by Josh Shiben
Chapter 8
The Unfolding Mind
Gregori stood staring into the crimson pool on the floor as it spread slowly from the body at his feet. The body was still twitching, gasping with its dying breaths, and Gregori almost pitied it. Too stupid to know it was already dead, too frightened to not struggle against the inevitable. A low moan escaped from the figure as he withdrew the blade from its belly. He studied the now-crimson weapon and marveled at how something so small could slay something so large. How a simple piece of unfeeling metal could, if slid into the right place, spill the life-blood of the mightiest of men.
Gregori imagined the blood an animal, caged inside the veins, a slave to the never-ending drum of the heart. He had freed it with the sword – released it into the ground. The body mewled again, its struggles slowing. The wild blood fled its former master, down gullies in the masonry and across the flat stone of the floor.
He felt his own blood flowing through his veins, the same wild animal held in check by the walls of his arteries. The blood would surely die if freed – dry into a powdery grit, or soak into a stain. Its servitude allowed it to survive, just as it maintained the continuance of the slaver’s life. But the blood, when liberated, would still spill forth freely, caring nothing for either its life, or the life of the master. It could not be trusted to behave rationally, to see the larger picture. The blood did not understand that it was expressly made to serve, that its very nature was servitude, and that was why the heart needed to hold it in check. Gregori thought of blood as he watched his father die, knowing his future as master of the Nekrodeus was secure.
“We’ve been here before,” muttered Burfict under his breath, as he stooped under the sloping roof to get out of the cold drizzle. He had recognized the address, and now that he was here, he could finally put his finger on why. The connection to the Kaspars case bothered him.
“You sure? What for?” Grange was puzzled.
“The Kaspars case, a couple years back. You weren’t with us yet,” replied Samuels. “Place was a shit-hole then too.” The rotten door cracked and flung inward under Burfict’s heel. The house was empty, had been for some time. A condemned sign fluttered from the broken door, its fall cushioned by the layer of grime and dust on the floor. Burfict followed Grange through, with Samuels moving in slowly from behind. The address was the same as the one on Sullivan’s license, but it was clear that the place had been abandoned. The three detectives split up as they pressed deeper into the ruin, moving slowly and looking for any sign of recent habitation.
“So why were you here before?” inquired Grange, obviously expecting to hear the rest of the story.
“Some doctor claimed his patient sent him here to find something. Guy was a loon – the place was abandoned and we didn’t find any of the crazy shit he’d said he saw. This Sullivan guy wasn’t living here then, either.” Samuels was standing in the kitchen, searching the shelves for any sign of food or habitation. He frowned in disappointment.
“Was that the case you keep bugging that professor about?” Grange had seen Burfict working on it from time to time, and Burfict sensed a brief hint of worry about him slide across her consciousness. He ignored her and moved to the bedroom, examining the false floor in the center of the room. The floor opened up on a hinge to reveal a carving on the underside – a series of slashes and grooves carefully carved into the wood, making some sort of image or hieroglyphic. Burfict remembered the carving from the last time he had been here – how it almost seemed as if it were falling away into an image. A baby, a behemoth blotting out the sky, an eternity. Beneath the glyph was a second floor, such that if someone opened the trap-door, expecting to find a space, they would only be met with a solid surface, itself also covered with the strange carvings. Burfict closed the trap door and rubbed his eyes. He hated this place, hated that glyph, and hated this case. Nothing about it made sense, and that infuriated him. He preferred his world to fit into nice, neat explanations, and was frustrated when it confounded him. He wanted that satisfaction he got when he put the pieces together, and the further he got into this case, the more he felt that feeling might be elusive. He dreaded this case becoming another unsolvable mess like the Kaspars one – like an itch he was never able to scratch.
Burfict walked to the broken window and peered out between the boards crisscrossing over it and into the backyard. Something red out there caught his eye, a shiny, metallic reflection in the drab grey and brown gloom. Puzzled, he strode quickly to the back door and opened it, calling his two partners as he went. They convened in the backyard, where they found a large, red telescope, pointing upwards into the sky. Beads of water dribbled off of the metallic case, as the cold drizzle continued to fall. The item looked new and very powerful – it was completely out of place in dilapidated squalor like this. Grange took off her poncho and draped it over the telescope. “We don’t want the rain washing off any more fingerprints than it already has,” she explained as she slid under the leaky back porch to keep dry. “And we don’t want to move it, either.” Burfict and Samuels nodded in agreement.
“Tanya mentioned something about stars this morning to me,” murmured Burfict. “That this cult may be waiting on the stars to do something.”
