“Do you have the key?’
Donald nodded. Salazar shoved him forward. Donald dug in his pocket, searching for the tarnished, bronze key. After a long moment in the cold rain, he found it. Donald inserted it into the lock, his hands shaking. He twisted. Nothing happened. He twisted in the other direction. The door didn’t budge.
“My key… It doesn’t work. They must have changed the locks since I was last here…”
Salazar actually seemed pleased. With one smooth motion, he smashed the glass with one elbow. It shattered inward, the sound muffled by the constant rain. He released Donald just long enough to reach inside and unlock the door. “In.”
The hallway was silent. The steady thumps of the rain echoed dully. The streaming water sent rivers of shadows through the foggy windows. The shadows moved down the walls and ceilings in dizzying patterns. Donald walked quickly, searching his brain. He’d only been to Allen’s office a couple of times. The visits had been quick. He struggled to pull up the layout of the building in his head.
The hallway took a turn. Salazar stopped abruptly, his hand gripping Donald’s arm. Donald started and looked at the big man. His eyes were wide, his mouth agape. He followed his gaze. At the end of the hallway, dead center, Professor Bruce Allen stood. Though his features were in silhouette, Donald could tell it was him. Though… he was different. The way he stood. The way...
His form seemed to shake and pulse, immaterial and whole all at once. His outline wavered. Allen turned quickly, several furtive strides carrying him into an unseen hallway.
“Hey!” Salazar yelled. “Allen! Move it, Moore!” He tugged at Donald’s arm and they were suddenly running. Their footfalls echoed heavily through the silent hallways, rebounding and swallowing them. They reached the new hallway quick enough to see a door close. Salazar made a guttural sound full of anger and shoved his hand into his jacket. When he withdrew it, he held a pistol. At the sight of it, Donald’s heart plunged. He’s a madman.
Salazar released Donald and ran for the door, ripping it open. He vanished from view. For several long moments, Donald stood, unsure of what to do. Run. Go to your car. RUN. But, no. It wouldn’t work. Dagle was still in the car, waiting for their return. You could hide. Wait for this nightmare to end. He thought of his home, a dilapidated little house on the west side of Arkham, and felt a surge of violent despair. Donald suddenly felt sick. He couldn’t go back. Couldn’t go and sit in the darkness of his home, waiting for the sun to rise so he could hurry from his home to the distraction of work. Dear god. You are a pathetic.
A scream suddenly ripped through the air, a howl of pain and suffering. At the sound, Donald’s blood ran cold. Salazar. The scream tore through the silence like a blade through flesh. It rose in volume before suddenly cutting off with a gargle. After the scream, the quiet of the hallway felt perverse.
Seconds ran into eons. No other sounds emitted from behind the door. He found himself reaching for the handle. He’s hurt. Something has him. Get help. Get help. The handle of the door felt oily. Slick. The sensation made him feel sick. The door opened. Donald entered.
A single lamp in the far corner lit the tiny office. The room was thick in space and shadows. It looks like mine. The same cluttered desk. The same college degrees hung askew in cheap frames. It was different only in the small things. And the smell.
As a boy, he’d spent a summer with his aunt and uncle. Fishermen, from a long line of fisherman. This room smelled of those shores. Fish rotting through the night.
From the corner, folded into the shadow, Allen slouched. Donald could hear him breathe. He sucked in air in great, cloying drags. Liquid bubbled in his lungs. He couldn’t see his features but the shape was unmistakable.
“Professor Allen? Do you remember me?” Donald inched closer. The rest of the room was empty. No other doors. Where is Salazar?
“They come for us. They come now.” He spoke low, his words quick and slurred. Donald inched closer. The air felt hot. “Crawling. They bring everything. They show us everything…”
Donald opened his mouth, looking to speak, to ask what was wrong, when a drop of liquid struck his hand. He nearly screamed. The drop was hot. Donald held it close to his face, transfixed. The crimson droplet rolled over his swollen knuckles, leaving a trail of red across his skin. He slowly turned his gaze upward.
