The Weird Company: The Secret History of H. P. Lovecraft's Twentieth Century

by Pete Rawlik

  Dusk, and the agony of the villagers seems to have subsided somewhat, or at least they have become accustomed to whatever pains wrack their bodies. The storm shows no sign of letting up and I am fearful of crossing the breakwater in the dark, I am resigned to staying in Allyn Hill for the night. Though I will admit I am uncomfortable with the thought of staying in the Great Hall.

  1745

  Have been watching from the second floor of the Great Hall. It took me a moment but I realized that something was amiss. Yesterday when Atkins and I had refilled the fuel tank, he informed me that the fuel would last for at least four days. Yet here it is little more than a day later, and the sweep of light has ceased. Something or someone has interfered with the operation of the lighthouse, and I have a suspicion that the condition of the villagers, the failure of the radios and now the failure of the lighthouse are all connected somehow. I even suspect that the source of all these problems may be anthropogenic, though I am still unclear on the why and how of it all. Against all better judgment, I am going to try and get back to the station and restart the light.

  2000

  Larsen is deliberately sabotaging the equipment. As I came into the station, he burst through the door, knocking me down and then dashed down the path to the breakwater. It took me a moment to regain my footing and in that brief span of time Larsen was moving across to the other island. I gave chase, but stopped at the breakwater. As I hesitated, Larsen whipped out a large fish knife and sliced the guide ropes before lopping up the stair toward Allyn Hill. I called after him, but he either didn’t hear me or, given his unusual behavior, is purposefully ignoring me.

  I’ve got the lighthouse working again, but the wireless is a total loss. I think initially he just cut the antenna lead on the side of the tower, which explains why I can’t reach anyone at any distance; now the damage is much worse, while I was gone he took a hammer to the set. Chances are that he has done something similar to the set in Allyn Hill. I’ve found a shotgun and a box of ammunition, mostly birdshot but a few of the shells are loaded with buckshot. It’s not much but I would rather have this than go hand to hand against Larsen. I’ve pulled all the storm shutters down and I’ve barred all the doors. I’ve tied empty cans to all the door handles and climbed the tower halfway to a landing. There’s a window with a view of the breakwater and Allyn Hill beyond, and enough space for me to stretch out and sleep. There are three heavy doors between me and the rest of the world. I won’t try the breakwater unless the storm lessens.

  Saturday April 4, 1931

  0700

  The storm has passed and the sun rising in the east is a welcome sight. I’ve slept a little and found something to fill the emptiness in my belly. I’m cold though, the storm must have dropped the temperature by at least ten degrees. The gun is little comfort. I need to find Larsen. I also need to get back to the Great Hall. As soon as the waves relent I’ll try to make it back over to Allyn Hill.

  1230

  Atkins’ condition has worsened. The strange transformation of the limbs has spread to the rest of his body. My medical training is limited, but from what I can tell all of the bones have suffered some sort of transformation, a decrease in rigidity that seems to have been transferred to the skin, which has become grey and rigid, at least on the chest and abdomen. Their backs however have become soft and pulpy, and the three vertical wounds no longer are oozing red fluid. Instead strange fibrous green tendrils have appeared. I’ve never seen anything like them before. I poked at one of the tendrils with a knife, and it recoiled back inside.

  After I rest I am going to search the island for Larsen.

  1700

  No luck in finding Larsen, but I have found the priest; he’s dead, strangled. I think Larsen killed him so that he could take his place in the ceremony the other night. I’m still not sure why, and I really have nothing to support such an idea, but it is the only thing that makes sense.

  In the same house where I found the priest I found a star stone sitting on a work bench. It has a collection tag that identifies it as the one missing from the crate. It’s been damaged. One of the arms is split open along one of the edges, the exposed interior is incredibly complex, with dozens upon dozens of tiny black crystals. These crystals are no bigger than a pinhead, all curiously pentagonal trapezohedrons. There are very few minerals that produce such a shape, which should make it readily identifiable, but right now I have neither the time nor the inclination to do so.

  There are things nagging at me, things that I think I should be thinking about, but I am so tired. I am not thinking clearly. It’s still very cold out, and I think that is contributing to my exhaustion. I need to sleep.

  1900

  The villagers of Allyn Hill are all dead. I can write no more.

  2145

  I’ve made it back to the station. Another storm, or perhaps the same one coming back, is rolling over the island and the wind is picking up. It’s bitterly cold out. I would have thought that all that time at the pole would have made me more resistant. I’ve barricaded the doors again, still no sign of Larsen.

  As I have written, the villagers are all dead. I don’t know why or how but somehow in the few hours I was exploring the island they all succumbed to whatever malady they were suffering from. Curiously, either through their own action or that of Larsen, they were all clustered together into small groups. They had been arranged in sets of five, with their backs to each other and their legs splayed out on the floor. Some of them seem to be clutching their neighbors with what used to be their arms.

  As if that weren’t odd enough, the clusters themselves seem to be oddly grouped. All the young children are sitting together, as are all the adolescents. Even the adults seem to have been sorted by size, height I mean. If this was some last dying attempt at community, I would have thought they would have clustered into family groups.

