Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos

by H. P. Lovecraft; Various

  “We’re almost there,” said Frolin.

  The lights of the car passed over a jagged pine, lightning-struck years ago, and standing still with two gaunt limbs arched like gnarled arms toward the road: an old landmark to which Frolin’s words called my attention, since he knew I would remember it but half a mile from the house.

  “If grandfather should ask,” he said then, “I’d rather you said nothing about my sending for you. I don’t know that he’d like it. You can tell him you were in the Midwest and came up for a visit.”

  I was curious anew, but forbore to press Frolin further. “He does know I’m coming, then?”

  “Yes. I said I had word from you and was going down to meet your train.”

  I could understand that if the old man thought Frolin had sent for me about his health, he would be annoyed and perhaps angry; and yet more than this was implied in Frolin’s request, more than just the simple salving of grandfather’s pride. Once more that odd, intangible alarm rose up within me, that sudden, inexplicable feeling of fear.

  The house looked forth suddenly in a clearing among the pines. It had been built by an uncle of grandfather’s in Wisconsin’s pioneering days, back in the 1850s: by one of the seafaring Alwyns of Innsmouth, that strange, dark town on the Massachusetts coast. It was an unusually unattractive structure, snug against the hillside like a crusty old woman in furbelows. It defied many architectural standards without, however, seeming ever fully free of most of the superficial facets of architecture circa 1850, making for the most grotesque and pompous appearance of structures of that day. It suffered a wide verandah, one side of which led directly into the stables where, in former days, horses, surreys, and buggies had been kept, and where now two cars were housed—the only corner of the building which gave any evidence at all of having been remodeled since it was built. The house rose two and one-half stories above a cellar floor; presumably, for darkness made it impossible to ascertain, it was still painted the same hideous brown; and judging by what light shone forth from the curtained windows, grandfather had not yet taken the trouble to install electricity, a contingency for which I had come well prepared by carrying a flashlight and an electric candle, with extra batteries for both.

  Frolin drove into the garage, left the car, and carrying some of my baggage, led the way down the verandah to the front door, a massive, thick-paneled oak piece, decorated with a ridiculously large iron knocker. The hall was dark, save for a partly open door at the far end, out of which came a faint light which was yet enough to illumine spectrally the broad stairs leading to the upper floor.

  “I’ll take you to your room first,” said Frolin, leading the way up the stairs, surefooted with habitual walking there. “There’s a flashlight on the newel post at the landing,” he added. “If you need it. You know the old man.”

  I found the light and lit it, making only enough delay so that when I caught up with Frolin, he was standing at the door of my room, which, I noticed, was almost directly over the front entrance and thus faced west, as did the house itself.

  “He’s forbidden us to use any of the rooms east of the hall up here,” said Frolin, fixing me with his eyes, as much as to say: You see how queer he’s got! He waited for me to say something, but since I did not, he went on. “So I have the room next to yours, and Hough is on the other side of me, in the southwest corner. Right now, as you might have noticed, Hough’s getting something to eat.”

  “And grandfather?”

  “Very likely in his study. You’ll remember that room.”

  I did indeed remember that curious windowless room, built under explicit directions by Great-Uncle Leander, a room that occupied the majority of the rear of the house, the entire northwest corner and all the west width save for a small corner at the southwest, where the kitchen was, the kitchen from which a light had streamed into the lower hall at our entrance. The study had been pushed partway back into the hill slope, so the east wall could not have windows, but there was no reason save Uncle Leander’s eccentricity for the windowless north wall. Squarely in the center of the east wall, indeed, built into the wall, was an enormous painting, reaching from the floor to the ceiling and occupying a width of over six feet. If this painting, apparently executed by some unknown friend of Uncle Leander’s, if not by my great-uncle himself, had had about it any mark of genius or even of unusual talent, this display might have been overlooked, but it did not, it was a perfectly prosaic representation of a north country scene, showing a hillside, with a rocky cave opening out into the center of the picture, a scarcely defined path leading to the cave, an impressionistic beast which was evidently meant to resemble a bear, once common in this country, walking toward it, and overhead something that looked like an unhappy cloud lost among the pines rising darkly all around. This dubious work of art completely and absolutely dominated the study, despite the shelves of books that occupied almost every available niche in what remained of the walls in that room, despite the absurd collection of oddities strewn everywhere—bits of curiously carven stone and wood, strange mementos of great-uncle’s seafaring life. The study had all the lifelessness of a museum, and yet, oddly, it responded to my grandfather like something alive, even the painting on the wall seeming to take on an added freshness whenever he entered.

