The Lurker at the Threshold: Posthumous Collaborations

by August Derleth

  I read throughout most of that night, and for the remainder of it lay awake, turning over and over in mind the nauseatingly fearful data I had read, myself afraid to sleep, lest in dream I encounter the subconsciously visualized beings of the grotesque and horrible mythology which I had encountered within the past hours not alone in these books, but also in the persuasive instructions of Dr. Seneca Lapham, whose anthropological knowledge few of his contemporaries could equal, and fewer still exceed. Moreover, I was too stirred to sleep, for the concepts revealed to me in the pages of these rare and frightening volumes were so vast and so all-inclusive in the terror and horror they held out for mankind that my sole conscious endeavor was expended in the direction of rationalizing myself once again into a normal state of mind.

  I returned to Dr. Lapham’s office earlier than usual the next morning, but my employer was there before me. He had evidently been working for a long time, for his desk was covered with sheets of paper upon which he had scrawled formulae, graphs, charts, and diagrams of an utterly outré nature.

  “Ah, you have read them,” he said, as I put the books down at one corner of his desk.

  “All night,” I replied.

  “I, too—night after night, when first I discovered them.”

  “If these things are only in the smallest part true, then we shall have to revise all our concepts of time and space—and even, to some extent, of our own beginnings.”

  He nodded imperturbably. “Every scientist knows that most of our knowledge is based upon certain fundamental credos which, faced with a non-terrestrial intelligence, are not provable. Perhaps we shall need ultimately to make certain changes in our credos. What we are faced with in what is commonly called ‘the Unknown’ is still a matter of conjecture, despite these and other books. But I think we cannot doubt but that something exists outside, and this myth-pattern allows of forces of good as well as forces of evil, precisely as do certain other patterns I need not emphasize in too much detail, since you know them—the Christian, the Buddhist, the Mohammedan, the Confucian, the Shinto—in fact, commonly, all known religion-patterns. The reason I say specifically in regard to this particular myth-pattern that we must admit of the existence of something alien outside is simply that, as you will have seen, only by its acceptance at least in large part can we explain not only the strange and terrible accounts chronicled in the adjunctive data in these books, but also a very large, though usually suppressed, body of occurrences antipodally contradictory to the total scientific knowledge of mankind, which occur daily in all parts of the world, some of which have been collected and chronicled in two remarkable books by a comparative unknown named Charles Fort— The Book of the Damned and New Lands— I commend them to your attention.

  “Consider a few facts, and I say ‘facts’ advisedly, allowing for the well-known unreliability of human observers. The fall of stones from the sky at Buschof, Pillitsfer, Nerft, and Dolgovdi in Russia in a period from 1863 into 1864. Of no known terrestrial substance, described as ‘grey, with an occasional flecking of brown.’ The stone from Mnar to which frequent reference is made, I emphasize, is likewise described as a ‘grey stone.’ Similarly, the Rowley ragstones of a few years before in Birmingham, England and subsequently at Woleverhampton, these being black outside, but grey within.

