The Cthulhu Mythos Megapack (40 Modern and Classic Lovecraftian Tales)

by Anthology

  SOMETHING IN THE MOONLIGHT, by Lin Carter

  Statement of Charles Winslow Curtis, M.D.

  Quite early in the spring of 1949, I was fortunate enough to secure an appointment to the staff of the Dunhill Sanatorium in Santiago, California, as a psychiatric counselor working under the renowned Harrington J. Colby. The appointment was exciting and promising in the extreme, for it is seldom that a doctor as young as myself—the ink, as it were, hardly dry on his diploma—has the opportunity to work under so distinguished a member of the psychiatric profession as Dr. Colby.

  Motoring up by taxi from Santiago, I enjoyed the glorious sunshine of Southern California and admired the almost tropical profusion of flowering shrubs and trees. I soon discovered the sanatorium to be a handsome group of buildings in the Spanish hacienda style, surrounded by spacious, well-planted grounds. Gardens and tennis-courts and even golf links were there for the recreation of the patients; there was, as well, a large marshy lake behind the property from which at night the croaking of bullfrogs could be heard. The sanatorium was one of the finest, I had been given to understand, in this part of the state, and I looked forward eagerly to working under such excellent conditions.

  Dr. Colby himself, spry and keen-eyed for all his silver hair, greeted me affably.

  “I trust you will enjoy working with us here at Dunhill, my dear Curtis,” he said while escorting me to my new office. “Your professors back at Miskatonic speak highly of you; I am given to understand that your primary interest in abnormal psychology is the several forms of acute paranoia. In that area, you will find one of your new patients, a fellow named Horby, singularly intriguing.”

  “I’m sure I will, doctor,” I murmured politely. “What is the nature of his problem?”

  “There is something in the moonlight that he abhors,” Colby said. “He cannot tolerate moonlight, and the drapes in his room must always be closely drawn. Not only that, but he sleeps with all lights burning, so that not one ray of moonlight could enter his room.”

  “That seems harmless enough,” I said thoughtfully. “There are several cases on record of—”

  “There’s more. He is afraid of lizards,” said Colby succinctly.

  I shrugged. “Well, sir, phobic reactions to various reptiles are certainly common enough—”

  “Not Horby’s,” he said dryly.

  And then in utter seriousness, and without even the slightest trace of comment by inflection or expression, he made the most extraordinary statement.

  “The lizard Mr. Horby fears happens to inhabit the moon.”

  * * * *

  Before very long I had met the rest of the staff, become acquainted with the layout of the sanatorium and familiar with its routine, and found myself “settling in” comfortably. For the most part, those patients to whom I was assigned were suffering from conditions depressingly common and ordinary. A lone exception was Uriah Horby: even as my superior had predicted on the day of my arrival, Horby’s case was singular and curious.

  Paranoia, of course, is a mental disorder characterized by systematized delusions and the projection of inner conflicts, which are ascribed to the supposed hostility of others. Such, at least, is the textbook definition: I have found such cases more richly various and less simple of explanation.

  Sometimes, paranoid patients believe themselves hounded by imaginary enemies (which can be anything from foreign spies to the Jesuits or some secret brotherhood of mystics). They believe themselves followed wherever they go and that they are spied upon continuously, and they assign to the malignancy of these shadowy foes every accident or mishap that chances to befall them.

  The outward symptoms of paranoia are remarkably easy to discern: a tendency towards careless, disorderly dress, a neglect of personal cleanliness, rapid and disconnected patterns of speech, eyes that wander to and fro fearfully searching the shadowy corners of the room, and a furtive lowering of the voice so that hidden ears cannot overhear what is being said.

  It is particularly in the eyes that paranoia can be detected, even by the layman. The gaze of a paranoid is either dim, glazed, unfocused, the attention being turned within to ruminating over one’s endless and pitiful persecution—or it is afire with the febrile gleam of the fanatic.

  When I first entered the room assigned to Uriah Horby, I felt the shock of surprise. He was a small man in his mid-fifties, lean of build and going bald, clean-shaven and seemingly in good health. He was seated at a small folding desk studying sheaves of note-paper written (I noticed) in a clear, tight, legible hand…very unlike the hysteric scrawl of most cases of acute paranoia I have studied.

