Screaming to Get Out & Other Wailings of the Damned

by J. F. Gonzalez

  Ted and I got the hell out of there.

  We ran back to the car, got in, and drove away. As we headed toward town I kept telling Ted that we had to do something. What Billy was doing wasn’t right. Ted kept shaking his head, saying we can’t do anything about it. Billy wasn’t breaking the law, and it was we who were trespassing. He suggested we just leave it alone and not have anything to do with Billy ever again. I finally agreed.

  (There is a pause in the tape, a couple of sighs, then what sounds like a sob. A moment later the narrator’s voice comes back).

  I didn’t see Billy for a long time after that. Over the past three winter breaks I inquired kinda casually around town to see if Billy was home, and he was. Billy always came home for the holidays. I never saw him, and I never went by his house after that incident, but I couldn’t help but think about him and what he was up to.

  And then...this year...and what’s happening now...

  I saw Billy a few days ago at the Freeze and Frizz hamburger stand on Broad Street. He was looking shabby still, and the people around him gave him a wide berth, like he had a bad odor or something. He was just so damn scary! It was like people subconsciously knew he was bad news and they stayed away.

  Seeing him again got me to thinking about what he’d been up to the past few years, so when I got home I got on the computer and googled Miskatonic University. I found the school’s website and read as much about it as I could. It seemed like a good school. Good, upstanding academic record. Its alumni were well-respected scientists, physicians, lawyers, professors, and writers. I wasn’t finding much out on the university’s website, so I broadened my search to other sites. It was there that I found more than I’d ever wanted to know.

  Arkham, Massachusetts. A place said to be cursed. Witch-haunted.

  And Miskatonic University itself is said to house rare books in a special section of the library, under lock and key, with armed guards patrolling the grounds...books that are said to be dangerous. Books that are said to contain secrets and formulas that could spell the end of civilization as we know it should they fall into the wrong hands.

  Naturally, I gravitated to those rumors and googled and googled until my brain reached saturation. I learned about the Necronomicon, of its author, the Mad Arab Abdul Alhazred, of De Vermis Mysteries, of Cultes de Ghoules and the Liber Daemonorum and another book that had a similar name. I think it was just called the Daemonolateria. These were ancient tomes kept under lock and key at the Miskatonic University library. I tried to find out what those books contained by further google searches. There was a lot of speculation...a lot of wild guessing...but I couldn’t find any reliable source on what was in them. Everything I read, from message board postings to essays on the occult on various websites, said the same thing: the books were ancient volumes of magic and contained ancient histories of the Old Ones, inter-dimensional beings that came from beyond the spheres, other dimensions, way back when the earth was uninhabited by man. These Old Ones ruled the earth then and somehow got banished to the outer spheres, but the books are said to contain formulas and rituals that are supposed to appease them, that if the right words were spoken, when the stars were right, the angles would be shifted and the spheres would open, allowing them access to our world.

  And really...all I could do was put two and two together and...well, this is it. Billy Sallee somehow gained access to those books. How he did it, I can only speculate. He was smart. It wouldn’t surprise me if he rose so high in the academic ranks at Miskatonic that he was allowed occasional access to those volumes. He wouldn’t be allowed to take them off the premises, of course, but like I said...he was smart. He would know where to look, could memorize certain passages, and would then work in secret to apply what he’d learned with what else they were teaching him there. Things like Advanced Geometry and Physics and String Theory and...well, shit....think about it, man! If those books were right...and they had to be, otherwise why would they be guarded so heavily? If they were right...and knowing a little about physics and string theory...how there are inter-dimensions that lie within our own...all it takes is the right mathematical formula to penetrate it...it makes perfect sense that Billy would take advantage of the ending of the Great Cycle and everything happening because of it, like the new sunspots that are popping up on the sun now, and use that knowledge and the information in those books to open those inter-dimensional gates to release something—

  (There’s another pause on the tape, accompanied by deep, gasping breaths. When the narrator’s voice comes back on he is on the verge of panic)

