The Weird Company

by Rawlik, Pete

  With some difficulty it opened its mouth and chattered out “Heeelp Meeee, pleasee.”

  I stared at the rat thing and then at the figure writing on the wall. “If this is Elwood, then who are you?”

  The figure paused in obvious frustration and then threw down the chalk. “You really are quite bothersome you know.” He reached down and in a single movement wrenched the wooden arm off of a chair and drew it up menacingly. “If you must know, when I was alive, they called me Walter Gilman. Now that I am dead, I have no name, though the things that haunt this world have given me a title, they call me The Student.” He took a step toward me. “I wonder what they will call you, once you are dead.”

  I rose up on my feet clutching the Elwood rat to my chest. “Frank, listen to me.” The thing lolled in my arms. “This isn’t real, it’s just an illusion, a fantasy generated by your mind. You have the power here!”

  Walter Gilman, or some facsimile thereof, stalked forward. “Oh I assure you that poor Frank is in no position to assert any sort of control in this place. You see he feels quite guilty, distraught really, over my death. He blames himself, and rightfully so. I was a brilliant student, I would have revolutionized the study of spatial and temporal physics, and I would have given mankind the ability to conquer the world, the galaxy, the universe, perhaps even time itself.” He looked at the Elwood rat in disgust and gestured with his makeshift club. “He let me die. Cut short my studies. And then had the gall to return to classes, to study, to write up his thesis, and to graduate with honors. I am The Student, and that rat bastard dares to obtain his Master’s degree? I will not allow my work to be forgotten while he is allowed to live!”

  He swung the club which I dodged easily, and while he was still caught up in the momentum I dashed out the door and onto the landing. The stairs, indeed an entire house had appeared, and with some trepidation I barreled down the steps, taking them two at a time, all the while trying to hold on to the struggling creature in my arms. “Hold still Elwood, I’m going to get you out of here, but you have to help me.” I launched down past another floor, looking at the doors that all seemed to lead nowhere. “This place is an illusion, but it is also an allusion as well. The city, the house, the stairs, they’re all allegories for what has been happening to you. You’re trapped in the past, feeling guilty over what happened to Gilman. You’ve become so obsessed by it that you’ve recreated him, imagined him to be alive once more, but you’re overshadowed by his monstrous genius, or at least that is how you perceive it. Therefore he’s taken over, and turned your mind into a prison where he can work forever, and you are condemned to be little more than vermin rustling in the corner.”

  Gilman’s voice boomed down the stairwell, “A fine bit of psychoanalysis but ultimately useless. There is nothing you can do to save Elwood, and you sir are still going to die.”

  I reached the ground floor and leapt from the stairs and toward the front door. It was closed but the handle was unlocked and the door swung free. With Elwood clutched in my arms I flung myself headlong out of the Witch House and into the street of dreams. But the street as I knew it was gone; indeed all of the dream Arkham had vanished. Instead of on a city street I was on the terrace of some immense building overlooking a city so vast that I could see buildings stretching to the horizon. I thought for a moment that I was in some dream metropolis, a utopia generated by Gilman’s mind, for about me everywhere where the signs of an obsessive mind. The edifices, the architecture, the monuments and features all revolved around one single number, the number five. Pentagonal motifs decorated the buildings which were themselves five-sided. Behind me a five-sided doorway led from the terrace into a corridor which itself was comprised of five walls. Beneath my feet the terrace itself was comprised of interlocking pentagonal tiles. I stood up and wondered where in the world we were.

  “A colony world of the Q’Hrell,” Elwood’s weak voice replied. “That is not their real name, it translates as the Progenitors. They are an ancient and learned race, so old that they have forgotten more about the universe than mankind has learned. Their dominion spans whole galaxies, and they have seeded life on millions of planets: sometimes to grow food, sometimes to create slaves, sometimes to provide a home, and sometimes simply because they can. When those from Xoth filtered down from the stars, it was the Q’Hrell who waged war against them and finally sank their stronghold into the sea. It was the Q’Hrell who brought forth the lizard kings and their avatar, and then crucified him for his disobedience. It was the Q’Hrell that taught Keziah Mason the secrets of moving through space. It was through them that she was able to survive as long as she did. Their blood is particularly potent; it makes them nearly immortal, and can even reanimate the dead flesh of any of their creations. They are powerful allies, and dangerous enemies.”