  His person was scrupulously neat and so was his room. The narrow bed was neatly made, the small bookcase tidy, and the personal effects on his dresser and wash-stand efficiently organized. And when he raised his eyes to meet mine I was in for another shock of surprise.

  For Uriah Horby had the clearest, most candid gaze of any man I have ever met. His eyes were shrewd and thoughtful, but their innocence and candor were those of a small child.

  Before the tranquil sanity in his eyes, I felt myself amazed. But to cover my lack of composure, I hurried to introduce myself. He smiled politely.

  “How do you do, Dr. Curtis? Pardon me if I do not rise: to do so would disarrange these notes, and I have a passion for organization and deplore messiness. I have known you were about to join our little social circle here at Dunhill for some time, of course. I trust you have found your welcome adequate? As Menander said, ‘The gentleman is at home in every circumstance,’ but a madhouse is somewhat lacking in the amenities.”

  And this is the man who went in mortal fear of lizards? A man whose chiefest and most deadly enemy lived in the moon? A paranoid who had been confined to Dunhill for over six years, and was believed incurable?

  I could hardly believe it, yet it was indeed so…

  * * * *

  At Dunhill, as I soon discovered, meetings between doctor and patient are informal and leisurely conversations, more like what my contemporaries call “rap sessions” than the usual clinical interrogations to which I had become accustomed. And Uriah Horby was a deft and interesting conversationalist. His speech was coherent, his mind seemingly rational, his demeanor quiet and controlled.

  He was an exceptionally intelligent man of obvious breeding and had enjoyed an excellent education. The son of a local merchant, he had studied abroad and traveled widely before settling in Santiago. He was of scholarly interests, learned in several abstruse fields, and, although absorbed by the nature of his peculiar fixation, able to converse easily upon a variety of subjects.

  I conceived of an intense curiosity concerning the man, for several reasons, one of them being that he displayed in his manner and deportment and appearance none of the haunted, harried traits I had so often observed in other victims of paranoia. And his delusions of persecution were certainly novel.

  “Why is it that you fear lizards, Mr. Horby?” I inquired bluntly on one of our first meetings. He considered his folded hands, lips pursed judiciously, as if carefully choosing his words.

  “They ruled the earth before the earliest of our mammalian ancestors arose,” he replied soberly. “In time, our kind replaced theirs, and they hate us for it. As well, they are utterly alien to our species—vicious and cold-blooded predators, devoid of emotion. That the highest order of sentience should reside in such loathsome reptiles is more than abhorrent, it is unholy.”

  Despite a formal, even pedantic, diction, as can be seen above, his speech was completely unemotional and lucid. Whatever fears tormented the man were obviously buried deeply within him.

  “My understanding has always been that reptiles possess very little of what we should call intelligence, and operate on rudimentary instinct alone,” I remarked. It is sometimes unwise to argue or to disagree with a mental patient, of course, but I meant to draw the man out, if possible.

  He smiled dryly. “I gather, Dr. Curtis, that you have never encountered the Necro
nomicon in the range of your studies,” he said, changing the subject, or so I thought. I shook my head.

  “I don’t believe I have,” I admitted frankly. “A Greek work, I assume? Theological?”

  “Translated into Greek from the original Arabic,” he answered. “Also into Latin and Elizabethan English. The author, a Yemenite poet of the eighth century of the Christian era, was named Alhazred: his work has been dismissed by your colleagues in the formal sciences as the ravings of a diseased intelligence. Had there been asylums for the insane in Alhazred’s day, as there are, unfortunately, in my own, I have no doubt he would have been locked up in one.”

  “I gather that this Alhazred discusses the intelligence of reptiles?”

  “To complete my reply to your first query, it is a work of demonology rather than of theology,” he said somberly. “It presents a theory, drawn from documents and sources of the most fabulous antiquity, that this planet was first inhabited by entities from other worlds and galaxies and planes of existence, countless ages before the evolution of man. The nature of these beings is such that they would seem like gods or demons to lesser creatures like ourselves: immortal, indestructible, not constructed from matter as we know it, they are incomprehensible intelligences of pure, devouring evil—older than the world, and desirous of possessing it…”

  These words, spoken in quiet, sober tones, sent a chill through the warm afternoon sunlight. Despite myself, I could not suppress a shudder: the nature of Horby’s paranoid delusions were, then, religious.