  “I don’t think anyone who ever stepped into that room could forget it,” I said with a grim smile.

  “He spends most of his time there. Hardly goes out at all, and I suppose, with winter coming on, he’ll come out only for his meals. He’s moved his bed, too.”

  I shuddered. “I can’t imagine sleeping in that room.”

  “No, nor I. But you know, he’s working on something, and I sincerely believe his mind has been affected.”

  “Another book on his travels, perhaps?”

  He shook his head. “No, a translation, I think. Something different. He found some old papers of Leander’s one day, and ever since then he seems to have got progressively worse.” He raised his eyebrows and shrugged. “Come on. Hough will have supper ready by this time, and you’ll see for yourself.”

  Frolin’s cryptic remarks had led me to expect an emaciated old man. After all, grandfather was in his early seventies, and even he could not be expected to live forever. But he had not changed physically at all, as far as I could see. There he sat at his supper table—still the same hardy old man, his moustache and beard not yet white, but only iron grey, and still with plenty of black in them; his face was no less heavy, his color no less ruddy. At the moment of my entrance he was eating heartily from the drumstick of a turkey. Seeing me, he raised his eyebrows a little, took the drumstick from his lips, and greeted me with no more excitement than if I had been away from him but half an hour.

  “You’re looking well,” he said.

  “And you,” I said. “An old war-horse.”

  He grinned. “My boy, I’m on the trail of something new—some unexplored country apart from Africa, Asia, and the Arctic regions.”

  I flashed a glance at Frolin. Clearly, this was news to him; whatever hints grandfather might have dropped of his activities, they had not included this.

  He asked then about my trip west, and the rest of the supper hour was taken up with small talk of other relatives. I observed that the old man returned insistently to long-forgotten relatives in Innsmouth: What had become of them? Had I ever seen them? What did they look like? Since I knew practically nothing of the relatives in Innsmouth, and had the firm conviction that all had died in a strange catastrophe which had washed many inhabitants of that shunned city out to sea, I was not helpful. But the tenor of these innocuous questions puzzled me no little. In my capacity as librarian at Miskatonic University, I had heard strange and disturbing hints of the business in Innsmouth, I knew something of the appearance of Federal men there, and stories of foreign agents had never had about them that essential ring of truth which made a plausible explanation for the terrible events which had taken place in that city. He wanted to know at last wh
ether I had ever seen pictures of them, and when I said I had not, he was quite patently disappointed.

  “Do you know,” he said dejectedly, “there does not exist even a likeness of Uncle Leander, but the old-timers around Harmon told me years ago that he was a very homely man, that he reminded them of a frog.” Abruptly, he seemed more animated, he began to talk a little faster. “Do you have any conception of what that means, my boy? But no, you wouldn’t have. It’s too much to expect.…”

  He sat for a while in silence, drinking his coffee, drumming on the table with his fingers and staring into space with a curiously preoccupied air until suddenly he rose and left the room, inviting us to come to the study when we had finished.

  “What do you make of that?” asked Frolin, when the sound of the study door closing came to us.

  “Curious,” I said. “But I see nothing abnormal there, Frolin. I’m afraid.…”

  He smiled grimly. “Wait. Don’t judge yet; you’ve been here scarcely two hours.”