The ceiling teemed.
Black shapes writhed and thrashed, gleaming wetly, luminescent. Scales and tuffs of hair merged. Snakes. Stars lived in their flesh. He caught sight of massive maws, dark as the ocean bottom, dark as the furthest reaches of space. Among them, skinless, Salazar howled. They coiled over his quivering flesh. Though what remained of his lips were moving, he emitted no sound. His muscles contorted and stretched from pale bone as he separated. His eyes bulged. Then they popped.
From the shadows, Allen emerged. His eyes were filled with madness. They dilated in and out, black pits forming in his irises. His hair was completely gray, teeth black and dry in his mouth. Donald’s mind warped. Allen held up a book. He opened it.
The pages were alive.
Donald was running. The hallway stretched endlessly, the floor gray and alien, the ceiling dripping and obsidian. Words, formed from darkness and madness, looped in his mind. Impossibly long creatures uncoiled from the ceiling, humanoid heads howling on twisting torsos. He was screaming. His mind was a hive.
The words are etched upon my existence. The book is the vessel. And we are the slaves that work the oars. They come crawling. From depths as old as the god that lives upon them. They visit me at night. Messengers of the great, writhing deity.
From the windows, universes spun. Great masses of boiling flesh floated hungrily by. Donald didn’t dare look back. He could hear an antaean force coming for him. The pages spoke of it. Time lost its meaning. The book...
I would rather be dead than serve this god. I have ceased praying. No one listens. God is dead, his bloated corpse tangled in their grey corpulence.
His feet tangle. The air howls. Reality shifts and bends. Donald pulls himself to his feet and continues fleeing. It’s closer now. He can smell it. The deepest depths. Boiling, nocuous liquids. An ocean on a world beyond reality...
I’m sorry. To everyone. When they come tonight, I’ll be going with them. I’ve seen other men in the beyond. They reach for me. Tears of blood stream down their face. I will go. The choice is clear. Our world will be his. The dark is hungry.
Donald doesn’t make it much further. They drop from the ceiling. Their corpulent flesh entangles him. His flesh sizzles and burns. He does nothing but scream. The snakes part as a new mass enters through the ceiling. The eons snap. Within its body, thousands upon thousands of snakes writhe. The darkness envelops them, sucking and suffocating. A great rictus opens. Donald can see them. The men and women. Bruce Allen stands upon an ancient shore. Waves crash at his severed ankles. The waters of the old gods are poison. Tears of blood roll down his face. He drinks them. Donald begins to scream. No one hears him.
My end is here. At the beginning and the end, there is the book. It is cursed. The book isn’t to be opened. The words must not be read. They hold a power greater than any saint or god in human comprehension. If you can take away any words from this entry, make it these. Burn this book. Humankind isn’t ready for the words within. Burn it.
One Last Death
Eric Tarango
“Goodbye, Sheryl," Lynn Boaz yelled to her friend, waving her arm crazily in the air.
Sheryl blew her a kiss and got into her parents' Lincoln Continental.
Lynn was happy. It was Thanksgiving vacation and she was getting time to spend with her family whom she missed a helluva lot. She spent years wanting to leave home and now, after two years at the university, she was ready to spend time with them. She had some stuff for her mother, though, this time. She had pictures and new information on her aunt.
Aunt Corine Neal, the one mystery family member in her life. Corine had been a professor at Miskaton
ic back in the seventies and early eighties but her life had been cut short one night in the faculty parking lot. Her body was found against a large tree on the perimeter of the university, bound by wrists and legs with bailing wire. Her clothes were still intact, but when she was removed from the tree, a portion of her back was found stripped. Not a nice precise removal like it was done by a mad doctor, but someone or thing dug powerful fingers into her flesh and tore the skin away. The muscle of her back was cut away with the Roman numeral five.
