by Anthology
Ambrose would have remained longer in the room for he was clearly fascinated by the clock. At the time, I thought it was because it represented a challenge to him, defying him to probe its secrets. Now I know better for I think, in retrospect, it was this object that drove him to his final act of destruction and left me to face a hideous end.
I finally persuaded him to leave it for the time being and after closing the door by depressing the same motif, we went downstairs and prepared ourselves a meal.
Over dinner, we attempted to make sense out of the confusing information we had in our possession. Most of our talk, however, centred upon the cabalistic nature of the clock. Ambrose was of the opinion that it, and the key we had found, were the central clues to the entire mystery which seemed to hang over my family and, indeed, over the house itself.
Having seen it for myself, I considered it was something best left alone for I had not liked the look of the characters inscribed around the face and I had the uncanny conviction I knew its purpose yet I had never seen it before, nor even suspected its existence.
“Of one thing I am certain,” Ambrose said, sipping his wine slowly. “It has the appearance of being ancient Greek in origin judging by some of the characters. But I’m confident it pre-dates the earliest Athenian culture by several thousand years.”
“That’s impossible,” I argued. “For one thing, there were no such time-keeping devices as far back in time as that. And secondly, if we’re to believe what my uncle wrote, it still works, although in what fashion I don’t know. No driving mechanism could possibly remain in working order for that length of time. It would have rusted and crumbled into dust ages ago.”
“Nevertheless, I’m convinced I’m correct.” Ambrose remained adamant in spite of the incontrovertible truth of my statement.
“Even if you’re right,” I went on, “can you tell me what form of energy has kept it going for so long?”
“There are more forces within the universe then you, or science, can even dream of,” he said enigmatically.
There was clearly no point in arguing with him further and we dropped the subject, turning instead to more mundane matters connected with my plans for the renovation of the house interior until it was almost midnight and the fire in the hearth had dwindled to a heap of faintly glowing embers.
That night, my sleep was unbroken by dreams for the first time since arriving in the house. Yet when I woke, it was with a sudden start. Something had woken me for it was still pitch black outside the window and I lay for several minutes straining to pick out any untoward sound that might have subconsciously alarmed me.
It is not uncommon for sleepers to be awakened by the abrupt stopping of a clock; by the sudden cessation of sound rather than by a sound itself. Thus, it was with me. Complete and utter silence reigned within the house. But even as I grew aware of the singular fact that there was not the slightest creak or gust of wind to be heard—there did come a sound, one I was loath to identify, and yet knew to be the stirring of rushing water.
I slid off the bed and went out of the room, pulling on my dressing gown.
This time, I meant to awaken Ambrose in order to confirm the existence of that unnatural phenomenon I had witnessed the previous night. I knocked loudly on his door and, when there was no answer, flung it open. In the faint wash of moonlight I saw that his bed was empty and the lamp that he kept on the bedside table was gone. That he had been in bed was obvious from the tumbled bedding.
Where could he have gone this ungodly hour of the morning? The first possibility that came into my mind was that he had gone for a drink of water for we had consumed three bottles of wine at supper. Then I recalled his strange, one might almost say morbid, fascination with the clock.
I returned hastily to my room and lit my lamp. Enveloped in the yellow pool of light, I made my way cautiously up the stairs, treading carefully to make no sound. Arriving at the top, I paused to listen. I could hear nothing but that earlier noise, like a huge wave washing up some deep cavern and all of the nightmarish terror I had felt in my dream came sweeping over me anew.
Arriving at the end of the corridor I saw that my supposition had been correct. The secret door stood open, but as I approached, shining the light into the room, I saw he was no longer there. The room was empty except for the monstrous clock, which I knew, even then, told no earthly time.
I was just on the point of leaving when something anomalous about the clock caught my eye. It was just a small thing yet it sent a shiver of dread and foreboding through me. The solitary hand had been pointing straight up when Ambrose and I had examined it only a few hours earlier. Now it had moved and the metal tip rested midway across a grinning skull almost halfway around the oval face!
