by Byron Craft
Jim shifted his position and I advanced a little closer to the Doctor fearing he was about to crack. He covered his face with his hands, relaxed a bit then continued on slowly with his arms stretched out.
“I shall always be sorry for not acting sooner but now I must! There is still time. We’re armed and alert...remember, these beings are not ghosts or poltergeists, but real physical creatures that can be killed. Stay and comfort your wife, she is in no condition to be moved anyway.”
Real physical things or not, I knew that even though they could possibly be killed so could we. VonTassell read the hesitation in my expression and pleaded, “give me until a half an hour before midnight; I must find out to what extent Todesfall succeeded...please, you must trust me!”
After some consideration I agreed to give him the time. Jim was about to protest and I started to wave his objections down when the sound of the van starting up stopped me. Hausmann had slipped out when our backs were turned.
He had already started down the drive when I ran out. I called for him to stop, running after, but my shouting only made him go faster. I had hoped to use the van for our escape. Jim threw his arms in the air in despair, walked over to the car and started in on switching the batteries.
Back in the summer house VonTassell had removed the cardboard from the windows and had some of the candle stubs lit. For the first time I could see the view from the rear window. It over looked the glade. The swell in the earth was directly in sight and from where I stood the ground appeared elevated slightly more than it had the day before. I don’t know if it was a trick played upon the fog by the moon but the large expanse of ground that had risen several feet, seemed to be offset from the rest of the surrounding glade by a faint shimmer of light.
The night air had become very cold and the Doctor started some kindling in the pot belly stove with scraps of the cardboard and candle wax. VonTassell was his old self again busying himself with his study. I fetched the other copy of the Necronomicon for him from the house then set about helping Jim.
Ruttick was angry as hell until I explained that I had no intentions of honoring my agreement with VonTassell. I had only said as much to quiet him down so the rest of us could get away quickly.
Jim was having difficulty adapting the battery from his car to fit the other mount. The cables were corroded badly making the removal difficult and he was going to have to tie the battery casing with rope to the fender in order to secure it.
When I was assured that he didn’t need my help, and before I went back up to Janet, I crept over to the summer house and peaked in through the front window.
The Doctor was seated next to the library table hunched over a pile of papers. The lantern was turned up high, brightly illuminating the room. He was engrossed in his work. He got up from his chair and I thought my presence had been detected. I relaxed when, after he walked over to the pot bellied stove, he took up the fire poker to sir the glowing embers. Replacing the poker by the stove side he returned to the table. I breathed easily, then before leaving I quietly bolted the door from the outside locking him in.
***
Peter VonTassell M.D. was not to be trusted either. My great Uncle’s manuscript was proof enough for me. I hated to lock him away in the old shack but thought it best for all of us. Although the Doctor was a man in his early sixties he was still strong in stature with broad shoulders and thick arms and I was afraid that he might give us trouble when the three of us attempted to leave.
I planned to abandon him and when well out of reach I’d call the local authorities letting them know where he could be found. The summer house hadn’t been built too securely and if the Doctor really tried, I am sure he could find a way out. The windows would provide a quick means of escape and by the time he could break one and get out we would be long gone. In the meanwhile he was unaware of his imprisonment, being caught up in his studies.
I did a thorough job of packing, leaving little to want. I managed to get all our clothes, toilet articles, money and passports into three bags. Everything else would have to stay behind until I was able to send for them.
It was 10:15 P.M. and I was relieved to be well ahead of the dreaded hour of midnight. I could see Jim from the bedroom window and we exchanged progress reports shouting through the open sash. The fog was getting thicker and I could barely make out the car and his outline. He waved the flashlight overhead when answering and my eyes gradually adjusted to the gloom. Even his voice sounded muffled in the mist but I made out the words well enough. Jim said that he’d be ready in about twenty minutes. The night air hadn’t changed and I closed the casement to keep the draft off Janet. I had bundled her up in a robe and blanket barely disturbing her slumber. She mumbled lightly to herself when I wrapped her in the blankets but beyond that the sedative kept her quiet. Jim and I would have to carry her downstairs when the car was ready.
You can imagine how guilty I felt when I found my great uncle’s notebook between the mattress and her pillow. It had been rolled up and hidden there by Janet. During all that time what she must have been thinking of me? I had lied to her weeks before saying it had been mislaid. She must have found it under the front seat of the car and I was certain she had read it.
I pulled up a chair next to her bedside keeping the window and Jim in view and set about reading Janet’s diary. It was a work against time, written under pressure. The delicately poetic and sometimes delirious style of Janet’s narrative was set down at a feverish pace. The contents of it added to my depression. The words were like daggers to me. I had never realized the full extent of my wife’s dilemma. It had been a nightmare for her, which let me say here, was shared equally by both of us. I wish now that I would have confessed all that I knew to her. She was much stronger than I had ever imagined. Together we may have had the combined strength to have licked this thing.
I was right. Janet had read the alchemist’s notebook. She had also become suspicious of me. Her convictions had been clouded by my deception, not knowing if I could be relied upon.