  Tomorrow, if I can I’ll take one of the small boats to the mainland.

  Sunday April 5, 1931

  0230

  I’m back at the top of the lighthouse trying to make sense of what I am seeing and hearing. About twenty minutes ago I woke to a chorus of strange high-pitched keening noises. At first I thought it was the birds or seals, but it was coming from the village, so I came up here to get a look. I can’t see much, but I can see shadows moving about within the Great Hall, which means that somebody is alive and has turned on the lights.

  The noise is definitely coming from Allyn Hill. It’s an eerie throaty sound, like air moving through an organ. It repeats every few minutes, but in different pitches, like its being repeated by different sources, but always the same tones and pattern.

  Tek Tek Tek Tek E Li Li.

  I’m going over to investigate.

  0430

  I made it across the breakwater and carefully crept up to the kitchen door of the hall. All the way I could hear that eerie inhuman sound, but as I crossed into the hall I could hear other things as well. I could hear the goats bleating incessantly and beyond that there was a man talking loudly, speaking as if to a large crowd. Just as I reached the doorway from the kitchen to the main hall I realized that it was the same voice that I had heard just a few nights ago offering Communion to the faithful. Larsen was preaching and even now I can remember his words.

  I am the life and the resurrection

  Those who believe in me even if they die, shall live forever

  For I am the child of God and wield his power

  I give you life, first on this Earth as mortals, and after the resurrection, life eternal

  I come amongst you know, to remind you that this is the image of God

  And that all men shall be as I, made in His image

  As I watched him through the door, Larsen was standing on a table, a bound goat held in one hand, a knife in another. With ease he drew the blade across the animal’s throat and allowed the blood to pump out in a torrent onto the floor. Then, effortlessly he tossed the now still beast down to the floor.

  God
I wish I had not seen the greedy crowd that waited below.

  The villagers which I had thought dead had undergone yet more of a transformation. The clusters of five had grown into each other, traces of their left arms were still visible but like a parasitic tree on its host, melted into the neighboring flesh. The right arms, all boneless now, had become thin and whip-like, the fingers and thumb elongated into a tentacular mass that constantly seemed to flex and grasp. Likewise, the adjoining lower limbs had wrapped around each other, no longer ten legs but five thick, grey tentacles that flailed about dragging the creatures clumsily along. The toes were gone, and in their place each were developing a fat triangular paddle. Like the fingers, the paddle curled and flexed in a seemingly useless exercise. But most horrid of all were the heads, or what once were heads. Though the features still remained, the once semi-spherical craniums of men were gone, crushed and remolded into a pyramidal structure, the mouth shoved down toward the base and pinched into a tube, while the eyes had been forced up to the apex. Ten eyes seemed unnecessary to whatever it was becoming, for without variation one of each pair of eyes was dangling limp from strands of necrotizing flesh, while the other was frantically whipping about on the end of a short fat stalk. It was as if some alien Prometheus had grown jealous of man’s bilateral morphology and had seized the flesh and molded it into a new pentaradial shape. A shape I was not wholly unfamiliar with. For the things that crawled about in that great hall resembled to a striking degree the ancient and enigmatic specimens that Lake had excavated out of the ice in Antarctica and had dare to call “Elder Things!”

  I shuddered at the sight of the seven things that were once the proud residents of Allyn Hill. Shuddered even more at the way the monstrous things grasped and tore and sucked at the flesh and bones of the goats that Larsen tossed to them. Then my eye caught the thing that flailed in the corner. There were by my count thirty-nine victims in the Great Hall, thirty-five of them had melted into seven sinister protean things, but the other four were incomplete, and this imperfect monstrosity lay in the corner whimpering. It was less complete than the others, and therefore less inhuman, and on one of its faces I could still see the bright blue eyes that rested beneath a shaggy golden mane.

  Cautiously I slipped out of the kitchen and made my way along the back wall toward the pitiful thing. The others and Larsen were so distracted by their feeding that they failed to notice as I knelt down beside the mewling, simpering, defective changeling. I stared into those bright blue eyes, and for an instant I thought that there might still be some humanity left within the deformed mass of writhing flesh. Those eyes stared back, and there was a spark, an instant of recognition and hope and I reached out to touch what I knew was all that was left of Shane Atkins. In a flash all traces of humanity were gone and a great grey tentacle whipped around my hand and dragged me forward. I pulled back, but to no avail. The eldritch mass of tumorous flesh pulled me closer and another tentacle flailed about, trying to find purchase and strengthen its hold on me. In unison the four bulbous mouths whistled out that howling unearthly refrain Tek Tek Tek Tek E Li Li!

