The Book of Cthulhu 2

by Ross Lockhart

  “Wilbur was a hell of a peculiar looking fellow, certainly not what one would call handsome. A goatee covered his lack of chin, but his skin had a sallowness to its hue. He had great big ears and long, black hair that framed his face and added to his goatish look.

  “I guess I’d have to say his features were coarse by traditional standards, and there was something wild about his appearance, something amazingly feral that recalled the forest satyrs of the ancient Greeks. His pupils were black as coal so it was easy as hell to get lost in those eyes—he must of caught me staring a hundred times at least!”

  A dreamlike tone had entered Galvin’s voice as he recalled Wilbur’s countenance, but he forced himself to focus on the business at hand.

  “I don’t think Wilbur ever got much chance to play as a child, except maybe occasionally with Lavinia. We had lots of fun, though the first time I made a joke, that booming laugh of his damn near made me jump out of my seat. He looked and sounded like an adult, but he was just a lonely kid inside. It didn’t take long for me to realize he was still growing and that, plus his shuffling walk, caused me to wonder if he’d inherited some congenital deformity. He was shamed by his difference and tried to cover it by wearing two or three pairs of pants under his old fashioned cossack breeches. People said he smelled bad too, but if he did, I never noticed it.”

  Galvin lapsed into silence but did not reach for the bottle. When he spoke again, it was in softer, more intimate tones. “The few visitors we had, including Dr. Armitage, treated Wilbur like some kind of dangerous, deformed misanthrope, though some, like Earl Sawyer, did their best to overcome their qualms. I had mixed feelings about the boy myself, but only at first,” he laughed. “He confused the hell out of me! But after a while, I developed a real respect for him and was proud to call him my friend.”

  An uncomfortable silence followed. Galvin’s last statement had been a revelation after all the negative descriptions the authors had heard of “the black brat of Dunwich.” James carefully reached over, grabbed the whiskey bottle, and refilled the others’ glasses as well as his own.

  Jeffrey found himself trying to picture Galvin at age twenty-five. His artistic bend made it easy to visualize a younger Galvin simply by filling in the lines and darkening the hair of the grandfatherly figure before him. He concluded that Galvin had once been the good looking, though probably not the handsome, rugged type. A man of Galvin’s average height and build must have felt quite intimidated at having a student whose boyish lack of experience belied his towering visage. It suddenly occurred to Jeffrey that Galvin was reading his thoughts, and when he looked up, he saw that Galvin was looking directly at him with a knowing smile on his face. That made Jeffrey slightly uncomfortable, and he felt a certain relief when the old man resumed his account.

  “Wilbur’s room also came as a great surprise. It was on the eastern side of the ground floor where the house dug into the hillside. He’d hauled an old bureau into one corner and had been using it as a desk; that’s where they later found the big ledger he used as a diary. Only one wall contained a window; every other wall was lined with shelves filled with hundreds of the rotting books that the family had collected through several generations. The majority of those books concerned various aspects of occultism, alchemy, black magic, and the like. I thought it strange that several of the volumes could be found outside the back rooms of university libraries. The rarer tomes must have been worth a fortune, even in their deteriorated condition. He owned copies of d’Erlette’s Cultes des Goules, the Liyuhh, Borellus’ forbidden text, von Junzt’s Unaussprechlichen Kulten, and others I’d never even heard of. I held Joseph Curwen’s own handwritten copy of Bryce’s Biblia Sinistre in my hands! Hell, even Miskatonic University doesn’t have a copy of that! Yet with all those treasures around him, Wilbur still craved a Latin edition of the Necronomicon printed in 17th century Spain. I was allowed freedom of his library, but I didn’t have much interest in things about ‘blasphemous outer spheres.’”

  Galvin experienced a second coughing fit, this one worse than the first. In the meantime, Jeffrey managed to replace the tape in the recorder with a fresh one.

  “Wilbur needed help translating certain passages from those books, only a few of which were actually written in archaic Greek and Latin. That’s the reason I was there. Wilbur spoke a crude dialect he’d picked up from his mother, but his was such a brilliant mind that he could easily translate French, German, Arabic, and even enciphered passages without my aid.”

  James asked Galvin to wait until he got back from the restroom before proceeding.

