“You both know that through the ages there have been certain people willing to worship the Great Ones—even the evil Aliens who have come down to us in folk-lore as demons. Every god and every entity has had its worshippers, from black Pharol to the least of the Aliens whose powers are more than human. And these cults intermingle in a very curious way, so that we find traces of a forgotten worship cropping up in far later times. When the Romans worshipped the Magna Mater in Italy’s dark forests, for instance, why do you suppose they incorporated into their ritual the mystic adoration, Gorgo, Mormo, thousand-faced moon? The implication is clear.
“I have gone into considerable detail, but it has been necessary to prepare you for my explanation of the origin of that pamphlet Robert found in San Pedro. I knew of this booklet, which was printed in Salem in 1783, but I had thought that there were no longer any copies in existence. That pamphlet is a trap, and a most damnable one, created by the worshippers of the Hydra to lure victims into the maw of their god!
“It purports to be merely an innocent experiment with the astral self. However, the real purpose of the thing is to open a gateway and prepare a sacrifice for the Hydra. When the booklets were first distributed, through secret underground channels, there was an epidemic of deaths in New England.
Dozens of men and women were found headless, with no trace of any human murderer. Yet the real killers were the ones who performed the experiment according to the directions given in the booklet, and unknowingly let the Hydra use their vital forces to materialize on this planet.
“Baldly speaking, what happens is this: the subject, following the instructions, inhales the fumes of the drug which tears apart the veil between our world and Outside. He concentrates upon the person whom he wishes his astral to visit, and that person is doomed. For the experimenter is drawn Outside, into another dimension of space, and through a certain psychic and chemical process is temporarily made one with the Hydra. What it amounts to is this: the Hydra, using the experimenter’s astral as a host, comes to earth and takes its prey—which is the person upon whom the subject has been concentrating. There is no real danger to the experimenter himself, save, perhaps, for a possible severe nervous shock. But the other—the victim—is taken by the Hydra for its own. He is doomed to eternal torment, except in certain unusual cases where he can maintain a psychic link with an earthly mind. But I need not speak of that.
“I am greatly worried. I have put through a long-distance call to Edmond’s apartment, and no doubt you will hear from me tonight long before this letter can arrive. If you are rash enough to undertake the experiment before I can communicate with you, I shall be in grave danger, for you may attempt projection of your astral to Baltimore, to me. After I have posted this letter, and while I am waiting for my telephone call to be put through, I shall do my utmost to find a protective formula, although I do not think one exists.
“KENNETH SCOTT.”
IT WAS this letter which sent Edmond to the hospital for a few days to recover from his nervous condition. Ludwig was apparently of stronger stuff; he stayed, at Edmond’s request, in the latter’s apartment, and indulged in some experimenting of his own.
Just what happened in Edmond’s apartment during the next few days will never be fully known. Ludwig visited his host daily at the hospital, and told him of his experiments, and Edmond noted what he could remember on slips of paper which he subsequently inserted between pages of his diary. One is inclined to believe that the anomalous mixture of drugs in the brazier continued to exert its influence on the minds of the two students, for certainly Ludwig’s experiences, as recorded by Edmond, seem like a continuation of the original hashish dream.
Ludwig had burned the pamphlet, as might be expected. And then, on the night following Edmond’s removal to the hospital, the other youth maintained, he had heard Scott speaking to him.
Edmond did not scoff, for he was vastly credulous. He listened intently while Ludwig declared that the occultist was still alive, although existing in another dimension of space. The Hydra had captured Scott, but the occultist had the power to communicate with Ludwig. It is necessary to keep constantly in mind the fact that neither of these two youths was quite normal after the mental agitation he had undergone.
So Ludwig added more and more every day to his tale, and Edmond listened. They spoke furtively, in whispers, and Edmond kept careful watch over his notes so that they would not fall into skeptical hands. The whole crux of the matter, Ludwig said, was the strange crystalline object which had formed in the brazier. It was this which kept open the path to Outside. One could pass through it if one wished, despite the fact that it was not as large as a man’s head, because the crystal created a “warp in space”—a term Edmond mentions several times, but entirely neglects to explain. The Hydra, however, could not return to earth unless the original conditions were duplicated.