  “Again, the ‘globular lights’ of H. M. S. Caroline, reported in 1893. as seen between the ship and a mountain off the China sea. The lights were described as ‘globular’; they were seen in the heavens, at not quite the height of the mountain, and well away from it; they moved in mass, on occasion, and sometimes irregularly strung out. They were moving northward, and were seen for two hours or thereabouts. They were seen the following night again, on two nights, then—the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth of February, at both times an hour or so before midnight. They cast a reflection, and in the telescope were thought to be roseate in color. On the second night, as on the first, their movement appeared to be equal to that of the Caroline. On this night the phenomenon lasted seven hours. A similar phenomenon reported seen by the captain of H. M. S. Leander, who, however, asserted that the lights moved straight up into the sky and vanished. Eleven years later to the day, February twenty-fourth, the crew of the U. S. S. Supply, saw three objects of different sizes, but all ‘globular,’ likewise moving upward in ‘unison,’ and apparently not susceptible to ‘forces of this earth and of the air.’ In the meantime, a similar globular light was seen by travellers in a train near Trenton, Missouri, and reported to the Monthly Weather Review for August, 1898, by a railroad postal clerk, the light appearing during a rain, and moving steadily along with the train in a northward direction, despite a violent east wind, moving at various speeds and heights, until the approach to a small village in Iowa, where it disappeared. In 1920, during an exceptionally hot August, a pair of young men walking across a bridge over the Wisconsin River in the village of Sac Prairie, saw in the evening sky, at about ten o’clock, a singular band of light crossing the southern horizon from a point in the east passing through the star Antares to a point in the west passing near Arcturus, and being traversed by a ‘ball of black light, sometimes round, sometimes ovoid, sometimes lozengelike in shape,’ the band remaining until this distant object had traversed its entire length from the southeast into the northwest, after which it faded and vanished. Does all that suggest anything?”

  My throat had gone dry with the impact of growing conviction. “Only that one of the Great Old Ones presents a superficial appearance as a ‘congeries of iridescent globes.’”

  “Precisely. I do not suggest that that is the explanation for these events. But if it is not then we are forced once again to accept coincidence in lieu of explanation. The description, such as it is, of the Great Old Ones, is centuries older than these isolated phenomena, which have been selected from a period of less than thirty years in our own time. Let me illustrate finally on the subject of strange disappearances, taking no account of motivated disappearances, aeroplane vanishings, or similar cases.

  “Dorothy Arnold, for instance. She vanished on December twelfth, 1910 somewhere between Fifth Avenue and the Seventy-Ninth Street entrance to Central Park. Absolutely without motivation. She was never seen again, no request for ransom, no survivor to gain, nothing.

  “Similarly, the Cornhill Magazine records the disappearance of one Benjamin Bathurst, British Government representative at the Court of Emperor Francis in Vienna; with his valet and secretary, he stopped to examine horses he was to use in Perleberg, Germany. He walked around to the other side of the horses and simply vanished. Nothing thereafter learned of Bathurst. Between the years of 1907 and 1913, three thousand, two hundred sixty of the people who had disappeared mysteriously in the city of London alone were never traced. A young man employed in a milling office in Battle Creek, Michigan, set out to walk from the office into the mill. He vanished. The Chicago Tribune of January fifth, 1900, records the case of this young man, Sherman Church. Nothing was subsequently seen of him.

  “Ambrose Bierce—and here we come to something sinister. Bierce hinted of Carcosa and Hali—he vanished in Mexico. It was said that he was shot while fighting against Villa, but at the time of his disappearance he was virtually an invalid and was over seventy. Nothing further heard of Bierce. That was in 1913.

  In 1920, Leonard Wadham, walking in South London had a frightening lapse of normal perception, and suddenly found himself on a road near Dunstable, thirty miles away, without any knowledge of how he had got there.

  “But let us come home, let us come to Arkham, Massachusetts in September, 1915. Professor Laban Shrewsbury, of 93 Curwen Street, while walking in a country lane west of Arkham, utterly and completely disappeared. Some evidence of expectation, for the Shrewsbury papers disclosed instructions that the house was to be unmolested for a period of at least thirty years. No motivation, no trace. But it is significant that Professor Shrewsbury was the only man in New England who knew more of these matters now before us, as well as of alli
ed matters both terrestrial and astronomical, than I. So much for that.

  These instanced phenomena exist in proportion to the known and recorded similar phenomena as a ratio of an infinitesimal fraction to a million.”

  After a long enough time to allow for the assimilating of this rapidly narrated series of curious facts, I asked, “Conceding that the data in these rare books does offer the solution of the events which have taken place in this corner of the State during the past two hundred years and more, what then, in your opinion, is it—which particular manifestation, that is—that lurks at the threshold, which is presumably the opening in the roof of that stone tower?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But you suspect, surely?”

