The Cry of Cthulhu: Formerly: The Alchemist's Notebook

by Byron Craft

  But my theories will soon be fact. I will call Yath-Notep to come forth from his chamber and he in turn will set his master Cthulhu free. The hour has finally come. The last forty years have culminated to this point. I will try to be concise with my notes.

  The Other is in the tower. I have made everything ready in the vault. I have closed the magic shape on the floor with the name of Yath-Notep and the powders burn orange in the clay urn. The machine gleams yellow in the light. It rests on top of the old wood table. I have not dared to activate the device since that one night, nor have I even attempted to place the two artifacts in their matching receptacles again, until now. The two pieces are in place. I have pulled the serpentine lever which was used so many centuries ago by the Elder One to put this machine to its devastating use.

  There is a sudden humming and vibrating and the mirrors are spinning at odd angles. The device needs no fuel or electrical power to run, and even though I was its builder, I doubt that I will ever know what powers feed it. The mirrors spin faster and faster and the vibrations are not unlike the drone of many bees. The glass is beginning to reflect the light from the burning powders in the urn, causing orange fingers of light to streak about the room and to make geometric patterns on the rafters.

  I am wearing the traditional robes of the alchemists. I feel the power building. I can hear the calling from the cosmos. My heart is pounding fast with anticipation. It is only minutes from the time. I am in awe, I have begun the incantations I acquired from the compilations of the two Necronomicons and the arithmetical hand signs that were called for on the scroll. First the traditional words from the Book of Eibon as spoken by the countless sorcerers throughout the ages, then the ritual from Britton, as practiced by the magicians of old England. I have listed the Great Old Ones and voiced salutations to each in turn. You will find all of this in my notes. My voice booms loudly in the vault and at times it would seem a tempest rages forth from my lips to shake the supporting timbers above. Dust is cascading down around me. Something is coming over me, a sensation...as if I am observing this from afar, and not actually participating. I see myself raising my hands over my head and hear the succession of words I knew so well actually echo back at me; “Kiah...Kiah...Rignum Azathoth! Kiah...Kiah...Rignum Hastur,” and the rest.

  I have formed the nine angles with my hands. “Kraken... Poseidon... Sabazios...Typon...Dagon...Setheh...Xicarph...Yath NoTep...Cthulhu!”

  I am taking this and myself to the limit and soon will be rewarded with the powers I will command. The cellar has filled with a brilliant light and the mirrors glow with the approaching power. My mind is exceptionally clear, I can see a green mist begin to form on the floor of the vault. The very earth shakes and a form is molding into various shapes. The mists are glowing and I feel the ground beneath my feet swelling again. The form is taking a different shape. I am about to set free one of the servants of the Old Ones. The shape is filtering up past the rafters and actually through the ceiling. It and the beams of light from the machine are both being fed off the stars in the cosmos above. I can actually see past the house and into the night sky as the power grows from the starlight.

  There is a cry of fury from the creature that is taking form. The sound is so immense that I just screamed in mental pain along with the thing. I feel faint. The cellar is filling with other shapes and mists are oozing from the floor. The minions are gathering; shoggoths, night gaunts, serpent men, ready to come forth and make way for their master. I can feel it!

  (Note: at this point the legibility of Heinrich Todesfall’s journal became very poor.)

  The green mass is still growing upward. It is amazing. I can clearly see its ascent by way of the ceiling. I can follow it through the many levels of the schloss into the night sky...I can see the stars above plainly as if I was standing outdoors...It is standing before me making squealing, slopping noises...It is changing shape again. It is rearing itself up to a tremendous height above the schloss.

  It is done... I have completed the ritual.

  The machine is working. The shape is familiar, I know it.

  There is a hole...Oh Lord, that hole...those things will come up from...

  I could not have been mis...

  I see it now, it is a hand... a giant hand... and it is pointing down at me.