Lynn did research when she could on her aunt, finding the normal information about her career, contributions, awards, and what she taught. Yet, something came to light that she or no one expected. A thin journal had been found belonging to Corine. As she was a living relative and the school had no rights to her things, the book was turned over to Lynn.
Lynn studied the book for days. Most was just normal writing about thoughts and ideas, but it also seemed her aunt had stumbled upon something curious in the school and had become infatuated with discovering the secret of it. Lynn was intrigued by her find, yet could not decipher it. The only clue she could uncover was that the item or thing her aunt wanted to find was sealed behind a section of the building that seemed to have burned down. Which made no sense to Lynn because it had burned in the early 1900's, way before her aunt had been born, and was now the police station.
With studies though, it was hard for her to keep researching. It was an interesting find, but her studies came first. She had plans and a goal. She was not swayed easily by fancy flights of illusion and her aunt was not likely to get upset if she did not continue with the research.
Lynn spotted her mother's car rounding the drive-in circle. She lifted her suitcase handle and, doing her best to avoid the melted snow turned ice, she rolled excitedly to the curb. Her mother leapt out and rounded her car, just as excited to see her daughter. She looked like she was going to slip, but her mother had grown up around snow her entire life and was capable of judging the conditions of the sidewalk and asphalt.
"Ohhhh! My baby girl! I have missed you so much!" Ellen squeezed her daughter, and kissed her cheek twice, a tradition started when Lynn had been in kindergarten.
"I miss you too, mom," Lynn said, returning the double peck. She really did miss her mom, but her heart became heavy when she laid eyes on her mother. She was looking older than before. There was graying in her fading blonde hair and creases of beginning crow's feet. Her mother was still boisterous and beautiful, and that was not just her opinion either. Many men still did a double take at her mother. She had a lean figure from years of eating healthy and working out. She was dedicated to her father, though, and her father was dedicated in the same way. They still vacationed together, played board games even with just themselves, and attended church regularly. Her mother was raised by a middle-class family, but the sad thing was they hardly ever spoke. They had not openly disowned their daughter for marrying a Mexican, or “the wetback,” as they put it. Her father had risen above their hopes for their daughter. He owned his own accounting business and made plenty of money. Enough to pay her tuition fully and still send her money to live off with no complaints.
Lynn tossed her bags into the trunk and got into the passenger seat. Hector was waiting for his daughter at home with a surprise, one he was decorating with a bright red ribbon in the garage.
There was a pair of eyes watching them drive away, past Kingman alley. She was smiling at the girl who was her niece and the woman who vaguely resembled the little sister she had grown up with. Years had vanished in an instant. Corine wished she could speak to them, but the rules of the dead were solid. Corine was fine standing by as time slipped away and the university campus went quiet and night settled in, bringing in the shadows that were up to mischief; imps and minor demons on their own little quests inside the halls of the school. Corine had to go to her hiding place. Corine had chosen a cubby inside Saint Daniel's church, away from lurking eyes. Corine had been killed, murdered for information that she had no business intercepting, and her human curiosity had led her to paying with her life.
She was fucking pissed off about it! Her life had been filled with education, learning, and knowledge she and others prized above all else in the institution. Now she had seen the truth. She had wasted her life pursuing what was written in books and wasted the soul God had given her. She could have had a family, been a mother and shared her knowledge with a child who would have favored that knowledge with smiles and inquisitive looks. Priceless love. She could have had a husband to share her bed, be annoyed with her for having the light on when it was time to sleep, and share meals with she had cooked and not minded, because she was a mother and wife.
That had not been her life. She lost time lying in bed, researching topic after topic, most dealing with the histories of ancient beings that were tied to the school. Ones she had believed were mythical. She had written what she had figured was correct information in a journal. One that she kept well hidden. In it was a passage that had impacted her life.
