Fear Club- A Confession

by Damian Stephens

  waking; dreams with other dreams.”

  “Oh,” I said. “So, when I went to that place, before—the other Golem Creek—and woke up from there, I—”

  “Didn’t remember this place,” Julie finished. “Right. Like how most people forget their regular dreams.”

  “All right,” I said. “Wonderful. So we get into GCU, we get the other key, and then—wait, how precisely are we supposed to get to GCU without forgetting who we are?”

  Everyone turned to look at Roland, who gazed sheepishly back.

  “I can’t exactly guarantee that such a thing won’t happen,” he finally said. “However, it’s my suspicion that we can safeguard the procedure, to some extent.”

  “How’s that?” I asked.

  “With an anchor,” he answered.

  “An anchor,” Julie repeated. “Okay. You mean like a talisman, of some sort?”

  “Indeed!” Roland said excitedly. “For example, the pen I gave to Charles initially not only provided him with the ability to translate dream-messages. It was also enough of this dream—my dream—to allow me to communicate with him in the alternate timeline.”

  The memory of strange communications from a dream figure of years ago came back to me. “That was you all that time ago?” I said.

  “Doing my best to help!” he said.

  “But then Julie—and the resurrection spell—” I said, trying to put it together. “How did you get into her dreams? She didn’t have an anchor.” I turned to Julie. “You didn’t have an anchor, did you?”

  Julie shook her head. “Nope,” she said. “I only met this guy the other day. Or whatever.”

  Roland actually frowned at this point. I saw that it was difficult for him; his muscles didn’t seem to want to do it.

  “I’m not the only one who can do what I do,” he said. “There are others.”

  “You’re saying that Julie’s dreams weren’t from you?” I said.

  Roland nodded. “Unfortunately,” he said. “My suspicion is that it was Curwen’s doing. When you absorbed Michael’s essence at his demise, at the hospital, you all became susceptible to his magic.” “Like Mike’s curse got transferred to us,” Steve said.

  “That’s one way of putting it,” Roland said. “At any rate, I fear that the instruction Julie received in her dreams was of a sufficiently—well, darker variety than anything I would have considered appropriate.”

  Julie looked to me and Steve, then back to Roland. “So what you’re saying is—”

  Steve chuckled. “He’s saying that it’s all your fault, Julie!” he said.

  Julie gave Steve her usual sour look. “Oh, right!” she said sarcastically. “Of course. Because you weren’t anywhere to be found throughout all of this. Asshole.”

  Steve’s smile faded. “Touch´e, mon fr`ere,” he said in bad French. “Or whatever.”

  “Guys, I think this is an opportune time to fucking drop the blame and guilt routines, okay?” I suggested. “Roland, do you have pens for them too?”

  He stood up from the table and rubbed his hands together. “Better than pens!” he said. “I’ll be right back!” He jogged out of the room.

  “That guy’s pretty spry for being like a million years old,” Steve said.

  “I still want to know what we do when we get back from GCU,” I said. “If we get back.”

  “Well, other than not falling asleep when we’re there—” she answered.

  “Or blowing up,” Steve cut in.

  “Right. Or blowing up. Then we get back here

  and unlock that pyramid,” Julie said. “What’s in the pyramid?” I asked.

  “It’s Laban Black’s tomb!” Steve said excitedly. “Can you believe that shit?”

  “Exactly,” Julie said. “But we need that other key—the one made entirely of dream-stuff—to get in there. Roland sketched us a map of what he knows.” She indicated amidst the items on the table a brilliant pen-and-ink masterpiece on one large sheet of paper, displaying the cross-section of a pyramid with some tunnels and rooms visible in the midst of it. There were also some clearly delineated blank spots.

  “What are those?” I asked, pointing to one of them.

  “Parts that he can’t see,” Julie said.

  Beneath the sketch I saw the map from the little palm-size journal, unfolded and held down with pewter D & D figurines. I leaned over it and pointed to the triangle shape labeled “L.B.”

