Acolytes of Cthulhu

by Robert M. Price

  I never used to have nightmares, I never used to feel an awful fear of an enclosed room. I never used to wake in the middle of the night with a dread of a monstrous unclean thing coming toward me out of the dark, so that I must fumble frantically for the light cord, and lie sweating afterwards, and fear to sleep again.

  I wish I had never clicked on my flashlight, there in that passage behind the tomb. Something stopped there, half revealed at the end of my pale beam of light. I know only that it wasn’t human. I fired the gun and I didn’t miss. There were only three bullets left, and I remember hearing every one of them hit with a soggy, sucking sound like pebbles thrown into thick mud. It could not have been more than ten seconds, but it was ten eternities. I suddenly knew that it did not fear the light, but was only momentarily confused.

  And then—it came just a little nearer into the beam of light and stood fully revealed. I didn’t hear myself scream, but I know I must have, for my throat was raw afterward. I felt my mind slipping slowly away into a chaos of vertiginous horror. I knew it was I that moved, and I must have screamed again. Yes, it was I who moved steadily, slowly closer; and I could not help myself! I knew I must move closer still, until…

  Until what, I never knew; for at that moment, strangely, I seemed touched with a surging wave of coolness that beat down my rising panic. It no longer seemed I that moved; it was another part of me—a part that had been eons ago, that was trying now to go back to the soft, safe warmth of the primordial. It was the kind of ecstatic feeling I’d had as a child when I squeezed thick black mud between my hands—but this was magnified a thousandfold, cozy and dreamy and logical.

  And yet there was something wrong, vaguely disturbing. There was another I, unimportant and far away somewhere, but persistently imploring… imploring me not to succumb, not to go back… to remember. Remember what? That tiny faraway me was so pitifully amusing, as it tried with a feeble sort of intensity to burst the surrounding comfortable darkness. It was trying to tell me… something to do with…

  A dream? Was that it? Seemingly eons ago I remembered a dream a friend had told me… of something irresistibly drawing… an affinity…

  How swiftly did comprehension flee back to me then, through a newly rising panic, as I remembered! How quickly I was back in that passage again as the ancient part of me and the present part of me merged with a frantic rush, and I saw…

  Then it was that I screamed, for the third and final time, an articulate scream: “Bruce!…”

  I was very near now to that thing that was drawing me, and I saw it quite clearly—but with that last articulate scream, something about me abruptly shivered, wavered, and I felt a sudden surge of power. I could feel something trying to help me tear my mind away; something softly, subtly, urgently aiding me; something whispering, “Do not come! Do not move! Go back! Now! Quickly!”

  And that urging was the greatest horror of all, for I knew Bruce was there…

  By what supreme effort I did tear my eyes and mind away, I shall never know. I do not remember it. I only remember the frantic escape up that last ten feet of slope… of something surging soundlessly behind, something that touched my ankle as I squeezed through the broken rectangle into the tomb… and the awful sodden sound of it hitting, seconds too late, with a sort of squish like a heavy wet sponge against a wall…

  There remained one more thing to be done. Out of the tomb I fled, across the graveyard and into the ravine. I knew now what I was searching for, and I found it despite the darkness. I found it, well concealed in a little gully behind masses of bush and vine—the other end of that passage.

  I saw the iron-barred gate across the tiny entrance, probably placed there by Lyle Wilson himself. It now stood open with a snap-lock hanging from it. Just inside the gate I could dimly see Lyle Wilson, a crouching figure, rapt and listening. He had heard my revolver shots, he had heard my screams—and then silence. Now he began another of those low chants that gradually rose in volume to a jubilant paean of praise. I could not have remembered the words even if I had wanted to. They were hardly even articulate words. I saw him accompany it with an unholy little ritual and dance that ordinarily would have sickened me to the soul; but already I was beyond that.