Fighting back the horror that sent my thoughts spinning into a raving turmoil, I fled along the shadowed corridor as if all the demons of the outer spheres were on my heels, taking the stairs two at a time, oblivious of the very real possibility of falling and breaking my neck at the bottom. Somehow, I had to find my companion for I was sure he was in mortal danger.
By some strange instinct, I knew he was in none of the rooms I had visited with the architect that morning. What presentiment led my steps to the door leading down into the cellar, I shall never know. Perhaps some part of my mind subconsciously associated it with the sound of rushing, roaring water I had heard the night before—and could faintly hear now.
The door was open when I reached it although I had always assumed it to be locked. Holding the lamp high in front of my face, I began the descent of the ancient stone steps. Curiously, they stretched deeper into the foundations for the house than I had imagined possible and long before I came to the bottom, they were encrusted with a glittering nitrous covering which made every step precarious in the extreme.
Now the sound of water was louder and I felt I must be approaching its source. I had tried to rationalise the noise by telling myself that the sea flung itself hard against the base of the cliffs whenever the tide came in and odd echoes and reverberations would distort the sound into what I was hearing. Certainly the sheer size of the cellars, when I reached them, would have accounted for such deep-toned resonances as now clambered through the air all around me.
I shouted Ambrose’s name at the top of my voice, straining my vision to pick out any movement in the darkness ahead of me. But there came no answer to my repeated calls and I shuffled forward, taking care where I put my feet for there were numerous obstacles littering the cellar floor. The lamplight threw long shadows ahead of me and picked out tall, rearing columns whose tops I was unable to distinguish.
I had taken less than a dozen shuffling steps when I happened to glance down and saw, a little to my left, a line of footprints in the dust and, just beyond them, a second set of prints, fainter than those nearer to where I stood. The one was clearly quite recent, and I knew they could belong to none other than my companion. As for the other, I could not guess whose they were although they could not have been made more than a few months previously—and that could only mean that my uncle had been down here for some reason.
Confident I was now on the right track, I followed the prints into the darkness, finally coming up against a great stone wall which was clearly the boundary of the foundations.
Set in it was a massive metal door and I saw that both sets of prints led up to it and vanished. In the lock was the metal key covered with the weird hieroglyphs. Evidently, Ambrose had taken it from the desk where I had posted for safekeeping. Somehow, he had guessed at its purpose. There was an iron ring just above the lock and I grasped it firmly with one hand and pulled with all my strength. The door opened reluctantly as if it were seldom used.
I had thought to see darkness before me, perhaps another room abutting onto the cellars. Instead, shock and horror paralysed me, held me rooted there, gripped in a frenzy of hallucinatory delirium. I must now choose words with great care for in that horror-filled moment I saw everything; knew why there were never any r
ecords of the deaths of my ancestors, nor any trace of their earthly remains.
I realised, in a cataclysm of superstitious fear, the nature of the time measured by that unimaginably old clock whose origins lay in the legend-shrouded aeons of time, marking off the hours remaining to each of the Dexters and—by some terrible quirk of fate—poor Ambrose as well. And most terrible of all, the true identity of that mighty river whose nearer shore lay immediately below the Dexter mansion.
My condition as I stood teetering on the brink of that illimitable cavern was one of indescribable mental tumult. Before me an endless flight of steps lead down to the black swirling waters of the great river that ran into a far distance, towards an unseen cataract where it thundered down into abyssal depths, lit by the lurid glare of hellfires pouring up from below.
All this I saw in a single mind-searing glance. But there was more than that. Would to God I had turned and fled back through those noisome cellars before witnessing the final scene. But see it I did and the unbelievable horror and its implications will haunt me for the remainder of my days.