  "Oh, yes. I suggest that you take another look at that quaint document, Of Evill Sorceries done in New England of Daemons in no Humane Shape. The reference goes back to ‘one Richard Billington’ who ‘sett up in the woods a great Ring of Stones, inside which he say’d Prayers to the Divell . . . and sung certain Rites of Magick abominable by Scripture.’ This is presumably the circle of stones around the tower in Billington’s Wood. Now, the document suggests that Richard Billington feared and was finally ‘eat up by’ a ‘Thing’ he called out of the sky at night; but nothing in the nature of evidence is offered. The Indian wise man, Misquamacus, ‘charm’d the Daemon’ to a pit in what had at one time been the center of Billington’s circle of stones, and had there imprisoned it under—the word is illegible, but it is probably ‘slab’ or ‘stone’ or something similar, ‘carved with what they call’d the Elder Sign. ’ They called it Ossadagowah, and explained that it was the ‘child of Sadogowah,’ which suggests instantly one of the lesser known entities of the myth-pattern we have been examining: Tsathoggua, sometimes known as Zhothagguah or Sodagui, which is described as non-anthropomorphic, black and somewhat plastic.

  Protean in origin, of primal worship. But the description ventured by Misquamacus differs from the commonly accepted one; he described it as ‘sometimes small and solid, like a great Toad the Bigness of many Ground-Hogs, but sometimes big and cloudy, with no Shape, though with a Face which had Serpents grown from it.’ This description of the face might fit Cthulhu, but the manifestations of Cthulhu are more closely associated with watery places, and most particularly the sea or places with ingress to the sea of greater proportions than the Miskatonic’s tributaries offer. It might also fit certain manifestations of Nyarlathotep, and in this we are closer to home. Misquamacus plainly made an error in his identification, and he was in error also as to the fate of Richard Billington—because there is evidence to show that Richard Billington went out through that opening to the Outside, across and beyond the threshold to which Alijah makes such pointed reference in his adjurations to his heirs. The evidence is in your own ancestor’s book, and Alijah was aware of it, for Richard came back in altered shape, and had some kind of commerce with humanity.

  Moreover, so much was known as legend to the Dunwich people, who may be presumed all to be in some fashion aware of the mythology and rites practised by Richard Billington, who initiated and instructed their ancestors. In Bates’ manuscript, he reproduces Mrs. Bishop’s oblique comment about the ‘Master.’

  But to Mrs. Bishop the ‘Master’ was not Alijah Billington: that is apparent through every document available and also in Bates’ own manuscript even before he talked to Mrs. Bishop. This is what she says: ‘Alijah shut It up—an’ he shut up the Master, too, out there, Outside, when the Master was ready tew come back agin after that long a time. Ain’t many as knows it, but Misquamacus fer one. Master walked the earth an’ none knew him as saw him fer he was in many faces. Aye! He wore a Whately face an’ he wore a Doten face an’ he wore a Giles face an’ he wore a Corey face, an’ he sat among the Whatelys an’ the Dotens an’ the Gileses an’ the Coreys, an’ ’twas none who knew him fer aught but Whately or Doten or Giles or Corey, an’ he ate among ’em an’ he bedded among ’em an’ he walked an’ talked among ’em, but so great he was in his Outsideness thet those he took weakened an’ died, not being able to contain him.

  Only Alijah outsmarted Master—aye, outsmarted him more’n a hundred years after Master was dead.’ Does that suggest anything to you?”

  “No, it is utterly incomprehensible.”