  He didn’t hear or see me until I had leaped forward to swing that gate shut upon him and snap the lock. The most horrible part of it was that his chant didn’t even stop as he rushed at me, clawing, with a whitish sort of foam around his mouth. He crashed into the gate, tugged furiously at it… and then his chant turned into a sickening gurgle of terror as he quite suddenly realized what was going to happen. He sank down just within the tunnel, groveling in stark fear. I think his mind snapped, for soon his cries reverted again to an incoherent gibberish, like the memory of a horrible language long dead.

  I waited there until I was very sure I heard—coming swiftly nearer down the tunnel—that surging primordial horror.

  I have destroyed, of course, the book which Bruce was reading on that last night. And I, myself, may someday forget most of those excerpts at which I glanced. But never the one which read: “…whomsoever be attracted unto Them (by ye nefarious ynfluence wych They project when invoked), doth remain forever a part of Them, nott dead, but new and oddly bodied, instructing ye very grounds…”

  I have said it was ten seconds that were ten eternities, there in the darkness of that passage, but my mind was numbed then. It is the horrible remembering later…

  If there be gods, I pray to them to set my brain at rest. And as surely as there be things of evil, I pray to them to let me forget. But neither prayer is answered, so I must still remember that writhing, surging thing of iridescent evil, all shapes and yet shapeless… that primal, quasi-amorphous thing that moved as worms move… that sightless mass, not complete of itself, but with the power to draw men to it.

  That much I could forget. That much would not make me dream, or wake up screaming with an awful fear of the dark.

  But those dim faces that peered from out of it; that were now eternally part of it, still horribly alive and wide-eyed with the terrible anguish of knowing… those human faces that could not speak, could only implore in silent agony that I destroy them and this thing that should not be… those distorted faces enmeshed and enfolded in the confluent parts of that blasphemous thing, those faces among which I saw, dimly but surely, that of my friend, Bruce Tarleton…

  OUT OF THE JAR

  BY CHARLES R. TANNER

  WE ALL HAVE FRIENDS WE WOULD LIKE TO SEE STUFFED INTO a jar… don’t deny it… it has been that way since time began… So be a little careful next time you pick up a little jar at the knickknack counter at your hospital bazaar… be sure it’s empty…

  I am presenting here, at the insistence of my friend, James Francis Denning, an account of an event or series of events which, he says, occurred to him during the late summer and early fall of 1940. I do so, not because I concur in the hope which Denning has that it may arouse serious investigation of the phenomena he claims took place, but merely that a statement of those phenomena may be placed on record, as a case history for future students of occult phenomena or—psychology. Personally, I am still unpersuaded under which head this narration should be placed.

  Were my mind one of those which accepts witches, vampires and werewolves in the general scheme of things, I would not doubt for a moment the truth of Denning’s tale, for certainly the man believes it himself; and his lack of imagination and matter-of-fact mode of living up until the time of the occurrence speak strongly in his favor. And then too, there is the mental breakdown of the brilliant young Edward Barnes Halpin, as added evidence. This young student of occult history and the vague lesser known cults and religions was a fairly close acquaintance of Denning’s for years, and it was at Denning’s home that he suffered the stroke which made him the listless, stricken thing that he is today. That much is fact and can be attested to by any number of people. As to Denning’s explanation, I can only say that it deserves a thorough investigation.
If there is any truth in it at all, the truth should certainly be verified and recorded. And so, to the story.

  * * *

  It began, Denning says, in the summer of last year, when he attended a sale disposing of the stock of one of those little secondhand stores that call themselves antique shops and are known to most people as junk shops. There was the usual hodge-podge of Indian curios, glassware, Victorian furniture and old books; and Denning attended it as he did every event of this kind, allowing himself to indulge in the single vice which he had—that of filling his home with a stock of cheap and useless curios from all parts of the world.