  “Laban Black’s tomb,” I said. “So he didn’t go back to Wales?”

  “He made it look like he did,” Julie said.

  “But then he had a bunch of hell-creatures build this place for him,” Steve continued, “and he set it up as a ‘safe place’ to retreat to.”

  “Retreat?” I asked. “From what?”

  “Those demons, those monsters,” Julie said, “that used to come out of the Murk? That was just like a trickle before a flood. The magic spells and evocations and stuff? Like in medieval grimoires? Those were ways of making cracks in the astral fabric of the world, to let certain demons in.”

  “So when enough people make enough cracks—” Steve started.

  “The dam breaks,” I finished. “And we get flooded.” I recalled my experience in the wishing well. “I should have known.”

  “Right,” Steve said.

  “So Laban made a place, a safe place to go, if the world went all to shit,” I said.

  “Indeed,” Roland chimed in, striding back into the room. He carried a grocery bag in both hands before him. “But he was wise enough to provide a few failsafe mechanisms, hidden deep within his dreaming.” He set the bag down on the table.

  “His dreaming,” I repeated. “But that means...” “Yes,” Julie said. “He’s in that pyramid. Right

  now. But he’s asleep.”

  “A magical sleep,” Roland said, “which he induced just prior to death, to avoid death.”

  My mind was reeling. A magical sleep, to avoid death. “Okay, great,” I said. “Got it. Does someone want to tell me what we’re supposed to do when we get in there?”

  “Oh, right,” Steve said. “Sorry. Roland’s pretty sure that we can stop Mike from ever getting through and blowing up the dam if we somehow use that key.”

  “Where’s Mike?” I asked. Everyone shook their heads.

  Roland looked truly apologetic. “Beyond my powers,” he said. “Michael appears to be shielded, somehow. Cloaked. After returning from his initial demise, I have been utterly unaware of him.”

  Steve got up from the table and headed over to a couch in the corner, where he began urgently packing a bag with wrapped sandwiches, Cokes, and multiple packs of cigarettes that lay strewn out around it.

  “Who the hell knows how long this is gonna take?” he said. “Gotta prepare!”

  “These ought to suffice, as anchors,” Roland said, reaching into the bag. “I’m guessing that these items could probably demonstrate additional powers in the other worlds.” I noted that he made the word plural. “Just like the pen I gave to Charles. Tangential magical phenomena are actually quite a fascinating study. One fellow from Golders Green has written a treatise dealing in part with this—” “Graxx!” Steve dashed back to the table as Roland placed an inch-tall pewter figurine of a D & D character on it.

  “Especially for you, Steve!” Roland said as Steve gingerly lifted the figure into the air, gazing lovingly at it.

  “And for you, m’lady,” Roland said, handing a small, yellow rectangle to Julie. “May it be a light to you in darkness!”

  Julie smiled and turned the lighter over. A look of delighted surprise came over her features. “This is a fucking Soloviev faberg´e! Do you realize how valuable this is?” She shook a cigarette out of a pack from her pocket, and lit it. The flame gleamed instantly, brightly.

  Roland was beaming. “I th
ought you’d like that,” he said. “More importantly, I need you each to have something that you won’t lose.”

  He presented me with a tiny, pink-plastic sandwich sword. Steve started whooping with laughter immediately.

  I frowned. “Um, Roland—” I started.

  “Just don’t lose it,” Roland said, immediately rolling up the grocery bag and turning his attention back to the maps. “And remember that the purpose is simple: to ensure that you are not lost in someone else’s dreaming permanently, outside the Place of Solace.”

  Not wanting to advertise my incredible “talisman” any longer than necessary, I shoved it into my pants pocket. Even Julie was stifling laughter, and refused to meet my eyes for moments after.

  Roland was rolling up the maps for us to take with us. Suddenly, the memory of the car ride with the monster hunters after Amanda’s party came back to me. “Oh, my God!” I shouted. “That’s right. They wanted to kill him!”

  Everyone stopped and turned to me. “Who wanted to—” Julie started.