  “Very well. It ought not to be, but we are all bound to some degree by thought-patterns based on what is logical and rational according to our store of recognized knowledge. Richard Billington went out through the opening he had made, but he came back through another— probably one of those experiments similar to Jonathan Bishop’s. He took possession of various people; that is, he entered into them, but he was already a mutation from his existence Outside, and at least one result of his existence here in this secondary form was recorded in your ancestor’s book, when he tells about what Goodwife Doten brought forth near Candlemas of 1787, a creature described as ‘neither Beast nor Man but like to a monstrous Bat with human face. It made no sound but look’d at all and sundry with baleful eyes. There were those who swore that it bore a frightful resemblance to the Face of one long dead, one Richard Bellingham or Bollinhan’—for which, of course, read Richard Billington—‘who is affirm’d to have vanished utterly after consort with Daemons in the country of New Dunnich.’ So much for that. Presumably, then, Richard Billington in either physical or psychic form, continued to exist in the Dunwich country, doubtless accounting for his share of the horrors which have been spawned there—the ghastly mutations which have so readily been dismissed as evidence of physical ‘decay’ and ‘degeneracy’—for over a century, until, in short, the house in Billington’s Wood was once more occupied by a member of that family.

  Thereupon the force that was Richard Billington, the ‘Master’ of Mrs. Bishop’s narrative and of the Dunwich lore and legends, once again became active in an attempt to restore the primary opening. Very possibly through suggestion from the outsideness which was Richard Billington, Alijah began to study the old records, the documents and books, eventually he restored the circle of stones, some of which he may have used in the construction of the tower—thus accounting for the greater age of some of the tower—and, naturally, he removed the block of grey stone carven with the Elder Sign, taking it from the vicinity, precisely as Dewart and the Indian companion he has discovered persuaded Bates to remove it again on this occasion. Thereupon, the reopening was accomplished, and there began a curious and doubtless a memorable conflict—if only record of it remained. For Richard Billington, finding his end accomplished, set about to accomplish his secondary purpose, which was to resume his interrupted existence on this earth in his own house and in the person of Alijah.

  But, unfortunately for him, Alijah did not stop with accomplishing Richard’s primary purpose; he continued to study; he obtained more of the Necronomicon than Richard had thought possible to find; he went ahead quite on his own and summoned certain of the Things from Outside, and permitted those Things to ravage the Dunwich country for whatever purpose they conceived necessary, and in this fashion he continued until he became embroiled with Phillips and Druven on the one hand, and on the other became fully and finally aware of Richard Billington’s intentions, whereupon he sent the Thing or Things, and in all likelihood, Billington’s force, back into the Outside, and simply sealed up the new opening with the stone bearing the Elder Sign, following which he took his departure, and left behind only a set of inexplicable instructions. But something of Richard Billington lingered, something of the Master remained—enough to enable him to accomplish his purpose again another century later.”

  “Then the influence at work out there is Richard Billington, not Alijah?”

  “Beyond question. We have certain indications of it. Richard is the Billington who disappeared and was not seen again; not Alijah, who died in his bed in England. It is therefore conflict which Bates mistakenly thought to be evidence of split-personality, and, only Richard could have inflicted himself upon the weaker Dewart. Fi
nally, there is one little manifestation which is absolutely damning. Richard Billington has had enough traffic with those Outside to be subject to the same strictures to which they in their own dimensions are subject. In short, to the Elder Sign. Now, then, on the day on which the Indian appeared before dawn, you will remember that Dewart required Bates’ help. It was to move away and bury the stone marked with the Elder Sign. Dewart ‘dared’ Bates to lift it alone. Bates did so. Mark that, neither Dewart nor the Indian raised a finger to help—in short, neither touched it because he dared not—because, Phillips, Ambrose Dewart is no longer Ambrose Dewart, he is Richard Billington, and the Indian, Quamis, is that same Indian who in Alijah’s time assisted Alijah, and who in more than a century before, in his own time, served Richard—summoned back from those terrible, blasphemous spaces Outside to begin again the horror begun over two hundred years ago! And, if I mistake not the signs, we shall need to act swiftly and urgently in order to prevent and thwart that purpose, and no doubt, Stephen Bates will have further things to tell us when he pauses on his way home three days hence—if indeed he is permitted to come!”