  Jeffrey stayed with Galvin. “Why weren’t you afraid of Wilbur like everyone else?” he asked the shadowed figure seated across from him. “His appearance must have been intimidating.”

  Galvin chuckled softly and answered, “Wilbur was very special, and I guess I saw that right away. Armitage has since made Wilbur sound like a goat-faced monster, but people didn’t scream and run when he came around, so even you must realize that was an exaggeration.”

  James returned. As he sat down, he tried to check the alcohol level in the whiskey bottle as inconspicuously as possible.

  “You needn’t worry, son,” Galvin snidely commented, “it takes a lot more than one bottle to get me lathered.”

  The dim lighting hid the blush that immediately flooded James’ face.

  Jeffrey turned to James in an attempt to dispel the awkwardness of the situation. “Mr. Galvin,” he proffered, “was just about to tell me how special Wilbur was.”

  Somewhat amused at his interviewers’ apprehension, Galvin resumed his discourse. “That’s right. For instance, we’d sneak out at night to chase across the countryside in the dark while the others slept. Wilbur would steer us safely around the deep ravines and gorges that I could barely see, past what they called the Devil’s Hop Yard, to the rounded hilltops where folks said the Pocumtuck Indians had buried their dead. I’d squat among circles of ancient stone pillars while he set up an odd sort of telescope of his own design. Through that telescope we’d gaze upon a sky the rest of mankind has never seen, and he’d talk for hours about the endless universes revolving above us, just as if he’d toured them personally. What we now call nebulas, he claimed were colossal sprays of blood marking the demise of entities beyond imagination. Other entities, he said, had come to Earth eons ago and more were yet to come. He taught me about Cthulhu, Dagon, and the Winged Ones, and told me the story of Qom-maq, the blender of flesh, who’d been the scourge of ancient Crete. I’d lie next to him in the cool grass while he wove his wonderful tales. He made it easy to stare into the sky and envision other worlds as he described them.”

  “That’s incredible!” exclaimed Jeffrey.

  “Not as incredible as Wilbur himself,” Galvin responded dreamily. After a few moments, he reluctantly moved on to the next phase of his account.

  “Once he felt sure he could trust me, he told me about his twin brother, the ‘Other’ we called him, who was confined in the upper half of the house. Wilbur confessed to being only half human himself, though I didn’t really believe him until later.”

  James nearly jumped out of his seat, exclaiming, “You mean you got a good look at him and even that didn’t scare you off?”

  Galvin rolled his eyes. “There’s a great deal more to a person than what reveals itself to the eye, son; the ability to see beyond the physical is about the only thing that raises us above the level of monsters ourselves. All I knew was that the boy was deformed below the waist to some extent. He was always real concerned with privacy whenever he bathed, so it was obvious he was ashamed of his difference. He said the other kids had made fun of him when he’d tried to make friends; you know how cruel kids can be, and I saw the proof of pain in his eyes. He hated his difference and always fought to keep it hidden.

  “I tried to get him over it, show him it didn’t matter to me. I even kept talking to him on a couple occasions to keep him in the room while I took a bath, figuring he’d eve
ntually loosen up, seeing as how I was no Adonis myself, but it didn’t work. He just sat there staring at me all over, like he was studying me as an example of how folks are supposed to look. I just wanted him to accept himself for who he was and stop worrying about what anyone else thought.” He stared directly at James. “You’d best get that disgusted look off your face damn quick, young man, or I’m done talking.”

  An embarrassed James apologized, then added, “But you didn’t actually see, well, what Armitage and the others saw when Wilbur died, did you?”

  Galvin responded forcefully, “No, I didn’t, but Armitage had folks scared half out of their wits! I doubt any of them even know what they really saw that night! Certainly no one had the guts to refute the shiftless bastard later on, after his own written account made him out to be some kind of saviour.”

  His outburst was greeted with silence, so after a moment, a calmer Galvin continued. “Wilbur said Old Whateley’d done his bare best to convince Wilbur that the Other was some kind of avatar that needed nurturing until the stars came into the proper alignment for some legendary cosmic armageddon to enter our dimension through some kind of gate. As a child, Wilbur accepted his grandfather’s philosophy, but as his human aspect became dominant and started thinking for itself, he began to look for a way to thwart the Other or at least keep it under control. He said all he needed were some special incantations, but only Old Whateley knew where to find those spells and he wasn’t about to tell as long as he had any doubts about Wilbur’s loyalty to the cause.

