The Shoggoth Who Loved Me

by K X Douglas

“Yeah. See you around, dude.”

  He could’ve sworn he felt Serena’s hand squeeze his own for a moment before she got up. They both waved goodbye as they walked across the threshold.

  That night, Peter finished reading Von Unaussprechlichen Kulten. Again, he felt drained afterwards; he fell asleep sitting in the chair with the book still open on the table.

  When he awoke, he wasn’t on the strange, faraway planet of the mi-go, nor was he in his dorm room; he surmised that he was somewhere else on Earth. Moreover, he had reverted to his shoggoth form, and he was almost completely flat against the ground.

  ***

  He was in some sort of wooded area. It was night; the sky was full of stars and the full moon loomed ominously overhead.

  Specks of torchlight flickered in the distance, visible through a copse of trees. He slunk over the autumn soil, crunching leaves under his burbling flesh.

  He reached a clearing, and saw the source of the light; a crowd of people gathered in a circle, all dressed in the same outfit as the person that he encountered in the distant world. Peering between the bodies, Peter saw a large stone altar in the middle of the circle with a living human bound to it by iron shackles about their wrists and ankles. The person had been disembowelled, and innards were splayed out onto the earth; it would not be long before the person’s death.

  A hole in reality opened above the altar; it was like a window attached to no walls, through which a swarm of mi-go flew. They dithered about the corpse like moths gathered to a flame; to Peter it seemed as though they were looking at the portal expectantly.

  The next creature which ventured out from the portal was not a mi-go, nor was it a shoggoth or anything else recognizable to Peter. A hand covered in wrinkly skin gripped the edge of the portal, as if to pull the rest of its body through. Next, a sharp, narrow beak stabbed through and opened to make a cawing noise. Dozens more of the same limbs extended into the physical realm, and its torso followed.

  It was avian, but without feathers. Though it looked like a bird that walked on dozens of human hands, its eyes were segmented like those of an insect. Its back was covered in an exoskeleton reminiscent of a beetle, which opened to reveal a pair of diaphanous wings.

  When he tried to approach the creature, he fell out of his bed.

  For a moment, he froze. Panicking, Peter returned to his human form as quickly as he could. He looked over at the clock and saw that it was seven in the morning.

  Did…did I sleep through the night? I can remember all of that dream so vividly, just like the last one. When I looked at the sky, the moon was full. Is something going to happen on the next full moon?

  He walked over to his computer and opened his email client.

 
  I finished reading Von Unaussprechlichen Kulten just after that. I could not find any spell to summon a gnoph-kei at any point in the text. I ended up going to sleep and having another dream. Not sure if I’ve told you, but I have no biological need to sleep. In this dream, I am in my shoggoth form, slithering through a wooded area, perhaps a park of some sort. The moon is full and there isn’t a cloud in the sky. I encounter a group of people dressed like the person in my previous dream, wearing robes and masks, and they’re in a circle holding torches. In the centre of the circle is a stone altar with a freshly disembowelled human chained to it. A portal to the green world opens up, and a swarm of mi-go come flying out of it. After that, something else comes out of the portal; it is something that I didn’t recognize, something much larger which looked like a cross between an insect and a bird. That’s when I woke up. I believe that this is a vision of an event that will happen in the future, perhaps on the next full moon.>

  He sent the email before locking up the book and stuffing it under his mattress.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Peter received a reply to his email the next morning.

 
  I’ve been trying to contact the people who had purchased books from Tadhg, and I am currently waiting on them to reply to me. In the meantime, keep a close eye on Kulten until you have an opportunity to hand it over to me; I will see to it that it is kept in protective custody and out of the hands of anyone who would misuse it. I’m curious as to how you destroyed the mi-go, seeing as how they’re so resistant to most forms of harm, including conventional weapons.

  I don’t recognize the figure that appeared at the end of your dream, but judging from your description of the ritual I have reason to believe that it is one of the Old Ones. If your dream is indeed a vision of the future, then that means that someone intends to summon it on an upcoming full moon. This can only be bad. I’ve already notified all of my colleagues of this incident and told them to be prepared for the worst.>

  Colleagues? Who does he mean? Surely, he doesn’t mean the other professors at the college? I doubt most of them have any familiarity with the supernatural.

  Later that day, Peter attended class. He made sure to bring the book with him, so that he could give it to Professor Carter.

  “Hey, Peter, did something happen on Friday? You kind of just ran off,” Lachlan said. “You won’t believe the shit that happened later that night.”

  “He was there; he saw what happened,” Serena said.