  We went to the study after supper, leaving the dishes to Hough and his wife, who had served my grandfather for twenty years in this house. The study was unchanged, save for the addition of the old double bed, pushed up against the wall which separated the room from the kitchen. Grandfather was clearly waiting for us, or rather for me, and, if I had had occasion to think cousin Frolin cryptic, there is no word adequate to describe my grandfather’s subsequent conversation.

  “Have you ever heard of the Wendigo?” he asked.

  I admitted that I had come upon it among other north country Indian legends: the belief in a monstrous, supernatural being, horrible to look upon, the haunter of the great forest silences.

  He wanted to know whether I had ever thought of there being a possible connection between this legend of the Wendigo and the air elements, and upon my replying in the affirmative, he expressed a curiosity about how I had come to know the Indian legend in the first place, taking pains to explain that the Wendigo had nothing whatever to do with his question.

  “In my capacity as a librarian, I have occasion to run across a good many out-of-the-way things,” I answered.

  “Ah!” he exclaimed, reaching for a book next to his chair. “Then doubtless you may be familiar with this volume.”

  I looked at the heavy black-bound volume whose title was stamped only on its backbone in goldleaf. The Outsider and Others, by H. P. Lovecraft.

  I nodded. “This book is on our shelves.”

  “You’ve read it, then?”

  “Oh, yes. Most interesting.”

  “Then you’ll have read what he has to say about Innsmouth in his strange story, ‘The Shadow Over Innsmouth.’ What do you make of that?”

  I reflected hurriedly, thinking back to the story, and presently it came to me: a fantastic tale of horrible sea-beings, spawn of Cthulhu, beast of primordial origin, living deep in the sea.

  “The man had a good imagination,” I said.

  “Had! Is he dead, then?”

  “Yes, three years ago.”

  “Alas! I had thought to learn from him.…”

  “But, surely, this fiction …” I began.

  He stopped me. “Since you have offered no explanation of what took place in Innsmouth, how can you be so sure that his narrative is fiction?”

  I admitted that I could not, but it seemed that the old man had already lost interest. Now he drew forth a bulky envelope bearing many of the familiar three-cent 1869 stamps so dear to collectors, and from this took out various papers, which, he said, Uncle Leander had left with instructions for their consignment to the flames. His wish, however, had not been carried out, explained grandfather, and he had come into possession of them. He handed a few sheets to me, and requested my opinion of them, watching me shrewdly all the while.

  The sheets were obviously from a long letter, written in a crabbed hand, and with some of the most awkward sentences imaginable. Moreover, many of the sentences did not seem to me to make sense, and the sheet at which I looked longest was filled with allusions strange to me. My eyes caught words like Ithaqua, Lloigor, Hastur; it was not until I handed the sheets back to my grandfather that it occurred to me that I had seen those words elsewhere, not too long ago. But I said nothing. I explained that I could not help feeling that Uncle Leander wrote with needless obfuscation.

  Grandfather chuckled. “I should have thought that the first thing which would have occurred to you would have been similar to my own reaction, but no, you failed me! Surely it’s obvious that the whole business is a code!”

  “Of course! That would explain the awkwardness of his lines.”

  My grandfather smirked. “A fairly simple code, but adequate—entirely adequate. I have not yet finished with it.” He tapped the envelope, with one index finger. “It seems to concern this house, and there is in it a repeated warning that one must be careful, and not pass beyond the threshold, for fear of dire consequences. My boy, I’ve crossed and recrossed every threshold in this house scores of times, and there have been no consequences. So therefore, somewhere there must exist a threshold I have not yet crossed.”

  I could not help smiling at his animation. “If Uncle Leander’s mind was wandering, you’ve been off on a pretty chase,” I said.

  Abruptly grandfather’s well-known impatience boiled to the surface. With one hand he swept my uncle’s papers away; with the other he dismissed us both, and it was plain to see that Frolin and I had on the instant ceased to exist for him.

