The Relic In The Egyptian Gallery & More Tales Of The Cthulhu Mythos

by McLaughlin, Mark

  “Who’s there?” called this particular Terrible Old Man. He brushed a lock of his thick white hair off his pale, withered cheek. “Better not try anything funny. Folks call me the Terrible Old Man for a reason, you know.”

  “Don’t shoot me, please,” said a soft, frightened voice. “I just need a place to hide. Some guys are chasing me.”

  A petite, pretty person in a short black dress walked into the room, clutching a bright red purse. The visitor sported long blond hair, scarlet lipstick, thick makeup and high heels.

  The Terrible Old Man studied his visitor for a moment. “Hello, my good … man? You’re a fellow in a dress, if I’m not mistaken.”

  His visitor nodded.

  “Is that why those guys are bothering you?”

  Another nod.

  The Terrible Old Man gestured toward a rocking chair, also near the fire. “Have a seat. It’s really quite comfortable. I take it out on the porch on sunny days.”

  “Thank you, sir.” The visitor walked up to the rocker and sat down. “I’m so sorry to bother you. I usually don’t just walk into people’s homes like that.”

  “You didn’t just walk in,” said the Terrible Old Man. “The front door was locked. Clearly you picked the lock.”

  The visitor nodded. “Yeah. I didn’t want those guys to hear me knocking on your door.”

  “Well, at least you didn’t invite trouble to come in with you. I heard you lock the door behind you.” The Terrible Old Man frowned. “But still, you know how to pick locks. Are you a criminal?”

  “I don’t want to be,” the visitor said. “I try to live an honest life. I’m not going to rob you or anything. I’ll be gone in just a few minutes. Please don’t call the police.”

  The Terrible Old Man shrugged. “You don’t have to hurry off. But I would like a peek inside that purse of yours, just to be on the safe side.”

  The visitor held leaned forward, opened the purse and held it toward the Terrible Old Man. He looked inside: nothing but makeup, a candy bar, and some condoms. “Sugar’s bad for you.” He reached inside, grabbed the candy bar, and threw it in the fire. “I imagine you have a name, yes?”

  “Veronica,” his visitor said. “My folks used to call me Victor.”

  “Good to meet you, Victor. Folks call me the Terrible Old Man, but you can call me Ambrose, because … well, that’s my name.” He held out his hand. After a moment’s hesitation, Victor shook his hand.

  “Thank you for being nice,” Victor said. “I really appreciate it.”

  “Oh, now that is sad,” Ambrose said. “You feel compelled to thank me, just for being nice. You’ve had a hard life, haven’t you?”

  Victor nodded. “A lot of people aren’t very nice to me.” He stared at the old man, opened his mouth to say more, but then stopped.

  “You want to ask my age, don’t you?” Ambrose laughed. “Go ahead. I know I look positively ancient. I’ve been around for a long time! Longer than you can imagine! How old are you? Twenty-five? Twenty-six?”

  “I wish,” Victor said. “I turn thirty-two next week. Thanks for the compliment. You’re a true gentleman. I can tell. If only...”

  “If only what?”

  Victor sighed. “Never mind. My mind wanders, that’s all.”

  “Would you like a little nip of something? Something to stir up your blood? It’s a little chilly outside and that dress can’t be very warm! I don’t want you catching a cold.”

  “Oh, sure!” Victor said.

  The Terrible Old Man pulled a large silver flask from his pocket and handed it to his visitor. Victor opened it and took a sip. “Mmmm, this is good!” Victor said. “It tastes like whiskey and cinnamon. And … something else. Cherries, I think. And mint?” He stared at Ambrose for a moment. “Soooo. Are you … eighty? Eighty-five?”

  “I know you’re being kind, but I want you to be honest, Victor,” Ambrose said with a smile. “You must think I’m older than that.” He ran his fingertips over the deep creases of his time-ravaged face. “Come on now. Guess again. You won’t hurt my feelings.”

  Victor took a deep breath. “Honestly? I’d have to say you’re over a hundred. I mean, that one eye is so ... milky-looking. Can’t a doctor fix that?”

  Suddenly a thunderous pounding erupted at the front door. “Oh my,” Ambrose said. “Those pests are persistent, aren’t they?”