  PART III

  A SOLDIER FELL HERE

  The continuation of Janet’s Story…

  I didn’t finish reading until the last blush of sunset was masked from view by the distant hills. Nervous and shaken I downed one of my few remaining valium and sat motionless starring at the larger high back chair in the parlor. The sound of the word I had phonetically spelled “Thoo-Loo” kept echoing in my head. The last word uttered by the Doctor before leaving that evening, and now the name of Cthulhu as set down by the old man in his notebook, undoubtedly is the same.

  Old man hell...sorcerer or lunatic is more like it, and here I sit looking at his chair. The Alchemist’s throne. The carvings on that piece of furniture were so vaguely familiar at one time but now it’s all clear. They were the same as on the grave marker in the field and identical to the carvings on the old knife...most likely the image of Todesfall’s god Cthulhu. If what he wrote of had some basis in fact, then were these creatures really omnipotent, or were they a form of super beings shackled in an invisible prison and only seeming god-like to us because of their sheer power and longevity.

  There were, I knew, certain strange and horrible survivals of religions or cults far more ancient than Christianity. Possibly Faren’s great uncle practiced one of these surviving religions and his madness warped and deluded by time and the Nazis forced him over the edge into unholy and unspeakable rites.

  Good heavens could he have made sacrifices to Cthulhu? Could they have been human sacrifices? I recalled the newspaper of that afternoon and the killings mentioned in it occurring less than a year before. Todesfall was still alive then. Could he have been the child killer? And what about that young girl? Did some maniacal religious cult snuff out a life not yet on the verge of blossoming or even worse, did she fall prey to some horror that was conjured up.

  There may be another type of survival involved...something known as psychic residue, the lingering of evil in places where evil had once flourished. I have read that many paranormal investigators attribute it to a haunting. A traumatic death occurs and a psychic memory of it resides in an inanimate object. This surviving residue could be a vast secret of primal knowledge that has extended for ages into the past and threatened to impend for ages into the future; an evil that has dwelt for ages in the shadows biding its time waiting to come forth and overwhelm all life. Is the gateway, as Todesfall called it, between the two worlds already open? Maybe it always was and we are now just beginning to experience its effects?

  Night came and the fog rolled in steadily from the Black Forest. Faren was late and I was afraid but nowhere near as much as I was angry. I wanted a showdown. I wanted an answer to all his secrecy and I wanted him home. I called the base but they said he was in a meeting and could not be disturbed. I didn’t care to be alone that particular evening. Many of my evenings had been spent alone; all the same I was unable to dispel the feelings of impending disaster.

  I kept thinking of the child that I carried within me and the child that was so ruthlessly slain in the woods last night. I was terribly alone. There was no one inside of ten miles from the schloss. I am not sure why I did what followed. It must have been out of utter desperation for someone to talk to that drove me to so irrational of an act that now ranks high in my moments of insanity. I named my unborn child that evening and talked to the five month fetus calling over and over to him, “Michael, Michael, everything will be all right.” I wanted to reach out to someone but there was no one there.

  I caressed my abdomen gently. The outline was beginning to show the signs of my pregnancy. I imagined our pink smiling son cradled in my arms.

  It was growing darker in the parlor and I turned on our one
and only lamp in the room. It was a bright lamp and it clearly illuminated the area. I was running a gamut of emotions. Within the next instant I decided that inactivity was the devil’s plaything and began to look for something to keep me busy. I pulled out the vacuum, turned on the radio to an English speaking broadcast and busied myself with cleaning the rug.

  The radio commentator was joking about a celestial phenomenon known as the “Jupiter effect, a rare time” he said, “when the planets of our solar system in their orbits about the sun come into perfect alignment between Mercury and Jupiter.” The noise of the radio was effectively drowned out when I switched on the vacuum. The radio and sweeper gave me a sense of security blanketed by the infusion of sounds.