  “Shit, that was wild,” Eric said. “Did you see the videos that got uploaded afterwards? I swear it was a fucking alien. That’s why it didn’t show on screen. They’re like vampires or something.”

  “Did you end up going back for your clothes?” Heidi asked.

  “Yeah, I did,” Peter replied.

  On the bright side, if any of them ever find out my secret, they’ll be more receptive to it since they already seem to acknowledge that aliens exist.

  “God, it’s almost enough to make you forget the game of poker we played,” Eric said. “I totally won, by the way.”

  “I’ve already forgotten it,” Victoria said. “Seriously, I can’t remember anything that happened then.”

  “I am so glad I didn’t let you drag me to that party, Serena,” Isabelle said.

  “Even if you went, that didn’t mean you had to join the game,” Serena said. “You could’ve just watched.”

  “There were certainly enough people watching us already,” Lachlan said.

  Again, Peter tried to pay attention to the lecture, but his mind was preoccupied with recent events, and he tried to catch up with the assigned reading while simultaneously mulling over last night’s dream.

  After class, once just about everyone else had left the room, he gave the book to Professor Carter.

  “How are you going to keep the book safe, professor?”

  “I have a safe in my house that has magical wards placed on it. Nobody should even be able to tell that the book is in there.”

  When Peter returned to his dorm, he saw a somewhat familiar face waiting for him; Serena’s brother. He was carrying a large duffel bag that appeared to be full.

  “What do you want this time?” Peter asked.

  “Professor Carter sent me. I’ve got some stuff for you.”

  Peter sighed.

  “Come in.”

  The man walked in and shut the door behind him.

  “First of all, tell me what you know,” Peter said. “What has the professor told you?”

  “He says that you saved him and Dad from a gnoph-kei,” the man said. “He also said that you were in the crowd that saw that mi-go that showed up on campus. The one t
hat…attacked Serena’s roommate.”

  He seems to think I’m human. I don’t know how Professor Carter managed to leave that out while telling him just about everything else.

  “So you know quite a bit about the truths of the world,” Peter said. “It seems that Serena doesn’t. Why is that?”

  “I was the one who wanted to take over Dad’s business. He broke the news to me that he wasn’t really a legit antiquarian. Everything snowballed from there.”

  “So you aren’t a student here?”

  “Nope. I go on hunts with Dad’s crew once in a while, and sell books n’ shit.”

  “You have any leads on who summoned the gnoph-kei?”

  “Nope, not yet.”

  The man placed the duffel bag on Peter’s bed and unzipped it. Peter walked over and looked inside. He saw a shotgun, a rifle, and a handgun, plus a quantity of ammunition that he swore was illegal.

  “You know how to use a gun? If you don’t, I suggest learning. There’s a shooting range on the far south end of town.”

  I ought to do that, if only because it will give me more excuses to stay in my human form if I encounter anything. Although I don’t think bullets are very effective against mi-go or any other creatures I anticipate encountering in the near future.

  “Is there anything special about these, or are they just regular guns?”

  “They’re just regular guns.”

  “So…that dream I had…the professor must think it’s something serious. Wait, did he tell you about that?”

  “He said you read through the entirety of Von Unaussprechlichen Kulten by von Juntz in less than a week. Do you have a goddamn death wish?”

  He definitely thinks I’m human.

  “So, once I started reading the book, I started having these dreams. They started out weird and steadily got weirder. The dream I had on Saturday night, the one where I saw a group of people summoning what I think was one of the Old Ones, I think it’s a vision of the future. It happened on a full moon, but I’m not sure how far into the future it is besides that.”

  “God, you’re just as stubborn as my dad. You mean to say that you kept reading the book after you started having these visions?”

  Peter nodded.

  “Professor Carter wanted me to check if the spell used to summon the gnoph-kei was in the book,” he said. “Turns out it’s not.”

  “I don’t know why he’d ask you of all people to do it, but at least we’ve narrowed down where to look.”

  “So what’s the next step?” Peter asked.

  “We should probably try to use social media to track down anyone who might be a part of this cult. When is the next full moon?

  Peter pulled out his phone and searched for a calendar detailing the year’s full moons.

  “It’s in just over two weeks,” he said.

  “So we don’t have very much time,” the other man said. “In that case, the best course of action would be to find out who’s in charge of the cult and hunt the motherfucker down.”

  “Shouldn’t be too difficult.”

  “Just remember, once you think you’ve got a lead, notify the rest of us before you go charging in, guns blazing. The leader of this cult probably knows some form of dark magic if they’ve been serving one of the Old Ones.”

  He’s got a good point. Even if bullets don’t really do much to me, who knows what kind of spells they could throw at me.