  “Wilbur said I shouldn’t worry about any cosmic disaster, though, and assured me the stars wouldn’t be right yet for decades. He also said any premature attempt to open the gate would bring immediate misfortune upon the conjurer.

  “He told me as much as he dared, fearing my curiosity might prove dangerous to me if I knew too much. I think he was also afraid of scaring me off and losing the only friend he knew he was ever likely to have.”

  During the awkward pause that followed, James and Jeffrey pretended to check their notes and recorder, respectively; obviously Galvin felt very strongly about Wilbur Whateley.

  “Old Whateley spent most of his time repairing the house, whether it needed it or not,” Galvin suddenly began again. “He was a nervous old codger who fussed over his pathetic livestock incessantly, often spending half the night transferring steers back and forth from the barn to holding pens he’d built on the far side of the house, adjacent to the ramp to the second story.

  “Wilbur woke me up one night in August about ten o’clock. He said Old Whateley’d been taken seriously ill and he was going to Osborn’s store in Dunwich to call the doctor in Aylesbury. He asked me to help Lavinia watch over the old man until he got back. I wanted to go with him since the townspeople were afraid of him, but he pointed out that no one would recognize him if he wore his grandfather’s old-fashioned bang-up coat with a three-cornered hat cocked down low. He knew he could make better time alone on horseback than two of us could in the old wagon. Still, I worried about him as dogs always attacked him on sight; it got so bad at one point that he had to carry a pistol to protect himself from them.

  “By the time Dr. Houghton arrived, the old man was nearly gone; Wilbur agreed, pointing out the whippoorwills that had gathered en masse around the house. Even the doctor noticed their cries were keeping time with Old Whateley’s breathing. Houghton did his best, but Whateley’s heart finally gave out long about two in the morning.”

  James jumped in with a question. “Were you actually in the room when Wizard Whateley passed away? Supposedly he said something very special to Wilbur just before he died.”

  “You’re baiting me now, son, just to see if I know what I’m talking about,” Galvin answered.

  The researcher admitted as much and offered an apology.

  “Oh, I’d do the same if I was you,” Galvin remarked. “Yes, I was in the room. I heard the same as Doc Houghton heard, but he didn’t understand what was going on. The old man knew Wilbur wanted to keep the Other captive, so on his deathbed, the old man tried to bend Wilbur to his will. The first time I heard the name Yog-Sothoth was when, with his dying breath, the old wizard reminded Wilbur that his brother required constant feeding and room to expand. He also told Wilbur about a certain passage in the Spanish edition of the Necronomicon that would make the Other strong enough to reproduce and savage the planet.

  “What Houghton didn’t know was that Wilbur had absolutely no intention of carrying out that part of Old Whateley’s instructions. Was he supposed to argue with a dying man? Hell, not much of it made sense to me, especially with the ruckus those damn birds were making outside.

  “But the instant Old Whateley died, all the birds fell silent at exactly the same instant. Wilbur told me the locals believed whippoorwills gathered when someone was about to die; if they dispersed after the person died, like they did that night, it meant the person’s soul had escaped them. I was never too clear on it all, but I guess the birds are supposed to be like psychopomps that escort the souls they catch to heaven or hell. When they miss, the soul remains earth-bound and can trouble the living. After all I’ve seen, I have to consider there might be some truth in that particular superstition.

  “Wilbur asked me to stay on after his grandfather died. I helped him bury Old Whateley up near Sentinel Hill, then left Wilbur and his mother to say their farewells in private. Wilbur held up, but Lavinia broke down and cried some. She seemed to get progressively worse after that day, such that we worried about her sanity, and Wilbur wouldn’t allow her to light fires up on Sentinel Hill anymore, like she’d always done before twice a year. He told her the neighbors didn’t like it, and he didn’t want her continuing the wizardry.