  At this particular sale he emerged triumphantly with a carved elephant tusk, an Alaskan medicine man’s mask and—an earthenware jar. This jar was a rather ordinary thing, round-bodied, with a very short cylindrical neck and with a glazed band around its center, blue glaze, with curious angular characters in yellow that even the rather illiterate Denning could see bore a certain relation to Greek characters. The auctioneer called it very old, said it was Syriac or Samaritan and called attention to the seal which was affixed to the lid. This lid was of earthenware similar to the jar and was set in the mouth after the manner of a cork and a filling of what seemed to be hard-baked clay sealed it in. And on this baked clay, or whatever it was, had been stamped a peculiar design—two triangles interwoven to form a six-pointed star, with three unknown characters in the center. Although the auctioneer was as ignorant as Denning as to the real significance of this seal, he made a mystery of it and Denning was hooked. He bought the thing and brought it home, where it found a place, in spite of his wife’s objections, on the mantle in the living room.

  And there it rested, in a questionable obscurity, for a matter of four or five months. I say questionable obscurity, for as near as I can gather it was the bone of contention, during most of that time, between Denning and his wife. It was but natural, I think, that this estimable lady should object to having the best room in their little home filled with what were to her a mass of useless objects. Yet nothing was done about it. In the light of Denning’s story of subsequent events, it seems almost incredible that that frightful thing could sit there, day after day, in that commonplace living room, being taken down and dusted now and then, and carelessly placed back.

  Yet such was the case, and such remained the case until the first visit of young Halpin. This young man was an acquaintance of Denning’s of long standing, and their friendship had been slowly ripening during the last year, owing to the fact that Halpin was able to add much to Denning’s knowledge of the curios which he accumulated. Both of them worked for the same company and seeing each other every day, it was not unusual that they had become quite friendly in spite of the fact that neither had ever visited the other’s home. But Denning’s description of certain carvings on the elephant’s tusk which he had bought interested young Halpin sufficiently to cause him to pay a visit to Denning’s home to make a personal examination of the tusk.

  Halpin, at this time, was still under thirty, yet he had become already a recognized authority in this country of that queer borderland of mystic occult study that Churchward, Fort, Lovecraft and the Miskatonic school represent. His articles on some of the obscure chapters of d’Erlette’s Cultes des Goules has been accepted favorably by American occult students, as well as his translations of the hitherto expurgated sections of the Gaelic Leabhar Mor Dubh. In all, he was a most promising student and one in whom the traits of what now seem to have been incipient dementia praecox were conspicuous by their absence. Indeed, one of his strongest characteristics, Denning tells me, was a pronounced interest in almost everything about him.

  * * *

  “He was like that, the night that he first visited me,” says Denning. “He looked over the tusk, explained all the curious carvings that he could and made little sketches of the remaining figures, to take away and study. Then his eyes began roving about the room and pretty soon they noticed some other little thing, I don’t remember just what, and he began talking about that. I had a couple of Folsom points—those curious flints that are supposed to be much older than any other American artifacts—and he spoke about them for nearly twenty minutes.

  “Then he laid them down and was up and around the room again; and presently he picked up something else and was talking about that. I used to learn an awful lot from Ed Halpin, but I think I learned more that night than I ever did at any other one time. And at last his eyes lit on that jar.”

  Yes, his eyes lit on the jar and started the series of happenings that at last made this story necessary. For Halpin was stricken with a sudden curiosity, picked up the jar and glanced over it, and then suddenly became wildly excited. “Why, it’s old!” he ejaculated. “It’s ancient Hebrew, Jim. Where in the world did you get it?”

  Denning told him, but his curiosity was unappeased. He spent several minutes trying to extract from Denning a knowledge which it became obvious that the latter did not possess. It was easy to see that Halpin already knew more concerning the jar than did Denning, and so his questions ceased.

  “But surely you know what it is supposed to be, don’t you?” quizzed Halpin. “Didn’t the auctioneer tell you anything about it? Didn’t you see the previous owner? Lord, Denning! How can you find interest in these things, if you don’t learn all you can of them?”

  Denning was rendered apologetic by his evident exasperation, and Halpin suddenly relented, laughed and started to explain.

  “That six-pointed star, Jim, is known as Solomon’s seal. It has been a potent sign used in Hebraic Cabala for thousands of years. What has me interested is its use in connection with Phoenician characters around the body of the vase. That seems to indicate a real antiquity. It might just be possible that this is actually the seal of Solomon himself! Jim,” his attitude suddenly changed, “Jim, sell me this thing, will you?”