  “I’ll leave through the back,” Victor said. “They won’t even know I was here.”

  “Nonsense!” Ambrose said. “You just wait here. Don’t move an inch. I’ll take care of them.” So saying, he picked up a black metal box from the mantelpiece. “I’ll be back in just a minute.”

  He walked out of the room. Victor wanted to follow, but he couldn’t bring himself to move. He sucked down the rest of the flask’s delicious contents. When he wiped his mouth, he noticed that the smear of fluid on his forefinger glowed bright green.

  “Oh…” he said. He really didn’t know what to think. He’d once heard that there was a pricy drink called absinthe that was green. Maybe that was what his host had in the flask.

  Ambrose returned to the living room. “There. All fixed. Nothing for you to worry about, my friend.” With that, he threw the metal box into the fireplace. Shrill squeals sounded from within the box. Within a minute, the squeals died down to nothing.

  “What just happened?” Victor cried. “Did you ... was that…?”

  Ambrose smiled. “Don’t worry about it.” He plucked the flask from Victor’s hand and shook it gently. “Thirsty, I see! You finished it off. No problem, I have gallons more.”

  “Gallons?” Victor cocked his head to one side. “What is that stuff?” He felt slightly dizzy, but it wasn’t unpleasant.

  Ambrose settled back into the easy chair. “Many, many years ago,” he said, “ I used to be part of the crew of the Alert, a fine old steam yacht. During one voyage, we encountered an island that had arisen from the sea. It was quite frightening. It was covered by a strange prehistoric city, streaked with mud and black slime.”

  “It sounds horrible,” Victor said. He cast a curious glance toward the metal box sitting in the fire. “Do I smell meat cooking?”

  “I had some roast chicken earlier tonight. That must be it. Anyway, about the island…. At one point, we somehow managed to open the door of some sort of weird temple. Before long, out shambled an absolutely monstrous demon. Bat wings, dark green flesh and scales, razor-sharp claws, a beard of tentacles … it looked like some sort of a cross between a dragon and a man and a few other beasts, too. Before long, it started chasing us.”

  “This was in real life? Not just a dream?”

  Ambrose reached behind his chair and brought forth a bottle filled with a brilliant green liquid. “I have bottles of this stuff all through the house.” He uncorked the bottle and took a swig. “A dream? My lad, it was a nightmare! Oh, but I just called you ‘lad.’ Was that correct? Do you like to be considered a lad or a lady?”

  “That’s sweet of you to ask,” Victor said. “You’re so charming. So thoughtful. I don’t mind being a lad, but since you ask … yeah, I would like to be a lady. I sometimes fantasize about getting the operation and all, but there’s no way I could afford it.”

  “Fantasies are funny things,” Ambrose said. He took another swig of the green liquid. Then he held out the bottle for Victor. “But, funny in a good way. Have some more. Like I said, I have gallons.”

  Victor enjoyed a nice long pull from the bottle. “That stuff is amazing. It’s making me all tingly!” He looked at Ambrose and cocked his head to one side again. “You know, you really don’t look all that old. And that eye isn’t milky at all! That must have been … I don’t know, a trick of the light, maybe. But let’s get back to your story.”

  “Oh, yes! The demon was chasing me. Years later, I learned from a mystic that the beast’s name is Cthulhu, and his island is called R’lyeh. We scrambled back into the yacht and took off – and that devil threw itself into the water a
nd swam after us.”

  “Oh no!” Victor took another chug from the bottle. “Then what happened?”

  “We turned the ship around and rammed the monster,” Ambrose said. “But then Cthulhu turned into a thick mist and we shot right through it! We did manage to escape, though. I later learned from the mystic that Cthulhu returned to his temple and the island eventually sank back to the bottom of the ocean.”

  Victor studied the bottle of bright-green liquor. “Wasn’t your story supposed to explain where your booze came from....?”

  “‘Booze’?” Ambrose grinned hugely. “It’s not booze at all. When the monster turned to mist, it left a thick layer of green droplets all over the ship. I collected and bottled them all. Every drop I could find! It added up to gallons when I was finished.”