Far, far below me I made out the diminutive figure of Michael Ambrose standing like a man in a dream on the bank of the river. I tried to call his name but nothing more than a feeble croak emerged from my shaking lips. And then, out of the swirling mist that formed a curtain across the foreground, exactly as I had seen it in my dream, something black appeared, heading for the very spot where he stood.
Gliding to the bank, the ebon boat grounded there and the hooded boatman held out a hand to Ambrose. I saw my former companion hand him something which shone yellow in the dim radiance and knew it to be the curious coin which had fallen from behind my uncle’s portrait and which I had unwittingly, given to Ambrose. A coin that had no value in this world but was the tribute paid to Charon in return for ferrying the soul across the Styx!
As Ambrose seated himself in the prow of the boat, the boatman thrust away from the bank and in that same instant raised his head to stare upward in my direction, and as he did so the night-black hood fell away and I glimpsed the grinning skull beneath. In that moment, my nerve broke completely. I was babbling insanely at the top of my voice during my precipitous flight through the cellars and up the nitre-coated steps.
I remember little of reaching the top of the steps and slamming the cellar door shut. My earliest coherent memory is of lying on my bed, shivering and shaking and staring at the brightening dawn light beyond the window.
This then was the curse of the Dexters. Only the long-dead members of that forgotten race, which created that hideous clock in the concealed room upstairs could possibly have told me what will happen next. For soon there will come a time when the solitary hand, once more, comes to rest upon that grinning skull and I shall have to make my way down to the grim black river and await the coming of the dark boatman.
But what will be my dire fate when He comes and I have no coin with which to pay Him? To what infernal hell will I be consigned—or will it be my lot to be refused that final journey across the Styx, forcing me to live out an eternity in this grim old house on the edge of the cliffs?
DAGON AND JILL, by John P. McCann
Santa Monica
Dear Mr. Whateley,
Guiding you through the publishing process would go a lot smoother with email. However, as you insist there’s no email in Dunwich, snail mail it shall be. First, congratulations on selling your textbook concepts to the Los Angeles Unified School District. Great timing. The district’s religious diversity program, Different Voices, Different Ways, has been on the hunt for nontraditional faiths and yours certainly fits the bill. Mind you, I’m not judgmental. While I have never heard of Cthulhu, Nyarlathotep, or any other Great Old Ones, I’m certain your beliefs are sincere and your books will contribute to the rich cultural mosaic that is Los Angeles.
To recap: Whitman Press will publish three children’s textbooks, based on your creed, for which you’ll deliver manuscripts and artwork. The three books are:
1. Dagon and Jill
2. The Shadow Over Humpty Dumpty
3. A Children’s Necronomicon (with pop-up section)
As Walt Whitman once said, “I am large. I contain multitudes.” Welcome to our multitudes. I look forward to working with you and “opening doors,” as you like to say.
Cheers,
Martin Gelb-Crispling
Editor, Whitman Press
P.S. I Googled “Dunwich” in north central Massachusetts. Your town seems to be ground zero for bizarre deaths, livestock mutilations, disappearances, and a host of other mysterious, forbidding events.
All I can say is be careful.
Maybe purchase some pepper spray.
* * * *
Dunwich
Goode Gelb-Crispling,
The stars wheel in their course toward a terrible alignment. Young voices shall call forth that which is ancient beyond time; vital they learn to serve them who dwell in sea, earth and outer spheres. The powerless crawl before those with it, if ye see my meaning.
Sent ye writing and pictures for first book, Dagon and Jill. Will send second book if I am still alive. Last night One that Dwells Below emerged. Now it roams the hills and has already et up a horse and a lawn goose.
I am yr servant,
Ezra Whateley
* * * *
Santa Monica, CA
Dear Mr. Whateley,
Didn’t a catch lot of what you said, but I couldn’t agree more about empowering youngsters. Our daughter, Shannon, is being raised to believe she can rule the world.