  I kept myself occupied for some time until I heard a rattling. I couldn’t be sure if it was my imagination or a new form of punk rock coming across the airwaves penetrating the racket of the vacuum. Switching off the machine and turning down the radio I stood very still listening. All was silent. Some time passed, then the racket resumed suddenly and then ceased as abruptly as it had started. It came from the kitchen. I stepped lightly across the threshold between the kitchen and the parlor and looked around.

  I found nothing out of place. The door and windows were secure and all the cooking utensils appeared to be where I had left them last. I was about to leave the kitchen for the well lit parlor when I noticed the drawer beneath the sink board slightly ajar, about an inch or so out past the opening. When I tried to close the drawer, it became jammed. Upon examining the interior I found what had dislodged it. The writhing figures were only half visible in the shadows. It was unmistakably the knife. The evil looking dagger Faren had found. It was where he had last left it...but not quite in the same spot.

  I remembered closing the cutlery drawer when I did the breakfast dishes that morning. It was in the back section where I keep the carving knives and it closed without difficulty at the time. Now it had, by some means, been moved to the front with the hilt of the handle wedged between the drawer face and the underside of the sink board.

  The appearance of the dagger, by then, upset me. It conjured up thoughts of Heinrich Todesfall, of weird little fish men and of grave robbing. Not wanting to look at it any more I returned it to the rear compartment where it belonged and quickly slid the drawer shut.

  I couldn’t have been back to my vacuuming for more than a few minutes when the noise of rattling cutlery started up again. I heard the drawer being yanked open and then there was a clatter as something dropped to the floor.

  In the time it took to switch off the vacuum cleaner and let the hose drop to the carpet I was in the kitchen. The cutlery drawer was open wide, to the brink of becoming detached from the framework that held it beneath the counter. A fraction of an inch more and it would have fallen spilling my dinnerware. In the middle of the floor a good five feet from the kitchen counter lay the old knife. My nerves were already being pushed to their limit. So you can imagine the horror and dread I felt when I heard something skitter across the linoleum. My skin crawled in folds up the back of my neck and I froze.

  With a sideward glance, I saw by the light coming from the parlor a small and furry dark thing scurry across the room towards the cellar door. Whatever the little creature was (about the size of a small dog) it suddenly disappeared when, after overcoming my paralysis, I was able to move my head and look directly at it. It vanished. One moment it was there and the next it was gone. I know I saw and heard it, not clearly, but I know it was there.

  An unseen spirit that can only be seen out of the corner of the eye...and then I remembered the “other” from the journal...Todesfall’s mysterious little creature.

  Unsteadiness overcame me. The memory of those passages combined with what I saw, or thought I saw, gave way to anxiety. An indefinite number of minutes elapse before I was recovered enough to move. Forcing myself to take a deep breath I propelled myself to the cellar door and without so much as a glance below, closed and bolted it shut.

  The exact order of the events that followed has become a free-for-all of ghostly phantoms. I believe I scooped the knife up from the floor holding tightly on to it feeling a bit comforted at having a weapon in hand. I was no longer afraid of the dagger, instead, rather the thing that was so intent upon having it.

  It was then that Faren called. I jumped at the sound of the phone ringing. I must have sounded terribly upset. I was ecstatic when I heard him on the line. I became hysterical. I begged him to come home. I kept yammering and screaming about the old knife moving about. I was crying and carrying on. I am sure I didn’t make much sense. I probably scared the hell out of Faren. After struggling to get a word in he shouted and said that Jim hadn’t been back with Vesta yet, but he wouldn’t wait for him, instead he would take a taxi right away and leave word for Jim to follow.

  He hung up and I took another Valium. By then I had lost count of the quantity I’d consumed in the last hour. My hands shook so much I could scarcely open the bottle. I knew I was over doing it with the drug. VonTassell had warned me against excess in my condition but my imagination was in high gear. It was no longer conjecture as to the vocation of Faren’s great uncle. I knew by then he must have been in some way a sorcerer of the black arts. How else could these turn of events have come about? The dreams that have invaded my sanity or the eerie quality of this old house, not to mention the wooded glade and the stories whispered about it in the village. Then there is still that horrid garden... concealment or a crude joke to shield a cemetery for so many. In retrospect I shudder at the image of all those holes dug at the head of each grave and the deranged mind that had made them.