I had become drowsy going over the diary and dozed off after I skimmed over it and the rereading of the last few pages falling into a light brief sleep. I was only out for a short period. The silence was invaded by a dream of quiet flapping like the beating of leathery wings. Some time passed, then I awoke with a start. My ears rang echoing the after effects of an unknown sound. I wasn’t positive but I thought I had been wakened by a scream. I jumped up, cursing my own stupidity for dozing off.
I turned to Janet to see if she was all right. She was sleeping soundly. A look out the window revealed a thicker, heavier fog than before, blanketing almost everything from sight. I could no longer make out the car but could see the faint lights of the summer house dimly through the mist. It was a while before I realized what I was looking at. From the vantage point of our bedroom it was impossible to see the window at the rear of the old shack. And as I said, there were lights, more than one, two actually that glimmered back in the fog. One source of light was the small front casement and the other, much bigger, could only have been made when the door to the summer house was opened.
I called for Jim but did not receive an answer. A quiet hush clung like claws in the night air. There wasn’t the rustle of a single leaf or branch from the wood. Not an insect chirped nor did I hear the familiar clanking and rattling of Jim’s labor. The dense stillness of the mist had muted all sounds into a dead silence.
The clock on the bed table read ten minutes after eleven. The evening was almost over. A wave of anxiety swept over me. My misgivings about the approaching hour of midnight left me with a nagging fear.
I paced nervously back and forth from the window to the bedroom door unable to decide on my next move. On one of my trips to the window I hollered for Jim at the top of my lungs, over and over again, but still there was no reply.
I nervously slipped my hand into my pocket out of habit and the tips of my fingers struck the soapstone charm. I started rubbing it.
Touching the small five sided stone had a soothing effect and Janet’s silent form, peacefully asleep in bed renewed some of my courage. I felt by degrees relief from the stress. Bewildered, I knew just as well that if we were ever to leave that house I would eventually have to go downstairs.
From the kitchen window I would be able to make out the summer house clearer than from the second story window. Down the stairs I went.
The fog was not as heavy at ground level and the outline of the summer house and part of the roof were visible. The grass was wet, slippery under foot and in the brief span it took me to run across the yard the moisture had penetrated my shoe laces and dampened my socks. The door stood open, swung inward; the clasp and padlock had been ripped loose from the jam. My attention was immediately drawn to the back of the single roomed house. Standing in the doorway looking past the large casement I saw once again the slope in the earth and the eerie green mist. The ground had advanced at an angle towards the curtainless window and had risen a couple feet in the past hour and a half. It took only a second to take in the scene. My eyes quickly ran down the square panes to the body of Doctor VonTassell. He was lying motionless across the window seat; his left hand clutched at his side. His clothes were covered with blood and his eyes were wide and fixed blankly staring in my direction.
Giving him up for dead I jumped when he moved and motioned for me to come closer.
Half kneeling by the Doctor’s side and surprised to see some life in him I asked what happened. “Who did this to you?” I asked.
VonTassell’s pain stricken eyes looked past me to the corner of the room. “I...knew too much...the Old Ones...ordered their minion to take care of me.” A wry smile crossed his lips as he gestured to where the cast iron stove rested. “But I got the upper hand.”
Some instinct warned me that what had taken place was not a thing meant for the eyes to see. The room was full of a frightful stench. An odor that I knew too well. For a second I didn’t dare to turn and look. Summoning up the courage I slowly peered over my shoulder. It was sprawled across the library table like a sacrificial beast on an alter. Too large for the table the thing lay half bent on its back in a pool of green tarry liquid. Amid bloodied books and papers, impaled by the fire poker, was the serpent creature that earlier had attacked me and eluded Jim on the open road. A segment of its massive shoulder had been torn away. Jim’s aim had been accurate after all. It wasn’t quite dead hanging on for only a moment twitching silently and spasmodically while its chest heaved for one last time then became still. Bits of paper and fragments of books were scattered about the room. The green sticky fluid poured from the open wound where the pointed end of the fire poker had been rammed through its chest. It ran out and across the table in great pools dribbling to the floor. The Necronomicon lay open under the table stained with blood not entirely from the Doctor.
I mentioned something about trying to go for help but VonTassell insisted that there was no time and in a voice that became stronger ordered me to get the book. In picking it up some of the green sticky liquid dripped on my hand. Repulsed at the thought of coming in contact with it I shook my wrist causing the drops to fall on the open pages where they mixed with the Doctor’s blood.
“I’ve got to talk” he said elevating himself on an elbow.
I cradled the old book in my arms. The ancient binding had snapped loose when it fell off the table, probably during the struggle. I had some difficulty at first keeping the large quantity of paper together, holding them firmly so they wouldn’t fan out from between the front and back covers and spill onto the floor.
“The primal myths...” he coughed with a sudden harsh expulsion of breath. I noticed a deep gash in his left side and by the light of the lantern that I had brought closer. I could see that he was bleeding heavily. I started to make a move to comfort him but he waved the action down as a futile attempt.