  I looked at Elwood; he seemed slightly more human than previously. “And these things commune with Gilman?”

  He shook his furry head. “These are just more hallucinations, fantasies created by Gilman to populate his dream world. He communes with them, but they are no more real than anything else here. That doesn’t make them any less dangerous than the real thing, in fact more so.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? As constructs of Gilman’s mind they do whatever he says.” Something dark passed in front of the sun. “Oh, by the way, the Q’Hrell, they can fly.”

  That is when I saw them: a whole flock of the creatures spinning through the sky like some horrid cross between squid and sharks pin wheeling on five great pulsing wings. They moved through the air in great arcs like raptors spiraling in for a final killing swoop. There were dozens of the things, but they all seemed to be moving in formation, a complex aerial ballet that was as beautiful as it was most probably deadly.

  I turned back to look at Elwood. “How do we get back to the Witch House? How do we get out of the dream?”

  “There’s no way out,” he whimpered. “Gilman has complete control. He always knew what he was doing. He was so smart. It’s no wonder that Keziah picked him to be her disciple. Here in this place he can do anything, be anything he wants to. Compared to him, I am nothing.”

  “That’s not true,” I said. Suddenly I was running again, this time I was moving up. The terrace had turned into a ramp, and while going down might have seemed the more logical thing to do, somehow running up seemed more right. “It’s I that can’t do anything here,” I said. Around me the terrace ramp turned into stairs, I was back in the Witch House. “But you, you Elwood, you are the real power here.”

  Behind us something large and grey slammed onto the stairs and screamed in a high-pitched whine that sounded like a mad flutist. There was a tune, a rhythm that filled me with fear, but despite my desire to cower in terror I ran faster while the thing behind us whistled insanely, “Tekelili Tekelili!”

  I was pounding up the stairs. My legs felt like lead weights and my lungs, as inhuman as they were, seemed ready to burst. As I drove up the staircase, the wood screeched and groaned, the railing fell away, and once more I was left climbing into nothingness. I brought Elwood up so that I could speak to him plainly. “Elwood, I understand how you got this way. Gilman’s genius was immense. His understanding of space and time was unprecedented. His accomplishments were unparalleled. Anyone would shrink to nothingness in comparison. Yet for all his genius he made mistakes Elwood, he was after all only human.”

  The beast behind us roared. I could see it. On the stairs it moved like a great cat, propelled by a series of small tentacles near its head, if one could call that starfish-shaped thing a head, and another set of larger tentacles in the rear. Even when moving like this, it still was spiraling around, drilling itself forward, the wings of the thing still pulsing open and closed as they rotated about. It was faster than I would have thought possible, but of course that is almost always the case when it came to monsters. In moments it would be upon us.

  “Elwood,” I was pleading, “listen to me. Gilman died, h
e failed. He beat Keziah Mason, but he overlooked Brown Jenkin, and overlooking something like that can mean everything. He may have been brilliant, even a genius, but he wasn’t a god. He failed to consider all the facts and factors, and because of that he not only died, but he was condemned to be trapped forever. You on the other hand have done things that Gilman can’t, and never will.” He looked at me with those strange violet eyes. “You lived Elwood. You went through those same horrid events, and you lived. Gilman can’t ever do that again. He’s dead, he’ll never be alive again. And because you lived you were able to move on.”

  The beast on the stairs spun toward us and unraveled as it did so. The strange piping that called through the air transformed into a now familiar voice, the booming sound of Walter Gilman screaming at us, at me. “BE QUIET YOU FOOL!” The Q’Hrell was gone, now only Gilman was rushing up at us.

  But I wouldn’t be quiet. “You finished your coursework Frank. You finished your papers. You earned your degree. You lived, you graduated, and you have your degree. That means you are no longer the second-rate student; you are no longer even a student. You are a distinguished graduate of Miskatonic University. You have a Master’s degree. You’re not a student anymore. That thing down there, Gilman, The Student, that is all he will ever be, but you Frank, you’re not a student, you are a master! Gilman will never achieve that!”