  None of this would have happened if I had done something to stop the bullying! Billy was teased and bullied all his life, made to feel like a loser and a scapegoat, and he suffered great emotional pain. And for that, he got even. What’s happening is Billy’s revenge against an uncaring world, one that never protected him, that always showed him scorn and ridicule. He did something to open those dimensions and release the Old Ones into our world, to wreak havoc and destroy us. That’s what those things are that are destroying the cities...that’s what those large, circular holes are in the ground behind Billy’s house. It’s an Old One...some slithering, invisible monstrosity that he conjured up...it’s what those booming noises I heard are...they’re footsteps. And these things...they’re spilling out of the break in the dimension into our world, and the more they come out, the bigger the hole they’re creating between dimensions...that’s why we’re seeing more of this havoc all over the world...it’s not just the ending of the Great Cycle, that’s part of it, sure, but Billy is using that natural occurrence to his advantage...the holes are getting bigger, and soon its going to be a flood and they’ll be everywhere and...ah, God, if I’d only done something to have stopped it!

  (The tape clicks off. When the narrator’s voice resumes again there’s static in the background and he’s crying).

  The power’s out everywhere! I can hear something outside! I can hear something walking outside...something that sounds big and it’s knocking down houses and I never saw my parents today, never saw them before they left to tell them I loved them and...oh God, it’s right outside the house –

  (The audio ends at this point and never resumes)

  DETECTIVE’S STATEMENT:

  The above narrative was fed into a voice-activated program on the Lancaster City Police department’s computers and transcribed into text format for easy analysis in the case of Joshua Collins of 434 E. Oak Lane, Lititz, PA. Joshua is a suspect in the murder of his parents, Brian and Dorothy Collins, who were discovered by a neighbor on the morning of December 12, 2012 when they failed to meet them for a church function.

  It is the opinion of the criminal psychiatrist who read and listened to the narrative, and examined Mr. Collins in the psychiatric wing of Lancaster County Prison, that Joshua Collins is not only delusional, but suffers from a myriad of mental disorders including paranoia, schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and various other manias. Joshua is currently under the care of Kerry Wilson, MD, a prominent psychiatrist hired by Mr. and Mrs. Collins’ estate. Dr. Becker, the criminal psych who examined him, concurs with Dr. Wilson. After talking with both psychiatrists, reading through all the evidence, viewing the crime scene, and talking to dozens of witnesses, I am inclined to side with the mental health professionals. Joshua Collins needs to be confined to a mental hospital, possibly for life. He does not deserve prison.

  There are things in Joshua’s tape-recorded statement that need to be clarified with a grain of sanity and good old-fashioned truth. The first is obvious: Joshua Collins did pick on Billy Sallee. In fact, according to several witnesses, which included Ted Gleason and Mr. Sallee himself, Joshua Collins was the catalyst; the ring-leader, if you will. While he might not have dished out the harshest of the bullying, he always instigated it, setting the wheels in motion, so to speak. He only stepped in occasionally to administer a cruel punch in the arm, a cold-hearted verbal jab, plant a cruel and vicious sign on the back
of poor Billy Sallee and laugh with the rest of his moronic friends. So, despite Joshua Collins stating numerous times that he was the wonder boy who did nothing to stop the vicious teasing of Billy Sallee, that statement is a falsehood. Joshua was no wonder boy. He was part of the elite crowd, yes, but was by no means a golden choirboy.

  Regarding the phenomenon Joshua describes in his narrative, including the reports of invisible monsters rampaging through his town and all over the world, the destruction of property, and the chaos he describes, they are falsehoods. The brief news excerpts we hear on the audio are from a science-fiction movie. The other sounds we hear are from other horror and science fiction movies he had playing on his computer when he recorded this tape. In short, there were no monsters bursting loose from other dimensions to destroy the world as he described. It was all an elaborate set-up built to feed his paranoia and delusions.