  “We should exchange phone numbers,” Peter said. “I’ll notify you if I find any leads.”

  The man grumbled.

  “Alright,” he said.

  Peter grabbed a piece of paper and wrote his phone number on it before giving it to the man. The latter typed it into his phone and sent Peter a text message. Looking at his own cell phone, Peter took note of the number.

  “By the way, Peter, what’s your relationship with Serena?”

  “We’re friends. We, uh, we kissed during strip poker the other day, but we’re friends.”

  The man scowled. He clenched his fists, and he looked as though he wanted to punch Peter, but he didn’t.

  He still doesn’t trust me…which is fair. He probably thinks that he can hurt me, that his father can hurt me, if I do anything out of line.

  “Is there a reason you’re so protective of her? She’s an adult now, isn’t she?”

  “When you’ve seen the shit that I have, you tend to view people as really fragile. Vulnerable. Easily broken.”

  Well, they kind of are.

  “But that doesn’t mean they should be babied,” Peter said. “Your father killed Hastur, didn’t he? With the help of Professor Carter?”

  “My father’s a goddamn wreck. He hasn’t been sane in years. I don’t know if it’s the drugs or being exposed to so many alien beings, or what, but he’s not all there.”

  “He seemed pretty together when I saw him last week. When we fought the gnoph-kei.”

  “He seems like that at first, but he has hallucinations, and any sudden noise makes him totally break down. Trust me, he doesn’t have it together at all.”

  He made for the door.

  “Remember, don’t go off on your own. Keep us updated on what’s going on and let us in on whatever plans you come up with.”

  “Hey,” Peter said. “Before you leave, at least tell me your name. I need something to put into my phone other than ‘Serena’s brother’.”

  “It’s Silas.”

  Silas left Peter’s dorm, slamming the door behind him.

  Now, where am I going to keep my brand-new unregistered firearms so that the RA doesn’t find them?

  Peter’s first course of action was to open his closet and stuff the duffel bag inside. He sent an email to Professor Carter stating that Silas had visited him and that he had received the bag.

  He spent the next few hours searching the internet for anything mentioning the mi-go, “Yuggoth”, and any suspicious events planned in the local public parks.

  The first two search queries returned precious little, most of it restricted to quack websites concerned with “the occult”, or conspiracy websites that also happened to have sections on various cryptids. Many of them were dedicated to small esoteric orders that seemed to lack any kind of fame or influence.

  The third, however, returned several events within the next month, the vast majority of which weren’t suspicious in the slightest. He browsed through the upcoming events, looking for anything that could be cover for a ritual to summon an evil god.

  Eventually, he came across a festival planned for the final night of Mabon. It was advertised as a feast, which at first made him wonder why it wasn’t being held indoors. The organizers implored attendees to wear formal clothing and offered promises of a lavish celebration, with lots of alcohol (and Peter assumed other drugs).

  I should get a hold of Victoria at some point and ask her about this. She might provide some insight as to whether or not it’s legit.

  For what felt like the first time in a long while, Peter stayed up through the night. He spent much of the time catching up on the reading and coursework for his classes; the material was a welcome sort of boring after recent events. By the time the sun rose, he was up to date on all of his assignments. Once it was late enough in the morning, he sent a text to Victoria.

 

 

 

  The next reply came a few minutes later.

 

 

  Just after he thought that the conversation was finished, his phone vibrated again. Peter checked his messages and saw a text from Heidi.

 
>
 

 

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  That doesn’t sound good.

  Peter started typing a reply. He sent it at the same time that he received another message from Heidi.

 

  Just as he sent it, he received another message from Heidi.

 

 

 

  Damn it, I can’t exactly tell her why I really want to go to the Mabon celebration!

 

 

  Peter put his phone down and lay on his bed for a few minutes.

  Well, that certainly could have gone a lot worse.

  Later that day, after English class, he met with Professor Carter in his office.

  “Do you have a lead on when this ritual is supposed to happen?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Peter replied. “There’s going to be a feast at the riverside for Mabon on the autumnal equinox. I think that’s a cover for the cult that we’re looking for.”

  “Interesting. I’ll have to start working with Tadhg and my other colleagues on a plan to shut down their ritual while simultaneously covering it up. How did you find out about this?”

  “Just looking at upcoming local events in places that resembled the forest clearing from my dream. I tried searching for anything about the mi-go as well, but I found nothing there.”

  “Okay,” the professor said. “In that case we have to be extra careful, just in case we’re mistaken and it’s just a celebration of the equinox.”

  “There’s one problem, Professor.”