  “Those monster hunters!” I said. “That’s what they were trying to do! Kill Mike! Before—”

  “Before Pete killed them,” Julie finished.

  Steve gasped. “Pete killed them?” he said. “Holy shit. Why the fuck didn’t anyone tell me this?” He set his backpack down with a sigh. “Now who the fuck am I gonna buy grass from?”

  Roland directed us to a secret doorway that looked exactly like a wall between two other doors.

  “Clever idea,” I said. Roland beamed.

  The door opened to reveal a finely cobbled city street by night, lit by gas lamps on either side. Their flickering lights illuminated darkened shop windows.

  “My dreaming ends shortly after the bend in the lane,” Roland said. “But I’m guessing the campus will be populated, based on what’s in that journal. So you ought to be able to ask someone for directions.”

  As usual, Steve simply bustled through the door. “Sounds good, old man,” Steve said.

  Julie followed him through. “Are you sure that all three of us should go at once?” she asked, turning.

  Roland nodded. “Much greater chance that I can home in on you—as long as you stick together! I probably could have done a much better job with Charley’s return if that had been the case.”

  I patted Roland on the shoulder. “Thank you, Roland,” I said. “I’m going to try to make this quick.”

  Roland chuckled. “Just do your best!” he said. “I have confidence in all of you!”

  I finally became fully aware of the magnificence of the Place of Solace, the World Behind/Beneath/Between (or whatever), and I began to understand something with great clarity. Steve figured it out at almost precisely the same moment, and with his usual tact and clarity, he blurted it out.

  “I’d be pretty fucking pissed off too if someone made me build all this cool shit, and then basically said, ‘Thanks, dude. Oh, and by the way? Fuck you! Get in that hole and stay there!’”

  Even Julie nodded. “No shit,” she said. “I mean, I get it. Laban was like a super-duper magician guy, he knew how to control these demons and shit, but did he have to be such a fucker about it?”

  I had to admit that I was not ambivalent about the matter, either.

  “Yeah,” I said, gazing at the next intricately carven set of statues adorning the lane. “It’s not Roland’s fault, though—”

  “Hell, no,” Steve said. “That guy rocks. He’s only here because of Laban.”

  I noted the bend in the lane up ahead. As we approached, the bend turned sharply to the right, where we were met with a large iron gate set in an archway, spanning the width of the lane. An extremely obvious keyhole sat in the middle of the gate.

  Beyond the gate, the lane opened up into a rather extensive lawn lit by more gas lamps. At the farthest edge of the lawn were stone steps leading up to the pillared front of a classic university building.

  I took out the key. “Hope this works,” I said.

  Julie and Steve both watched intently as I inserted the key and twisted it. A cranking sound, a wheezing, the sound of gears shifting, and suddenly—

  “Looks like we made it,” Julie said. We were on the other side of the gate. “Where did the key go?” I asked.

  Steve shrugged. “We’re in,” he said. “Now we’ve just got to find a secret fraternity party that’s somewhere near a bar that we don’t know the location of, and we’re good to go!”

  “If that party’s even going on tonight,” I said. “Good point,” Julie said. “But the other key

  should be there, one way or the other.”

  At the same moment, I noticed a few people milling about up ahead. Steve sprinted off toward them.

  “He’s ideal bait,” Julie said. “Unthinking, perfectly willing.”

  “At this point, I have no problem with that,” I said.

  Steve was talking animatedly with two welldressed young men moments later. Julie and I decided to hang back and let him work his dysfunctional magic on them.

  We sat down on a bench near one of the lamps. I felt the little plastic sandwich sword in my pants pocket, and shifted until I could ignore it.

  Steve appeared to be shaking hands with one of the guys. All three were laughing. Then one of them pulled out a pen and appeared to make a sketch on a sheet of paper.

  “How does he do that?” I asked. Julie was shaking her head.

  Moments later, Steve trotted back to us. “Peace of cake, dudes!” he said, waving the

  sheet of paper in my face. “They thought it was some kind of test. They kept calling me ‘Finnegan,’ and I just kept denying it!”