“That makes sense, I guess,” replied Samuels. “This guy sees whatever it is he’s looking for, and then goes and fucks a goat or whatever in celebration.”
“So we’re just assuming it’s Sullivan?” asked Leanne from the porch. “I mean, it’s not like the guy had any money to buy something like that. Where’d it come from?”
“Stolen? Maybe it belongs to an associate?”
“Maybe someone who was there when he died. Could tell us what happened.”
Burfict sighed, and walked back to the house. He was certain no-one would ever be able to tell them why Sullivan died. He had seen it himself, and remembered that choking groan as the man had become a corpse in front of him. His nightmares never lied – the only other witness to the death was the monstrous goat woman. “I’m going to keep looking inside. Looks like he was definitely here recently. Or someone was, at least.” Samuels and Grange nodded in agreement, although neither moved to join him.
Burfict moved through the remains of the living room, when he heard a noise from the bedroom. Curious, he quietly slid closer, his ears alert for any more noise. As he approached the door, he became more and more certain that someone was in the bedroom, shuffling around. He reached the door, and slowly drew his weapon before bursting through the door.
The room was empty and silent, aside from a bit of rain dribbling in through the broken window. Trash and ruined furniture sat in the corners as before, and the trap door in the center of the floor hung open, displaying the bizarre hieroglyphic. His stomach knotted – he was certain he had closed the hidden door when he had been in here just moments ago. Had Samuels or Grange re-opened it? Could it have opened itself? He walked over to the trap door and closed it again, pausing a moment to be certain it stayed shut, before then turning to leave. As he turned towards the door, Burfict froze, his mind racing to understand what he was seeing. There in the doorway stood Nathan Sullivan, his face unmolested, and his dark eyes fixed upon Burfict. David stumbled backwards, tripping over debris and landing on his side. By the time he looked back to the door, Sullivan was gone. Burfict moved to the doorway, and looked, but found no sign that anyone but he, Samuels and Grange had moved through the area recently.
From the journals of Dr. Alan Kaspars
10/7
I woke up standing in the living room, staring at the idol. It’s after midnight now, and I’m not really sure I want to go to sleep. How long was I standing there? How long have I been sleep-walking? My heart keeps pounding like something’s going to happen, although I have no idea what. I can’t help but keep looking at the translations for Flüstern der Vermaledeit. I’m curious about what’s on the idol. What is it about this thing that made John so crazy? Madness can’t be contagious, can it? I’ll take
a crack at the first symbol before going back to bed. Maybe I can talk to John about it tomorrow.
rog’nshgnak – The spiteful womb. The unloving mother. The uncaring creator. One who bestows life upon another, but cares nothing for it. The desert’s apathy towards the wilting flower.
Once I’d translated the first symbol, I felt something. Rog’nshgnak. That word. It was like I’ve known it all this time, just forgotten it. I wonder if this is how orphans from another country must feel when they hear their native tongue again for the first time. I need to know the next one.
shrgunth’ka – To give without intent or caring. To gift, but forsake. A blessing of indifference.
The perfect word. Shrgunth’ka. The feeder delivering sustenance to the bacterium in his gut - without caring, or contempt, or even contemplation. More ancient puzzle pieces lock into place. I can almost feel forgotten synapses firing life. Fhtagn thoughts of ancestors awaken.
f’thagh – We who are worthless. Ones blind to their own lack of form. Mockeries of being.
I see now what John tried to tell me. The marionettes on the strings – f’thagh. How did I not see before? Our existence an illusion of the senses, our reality a small raft on the sea of madness. My mind unfolds like a map – connections I have never considered before now clear.
rflyuns – Existence without meaning. Dust screaming in the void of space, inaudible and irrelevant.
How was this forgotten? How could this be suppressed? Language shapes our understanding of existence, mapping the consciousness to the perceptions. Rflyuns. The sister of f’thagh. Are these the words of babies’ screams?
gratsh’klnsh – The one whose presence gives significance.The hand to the glove, the viewer to the painting, the prey to the trap.
The unread page – rflyuns. The reader - gratsh’klnsh – the giver of meaning. Remove the gratsh’klnsh, and the page returns to rflyuns. I think of the sun, and hear the stars murmur in tongues eons old.
strythgk’lt – The lair between spaces.The throne between the present and the future, between here and elsewhere.
Strythgk’lt. I realize our fragile underpinnings from which we define our reality are worthless. Past, present and future collapse when viewed from strythgk’lt. The present is merely a memory of the future, a fate of the past, making us but memories, ourselves. F’thagh. The rememberer the gratsh’klnsh. I am but the memory of a corpse. I am the unborn and the fhtagn dead.