Going forward, there could be a small problem with Dagon and Jill in the chapter where young Jill lures a homeless man out onto a pier, then shoves him into the water. The man is drug screaming beneath the surface by amphibious monsters, which then reward Jill with a gold tiara covered in seaweed.
This is a wonderful empowerment metaphor about the rewards that come from facing scary things. However, legal is worried some might view it as mean-spirited. Could you include people from other cultures and races, who are also shoved off the pier, so as not to single out the homeless?
Cheers,
Martin Gelb-Crispling
* * * *
Dunwich, MA
Goode Gelb-Crispling,
Yer thought is true. More sacrifices would please Dagon. But Jill is too young to offer so many. Let stand the drawing of the doomed tramp.
Have sent ye words and art for second book, Shadow Over Humpty Dumpty. Artwork is mine, drawn in the eldritch light of a gibbous moon. Thing from Below went back down but et up a county road crew. Now police will come again to meddle.
Stars are aligning. Must quickly say the Black Mass and make the Voorish Sign. My youngest boy went mad. He sits drooling on the porch, trying to play the cat like an accordion.
He’s been scratched some.
Yer Servant,
Ezra Whateley
* * * *
Santa Monica, CA
Dear Mr. Whateley,
Sorry about your son’s injuries. That’s a problem with cats. You’ll be pleased to know Legal withdrew all objections to Dagon and Jill after receiving your gift of a sack of gold coins. They say money talks, but in your case, it hollers through a bullhorn. However it’s not for me to judge.
Our first printing of “Dagon” went out to schools and was incorporated into the Different Voices, Different Ways curriculum. So far, the book has been well received by students and teachers who enjoy the use of fantasy to further appreciation for non mainstream faiths.
Everyone is delighted.
Except the police.
I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there has been a tragic local incident. Three middle school boys confessed to pushing homeless men off the Santa Monica pier. (Not sure of the total number since no bodies were recovered.) The boys carried Dagon and Jill and were caught trying to purchase MP3 players with a gold tiara covered in seaweed.
Clearly, this is a case similar to Charles Manson wh
ere he used the Beatles’ music for criminal ends. However I’ve been unable to glean whether or not we face liability because our entire legal department resigned and moved to Las Vegas, taking along the gold coins. But that’s an internal issue.
Still, going forward, there may be more controversial points with your second book, The Shadow Over Humpty Dumpty. For example, in one chapter, youngsters Tiffany and Giles ambush and murder a postman. They cut out his intestines and droop them into a 7-11 Big Gulp cup. Late at night, Giles offers the entrails to a round, eerie being seated on a wall. It sips up the guts like spaghetti while Tiffany screams something called, “The Spell of Aklos.” (A real tongue twister, which, incidentally, contains no verbs.)
I’m inclined to argue this is a parable telling kids that even with religion there are no easy answers to some of life’s problems. Is that correct, or could it be a humorous metaphor on homework? Please clarify.
Cheers,
Martin Gelb-Crispling
* * * *
Dunwich, MA
Gelb-Crispling,
Lad and lass appease the guardian of a doorway. Alter nothing on Spell of Aklos; least ye cause Earth to be dragged into another dimension. And stop ye talking so much. Print what I give ye.
Sending ye words and art for Children’s Necronomicon. Police broke up Black Mass and chased us, but we lost them in Cold Springs Glen. Alas, they shot my eldest boy. He died, then dissolved into a puddle o’ black stinking liquid.
But I knowed he would, so it’s Okay.
Yr servant,
Ezra Whateley
* * * *
Santa Monica
Mr. Whateley,
I don’t appreciate your tart tone. We’re all trying our best to be sensitive to your religion’s eschatology. Once again, our new legal department found no objections to Humpty Dumpty after receiving your gift of a large gold bar covered in moss. (You should really consider keeping your money in mutual funds.) Subsequently, “Shadow” has gone out to schools. Students and teachers are again pleased.
