer months when there was no school. He’d first met her several years before while investigating a particularly bizarre case that involved the occult. She was an expert on ancient world religions, and had come to Tuscaron to study some of the rare books housed in the library, and Burfict had found her expertise to be invaluable at times. Dr. Brown looked up when he entered, her dark eyes studying him from behind her thin glasses. David always enjoyed touching her mind – it was turgid and twisting; complex, like heat rising from asphalt on a summer day. He found the woman fascinating.

  “It’s been a while, David. What brings you here?”

  “I’ve got some evidence I was hoping you could help me out with.” He wished he had better excuses to come see her, but could never seem to build up the nerve. Rejection was even harder when you could feel the truth in someone’s mind as they let you down softly. Best not to risk it.

  “The Kaspars case again? That was nearly six years ago. I figured you’d given up on making sense of that one by now.” David looked down at his feet sheepishly. That had been one of the few cases he’d never been able to make any progress in – nothing added up. He’d always come back from time to time to speak to Tanya about some new angle he’d worked out, only to leave empty handed. He was beginning to worry she might begin to suspect the real reason he wouldn’t let the case fade – it was his only real excuse to keep visiting her. He cleared his throat and looked up.

  “No, something new. I need you to tell me what I’m looking at here.” He withdrew the picture of the scroll he’d found in Sullivan’s backpack and laid it down on her desk. He watched as she studied it carefully, and felt the spark of recognition bloom in her mind.

  “Looks like the Sabbatic Goat,” she said after a moment. “A little faded, but I’m certain that’s what it is.”

  “So what does that mean?”

  “The Sabbatic Goat is an image drawn by Eliphas Lévi in the mid-1800s. He was a notable occultist who wrote about magic, the pentagram, and some other vaguely pagan ideology. The goat is his depiction of the sum totals of the universe in a binary form.” Burfict blinked at her, and Dr. Brown smiled. “It stands for both sides of the same coin – good and evil, female and male, together and apart. The goat itself is not really a symbol of evil, but more harmony and union. It was influenced heavily by the ram-headed Egyptian god Amun, the god of fertility.”

  “Doesn’t it have something to do with Satanic groups? I feel like I’ve seen that before.”

  “Well, not originally, no. However, when the pentagram was adopted by the Church of Satan as a symbol, it sort of got lumped in there with it.” Dr. Brown removed her glasses and wiped them thoughtfully. “It’s not originally a satanic symbol though.”

  “Can you tell me anything else that might be useful about it? What kind of person might be carrying that around?”

  “Well, the Goat is associated with Satanism now, so it could easily be someone who is just not very knowledgeable and thinks it’s satanic. If they’re a lone wolf, or some part of some modern, amateur cult, that would be my guess. If he’s more knowledgeable about the symbol then he’s likely to view it as either a fertility symbol, or as a deity which can be prayed to for some sort of reward or knowledge.”

  Burfict remembered Samuels conjecture. “Given what we saw at the crime-scene, I’d say fertility symbol is a better guess. So, is there any kind of fertility cult or ritual regarding this goat that you know about?”

  “Nothing organized, really. If it’s viewed a fertility symbol, it’s not the work of a Satanist, or any other group that I’m aware of.” She shrugged. “Certainly not anything organized. I’m sorry I can’t be more useful.”

  “No, you’ve been helpful. Just one last quick question - Does the phrase ‘Iä Iä Shub-Niggurath’ mean anything to you?” Tanya Brown dropped her pen on the desk and stared at Burfict for a moment.

  “Did he say that? The person with that picture?”

  “No, he’s…” Burfict searched for a way through the conversation that didn’t involve him telling Tanya he heard the phrase in a dream. “It’s just something that’s come up. Does it mean anything?”

  “I’ve heard it before, but…” she trailed off. Burfict could sense unease, and possibly a hint of fear leaking to the forefront of her consciousness. “I’ll need to pull some literature to be sure, but yes I think I’ve heard that before.”

  “Is everything ok?”

  “It’s fine. I just never expected anyone to have heard about that name. It’s…” she paused, searching for the correct word. “Obscure. Very obscure.”

  “Well, please do look into it if you have any time.” Burfict started towards the door.

  “I’ll pull some literature. And, is there any way I might get a chance to interview this guy? Someone with knowledge about these cults and religions would be worth their weight in gold to me.”

  “I don’t think that’d be possible,” said Burfict, remembering the flies swarming the rotten body.

  Tanya nodded, and Burfict felt her grasp the implication. “I’ll call you when I find something,” she said finally.

  From the journals of Dr. Alan Kaspars

  10/1

  I got in late today. Didn’t sleep well all weekend. I just kept tossing and turning thinking about the Nekrodeus de Antichronos. When I finally would fall asleep, I just kept having nightmares about that dark triangle moving through the shadows, its long legs stabbing out of it terribly. Spiders and webs. It’s all just so surreal. And what happened at that house...

  I’ll have nightmares of that till the day I die. Just the way they all came over me. It was like a blanket, or a wave. How were there so many of them? What did they eat?

  I guess I should start with the discussion I had with John. It seems like the first useful one in a while, and maybe by the time I get to what happened afterwards I’ll at least be coherent. I need to get this all on paper so I can remember it later. For once, I’m glad I record all of my sessions with John so I can make sure I get the conversations just right - it all just seems so important, and after what happened in that house, I worry my memory won’t be adequate here. Too distracted.