  I grabbed the flyer and looked at it. It was an unlabeled map with an X at the center, a curvy line leading past a few squares, and a star with a circle around it at the end of the line.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “That’s us, at the X?” Steve nodded. “Yep,” he said, grabbing the paper back. “We should maybe stop at that party

  for a minute, you know, after getting the key—” “Don’t you think that was a little too, you

  know, easy?” Julie remarked.

  I shrugged. “Easy or not, it’s a lead,” I said. “Let’s just give it a shot.”

  That’s a TERRIBLE idea!

  The three of us immediately jolted. The voice came—thunderingly loud, in fact—but somehow quite obviously not “out there.”

  “You guys heard that—” I began.

  Of COURSE they did! the thunder spoke. Look at them! Shitting their pants—just like YOU!

  The internal rumbling faded. Julie spoke first. “Roland?” she said sheepishly.

  Oh, how fucking TYPICAL! it pounded out. You meet ONE Dreamkeeper and you think he’s responsible for—

  “He said that he wasn’t going to be available at this point,” Steve said, wagging a finger at Julie. She glared at him.

  Don’t interrupt me!

  Steve shut up.

  Now—are you SURE you want to go through with this? the voice asked. Getting that other key, I mean?

  We all looked at each other. A breeze had picked up, and there appeared to be something of a crowd gathering near the steps of the building up ahead. Because, you COULD just stick around, you know, it continued. Join them at the Midsummer Revelry! It’s a blast. The Fairy Queen’s super-cute. Maybe finish a degree? Or two? Easy enough to arrange. THOSE fuckers seem to be enjoying it.

  Somehow we knew it was indicating the crowd of people that had gathered.

  “Can I ask” —I hesitated, momentarily— “who you are?”

  Certainly, it said without answering. Now, I’m just going to warn you once more. THERE WILL BE BLOOD. Just imagine it. I’m talking BUCKETS of that shit! Like CARRIE-level shit, man!

  “Like who?” Steve asked.

  Never mind, i
t responded. All right. You want to play stupid? Fine.

  “I don’t want to play stupid!” I insisted. Julie was nodding frantically.

  Go ahead and get your little fucking key. The voice went silent.

  We found the door labeled “TRAP.” Whatever the “Midsummer Revelry” was had kicked in by the time we got there—people were getting trashed by the truckload fast.

  “What did I tell you guys?” Steve said. “Cake.

  Just cake.”

  Entering through it—

  ~~~

  Yuletide 1936.

  The Old Court Providence, RI

  My dear Laban,

  This man Lovecraft turns out to be as surly and quite as ingenious as you indicated in your letter of the 4th. He has been worn down, at least; but whatever it is that the physicians are providing him with fails to loosen his tongue quite enough for our purposes. I fear that we do not have much time. When I saw him last (just two days ago), he appeared thin as a rail and white as a sheet.

  Something eats away at him more thoroughly than the rot in his belly. I read what I could find of his work, but the bits and pieces are hardly enlightening. Trying to guess the location of the Carter property from the hints in the story is like trying to find one particular star in the night sky while wearing a blindfold! Even then, who’s to say that the Snake Den isn’t a relic or some indefinable mound of earth by this point?

  The formulas he provided, however, were quite correct. There is nothing we can really do about that; sufficient obscurations were provided when he published them that he has broken no oaths of obligation.

  We cannot at this time force his hand.

  I have given him the V.S., with hopes that he will make use of it in time. I fear he is quite done with us all, and recommend that you return to Candleston for one last look.

  Yr. Obt. Svt.,

  C. F.

  The letter ended with a flourish and the curious sigil that Curwen Flowers used to ensure that it would be read by none other than its intended recipient. Laban Black eased himself back from a great antique desk before the library window of his estate in Golem Creek and gazed at the snowfall outside. Other than crackling of embers from the hearth and wheezing of icy winds through pores in the house’s walls, there was silence.