Ludwig said he had heard Scott’s voice whispering thinly from the crystalline thing of insane planes and angles, and the occultist was in horrible agony and insistent that Ludwig rescue him. It would not be difficult, provided the student followed instructions implicitly. There were dangers, but he must have courage, obey, and strive to undo the harm he had done. Only thus could Scott be freed from endless agony and return to earth.
So, Ludwig told Edmond, he went through the crystal—again this vague and extraordinary phrase!—taking those things Scott had said he would need. Chief among these was a razor keen, bone-handled carving knife. There were other objects, some of them difficult to obtain, which Ludwig did not specify, or which if he did, Edmond did not mention in his notes.
According to Ludwig’s narrative, he went through the crystal, and he found Scott. But not at first. There were nights of fumbling progress through fantastic and terrible visions of nightmare, guided always by the insistent whisper of Scott’s voice. There were gates to be passed, and strange dimensions to traverse. And so Ludwig moved through awful abysses of pulsing, fearful darkness; he went through a place of curious violet light that sent tinkling, evil trills of goblin laughter after him; he went through a Cyclopean deserted city of ebon stone which he shudderingly recognized a fabled Dis. In the end he found Scott.
HE DID what was necessary. When he came to the hospital the next day Edmond was shocked by the bloodless pallor of his friend, and the little crawling lights of madness that shone in his eyes. The pupils were unnaturally dilated, and Ludwig spoke that day in disjointed whispers which Edmond found hard to follow. The notes suffered. It is only clear that Ludwig declared he had freed Scott from the grip of the Hydra, and that over and over again the youth kept muttering something about the terrible gray slime that had smeared the blade of his carving-knife. He said his task was not yet ended.
Undoubtedly it was the drug-poisoned mind of Robert Ludwig speaking when he told how he had left Scott, or at least the living part of him, in a plane of space which was not inimical to human life, and which was not subject to entirely natural laws and processes. Scott wanted to return to earth. He could return now, Ludwig told Edmond, but the strange vitality that maintained life in what was left of Scott would dissipate immediately on earth. Only in certain planes and dimensions was it possible for Scott to exist at all, and the alien force that kept him alive was gradually departing now that he was no longer drawing sustenance from the Hydra. Ludwig said that quick action was necessary.
There was a certain spot Outside where Scott could achieve his desire.
In that place thought was obscurely linked to energy and matter, because of an insane shrill piping (Ludwig said) that eternally filtered from beyond a veil of flickering colors. It was very near the Center, the Center of Chaos, where dwells Azathoth, the Lord of All Things. All that exists was created by the thoughts of Azathoth, and only in the Center of Ultimate Chaos could Scott find means to live again on earth in human form. There is an erasure in Edmond’s notes at this point, and it is only possible to make out the fragment: “. . . of thought made real.”
&nb
sp; White-faced, hollow-cheeked, Ludwig said that he must complete his task. He must take Scott to the Center, although he confessed to a horrible fear that made him hesitate. There were dangers in the way, and pitfalls where one might easily be trapped. Worst of all, the veil shielding Azathoth was thin, and even the slightest glimpse of the Lord of All Things would mean utter and complete destruction to the beholder. Scott had spoken of that, Ludwig said, and had also mentioned the dreadful lure that would drag the young student’s eyes to the fatal spot unless he fought strongly against it.
Biting his lips nervously, Robert Ludwig left the hospital, and we assume met with foul play on his way to Edmond’s apartment. For Edmond never saw his friend again on earth.
4
THE police were still searching for the missing head of Kenneth Scott. Edmond gathered that from the newspapers. He waited impatiently the next day for Ludwig to appear, and after several hours had passed without result, he telephoned his apartment and got no response. Eventually, worried and almost sick with anxiety, he spent a turbulent ten minutes with his doctor and another with the superintendent. Finally he achieved his purpose and went by taxi to his apartment, having overruled the objection of hospital officials.