  “Is that what we’re drinking?” Veronica whispered. “I feel all light-headed and … different, but in a good sort of way.” She put a hand to her ample chest. “Are we going to be okay?”

  “I assure you, my dear: we’re more than okay,” the pirate Ambrose said. “Cthulhu is beyond good and evil. He’s composed of pure psychic energy. I distilled that green fluid … purified it and turned it into a marvelous beverage. I used to make wine with my father. I am especially proud of this particular vintage. Distilled dreams: a heady mixture! Nourishing, too. It’s kept me alive for quite some time.”

  Veronica nodded happily. Her lustrous eyes flashed a luxurious emerald-green. “It’s certainly powerful stuff!”

  He took the bottle from her and popped in the cork. “Yes, so let’s not overdo it, m’lady. Another glass and we may start growing tentacles. We’ve already changed considerably! What we’ve had will last for hours.”

  “Hours, you say?” Veronica whispered playfully. She slowly ran her hands over her full, feminine curves. “Ambrose, you wicked rascal. Just what do you have in mind?”

  “Anything and everything.” Brushing a lock of thick black hair off his cheek, he rose from the easy chair and swept Veronica into his muscular, sun-bronzed arms. “Whatever we can imagine, my darling. Whatever we can dream.”

  The Thing From Beyond The Living Door

  by Mark McLaughlin & Michael Sheehan, Jr.

  Back when I attended Miskatonic University, majoring in cinematography and film/video production, I used to rent a room in the house of a widow named Mrs. Veng. It was a massive, rambling building, three stories high with about a dozen rooms on each floor. There were also lots of small storage rooms and therefore, lots of doors. That’s why I’m not sure how many actual rooms there were. I was never sure which doors led to full rooms and which just led to storage.

  Mrs. Veng always dyed her thick, shoulder-length hair a bluish-black tone that didn’t flatter her. It gave her a hard, cheap look. She was a heavyset chainsmoker who always seemed to have a cigarette dangling from her lips. She was considerate enough not to smoke in any tenant’s room, but she did smoke in the halls and ground-level living room, dining room, and kitchen. Also, she smoked during her breaks whenever she scrubbed the floors and steps with ammonia cleanser.

  She lived in a small room next to the kitchen. From the stories she told about the late Mr. Veng, I gathered that he was a notorious womanizer. “I couldn’t even trust him with my own sister,” she once said. “She came by the house for the weekend – she arrived on Friday morning and he had her in bed by Saturday night. Disgusting!”

  Mrs. Veng’s left eye was light-blue and opened noticeably wider than her hazel right eye. Her odd gaze, combined with her dark hair and the cloud of smoke that often surrounded her, always startled me, no matter matter how many times I saw her.

  Fortunately, I didn’t have to view her face in great detail very often – the house was too dim for that. The hallways were always twilit because most of the bulbs in the fixtures were burned-out. Mrs. Veng only replaced one-third of the bulbs. In her opinion, to replace any more would have been a waste of money. She always complained about the expense of electricity, and water, too. No one dared to waste or overuse any resource in her house. No one, that is, except one special tenant.

  That tenant was Dr. Brandywine, whose rooms occupied one-third of the third floor. My room was on the second floor, under his quarters. Mrs. Veng would crow with delight about him, saying that he could keep the lights on and run his machines as he pleased, since he paid a small fortune for his rent every month.

  She never said what sort of money added up to a small fortune, but I imagine that it was significant. You could hear his machines softly humming well into the night. Those sounds didn’t bother me, so I never complained. Mrs. Veng told me he was a great scientist, so I assumed his machines consisted of different sorts of esoteric apparatus.

  Dr. Brandywine never left his rooms, so for a long time, I had no idea what he looked like. Delivery people brought him everything he needed. Mrs. Veng always treated the delivery people with cheerful respect.

  The house held other tenants besides the doctor and myself. The house usually hosted up to a dozen tenants, scattered throughout the building at any given time. She had room for more, but as she often said, she didn’t want to pack them in like sardines.

  I had chosen her building as my residence because it fit within my budget. I was the recipient of a good-sized grant, but I still needed to watch my funds. The cost of a room in the Veng house, coupled with the fact that it was only a few blocks from Miskatonic University, worked well for me. I didn’t have to drive to classes, and my quarters were cheaper – and larger – than any student room on campus.