  “In one section, during the first few chapters of Book IV,” he continued, “Alhazred relates the history of a prehistoric town or settlement called ‘Sarnath’ which early men built in ominous proximity to ‘the grey stone city Ib’ where dwelt a race of aquatic nonhumans who worshipped the demon Bokrug in the form of a gigantic water-lizard. Although Alhazred does not employ the term in the passages of which I speak, the aquatic beings are known as the Thunn’ha: they are green-skinned, batrachian, speechless. And they worshipped their reptilian divinity with abominable rites—”

  Recalling Dr. Colby’s words, I hazarded aloud the guess that this devil-god of Ib resided in the moon. Disconcertingly, Uriah Horby paled and bit his lip.

  “Not he…not he,” he whispered hoarsely. “But That which he serves…”

  His voice shook a little on these words, as if struggling to suppress some powerful emotion. Sensing my patient’s perturbation, I changed the subject at this point and began to question him about his childhood experiences, seeking a possible trauma.

  Our interview terminated not long thereafter.

  2. Extract from the Notes of Uriah Horby

  Tues, the 17th. Young Doctor Curtis is a likable fellow and keen enough on his work, but a blind, stubbornly-ignorant fool nonetheless. As they all are. When my book is published, perhaps then the scientific community will recognize the value of my discovery and the dimensions of the enormous peril awaiting mankind in the near future.

  Summer will soon be upon us, and the frogs will begin their hellish nightly serenade; I must strive to organize my notes, for the Hour Appointed cometh nigh and time is running out for me…perhaps young Curtis will prove useful in at least one sense: he seems fascinated by my “case” and exhibits a pitiful eagerness to gain my confidence. Possibly I can persuade him to assist me in locating the complete text of the Zoan chant; if it is not to be found in Prinn or in Von Junzt, perhaps it is in the Cultes des Goules, although Diedrich swears it is not. If only my father’s Necronomicon had been complete! Well, I have long ago tried all of the nine formulae between the Ngg and the Hnnrr, and the Zhooric sign is obviously of no avail against them. What remains, but the Chian Pentagram and the Xao games? And if they fail, I have yet to employ the thirteen formulae between the Yaa and the Ghhgg…

  But time is running out for me, as the end of the Cycle nears. Running out for me?—it is running out for all mankind!

  3. From the Statement of Charles Winslow Curtis

  It was not long before I learned that Uriah Horby was an enthusiastic lifelong student of archaeology, and quite a talented, though an amateur, scholar in that field. It was this fascination which the ancient past held for him, it seemed, that had some connection to his present condition.

  “I found my first clue in Alhazred, of course,” he remarked during the course of one of our early conversations together. “In chapter iii of Book Four…I am quoting from memory, of course, but my memory is most precise on certain subjects…‘In the fullness of time a prophet arose among the men of Sarnath, by name Kish: even that one we remember as the Elder Prophet, for that They Who Reign From Betelgeuse made revelation unto him, saying, Beware the Ib-folk, O men of Sarnath! for that they were come down to this earth from certain cavernous places in the Moon, ere man rose out of the slime, and the Water-thing they worship in foul ways is Other than ye think, and the name Bokrug is but a mask, behind the which there lurketh an Elder Horror’…now, following this clue, I delved into the pages of Von Junzt—”

  “Von Junzt?” I interposed. He brushed my query aside with a prim yet brusque gesture.