Ludwig was gone. He had vanished without a trace. Edmond considered summoning the police, but speedily dismissed the thought. He paced about the apartment nervously, seldom turning his gaze from the crystalline object that still rested in the brazier.
Elis diary gives little clue to what happened that night. One can conjecture that he prepared another dose of the narcotic drug, or that the toxic effects of the fumes Edmond inhaled several days before had finally worked such disintegration within his brain that he could no longer distinguish between the false and the real. An entry in the diary dated the following morning begins abruptly, “I’ve heard him. Just as Bob said, he spoke through the crystal thing. He’s desperate, and tells me that Bob failed. He didn’t get Scott to the Center, or S. could have materialized again on earth and rescued Bob. Something—I’m not sure what—caught Bob, God help him. May God help all of us . . . Scott says I must begin where Bob left off and finish the job.”
There is a soul laid bare on the last pages of that record, and it is not a pleasant sight. Somehow the most frightful of the unearthly horrors the diary describes seem not quite as dreadful as the last conflict that took place in that apartment above Hollywood, when a man wrestled with his fear and realized his weakness. It is probably just as well that the pamphlet was destroyed, for such a brain-wrecking drug as was described in it must surely have originated in some hell as terrible as any which Edmond portrays. The last pages of the diary show a mind crumbling into ruin.
“I went through. Bob has made it easier; I can begin where he left off, as Scott says. And I went up through the Cold Flame and the Whirling Vortices until I reached the place where Scott is. Where he was rather, for I picked him up and carried him through several planes before I had to return. Bob didn’t mention the suction one has to keep fighting against. But it doesn’t get very strong until I’ve got quite a distance in.”
THE next entry is dated a day later. It is scarcely legible.
“Couldn’t stand it. Had to get out. Walked around Griffith Park for hours. Then I came back to the apartment and almost immediately Scott spoke to me. I’m afraid. I think he senses that, and is frightened too, and angry.
“He says we can’t waste any more time. His vitality is almost gone, and he’s got to reach the Center quick and get back to earth. I saw Bob. Just a glimpse, and I wouldn’t have known it was he if Scott hadn’t told me. He was all-awry, and horrible somehow. Scott said the atoms of his body had adapted themselves to another dimension when he let himself get caught. I’ve got to be careful. We’re nearly at the Center.”
The last entry.
“Once more will do it. God, I’m afraid, horribly afraid. I heard the piping. It turned my brain into ice. Scott was shouting at me, urging me on, and I think trying to drown that—other sound, but of course he couldn’t do it. There was a very faint violet glow in the distance, and a flickering of colored lights. Beyond, Scott told me, was Azathoth.
“I can’t do it. I don’t dare—not with that piping, and those Shapes I saw moving far down. If I look in that direction when I’m at the Veil it will mean—but Scott is insanely angry with me. He says I was the cause of it all. I had an almost uncontrollable impulse to let the suction draw me back, and then to smash the Gateway—the crystal thing. Maybe if I find myself unable to keep looking away from the Veil when next I go through I’ll do just that. I told Scott if he let me come back to earth for one more breathing-space I’d finish the job this next time. He agreed, but said to hurry. His vitality is going fast. He said if I didn’t come through the Gateway in ten minutes he’d come after me. He won’t, though. The life that keeps him going outside wouldn’t be any use on earth, except for a second or two.
“My ten minutes is up. Scott is calling from the Gateway. I’m not going! I can’t face it—not the last horror Outside, with those things moving behind the Veil and that awful piping screaming out.”
“I won’t go, I tell you! No, Scott—I can’t face it! You can’t come out—like that. You’d die—I tell you I won’t go! You can’t force me—I’ll smash the Gateway first! . . . what? No! No, you can’t . . . you can’t do it! . . . Scott! Don’t, don’t . . . God—he’s coming out——”
That was the last entry in the diary, which police found open on Edmond’s desk. A hideous screaming and subsequently a stream of red liquid seeping out sluggishly from beneath the door of Edmond’s apartment had resulted in the arrival of two radio patrol officers.
