by Byron Craft
I… I hear footsteps on the stairs. Someone is coming. I wonder if it’s...
PART IV
THE CRY OF CTHULHU
Transcribed from tape recordings made by Faren Church
It began for me the night I had the dream. It was an ordinary evening in our new home in Germany. I was exceptionally tired with the last two weeks spent getting the house in shape. My arms and legs ached with the memory of the completed chores and my eyes were heavy.
After a while, my wife rolled over and fell asleep. She was sleeping soundly, snoring slightly. I was eager to fall asleep myself. My body shuddered slightly and I settled down to welcome the rest, still I found it difficult to relax. I had spent the entire day running around finishing the last of our repair jobs on the old house.
The next day I would be starting my new assignment with the company and I had pushed myself to get everything done. I was physically exhausted but my mind was still racing. I lay on my back for a while staring at the ceiling. I traced the cracks in the old plaster and started counting the many swells and bulges caused by years of patching until I was on the edge of sleep. Then, something jarred me awake. I sat up in bed with a lurch, my nerves shaking from the sudden start. I had heard something outside. We had spent several nights in the house by this time and up until then it had been relatively quiet.
I waited in the silence that followed for it to repeat. After a long stretch, I leaned back on my pillow only to hear the sound once more...or as near to the sound of something moving amongst the brush under our window.
Now alive only in my eardrum, not moving, not breathing, I waited. The ghost of the sound passed through gradual increases of rarity and volume. I first thought it was the sound of rain falling; then it sounded like the fluttering of wings, quickly becoming the confused words of water gurgling and then it became a ruffle succeeded by the noise of chewing...as if a large animal was eating the shrubbery!
Quickly, but quietly so I would not disturb Janet, I got out of bed and went to investigate.
Because of Janet’s fear of guns, I have never had one in the house, so upon arriving at the front door, I opened it cautiously and slipped outside without a thought given to acquiring a makeshift club or a knife from the kitchen. It is definite proof that I was dreaming. I can’t imagine being in my right mind going out alone in the middle of the night to look for an intruder without some means of protection. It is all so vivid though. Different fragments of the dream from time to time have the aspect of memories in a solid perceptible sense, but why then during this particular moment of clarity did I slip outdoors wearing only my shorts, yet the chilly evening did not have any effect on me, nor did I consider putting on any clothes.
The noises I had heard came from the opposite side of the house. In the semiconscious daze of a dreamer I walked along side of the schloss in search of the source. A rustling in the tall grass at the corner of the house attracted my attention and I stole cautiously up to the motion. There was no mystery about the sound by then, it was similar to a cow grazing. I slowly moved to the edge of the building and peered around the corner.
Then I saw the thing that made my blood run cold. Long and green and scaly, it was a tail! Like a giant reptile’s tail, it slithered slowly, almost contentedly, over the lawn.
My mind was in turmoil as to what could belong to that tail. Even though my common sense told me to run, a drive...almost a calling made me proceed. I made my way further from the corner of the house to get a better look at the creature.
The tail lurched suddenly and began to spasmodically curl and uncurl. I jumped behind the wall again in sudden fright, waiting until the tail slowed down and its movement stopped. After a moment I moved away from the corner again for a better view.
Standing in front of me, munching lazily on the decorative bushes was a sleepy-eyed, green faced, red backed, gold winged dinosaur.
I was amazed and for some unknown reason my fears started to lessen. Curiosity overpowered me. Looking back now it makes me think of the fables and tales that were born and told countless times in and around these forests. This creature must have come right out of one of those bedtime stories.
It was dark green and had large scales about the size of silver dollars covering its muscular body. Huge, golden membranous wings unfolded from its back and a long flexible crimson spinal column ran its entire length to the very tip of its tail.
The most incredible thing of all was its face. Its expression reminded me of a Basset Hound. It was lazily munching on a hedge; eyes drooped, almost sleepy, its long pink tongue darting between dulled, yellow teeth.
Slowly it turned its huge head and saw me for the first time. It gave a start and took a sudden step sideways. Then it gazed steadily at me and I stared back. My mind was a blank.
The dragon wearily tilted his head regarding me with hypnotically compelling eyes that glowed brightly drawing me closer.
The thing lowered its head. The muscular neck curved and appeared to form a dip, like a saddle. It kept looking at me and I knew it meant for me to mount it like a horse.
The next thing I recall was laying my hand on its cold scaly head. The scales warmed to my touch. I remember briefly speculating that the creature must have had a natural ability to adjust to its environment. Without knowing why, I felt comfortable and safe being near the beast. There was no fear and I did what seemed as natural as getting in our car to drive to town. After all, I was really still in bed, I knew I was asleep but a level of my consciousness felt playful. I lifted one leg over the head of the beast and easily mounted it.
I held onto the creature and it lifted its head and flexed its wings with a huge arcing motion. The wings started flapping and caused a wind that raised dirt and loose grass all around us. The creature turned and lumbered out across the lawn. It began to pick up speed and started an awkward run into the wind. My dinner of sausage and beer must have fueled my dream because after a couple of leaps that actually caused the beast to stagger, we lifted off the ground and glided smoothly for about a hundred yards across the earth. It then lifted and I felt its muscles contract beneath me, and as if flexing some invisible power, we quickly soared upward at a steep angle into the night sky.