  “Friedrich Wilhelm Von Junzt, the German occultist, author of the Unaussprechlichen Kulten,” he said, a trifle impatiently. “You should be able to find him in most of the standard biographical reference works. If you ever bother to check up on any of the things I tell you, Dr. Curtis, you will discover that I am inventing nothing: all of these data are valid and authentic, and may be found in print. But, to continue—quoting from the Cylinders of Kadatheron and the Ilarnek Papyrus, which were Alhazred’s principal sources for the Sarnath legend, Von Junzt speculates most intriguingly on the lunar origin of Bokrug and those he commands, which are the Thuun-ha. It seems that when Alhazred transcribed from these same sources, he was working from an incomplete copy of the ancient texts. Expanding on the hint given in the passage from the Necronomicon I have already quoted to you, Von Junzt postulates an extra-galactic origin for Bokrug and his minions. He suggests that they came hither with the Great Old Ones through the star-spaces or the dimensions between them. But none of the ancient scriptures at our disposal mention Bokrug in the context of the Old Ones, which is odd.…”

  “I gather that the Great Old Ones are the demonic or godlike alien intelligences Alhazred theorizes were the original inhabitants of our earth,” I said.

  He smiled. “That is precisely correct, Dr. Curtis.”

  Just at this interesting juncture, and most unfortunately, a male nurse interrupted our conversation, for one of my other patients was having a seizure, and I was forced to bid a hasty adieu to Uriah Horby, postponing the remainder of our talk until some later time.

  Interestingly enough, while I was striving to draw the man out with leading questions, I was not entirely ignorant of the matters which occupied him. For I remembered that I had indeed heard of this Necronomicon he quoted from and mentioned so frequently: when I had been an undergraduate at Miskatonic University there had been quite a bit written up about the ancient book in the local papers in connection with some bizarre murder or suicide. I forget the details of the case, but it seemed that my old alma mater had a copy of the incredibly rare book under lock and key, and were one of the few institutions of higher learning in this country to possess a copy. Odd that the title of the Arabic book had slipped my mind.

  * * * *

  Later that afternoon, while recording my notes of the talk with Horby, I remembered what he had said about my checking his data. And within twenty minutes I found a capsule biography of the German scholar he had mentioned, whose pretensions to scholarship seemed authentic enough from the list of degrees recorded after his name in the entry.

  Horby, it appeared, was not making it all up. He had stumbled upon some obscure, horrible mythology and had been drawn into it by his scholarly fascination in the ancient world, until at last it occupied the center of his interests.

  The case was growing more intriguing all the time.

  4.
Extract from the Notes of Uriah Horby

  Friday, the 21st. Last night, meditating on the Sign of Koth, I obtained a vision of Deep Dendo. It is unfortunate that Those who reside there either cannot or will not assist me in my search.

  The Chian Pentagram has proved useless to my purposes, as have the Xao games. My correspondent in Paris has transcribed certain material from Eibon which he thought might have considerable bearing upon the situation, and I am translating the old Norman-French—a slow and laborious job. And, I suspect, one ultimately futile. Lacking the relevant passage from the Necronomicon I feel frustratingly helpless. My knowledge of the Elder Lore is so dreadfully incomplete…I do not even know the name of the Entity to whom I am opposed, nor the place where He abideth. Lacking these vital terms, I am without adequate means of defense: with them, I might be able to hurl the Zoan chant against Him, or to erect barriers of mental force in the manner taught me by the Nug-Soth.

  Later: I used the Sign of Koth again, receiving transient glimpses of the inner city at the two magnetic poles, but to no avail. Have asked—entreated!—young Doctor Curtis to help me obtain the passages I need from Alhazred. The amiable fool thinks me mad, but may take pity on me and have the material copied. Mad, am I? When They come down again to reconquer Their ancient empire—when the Earth is cleared off and the Eternal Reign begins—“madmen” like me will be mightier than emperors!

  5. From the Statement of Charles Winslow Curtis

  Horby has asked me to help him with his work by securing the text of certain key passages from Alhazred to which he has not been able to gain access. Seems like a smart thing to do, gain his confidence by harmless favors such as this. I have sent a telegram to one of my professors back at Miskatonic; expect he will be able to get the material to me.

  Horby has not been sleeping well of late. He complains about “the frogs,” and it’s true that in this marshy area behind the sanatorium they have been raising a hellish chorus during the night. I declined to prescribe sleeping pills or tranquilizers for him, however, on Dr. Colby’s advice. Horby’s increasing agitation seems due to his conviction that some crucial time period is almost here when the “defenses” he has built up against his dreaded lunar enemy will fall. Exactly what he fears will happen then I cannot say, nor will he tell me.