  “I saw your book. Nekrodeus de Antichronos. In the library.” I was stammering in short sentences - I guess I was nervous. John’s face seems to have that effect on me. He still just stared at me – vacant, like a machine. “It was pretty old. Some really strange things in there. Want to talk about it?” I just kept trying to engage
him; anything to stop that lifeless gaze. And then he smiled, and I instantly wished he was just looking through me again. The sides of his face crinkled along the scars, and his eyes seemed to sink deeper into his face as he leered at me.

  Once as a boy, I’d seen a pig getting butchered. The animal was lying on its back, sliced open along its belly, and I swore it was smiling at me. That’s what I saw when I looked at John’s grin – the slaughtered pig grinning back at me.

  “You saw the queen?” he breathed. Something about his face reminded me of a rotten jack-o-lantern. Grinning maniacally, its decaying, stinking skin wilting. Then he made one of those noises again, “Rogenshnack.” Something like that. I have no idea how to spell it. I sat down on the chair near him and tried to force myself to make eye contact. Every nerve in my body wanted to run from him, but I steeled myself.

  “I read about her. Saw the picture in the book, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Then you know there’s no escape. We are in the trap, and we are the trap.”

  “John, it’s an ancient cult. She isn’t real. This room is real. You’re real. I’m real.”

  “You read, but you do not understand. Her web makes our reality.”

  “Who is Stephen Melker?” I was trying to shift gears. Debating theology wasn’t going to get me anywhere. “And why did he kill himself?”

  “A feh-thog. Just like you and I. A witness. ”

  “A witness? A witness of what?”

  “The truth –I found it too.”

  “What truth?”

  “Strithgek lit. See for yourself. It’s still in his room.” And then he started making those noises again – grunts and words without vowels. I tried to get him to speak, but he just kept going: “Rogenshnack shrug-unthkaa feh-thog ref-lie-uns grats clench strith gek lit.” I think that’s how I’d spell it phonetically – just complete gibberish.

  I decided to check out Stephen Melker’s old house. God, I wish I hadn’t. What I saw there… But John seemed to think that whatever he’d found was extremely important, and I hoped to be able to use it to perhaps get to the bottom of his delusions.

  Juniper Lane was an abandoned subdivision outside of town. I guess it had probably been nice a few decades ago, but for some reason, the place is totally vacant now. There were no cars on the street when I pulled up, no people anywhere… I didn’t even see a bird in the sky - it’s almost as if the whole world shunned this place instinctively. Not one house had lights on, and maybe half of the street lights still shone. The whole block was dead. I parked my car on the opposite side of the street, and then walked around the derelict house at 1288. The sun was setting, while a cool breeze promised rain.

  I found a waist-high window with the glass shattered out that hadn’t been boarded over in the back, and crawled through. The house smelled like piss and water damage, and I kept expecting some lunatic strung out on who-knows-what to come charging me any second. Why was I there? Why was I exploring this abandoned house like this? I still don’t have an answer that really satisfies me – I told myself it was to further engage John, but I don’t really buy that. Perhaps curiosity drove me on. I had to know what could drive a man to do that to himself.

  I made my way through the house slowly, and eventually ended up in what appeared to be the master bedroom. What was left of the bed had collapsed in corner into a pile of mildew and rusted springs. Tattered rags lined the walls, but the center of the room was clear. In it, there was a small rectangular door, curiously devoid of dust. The door seemed to access some hidden crawlspace under the bedroom, and had been opened somewhat recently.

  It slid open silently, and I peered in, not really knowing what I expected to find down there. Given John’s mental state, it could have been anything. On the back side of the door was carved an elaborate hieroglyphic. It was a series of lines and curves mashed together at uncomfortable angles that almost looked like an image I just couldn’t quite make out - like one of those magic eye books. Something about looking at the glyph made my head pound and my eyes water, like gears were grinding together inside my head. I felt a sharp pain in my abdomen, as if my guts were twisting themselves into knots. I averted my gaze and peered into the crawlspace.

  Using my cell phone as a flashlight, I looked down, and was surprised by how much room there appeared to be down there. The floor just seemed to fall away into a pit. A cave, maybe. Large white curtains hung around the door, preventing me from seeing longitudinally into the room – only the dirt floor below was visible. The curtains were thin, almost sheer, and appeared to be made out of some exotic silk. I reached in to brush them aside, but slipped, and tumbled into the crawlspace. I grabbed at the curtain, trying to break my fall, but it tore away in my hands.

  I righted myself, and realized the material I was holding wasn’t a silky curtain. It was a web. Spiders. Thousands of them. They poured out of the webs around the door like a river. The wave of them crashed over me, and I flailed to keep them off. I could feel their little legs scuttling across my skin, under my shirt, through my hair. I can still feel them - when I close my eyes, every inch of me tickles from the little pricks of their legs. I remember noticing this keening sound that echoed through the chamber that I couldn’t place. As I flailed in the lake of spiders, I heard it getting louder, as if it were a beast approaching from the darkness. That noise will haunt me the rest of my life. I realized it was screaming. My own screaming.

  I don’t remember getting out of that hole. I don’t remember the drive home. Just the shower afterwards - checking every nook for a rogue stow-away. I burned my clothes - not like I’d ever want to wear them again, and now I’m relieved to say that I couldn’t find a single spider.