We flew over forests and mountains. I looked down and watched the scenery glide by below us. The familiar countryside was replaced by a wild land I had never seen before. Jagged, needle pointed mountains raised thousands of feet into the air, literally towering above the clouds. The surface of the country looked alien. The mountain peaks were black and menacing.
As I stared at the dreamscape unfolding below us, the creature abruptly made a sharp turn, headed straight up and the earth fell quickly away.
The land became smaller and smaller and ahead the cosmos grew. I felt no discomfort. I had no trouble breathing. It was as if I were still sleeping with the blankets tucked under my chin. I knew without really knowing why that the beast was taking me back to the place from which it had come.
Some time must have passed, but I am not sure. I remember straining my eyes against the darkness. One star in particular burned brighter than all the rest. It loomed ahead of us.
Without warning the creature’s wings folded back and we gained tremendous momentum. Faster and faster we went, until I am sure we would have appeared as a blur of motion to some alien astronomer on one of the planets we passed. I looked forward again and saw myself riding the creature up ahead. I turned and gazed behind and again I saw myself there ... as if there were two mirrors reflecting an infinity of images. The creature still gathered speed.
The night world around us contained a bridge of stars. Wild streams of violet and midnight glittered with dusts of silver and gold. Spiraling masses of dust and fire swirled out from black spaces and became heavy with lights from worlds beyond. Oceans of gas poured past lit by a million suns.
In the very center of this whirlpool was one blood red star beckoning me and my mount to our destination.
The burning orb grew
larger as the creature’s speed increased. The flaming sun filled my field of vision and my bearer continued forward straight at the core of it.
In the very center of the turbulence was a speck, a tiny blemish, like a black spot on a bright red plane. It was to this darkness we flew.
It grew around us and we were totally engulfed by the black, sucked inside the hole and pulled at a tremendous rate through a tunnel. Farther and deeper we sped through the tunnel. Total silence and darkness enveloped us as if in a vacuum that is void of sound and light. It built around us like inside the eye of a hurricane. Then there was a pinpoint of light at the center of my vision. No sooner than had I spotted the point of illumination that the end of the tunnel was upon us. A misty white swelled until it encompassed us and we were expelled from the dark with a tremendous explosion.
I know it was a dream but the effect was severe. I was frightened. When I think back on it even now my muscles will ache remembering the physical stress. I wanted to wake up. I didn’t like the feeling in my stomach. I fought for consciousness but it was a heavy sleep. Although my eyes were seeing this planetary vision I tried with no success to open the eyes of the sleeper within me.
We were embraced by a smoky white world. I gave up and relaxed letting the dream run its course. The beast slowed down to only a fraction of its previous speed, a slow motion pace compared to our journey there.
The mist soon lifted. The sky was filled with incredible wonders of a strange new universe. Behind, the cosmos still raged but I saw it from a different perspective and I saw something that filled my soul with a cold, freezing horror.
At the center of a raging sun was a creature...a misshapen tentacled thing, burning at the core, its cries noisily enveloped by the continual exploding surface.
I looked away.
Planets revolved around the exploding sun. Each held a captive, more gigantic and gruesome in appearance than the other. There were a dozen terrors held in bondage on asteroids and small planets. They were retained by huge shackles and chains; molten mud and quicksand; giant blocks of ice.
Nearest the sun was a molten planet that held a burning serpent man in its fiery muck. At the rim of the solar system a captive evil lay in the frozen wastes of an ice planet. Between these two prison worlds were terrible, rocky planets, each another prison for some hideous creature. Some of the fugitives were imprisoned on sundry minute planetoids which were scattered here and there along the outer reaches of the system.
The creature that was chained to the burning planet, in a fit of rage, threw a molten fireball that narrowly missed us if it hadn’t been for a deliberate, although languorous maneuver of the winged beast.
Except for the slight mishap that went practically unnoticed by the creature, it calmly passed this incredible spectacle of horror. The planets revolved their captive terrors about us as we rocketed on our way. As we passed the last body, the ice world, the cosmic fog again began to envelope us. It spread around us, thick and bright, more dense than before. I lost touch with my senses. I felt numb, I couldn’t feel my mount beneath me and all sensation of movement and direction disappeared. I believe we passed through another barrier.
I began to gain my feelings once again and felt the creature slowing down. Its large wings began to move in slow, graceful sweeps. We were landing. We moved slowly through the glowing fog. As I peered ahead, I began to see a shape, a large looming form ahead of us. As we came closer, I made the shape out to be another huge, crouching creature, possibly another captive planet monster? As the living vehicle I rode neared the form, I saw that the large thing was a stone figure, a giant statue rising in the fog.
We approached the statue and rose above it and the fog. Circling around the head of the idol I saw that it was the corner piece of a vast wall that was thickly adorned with hieroglyphics and stone carvings. The colossal wall extended far down and was lost in the bottomless fog.