  The Elwood thing hissed as he leapt from my arms. He flew through the air, striking Gilman and latching onto his chest just below his throat. “You are dead!” the Elwood rat cried out, and then there was a flash of red. Blood flew through the air and Elwood disappeared beneath Gilman’s shirt.

  Gilman screamed. There was a moist sucking sound as he drew in breath and let loose a horrendous, pitiful cry. The Student spasmed, his back arched over and then cracked as he fell to the floor thrashing about and whining in the most horrible of manners. There was a wet gurgling noise, and Gilman’s throat swelled and his mouth opened wide as the thrashing ceased and blood leaked steadily out of Gilman’s eyes and nose. The jaw cracked as the mouth opened wider. Two hands suddenly thrust themselves out of the broken mouth scattering yellow teeth across the stairs. The hands forced their way out and then reached back to grab the sides of Gilman’s face. They pulled and as they did so two arms wrenched out of Gilman’s head. There was a cracking noise, and I watched as Gilman’s legs collapsed upwards into his body. The arms were followed by a gore-covered head and shoulders, and I watched in rapt horror as the body inverted itself. Time is meaningless in dreams, but it seemed mere moments for the thing that was once Walter Gilman to transform itself, to rend itself inside out and cease to be what it once was. When it was finally over, the flesh was no longer that of Walter Gilman; in his place lay the hideously reborn form of Frank Elwood.

  I helped the young man to his feet, and together we stumbled up the stairs. We found the landing and there where he had been imprisoned for so long I apologized to the poor creature. As I spoke, he looked at me with the most confused of looks. I almost stopped, almost took pity on the poor thing, but in the end I knew there was no going back. Elwood had his part to play, just like I did. We needed him, and there was no point in putting off the inevitable. “I’m sorry Frank, but there is going to be some pain.” I maneuvered him to the edge and then removed my arms from beneath his. “Birth is painful. Life is painful. Death is painful.” One quick shove and Elwood fell silently down the stairs and tumbled head over bloody heels into the abyss. “Why should your rebirth be any different?”

  As Frank Elwood fell out of his dreams, so did I. The nightmare version of the house dissolved, and in an instant I was back in the real world lying on the table of the real Witch House. Asenath and Hartwell had Elwood wrapped in blankets and were shepherding him out the back door. All around me debris was raining down. Chandraputra swept me off the table and into his arms just as a portion of the ceiling came crashing down. Something about those arms didn’t feel right, but as he rushed me out the kitchen door I was just grateful that he had been there. Outside on the street there was a great wind blowing, as if a gale had come off of the ocean and rolled into town, but the wind wasn’t blowing from the east, it was blowing from the windows of the Witch House itself.

  Glass exploded onto the street as something snapped inside the ancient edifice. Elwood’s dreaming had been powerful, so powerful that it had given life to his dead friend, and helped support the place where he had died. But now that dream was gone, and the power that had created and fortified the psychic architecture was gone as well. Without Elwood, the roof of the decrepit house collapsed, and with it the great chimney tumbled down as well. We watched as a chaos of crumbling bricks, shingles and rotting timbers crashed down into the house and blew moldy debris all over the overgrown lot.

  As the five of us fled back through the streets in those wee hours, we seemed content with what had been done. Elwood smiled, but said little. The Witch House still stood, but it was no longer the ominous threat it had been. Keziah Mason was dead, and so was her rebellious student Walter Gilman, and his dream-spawned doppelganger. It was true that Brown Jenkin, Keziah’s rat-thing, was missing, but without his mistress he seemed to have retreated from the world. More importantly, Frank Elwood was no longer a prisoner of his past regrets. Only the city itself bore witness to our deeds that night, and though I like to think we accomplished something, the truth be told, Arkham is, and always shall be, Witch-Haunted: one witch more or less, real or imagined, I suppose makes little difference.