  Now, it seems incredible that Denning saw no slightest gleam of light in this guarded explanation of Halpin’s. The young student certainly was aware of much of the importance of the jar, but Denning insists that the explanation meant nothing whatever to him. To be sure, Denning was no student, he had probably never heard of the Cabala, nor of Abdul Alhazred or Joachim of Cordoba, but surely, in his youth he had read the “Arabian Nights.” Even that should have given him a clue. Apparently not—he tells me that he refused Halpin’s offer to buy the vase, simply because of a collector’s vagary. He felt that, well, to use his own words: “If it was worth ten dollars to him, it was worth ten dollars to me.”

  And so, though Halpin increased the offer which he first made, Denning was obdurate. Halpin left with merely an invitation to come back at any time and examine the vase to his heart’s content.

  * * *

  During the next three weeks, Halpin did return, several times. He copied down the inscription on the blue band, made a wax impression of the seal, photographed the vase and even went so far as to measure it and weigh it. And all the time his interest increased and his bids for the thing rose higher. At last, unable to raise his offer further, he was reduced to pleading with Denning that he sell it, and at this, Denning grew angry.

  “I told him,” says Denning, “I told him that I was getting sick and tired of his begging. I said I wasn’t going to sell it to him and that, even if it cost me our friendship, that vase was going to stay mine. Then he started on another line. He wanted to open it and see what was inside.

  “But I had a good excuse for not complying with that plea. He himself had told me of the interest that attached to the seal on the clay and I wasn’t going to have that broken if I knew myself. I was so positive on this score that he gave in and apologized again. At least, I thought he gave in. I know different now, of course.”

  We all know different now. Halpin had decided to open the vase at any cost, and so had merely given up the idea of trying to buy it. We must not think, however, that he had been reduced to the status of a common thief in spite of his later actions. The young man’s attitude was e
xplainable to anyone who can understand the viewpoint of a student of science. Here was an opportunity to study one of the most perplexing problems of occult art, and obstinacy, combined with ignorance, was trying to prevent it. He determined to circumvent Denning, no matter to what depths he had to stoop.

  * * *

  Thus it was that several nights later Jim Denning was awakened, sometime during the early morning hours, by a slight, unusual noise on the lower floor of his home. At first but half awake, he lay and listlessly pondered the situation. Had his wife awakened and gone downstairs for a midnight snack? Or had he heard, perhaps, a mouse in the kitchen? Could it be a sleeping sigh from his wife’s bed made him realize that it wasn’t she and at the same moment came a repetition of the sound—a dull “clunk” as of metal striking muffled metal. Instantly alert, he rose from his pillow, stepped out of bed, fumbled for robe and slippers and was tiptoeing down the steps, stopping only long enough to get his revolver from the drawer in which he kept it.

  From the landing he could see a dim light in the living room, and again he heard the “clunk” that he had heard before. By leaning far over the banister, he was able to look into the living room, where he could see, by the light of a flashlight lying on the floor, the dark form of a man; his long overcoat and hat effectively concealing all his features. He was stooping over a round object, and as Denning looked, he raised a hammer and brought it down sharply but carefully on a chisel which he held in his hand. The hammer’s head was wrapped in rags and again Denning heard the dull noise which had awakened him.

  Of course, Denning knew at once who the dark form was. He knew that the round object was his vase. But he hesitated to make an outcry or even to interrupt the other for several seconds. He seemed a little uncertain as to the reason for this, but I am convinced, from what I know of Denning’s character, that curiosity had gotten the better of him. Half consciously, he was determined to find out just why Halpin was so interested in the vase. So he remained silent, and it was only after several seconds that some slight noise he made caused Halpin to turn in a panic. As he did so, the last bit of seal crumbled from the jar, and rising, he still clung unconsciously to the lid. The jar turned over on its side and lay there for a moment unnoticed. Halpin was almost horror-stricken at the realization that he had been caught, as the lawyers say, in flagrante delicto. He burst into chattering, pleading speech.