  Why had my legs been bruised and my stockings torn after waking from a dream wherein I was attacked about the ankles from below by a dark thing? Good God! Could that have been real? Could my dream have been a reflection of real events, but what about that picture? The photograph taken by Jim Ruttick; wasn’t that real? Could the fuzzy image have been Todesfall’s “other” or one of those spirits of the hills? Maybe they are one and the same. Perhaps the camera saw what the naked eye could not.

  The old alchemist Todesfall and his god Cthulhu; was this his reality and now it has become ours. Is there actually some unknown force out there that waits dreaming, fettered in a tomb although gigantic in proportions is at the same time so very minute that we are blind to its existence or rather its coexistence. How could any one person endure madness long enough to bring such a pestilence to earth? Have all the events which have lead up to this evening and God knows how far beyond been the results of a foul deed only left half done.

  I staggered across the parlor to the staircase. I felt giddy, partly from the valium and in part from the images I imagined. I hurried upstairs as quickly as I could. I wanted a place to lie down and wait out Faren’s return. Before propping myself up in bed I inspected the linen cases on each pillow. They were clean. I eased myself into a comfortable position.

  Trying to sway my mind to more pleasant thoughts I concentrated for a while on the wallpaper and the sun faded patterns of smiling children carrying baskets of flowers. I tried to imagine a childhood fairyland of sugar and spice. But I could not help from thinking about those poor souls buried beneath the tall oaks and pines only a short distance from our backyard. It sickened me that our home should lay so near to a burial ground, while at the same time my heart ached with pity, because of the violent way they had died and the mutilation their bodies must have suffered at the hands of Heinrich Todesfall.

  The window was open and the thick mist that had blanketed the grounds every night rolled in at its usual time as if on cue. The glare of the bed lamp impaired my view outdoors. I turned it off and went to the window. The fog was much heavier than in the past. It crawled across the earth at a much higher rate of speed than I had ever seen. Lifelike, almost inspired in appearance, it fingered its way around every rock, hummock and tree stump that lay in its path and then resembling a swirling eddy of liquid the fog surrounded and
surmounted each obstacle, enveloping them in a milky white tide pool.

  For a while I sat there transfixed by the ethereal movements of the fog until I noticed that it wasn’t coming from within the Black Forest as it usually did, instead the mist came from the South end of the field! A lump swelled in my throat when I noticed the mist pouring upward from a small hole in the earth located directly in the center of the hill...the same hill that had appeared just days before.

  At that moment a clap of thunder shook the house giving me a terrible start. It was followed by several more, like rapid gun fire. I moved to the edge of the bed and switched the lamp back on. The thunder was louder than I had ever heard in the region. I froze momentarily when between the peals of thunder I detected the low murmur of voices. I couldn’t make out what was being said but a light whispering filtered up from the courtyard at the rear of our property.

  Even though it was still too early for his return, I hoped it was Faren. Going to the window again I looked out but there was no one in sight. The fog had taken on the eerie green quality as it did when I first noticed the clearing that night from the tower, and as on that evening, I again detected movement in the glade amongst the wisps of vapor.

  There wasn’t time to think about it because the bedroom began to tremble and shake. The old chandelier wavered so that I was afraid it was going to rip loose from its ceiling mounts and violently crash to the floor. My perfume and cologne bottles on top of the dresser rattled and a deep far off rumbling vibrated me to the bone.

  The bed table lamp flickered and grew dim casting intermittent strobe like shadows across the wall. The images of the children imprinted on the wall covering began to change. Their smiles took on an evil quality. There were dark areas beneath the eyes and the flowers they carried were no longer colorful, but wilted brown, dead.