  “The first thing he did after the burial was clear the house of all the old man’s occult trappings. He single-handedly carried over a hundred jars and bottles out of Old Whateley’s room and stacked them in a pyramid of glass behind and away from the house. Every one of the bottles contained some bit of alien monstrosity preserved for reasons I feared to ask. I’d wager your best biologists couldn’t identify even half the things floating in those jars. After he emptied the room, he did some chanting and arm waving over the jars and such, then doused it all with kerosene and set it afire. Some of the bottles exploded right away from the heat, but some of the other specimens burned red hot for more than two days.

  “Once that chore was done, Wilbur seemed to have more peace of mind. A little after that, he started boarding up the unused parts of the downstairs. I helped whenever I could, but the work took his mind off his troubles, and he said there was no rush.”

  Jeffrey abruptly took advantage of the lull to ask a question. “What did he tell you about Yog-Sothoth?”

  A deep ridge formed upon the heavily creased brow of the old man. “I don’t recall all that much of what he said about most of that hocus pocus stuff; I guess I just wasn’t all that interested. But I can’t forget his telling me that this Yog-Sothoth was father to both him and the Other. It belonged, he said, in some other dimension, but it wanted to infest this one too. He said it was a big formless thing that could only come into our world at all when it stretched itself out into threads or tendrils so thin that they could squeeze through the empty space between neutrons, electrons, and the like. The Other was meant to prepare the way for the time when a gate would open, giving its daddy full access to our universe, but Wilbur was dead set against letting that come about.”

  “Did Wilbur explain how Lavinia had a child by this non-material being?” Jeffrey asked.

  Galvin chuckled. “I’d of thought you boys would be smart enough to figure that one out for yourselves! Seems self-evident to me that Wizard Whateley allowed himself to be possessed for an incestuous encounter with his daughter. You’ve read Armitage’s account, don’t you recall that Curtis Whateley described the giant face on top of the monster as bearing an unmistakable likeness to Wizard Whateley?

  “Wilbur told me about it after
Armitage came to the farm to check on him.”

  The mention of the famous doctor at that point in the story caught Galvin’s listeners by surprise. “Armitage wrote that he met Wilbur at the Miskatonic library in 1926!” James objected.

  Galvin smiled. “Is that so? Well, to begin with, there are a lot of things Armitage felt it prudent not to include in his ‘authoritative’ account. But if you read it carefully, you’ll note he mentioned being sent to the Whateley farm in 1925 as a ‘scholarly correspondent’ for the university.”

  “But that makes no sense,” Jeffrey piped in. “Why would the university send a head librarian somewhere as a correspondent? Let alone to the Whateley farm? The public lost all interest in the Whateleys long before 1925!”

  “Curious, ain’t it?” Galvin sniggered. “The truth is, Armitage had been visiting the farm for years; he and Wizard Whateley were old friends! After Old Whateley passed away, Armitage felt obliged to drop in, just to make sure Wilbur was following the instructions his grandfather had given him. Armitage only mentioned the visit in writing because he was seen there by someone he hadn’t expected to be there—me. I was introduced, then Old Whateley whisked Armitage off to talk in private.”

  Jeffrey couldn’t believe his ears. “Mr. Galvin, are you saying Dr. Armitage knew about the twins and Old Whateley’s plans for destroying mankind long before he encountered Wilbur at the library? That’s diametrically opposed to everything the man has stood for!”

  Galvin laughed out loud before adding, “You’re slow, but I think you’re finally starting to catch on!

  “Armitage had what you could call a hidden agenda and the old bastard wasn’t exactly pleased to hear Wilbur didn’t want anything to do with him and Old Whateley’s plan. By the time Armitage left the farm that day, he was madder than a hornet! He threatened Wilbur up and down, but Wilbur wouldn’t budge. Wilbur wanted to find the spell that would reverse the Other’s growth or even kill it if need be, but he didn’t dare tell that to Armitage. But Armitage counted on Wilbur changing his mind—least he counted on it ’til Wilbur came to his library and asked to see the complete edition of the Necronomicon of the mad Arab. After reading the section Old Whateley had pointed out to him, Wilbur started looking for spells he could use to control or destroy the Other, unaware that Armitage was spying on him over his shoulder. When Armitage figured out what Wilbur was up to, he denied Wilbur further access to the book and ordered him out of the library.