The mist thinned at the higher altitude above and as we crossed the top of the structure, there remained only wisps of it.
Rising out of the gloom was a circular tower. On the top of it was a flat landing plane where several ramps spiraled down into the fog. It was here that the creature finally landed.
Out over the top of the mist I saw that the tower we had landed upon was only one of many. Other flying beasts were landing and taking off from similar towers. The discharged passengers descended on similar ramps that wrapped down and around the structures.
The vehicle creature lowered its head and I easily slid off its back onto the platform. Two openings faced me. A glass gate blocked the one on the right. The other was opened and the slanted floor moved, escalating downward. I descended on the ramp into the mist. As I slowly road it down, I noticed on the ascending ramp on my right, alongside the one I was on, a two legged being that was half man and half bird. I took this to be the beast’s next passenger. We stared at one another in passing and not until each of us were out of view of the other did I realize that he regarded me with an equal air of surprise as I did him.
Although the fog was always present it became thicker and surprisingly phosphorescent upon decent. While my eyes began to adjust, I started to make out structures. Buildings began to form in the mist and it was obvious that I was descending into a city of incredible alien architecture.
In certain places I beheld dark cylindrical towers which rose far above many of the other structures. These appeared to be unique in nature and displayed signs of age and dilapidation. Nowhere in any of them could I find the traces of windows or other openings except for doorways at their bases.
Huge narrow pyramids towered around me joined by ramps and catwalks on which robed figures moved. The spiraling towers reached upwards disappearing into the mist filled sky and black monoliths loomed below them as far as my eyes could see.
I came to the end of the ramp and found myself in front of an immense five-sided arch that lead onto some city streets beyond. I passed through the arch and entered the wide passages between massive domes and flattened pyramids. As I looked around noting the windowless structures, the lack of street lamps or lights of any sort also became apparent. The entire landscape seemed to be lit by the glowing mist that enveloped everything.
One minute detail I remember surprisingly well was that most of the buildings were comprised of a dark granite masonry with lines of convex topped blocks fitting the concave bottomed courses which rested upon them.
I was far from the only inhabitant of the city. All around me the metropolis was teaming with a collection of strange beings. The streets and passageways were crowded with the city’s populace. To my amazement the gargoyles that adorned the surrounding buildings upon nearing them suddenly came to life and flew from their stone perches between the buildings. They reminded me of a flock of startled pigeons. Reptilian lizard and birdmen walked by me on the streets, passing with credulous stares in my direction; a centipede-like being slithered up a pole to disappear into the thick fog above; a group of huge insects stood in my path talking in sign language with their princes and I was forced to veer around them in order to continue on.
I knew where I was going or at least my subconscious did. All around me the lanes led in one major direction. I suspected that the city streets had been laid out similar to the spokes of a wheel, with the heart of the metropolis being at the hub.
Cutting across an adjacent alleyway I heard a clamor in the street ahead. A number of armored lizard men riding bulky six-legged steeds bore down upon me. I quickly moved out of their way as they hurried by. Behind them came a procession of reptilian soldiers clad only in leather breastplates and skull caps carrying a long wooden pole between them. Bound to the pole was a beast, a small but extremely muscular demon-troll looking thing, which growled and snapped at its captors.
Toward the rear of the procession two more lizard men appeared carrying a large transparent orb wherein squatted a small creature that resembled a mud puppy. The creature swam in a green fluid and it was trying
unsuccessfully to break out of the prison globe.
At one point I had to stop to allow a caterpillar creature, the size of a large dog, to crawl from a side street and cross my path into a darkened doorway.
Everywhere the streets and buildings crawled with alien creatures. While many more probably remained unseen. I could only guess at their numbers when passing dark alleyways or the blackness of an opened passage. I sometimes could make out faint whispers and tittering cries. And always, above it all, loomed the catwalks joining the pyramids and on those catwalks moved robed figures. I never saw a robed being in the streets below, where I walked; they didn’t come down and mix with the other city dwellers.
At the end of the street I came upon another wall, similar to the one that surrounded the city but not as large. In front of me stood a pair of massive doors, they were adorned with some of the same hieroglyphics and carvings. Chained in front of the passage were a dozen or so armored lizard men. As I approached them they all moved forward and pulled on the great latches. The two doors of heroic size swung slowly open.
When the doors parted I saw a courtyard within the surrounding walls. The floor was made up of giant blocks of masonry machined so evenly and laid so tightly together that they required no mortar to fill the joints. Over the polished stones moved the robed shapes I had seen on the walkways above. They came from many doorways like the one in which I stood and joined together to form a single line moving with a peculiar gliding gate into the center of the courtyard.
I took a few more steps and crossed the threshold. The courtyard only had one other structure in it. It was a narrow stone spire that towered up higher than the temple construction. At its top was a wide crow’s nest platform overlooking the city. I could just make out a lone figure in the gloom. Robed and hooded like the ones in the silent earth bound procession, it was watching the sky.