Rog’nshgnak shrgunth’ka f’thagh rflyuns gratsh’klnsh strythgk’lt. A more beautiful symphony has never been uttered. I can feel the stars scream in delight. Existence trembles with my breath. The uncaring mother who gifts us worthless ones with meaning from her lair in the spaces between. The English language cannot begin to express the glory of it.
Burfict knocked on the door, and rocked back on his heels. He’d been to Tanya’s home more times than he could count, but he still felt awkward waiting on the front stoop. He’d once had a key, back when they thought it might get serious. Before he sensed her cooling on him and retreated before any conflict could occur. He hated himself for retreating; for only speaking to her when he needed her help. He felt as if he’d given up on them without a fight – like a coward who slunk away into the night instead of taking a chance for what he wanted.
The door opened, and Tanya welcomed him in with a confused smile. He thanked her and entered, then stood in the doorway while she looked at him quizzically.
“What can I do for you, David?” It was something he’d been turning over and over in his mind since they’d been to that house.
“They’re connected. This new one and the Kaspars case. I’m not sure why or how, but they are.” He walked to the kitchen table and sat down staring at his hands. Tanya moved silently across from him, puzzlement etched into her face.
“What makes you so sure?”
“Sullivan – the new case. He lived in that same house that Kaspars said he’d been sent to. The Melker house. And some of the words… I can’t remember them exactly, but they sound the same.”
“You mean those words Kaspars was babbling about in those diaries you showed me?” Burfict nodded.
“I think I’ve heard them in this case too. I’ve read through those diaries over and over trying to make sense of them, and I’m sure I heard them used again in this one.” A frown briefly crossed Tanya’s face, and she reached out, taking Burfict’s hands.
“Do you ever think that maybe it’s best you not know? I mean, they’re both dead. What good can come of figuring out why?” Burfict sensed her concern and looked up, holding eye contact for only a moment before looking away.
“I’m so close though,” he whispered. “So close to seeing the answers, that I can feel it.”
“But why does it matter why these two did what they did?”
“It just bothers me,” was all Burfict could say. He wanted to tell her that maybe if he knew why the nightmares would stop. Maybe he could banish those whisperers back to the hole they crawled out of. He felt like he was caught in a trap – that his whole life was a guided wire and he was just being strung along for the ride. Maybe, if he could figure out how the trap worked, he could escape it. But he bit his tongue. “I think I want to interview your old co-worker. Phillip Kindred.” Burfict felt her head snap up, and her eyes burning into him, but he continued. “You say he’s nuts, but he was writing about this goat stuff years ago. Maybe someone has contacted him about it.”
“I don’t think you’ll be able to get anything useful out of him,” she said after a pause. Burfict could sense her concern and turmoil. He hated making her feel like this, but he knew that Kindred might have the answers he needed to stop Sullivan’s goat woman.
“I need to try. Please,” he locked eyes with her, almost pleading. “If I don’t get anything, I’ll drop it. I just need a lead here before the trail goes cold.” She reached for a nearby pad of paper and began writing.
“Here’s his address. If he doesn’t live there anymore, I really can’t help you. And I still don’t think you should expect much. You’ll see what I mean if you meet him.” Burfict took the piece of paper and tucked it into his pocket, managing a sad smile as he looked at her.
“You ever think that maybe there’s something to this stuff? The crazy shit, I mean.” He thought back to the goat-woman devouring Sullivan’s face or to the scene in the sanitarium and suppressed a shudder. “Some of the things I’ve seen… You know there was a telescope in Sullivan’s back yard? Watching the stars for whatever the sign was, I guess.”
“David…” it was just a whisper. She was pleading with her eyes.
David dropped his eyes back to his hands clasped on the table in front of him. “What if there really is a Shub-Niggurath? What if the Goat has already broken through?” He felt her eyes burning into him, her worry creeping towards fear. “If it were true…” he was speaking quietly, almost a whisper, “then it still wouldn’t matter. We’d all be dead anyway, right? Unless there was some way to stop the Goat. To save everyone.” Burfict stood and headed towards the door. Tanya stood, but stayed by the table, her face knotted into a frown.
“Don’t go,” she said softly. David didn’t know if she was asking him to stay, or to not go to the Kindred house. Perhaps both. He doubted she knew either. The look on her face was like a knife driving into him – pain and fear carving itself deeply into his memory.
“I’m not crazy. I know you think I am, but I’m not,” muttered Burfict as he opened the door and stepped out into the late summer drizzle.