  It is the belief of the psychiatrists and myself that extreme guilt festered in Joshua for years, building up until it manifested in his various mental ailments. Joshua was obviously guilt-ridden for his part in Billy Sallee’s years of mental torture. He not only managed to hide his guilt well, his psyche developed what Dr. Becker called an ‘alternate personality’ to help deal with it. It was these various ailments that eventually led to Joshua’s mental disintegration and, ultimately, the murder of his parents.

  I would like to add an interesting footnote to all this. Contrary to Joshua’s statements about Billy Sallee’s state of mind and physical appearance in his narrative, upon interviewing Mr. Sallee I found him to be not only calm and articulate, but also well groomed and handsome. His high school senior class photo shows a boy who looks somewhat awkward, perhaps, but it is obvious to myself and the other investigating officers that Mr. Sallee shed that image and blossomed into a fine young man. Mr. Sallee admitted to me that he was painfully shy as a child and was, indeed, deeply hurt by the teasing he endured, but he obviously developed courage and a sense of spirit at Miskatonic. Perhaps leaving his home environment helped. Whatever the case, Mr. Sallee does not resemble the strange, shambling, unkempt figure Joshua Collins describes in his testimony. Mr. Sallee not only comes across as a courageous, if not outgoing and confident young man, but one who is well-groomed and pleasant in appearance. Currently a Physics student at Miskatonic University in Arkham, Massachusetts (and on a whim, I investigated Joshua’s claims about the so-called forbidden books that are said to be housed at the University’s library; the head librarian told me they do keep rare books—including the Necronomicon, which he says is merely an ancient history book—and that they rarely allow access to them because of their rare state, not because they’re dangerous), Mr. Sallee plans to pursue PhD studies there as well.

  I think the only thing that Joshua Collins was correct about in his rambling, chaotic statement was what the officers and I found in the woods behind the Sallee home during our preliminary investigation, which very well could have triggered this latest and fatal outburst of violence.

  Starting from the perimeter of the Sallee backyard and leading into the woods beyond are several large, circular impressions in the ground.

  Story Notes

  “Holes” was written in 2008 for a particular market in mind – an announced anthology of Lovecraftian fiction with the theme of the Mayan calendar to be called Cthulhu 2012. This proposed anthology was to have been published by Mythos Books, a fantastic mail-order dealer of horror and a sometimes publisher. For whatever reason, the anthology never materialized.

  I’ve always been fascinated by ancient myths, religions, and cultures. I also love conspiracy theories. So when I heard about this anthology, it got me to thinking about the Mayan Calendar. Because I live in a small town, I got to thinking about small town life as well. I imagine this was a direct result of the novel I was just starting at the time – Back From the Dead – which deals directly with bullying and how people who are outsiders are often ostracized from society. The story just kind of came together, as if it was meant to be.

  This is the first of all my Mythos fiction to utilize the standard Lovecraftian archetypes: Arkham, Massachusetts, Miskatonic University, the whole works. In my previous Lovecraftian stories, I’d only utilized the concept that we as a species are just specks of dust in an uncaring universe with the suggestions that there are beings out there who can obliterate us if they sneeze. With “Holes” I wanted to go whole hog and pretend I was back in 1937, writing this with Weird Tales in mind.

  While the anthology never materialized the story finally did, in my mini-collection The Summoning and Other Eldritch Tales.

  Screaming to Get Out

  I HAD ONLY been working at my new job as an analyst at Braun and Meyers for just over two weeks when I noticed most of their employees were not human.

  Let me clarify that for you.

  They were human in appearance. They looked and behaved like regular people. They all fell into easily classifiable stereotypes: the harried secretary, the workaholic middle-manager, the aloof IT staff, the lowly administrative folks. And even though I still hadn’t gotten to know any of my co-workers on a personal level, I overheard enough snatches of conversation in the lunchrooms and corridors to know they lived like normal people; they had cars, paid mortgages on middle-class homes, came home to spouses and children or significant others, and tended to the usual everyday menial chores such as grocery shopping and doing their laundry in the evenings, and on weekends.

  But they weren’t human.

  They couldn’t be.

  And I don’t know what they are.