  - - -

  The machines of Dr. Brandywine weren’t the only source of strange noises in the house. Every now and then, late at night, I would hear a soft scuttering sound, as though something was moving outside in the hall. But whenever I opened my door and looked out, the sound would stop. The sound might not resume that same evening, but it would return eventually, and always late at night. It was hard to place the actual source of the sound, but it seemed to issue from the south side of the building. Mrs. Veng, Dr. Brandywine and I all lived on the north side.

  Sometimes, I would talk with the other tenants to find out if they’d also heard that odd scuttering sound. Those who lived on the south side usually heard it. In time, it dawned on me that Mrs. Veng usually stationed the most temporary tenants on the south side. Many were traveling business people. Most of them only stayed a few weeks, or even days. They seem to come and go quickly – here today, gone tomorrow.

  One evening, I visited a tenant I had befriended named Caspar, a young construction worker who was part of a highway project. He lived on my floor, but on the south side. We often talked about old movies, a common interest we enjoyed. I was still taking some classes at the time, even though it was summer, because I wanted to finish up my education quickly, hoping to beat ever-increasing tuition costs.

  I asked Caspar about the scuttering sound and was surprised to learn that he’d actually witnessed its source. He hadn’t mentioned it to anyone because the whole incident was so outlandish, he’d figured that no one would believe him.

  Shortly after midnight on a Saturday, he’d happened to be awake, watching a late movie with the sound turned down so it wouldn’t disturb other tenants. It was then that he heard the sound in the hallway. It only took a moment to cross to the door and open it.

  He looked down the hall and there he saw it – a nimble, hideous thing, at least five feet long and three feet high. Caspar said that it looked like a starfish with seven legs, covered with black-velvet fur. It moved by running on the tips of its limbs, with its body held up in the air. On the top of its body, at the root of each limb, were flexible stalks that ended in glistening, spiderlike eyes, as red as rubies. He added that he could not see a mouth anywhere on the creature’s bizarre body.

  The thing did not seem to notice him as it scuttered quickly down the hall. Caspar went back inside his room, but afterward, he wished he had followed to see where it was going.

  “I ha
ve no idea what a thing like that could be,” I said. “It sounds like a weird cross between a land mammal and a sea-creature, but such a thing just doesn’t exist.”

  “I know. It’s just impossible! I wouldn’t have told you about it if you hadn’t asked me about that noise.” Caspar shrugged. “I suppose it was all a dream. But still, can you smell things in a dream? That thing was close enough for me to smell it. Like ammonia.”

  “Sometimes I smell ammonia in the halls,” I said. “I just assume Mrs. Veng has been doing some scrubbing.” I thought for a moment. “Can you show me where it might have gone after it ran off?”

  He nodded and led me out of his room. We went down the hall until we came to a door that opened into a dark spiral stairwell. “I’m pretty sure it went down there,” he said. “I don’t know where those stairs go. I use different stairs to get to my room.”

  “Let’s check it out,” I said. I tried the stairwell’s light switch. Only a few bulbs worked. “It’s pretty dim down there, so hang on to the railing.”

  We walked down the stairs to the first floor. At first we didn’t see anything unusual – but then Caspar said, “Look!” and bent down to pick up something.

  A small tuft of shiny black hair.

  He held it close to my face so I could examine it, and I could detect the faint but unmistakable odor of ammonia.

  The stairs continued to spiral down into the basement. “I’ve never been in the basement before,” Caspar said. “Of course, Mrs. Veng has never said we couldn’t go down there.”

  “Still, I don’t want to get us in trouble. What will we say if she finds us there?”

  “She hates cats. We’ll tell her we thought we heard a cat.” Caspar headed down the stairwell and I followed close behind. His suggestion for an excuse wasn’t great, but I had to admit, it would probably work. Whenever Mrs. Veng heard a cat outside, she would say, “Was that a cat? It better not get into this house!”

  At the base of the stairs, we found a room piled with crates and cardboard boxes, with a stack of boards leaning against the wall. Caspar looked around the room and happened to glance behind the boards.