“...and Todesfall’s modern delusion joined in their assumption that mankind is only one...perhaps the least of the highly evolved and dominant races of this planet’s long and largely unknown history. One of these races has already lived...in the past, over fifty million years past. It was the world of the Permian or Triassic age.”
He was lecturing. He bordered on delirium. I tried again unsuccessfully to interrupt, but he kept talking, raising his voice whenever I tried to intervene. There was an urgency in his voice. An alarming urgency, that continued unchecked, as if he knew that he only had minutes left to finish his story.
He told me that my great uncle had managed to recapture from years of extensive research, a vivid and connected picture of this earth millions of years ago.
He declared that Heinrich Todesfall was a student of magic in his latter years and that local legend reported that at times when the moon was right and harvest season was about he could raise great rumblings beneath the hills.
“Your uncle told us, in his notebook, that before our universe was created an elder race dwelt in the dimension known as Yith,” said the Doctor. “This alien race existed there for countless centuries, until a fleet of exploring and adventuring elder beings set forth on a great excursion. They took with them members of countless races. Their quest was to cover time and space and set up the seeds of civilizations to blossom into beauty and wonder for their people to enjoy.
“The Elder Beings came upon the makings of a fine new dimension and they shaped it to fit the wants of their own wonder.
“These beings eventually left our universe in its infancy to travel and enjoy other worlds. The Elder Race intended to return in time to see how their work had progressed.
“Left in this unprotected state the star system was threatened by others; they were monstrous intrusions, a malign cosmic force.
“When these Ancient Ones came upon our universe they saw that it could be a place to dwell and rule. It was the goal of these creatures to conquer and dominate everything they came upon.”
VonTassell glared at me with a piercing stare.
“The evil, in their new dimension, grew to tremendous proportions. Their spawn took reign and the Elder Beings actually lost control over this portion of their environment.”
I gathered by then that Dr. VonTassell was quoting from memory. His voice filled with dread and feverishly he continued, “The most powerful spawn to dominate and exist over the world was Cthulhu. Along with its brothers they became known as the Old Ones.”
The Doctor once again broke from his recitation and stared long and hard at the low raftered ceiling. He grimaced then flinched. I wasn’t sure if he was reacting to the pain he must have been suffering from or if he was trying to regain something from memory. I moved to say something but he cut me off and continued.
“The Elder Beings became aware of the Old Ones growing hold and knew that they would have to stop the spawn from enveloping the entire universe. Ultimately, the Elder Race returned and had to do battle...to take back the heavens they had created. The Elder Beings intervened...thus was the Great War.”
The Doctor shifted his position slightly and his face distorted into a twisted expression of pain. I adjusted the window seat cushion behind him and he relaxed some. “Please,” I said, “don’t talk anymore. I’ll go for help.”
“Many of the evil horde fled the battle, but Cthulhu and his kin remained. Led by their fearsome liege, the Old Ones waged an awesome war against the Elder Beings. The Old Ones could not be killed by any conventional means and the Elder Beings had been rendered invincible by the advancement of their own sciences. The conflict waged fruitlessly and spanned a full millennium. How do two indestructible forces defeat one another in battle? The question plagued both sides. The outcome of this was that the Elder Beings selected a number of their best minds to research and experiment on the matter of the Old Ones, and their weaknesses.
“Cthulhu, by then, adopted a another brother. It chose a small planet close to a bright star to mold its creation. In the gray beginnings of this planet there existed a formless mass t
hat reposed amid the slime and vapors. Cthulhu touched it and gave it form and purpose. He gave the earth elemental arms, legs, and a mouth. Cleansing it with the blood of the bodies of the mortal creatures that inhabited the planet he christened his new brother Yath Notep.”
It dawned on me then that the Doctor was quoting translations of the Necronomicon like someone quoting the scriptures.
“Cthulhu instructed Yath Notep in the secrets of the spatial dimension, until finally, the end came.
Utilizing the fantastic devices the Elder Race had invented, employing advanced principals of energy, they were able to expel dreaded Cthulhu and its brothers into bordering dimensional prisons.
“A penal colony encompassing an entire solar system was employed, with one planet cool and green with fertility as the home of its wardens.
“In this prison dimension the Old Ones would remain exiled forever, unless the astral bonds in which their fantastic jailers chained them were shattered.
“But one brother remained. Yath Notep still roamed unchecked across his small home planet. It was the new dwelling place of the interstellar jailers. The wardens, living on the green sphere were surprised to discover that the Earth Elemental had somehow been unaffected by the dimensional forces.
“The Elders rounded up Yath Notep and his small band of minions, mostly subhuman races such as the serpent children of Yig, the Night Gaunts and Yath Notep’s Pilot Demons and drove them into a subterranean cavern...N’Kai, the Black Realm. The Elder Beings chose the prison well. It was a deep chasm that lead to the center of the planet. There was only one way of entry and exit and this was sealed by a massive star stone quarried in one piece from solid granite and lashed to the surface of the planet. The opening was sealed shut by the very same device that imprisoned Yath Notep’s creator.