  CHAPTER 9

  From the Account of Robert Martin Olmstead

  “The Creeping Shadows”

  I slept through the next day, and the night after that. On the second morning I rose with the sun and ate breakfast with Dr. Hartwell. I asked after Elwood and was told that he was recovering very quickly, and would be joining us soon. As for Chandraputra, the swami always ate in private. Asenath on the other hand rarely slept, but ate voraciously, often devouring substantial meals five or six times daily. I joked about how perhaps she was eating for two. Hartwell didn’t find my quip funny and the way he looked at me made me very uncomfortable. Without knowing why it was necessary I apologized and for the rest of the meal we said nothing more to one another.

  Chandraputra came for us and together the three of us descended once more to the hall where Asenath and Elwood were waiting. Elwood looked well. His skin color was slightly pale and his hair wild and unkempt, but dressed in a charcoal suit over a white shirt with a matching tie, one would not know that he had recently been released from his weird incarceration inside the Witch House, or that he had been rescued just a day or so before. As before, Asenath sat at the head of the table wearing the same pinstripe suit she had sported when I first met her.

  “As I have said before, there is a dire threat,” announced Asenath, “one that requires immediate attention.” At Asenath’s proclamation the table rapidly came to order. “Men have travelled to places they were not meant to be, seen things they were not meant to see, and awakened horrors that the world is not yet prepared for. Innsmouth was supposed to intervene in such affairs, but as a result of the occupation our forces are diminished.”

  I seized on the pause and demanded answers, “You have danced around the truth Waite, but I have had enough. What happened in Innsmouth, and why? Why after thousands of years did the Deep Ones suddenly decide to come out of hiding?”

  Asenath sighed in annoyance, “I suppose telling you is of no consequence, you are owed the truth, or at least some of it. Decades ago we were made aware of a threat; a man had established a rudimentary form of contact with the something from outside. That thing drove him and his children insane, and they became deluded by visions of power. They became determined to bring this thing into our own universe. Doing so would have changed the very laws of reality, not only for men, but for all of us. We moved to intervene, but ages beneath the sea had made most Deep Ones unable to function at the surface. Many desperate attempts were made and ended
disastrously. A new generation was needed, one able to move about in both the shallows of the sea and on land. In desperation a bargain was struck with the men of Innsmouth. The town was to withdraw from the world, cut itself off and become forgotten. The Deep Ones would interbreed with the townsfolk, and in exchange they would be given great wealth, and their children would be nearly immortal, and they would form the ranks of those needed to stop the intrusion from outside.”

  “Why not simply attack preemptively?” interjected Elwood.

  Asenath nodded. “We considered that, but our allies, those who could see the possible futures, all warned against such options. To move too soon would have revealed our presence and created a nightmare future for our species. Only by intervening at the last possible second could we have established ourselves as man’s ally instead of his enemy.”

  Hartwell’s eyes grew bright. “You are talking about what happened in Dunwich!”

  “Yes, not that it matters now,” commented Asenath in a derogatory manner. “The plan failed. Innsmouth was too large, too uncontrollable. Too many people left the village, and too many came to visit. The isolation was incomplete. Too many questions were asked. Men came and the town was unprepared to move against them. Now, Innsmouth is trapped, lost to the currents, unable to rise up as needed.”

  I was confused, and begged for an explanation. “Why would we Deep Ones fear such a thing? Wouldn’t this herald the return of Cthulhu? Wouldn’t we once more have dominion over all the Earth?”

  The room filled with a sudden palpable dread, and I watched as Asenath exchanged furtive glances with the others gathered around the table. Apparently I had sad something I shouldn’t have.

  It was Swami Chandraputra who finally broke the oppressive silence with his odd monotonous voice. “Robert, there are things tkrt that you believe to be true, that are not. This is not your fault tkrt. Your education on these things is incomplete, a hodge-podge of tkrt legends and racial memories that can be interpreted tkrt in a dozen ways. Tonight we will speak of true tkrt things. The truths tkrt you think you know tkrt are about to change.” He seemed to settle down into his robes, and he shrank slightly, as if somehow a chair had appeared beneath him and he had eased himself into it.