  Without hesitation I swung the gun up, pressed it against the face of the thing that was once a man, and pulled the trigger. The ensuing recoil pushed me backed toward the kitchen door, which all things considered, was fortunate, for my action had attracted the attention of both Larsen and his flock. I quickly crawled backwards, closing the door and bracing it just as something large, heavy and wet slammed against it. The door cracked and I could see the latch straining under the pressure being applied on the other side. I threw the lock hoping it would buy me a few seconds and then slid a kitchen knife into the space between the floor and the door, wedging the door closed. I backed away from and surveyed the kitchen for options. Somehow, even in my panic, I knew that these monsters needed to be destroyed. I dashed about the kitchen and one by one snuffed out the flames of the lights but left the gas work valves wide open. I even stopped and turned on all the valves for the stove. Stepping outside I frantically grabbed a box of matches and an oil lantern. I smashed the glass of the lantern against the door handle and lit the wick. I set the broken lantern inside the door, shut it and ran as fast as I could.

  I was at the bottom of the stairs that led to the breakwater when the explosion lit up the night. The pooled water around the shore rippled as the shock wave blew past, and I stared as flaming pieces of debris careened in arcs across the sky. I sat there for a while and the glow from the top of the hill slowly grew stronger. It took me quite some time to cross the breakwater and get back to the station. The pain in my back is getting worse and my legs ache horribly.

  I’ve climbed to the top of the tower again. The whole village of Allyn Hill is burning; in a few hours, I doubt there will be much left at all.

  0530

  I think I understand now why Danforth was driven mad, and I suppose why McTighe tried to kill himself on the way back. The things Lake found, the Elder Things, that rose up and slaughtered our colleagues, I cannot deny that anymore. They laid dormant in the ice for millions of years. If they could do that imagine what else they could do. Imagine their resilience.

  The explosion in the great hall and the ensuing fire wasn’t enough, three of the things survived. They’re down below now, clamoring about desperately trying to find a way into the lighthouse tower.

  I can’t move much, my legs aren’t working well, but I’ve been able to douse the light, disconnect the fuel line and turn on the pump. The ground level is covered with kerosene, and fumes are slowly filling the tower. I’m going to place this field book in a tin and throw it out into the ocean. Then I’m going to light the wick. It’s crude but when the fumes reach the top of the tower I think the resulting explosion will be enough to kill them and me.

  Pr. Pabodie, Dad, if the stones survive what I’m about to do here, you need to make sure to destroy them. Use a kiln if you have to. I also want you to know that despite our differences, I couldn’t have asked for a better step-father. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me over the years. I also need you to know that what happened here wasn’t your fault; I wanted to go to Antarctica. It was Larsen who caused all of this. He figured out what the stones were and stole one of them. It was madness what he did. I suppose he was like Danforth and McTighe. I think maybe all of us who survived the expedition might be just a little mad.

  The stones, they’re not stones at all. They aren’t a magical ward, or even a weapon, not at least in the manner that we think of. But we should fear them; they could destroy us all. I keep thinking back to when we excavated those star-shaped snow mounds back at Lake’s camp and how the dogs went wild with fear. I think they instinctually knew something we’ve forgotten. The star stones, they’re theca, protective cases filled with parasitic spores. I don’t know when it happened; it may have been in the communion wafers but something else as well, the bread maybe. Everybody at the feast that night was infected. It makes some sort of inhuman sense. They transform the very flesh of their infected host into something else, something akin to those ancient things that so long ago ruled the entirety of the planet.

  0630

  The sun has risen, Easter morning.

  Glory, Glory, Hallelujah!

  Father, remember me as the man I was.

  They’ve nearly broken through the last door.

  I don’t have much time. The pain is unendurable.

  I wish my arms were still

  Acknowledgements

  The vast majority of The Weird Company was written long before Reanimators, and grew out of research I had been doing for a History of Miskatonic Valley. That I stumbled upon the fact that Waite, Chandraputra and Olmstead were likely all in or about Arkham at the same time seemed an opportunity too good to waste, and thus was born my League of Lovecraftian Gentlemen, or The Miskatonic Aide Society, or the Arkham Odd Fellow’s Club. In the end I settled on The Weird Company to honor that most venerable of institutions we all aspire to, the magazine Weird Tales. To
those who came before me and graced its pages with their tales, and inspired me in their fashion, I dedicate this work.

  I also need to acknowledge those people who believe in my work and continue to encourage me by making my stories available to the world, including Robert Price, Brian Sammons, Glynn Owen Barrass, Scott David Aniolowski, and Mike Davis. There is a renaissance of a kind going on in Lovecraftian fiction and these gentlemen are at the forefront of giving it new life and direction.

  As always my work would not be possible without the support of my wife Mandy, who does more than her share to keep me sane.

  Literary Acknowledgements

  “The Last Communion of Allyn Hill” previously appeared in Horror for the Holidays, Miskatonic River Press, 2011.

  “Journal of Thomas Gedney” previously appeared in Worlds of Cthulhu, Fedogan & Bremer, 2012.

  “The Statement of Frank Elwood” previously appeared in Worlds of Cthulhu, Fedogan & Bremer, 2012, and in Urban Cthulhu, Nightmare Cities, H. Harksen Productions, 2012.

  “The Thing in the Depths” previously appeared in Lovecraft eZine #16 July, 2012.

  “Beneath the Mountains of Madness” previously appeared in The Mountains of Madness, edited by Robert Price, Dark Quest Press, 2013.