Corine sat and watched things with tentacles make blurred appearances among the pews and the rafters. She did wish she could do one thing. Sleep. Staying up constantly was difficult, especially seeing students taking naps in their rooms or in the library after a hard study session. She no longer had what would be called a brain but it was as if electrical impulses made by microscopic particles served as her mind, all that she knew contained in each individual particle acting together as a massive network to help her function. What differed her from other ghosts that roamed the halls was she was self-aware.
She could communicate with all other creatures here. She kept her distance, though. The others were violent and threatened her with disintegration. She stared at the bare crucifix facing the altar. She had stopped praying decades ago. Wanting a chance to be free and enter the light into Heaven. She had been an angry victim and when the visage of who she assumed was Death had reached to take her, she had run and taken refuge inside the university and stayed locked away for days. Then she had not realized that she moved among the living. She only focused on not running into Death, but Death had left as soon as she had run. It had no interest in pursuing souls. They still retained the freedom of choice and Death was too busy to worry about one single soul.
Corine had seen the Reaper after that. A student had suffered an almost fatal allergic reaction. The Reaper came and stood above the boy and watched, but before the medics arrived the Reaper departed and the boy lived. Corine wanted to follow the Reaper but it had vanished too swiftly to be seen.
She wandered the campus to keep herself entertained. There was always something going on at the late hours. Most of the time, it was gremlins and fae that snuck in from the surrounding fields to hide possessions or switch them to someplace that would likely start an argument based on accusations. Usually, she liked to head to the Northern part of the university and climb to the top of Cary Towers. She would look out across the campus in all directions and wonder what her life would be like if she had not succumbed to a tragic and violent death.
She was passing the car park leading from the central section and stopped to look at the tree where she had awoken to find herself bound and dead. She was not in shock, if she felt any real emotion at all, but she was long dead and her attacker was gone. She always paused to see if she would recall anything that happened that night, but she drew no new memories. She remembered only the walk, digging into her purse, and wanting to start a new book she had purchased by Jackie Collins. She enjoyed the raunchy sex thrills that filled the books and the action was fun read, also.
Death had removed that need within her. The obsession to read no longer inspired her, not even a smidgen. She would not allow herself to waste any more time lost inside the pages of a book. Corine shook her head and continued her trek along the sidewalk. She was about to pass Horditch auto body shop when she spotted a familiar creature slink around a stack of tires ready to be picked up by the city. Her curiosity was s
parked.
She did not have to play cloak and dagger as she was a ghost, but it was fun nonetheless, so she stuck to the shadows and lurked after the lurker. Hoping to catch it unaware, she crept around the tires and found the entrance cracked open a few inches. Contrary to what people believed ghosts could do, there were rules, like that of vampires. They did not have to be invited but they could pass through doors only if they were not fully shut. This was like given permission unless the door belonged to a resident who placed a crucifix above the doorway or any type of ward. There were few dorms that housed religious students. Most were deists or atheists and many followed the teachings of more ancient practices. Corine thought they were all nonsense when she was alive and, like most of her missed life, she wished she could have found religion. Maybe then she could have been brave enough to move on.
She had a real bad habit of screwing herself out of opportunities.
Corine squeezed through the door, her body stretching, pulling herself taunt and slender enough to pass the opening. The other side of the door led into a dimly lit short, cinder-block hallway. At the end of the hall was a steel door sitting wide open. A doorstop looked like it was straining to keep it open. She walked past the door and stopped to look at the doorstop. It was bent slightly. She had a feeling that the door was going to slam shut one day and hurt a person accidentally, and it would not be a minor injury. The loss of digits might occur.
There were two pick-up trucks parked in the work area, used for teaching. She recognized one. A 1999 Dodge Durango, dark blue with its hood missing, stationed beneath a crank that held up the motor. The other was a beat up Chevrolet Silverado, but she could not identify the year. The radiator was missing out of that one. The rest of the shop was clean. Tools were put up and chairs used to seat the students were stacked up out of the way. There was no sign of the creature.
Miskatonic Dreams Page 17