The body of Paul Edmond was found near the door, the head and shoulders lying in a widening crimson pool.
Near by was an overturned brass brazier, and a flaky white substance, granular in nature, was scattered over the carpet. Edmond’s stiff fingers still tightly gripped the object which has since been the cause of so much discussion.
This object was in an incredible state of preservation, in view of its nature. Part of it was coated with a peculiar grayish slime, and its jaws were clamped tightly, the teeth having horribly mangled Edmond’s throat and severed the carotid artery.
There was no need to search further for the missing head of Kenneth Scott.
THE WATCHER AT THE DOOR
A brief, shuddery story about the horror that haunted Keene’s dreams
THE house was loathsomely old. I felt that from the first. I am not usually sensitive to such impressions, but the tall gambreled house in which Edward Keene was staying seemed to exhale a perceptible miasma of dusty antiquity. The house was set in a little valley in the New England hills, all alone, and Keene had leased it for the summer in order to have a headquarters in which to complete a series of paintings of the countryside and landmarks.
I was spending my vacation in New York, and drove down one Sunday to see Keene, whom I knew well. He came to the door of the house and greeted me, and I was shocked at the pallor of his face and the feverish brightness of his eyes. After greeting me with pleasure that nevertheless showed a trace of reticence, he led me along a narrow, dingy hall to his studio. We smoked and chatted for almost an hour before the lurking terror in Keene’s eyes was explained.
He broke in suddenly on some unimportant retrospection of mine. Leaning forward, he put one thin hand on my knee for emphasis, and said hurriedly, “Johnny, do I look insane? I’ve been to a doctor, and he could find nothing wrong—but something is wrong. Do I——”
“A touch of flu?” I suggested. “You may have been working too hard, Ed. But why insanity?”
He looked at me hard. “I’ll tell you, I’ve been wanting to tell somebody, anyway—all about it, from the first moment I noticed there weren’t any rats.”
I stared, and he smiled crookedly.
“This house is very old. A witch was supposed to have died here in the old days. And in houses as dilapidated as this you n
aturally expect rats. See?”
I nodded, and Keene’s eyes went past me to the doorway. The door, I saw suddenly, was open, although I thought I had closed it on entering.
The most horrible expression appeared for a moment on Keene’s face—and was gone, so swiftly I could not analyze it. I felt an unfamiliar chill creep along my spine as he continued.
“No rats. No spiders. No insects. There’s no life in the house, except for me. The woodwork creaks sometimes, though—at night.”
“You’re a victim of a bad case of nerves,” I said. “Woodwork creaking! You’ll be telling me next there’s a ghost in the house.”
“Yes,” he said. “There is.”
For a moment I didn’t say anything. And Keene went on swiftly, as though to forestall my comments.
“It happened the first week I stayed here. You know the long hallway that runs the length of the house? Come here.” He got up, motioned me to the door, and stood waiting. I hesitated and then preceded him from the room, noticing that his eyes were fixed with curious steadiness upon the threshold.
The hallway was dark, and looking along it I got the impression of an incredibly long tunnel, stretching to infinite depths.
“What am I supposed to see, Ed?” I asked.
He shrugged and drew me back into the room.
“Nothing I suppose. I could scarcely expect——” His white face was intensely serious. “Did you see nothing at all, not even a suspicion of any movement?”
“No. You’re coming back to town with me—to a doctor.”
“Always practical,” he said, shrugging. “I’ve tried that. It doesn’t help. Well—I was telling you what happened. A few nights after I came here I—dreamed.
“I WAS very tired and sleepy, but in the dream I moved with a curious lightness, as though not bound by gravitation. My bed’s here”—he pointed to a cot under the window—“and in the dream I seemed to get up and go to the door, which opened, very slowly, as I approached. Moonlight came in through the window, but in the hall it was black as pitch. I felt my way, running my hand over the wall on the right side of the passage. Remember that.
Collected Fiction Page 87