  We rose, made our excuses, and left the room.

  In the half-dark of the hall beyond, Frolin looked at me, saying nothing, only permitting his hot eyes to dwell upon mine for a long minute before he turned and led the way upstairs, where we parted, each to go to his own room for the night.

  II

  The nocturnal activity of the subconscious mind has always been of deep interest to me, since it has seemed to me that unlimited opportunities are opened up before every alert individual. I have repeatedly gone to bed with some problem vexing me, only to find it solved, insofar as I am capable of solving it, upon waking. Of those other, more devious activities of the night mind, I have less knowledge. I know that I retired that night with the question of where I had encountered my Uncle Leander’s strange words before strong and foremost in mind, and I know that I went to sleep at last with that question unanswered.

  Yet, when I awoke in the darkness some hours later, I knew at once that I have seen those words, those strange proper names in the book by H. P. Lovecraft which I had read at Miskatonic, and it was only secondarily that I was aware of someone tapping at my door, and called out in a hushed voice.

  “It’s Frolin. Are you awake? I’m coming in.”

  I got up, slipped on my dressing gown, and lit my electric candle. By this time Frolin was in the room, his thin body trembling a little, possibly from the cold, for the September night air flowing through my window was no longer of summer.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  He came over to me, a strange light in his eyes, and put a hand on my arm. “Can’t you hear it?” he asked. “God, perhaps it is my mind.…”

  “No, wait!” I exclaimed.

  From somewhere outside, it seemed, came the sound of weirdly beautiful music: flutes, I thought.

  “Grandfather’s at the radio,” I said. “Does he often listen so late?”

  The expression on his face halted my words. “I own the only radio in the house. It’s in my room, and it’s not playing. The battery’s run down, in any case. Besides, did you ever hear such music on the radio?”

  I listened with renewed interest. The music seemed strangely muffled, and yet it came through. I observed also that it had no definite direction; while before it had seemed to come from outside, it now seemed to come from underneath the house—a curious, chant-like playing of reeds and pipes.

  “A flute orchestra,” I said.

  “Or Pan pipes,” said Frolin.

  “They don’t play them anymore,
” I said absently.

  “Not on the radio,” answered Frolin.

  I looked up at him sharply; he returned my gaze as steadily. It occurred to me that his unnatural gravity had a reason for being, whether or not he wished to put that reason into words. I caught hold of his arms.

  “Frolin—what is it? I can tell you’re alarmed.”

  He swallowed hard. “Tony, that music doesn’t come from anything in the house. It’s from outside.”

  “But who would be outside?” I demanded.

  “Nothing—no one human.”

  It had come at last. Almost with relief I faced this issue I had been afraid to admit to myself must be faced. Nothing—no one human.

  “Then—what agency?” I asked.

  “I think grandfather knows,” he said. “Come with me, Tony. Leave the light; we can make our way in the dark.”

  Out in the hall, I was stopped once more by his hand tense on my arm. “Do you notice?” he whispered sibilantly. “Do you notice this, too?”

  “The smell,” I said. The vague, elusive smell of water, of fish and frogs and the inhabitants of watery places.

  “And now!” he said.

  Quite suddenly the smell of water was gone, and instead came a swift frostiness, flowing through the hall as of something alive, the indefinable fragrance of snow, the crisp moistness of snowy air.

  “Do you wonder I’ve been concerned?” asked Frolin.

  Giving me no time to reply, he led the way downstairs to the door of grandfather’s study, beneath which there shone yet a fine line of yellow light. I was conscious in every step of our descent to the floor below that the music was growing louder, if no more understandable, and now, before the study door, it was apparent that the music emanated from within, and that the strange variety of odors came, too, from that study. The darkness seemed alive with menace, charged with an impending, ominous terror, which enclosed us as in a shell, so that Frolin trembled at my side.