  MY FIRST CLUE that something wasn’t right occurred about two days into my stint at this job when I overheard my boss, Donald Robinson, berate the department secretary, Cathy, for informing him she needed to leave early that afternoon so she could see her daughter perform in her school play.

  I didn’t see Donald’s face when she asked this. I was in my cubicle trying to figure out the reporting strategies the company used for their financial forecasting when she informed him, but I heard him sigh in irritation and ask her to step into his office. I looked up to see them going into his office.

  The door closed but I could hear them.

  “Now Cathy, we’ve talked about this more than once and you know the company’s position.”

  “I’ve put in four hours of overtime this week, Donald! I already have the time coming to me! I’m only asking for two hours at the end of the day!”

  “Cathy, you know your duties with the company come first. When you’re here, you’re expected to abide by the policies and procedures. They’re final, and so is my decision to deny your request.”

  There was a sudden flurry of clicking heels as Cathy stormed out of Donald’s office. I turned away in embarrassment, pretending I was still working. I didn’t want her to know I had overheard their conversation. My eyes rested on my copy of the still unread Policy and Procedure manual I had received at orientation, feeling embarrassed and sorry for Cathy and her predicament. I was a parent too, and I always made it a priority to be a part in my son's life. I hoped what was happening with Cathy was due to some past incompetence on her part, that the reason her request was denied was due to her abusing the system in the past, perhaps. The last thing I needed was to be under the thumb of a petty tyrant.

  I could tell Cathy was trying hard to keep from crying. She got that sniffle sound in her breathing that suggested she was very close to breaking down. Donald remained in his office and I pretended to work. A moment later he came in to my cubical, a smile on his cherubic face, and handed me a folder. “The paperwork for the Deller account,” he said. I took the folder from him and nodded. There was no trace that anything was wrong. Everything was business as usual to him.

  I opened the folder and was just about to ask Donald a question when I sensed a definite change in his mood. He motioned to the framed photo of my wife and son I'd placed on my desk that morning. I still had not been able to unpack the rest of the knick-knacks I’d
brought from home in an attempt to liven the cubicle, make it more homey. “Lovely family,” he said. “Did HR change their policy regarding decorating your work space with personal items?”

  I felt my skin bristle. “I don’t know,” I said, the answer rolling off my tongue quickly. “They didn’t say anything about it, at least nothing that stuck out.” Truth be told, the orientation was a yawnfest and I’d downed a quart of coffee and probably excused myself half a dozen times to scurry to the men’s room to pee. If they’d covered this particular policy, I’d probably missed it.

  “Most likely the policy hasn’t changed, otherwise I would have gotten a memo.” Donald straightened up, his pudgy hands darting to his sport coat to button it up over his considerable girth. For some reason I instantly pegged him as a stereotypical MBA corporate ladder-climber; you know, the kind that would sell their children for a spot on Microsoft's Board if the opportunity presented itself. “You’ll see the policy in your manual. No personal decorations from home are to be visible in your work space.”

  I looked at him. “Are you serious?”

  “It’s in the manual,” he said. His composure was direct and uncompromising. The total opposite of the man who’d interviewed me three weeks before and displayed laughter and warmth.

  “You mean...nobody is allowed to have even a picture of their kid on their desk? Or their spouse?” I almost added, and what about pets? Parents? Best friends? A favorite Aunt or Grandparent? I couldn’t get over this stupid rule. They actually paid nimwits to make up such governing codes of idiocy?

  “It detracts from the workplace,” Donald explained. “This is a perfect case of it now. Had the photo not been there, I wouldn’t have commented on what a lovely family you have and we would have gotten right down to business. Instead, we’ve wasted almost a minute talking about the company policy. The average time employees who display personal items in their cubicles spend talking to each other about personal issues is about forty-five minutes per day. The time drops dramatically when these personal items are absent from the work place.” Donald offered a weak smile. “I have a family too, Jesse. But I don’t need to show them off to everybody. I understand it’s your first week here, and you may have missed or misunderstood that part of the orientation. But please...take the picture down.”