Veronica entered, her hair still damp. Richardson stood up. Tim Paupst just sat there.
“Veronica,” Neilson began, “this is Mr. Michael Richardson. He's a colleague of mine.”
Michael Richardson smiled warmly and shook her hand.
“And this,” continued Neilson, “is Timothy Paupst-”
“Tim!” he cut Neilson off. “Don't call me Timothy!”
Veronica smiled and extended her hand. “Glad to meet you, Tim.” The boy awkwardly shook her hand.
“Please, Veronica,” Neilson added, “Have a seat.”
“Now, Timothy,” said Neilson and the boy scowled at the professor. “You had wanted to talk?”
Chapter VI: The Narrative of Timothy Paupst
“It all started yesterday evening, June 25th, yesterday. It was around ten pm and my drinking buddy Rick was over. The two of us had finished off a twelve pack of Bud and were working on our last six in the fridge.
“We were both quite drunk and the neighbours had complained about the music being too loud. We were playing Megadeth's So Far, So Good... So What? and I have to admit, it was too loud. But we were drunk and didn't give a shit.
“The stereo was blasting away at 10 and the windows were rattling. We didn't hear the doorbell. Eventually this jerk started pounding on the door. We thought it was the cops. I turned down the music and answered the door. I was prepared to tell the cops to piss off 'cause it wasn't past 11 yet and we weren't disturbing the peace... yet.
“Anyway, it wasn't the cops. It was this creepy guy. He was a foreigner; I don't know. He looked like he just got off the boat.
“But I mean this guy was really gross! His hair was greasy, like he hadn't washed in weeks. I think he was sick too 'cause his complexion was gray, man. He didn't look real good.
“He pulled out the day's newspaper and opened it to the ads. He had my studio add.
“'Is this Paupst Recording?' he asked. No accent at all. His breath was horrible. His teeth were all rotten. I told him it was 'Paupst Recording' but that it was 10 pm and the studio was closed. I then told him to fuck off, much to my friend Rick's amusement. I was drunk. I'd never tell a potential customer to 'fuck off' normally.
“Anyway, this guy grabbed me by the arm and said it was vitally important that I make an exception this one time. Man, this guy's breath was like shit! He had B.O. like the dead! He was simply fucken' retched.
“Rick stood up. I don't know what he had planned to do, he was so drunk, but he got up anyway. This guy gave him a hard look and turned his attention back on me. He reached into his overcoat pocket and withdrew a roll of cash big enough to choke a horse.
“'I've got $600.00 cash,' he said. 'All I want you to do is filter out background static and noise from a tape.' He retrieved a cassette from his other pocket letting go of my arm.
“I grabbed the roll of dough out of his hand. I told him I'd do it but it might take some time. I was still drunk.
“The three of us went downstairs into my basement. That's where my recording studio is... or was! I asked this guy what his name was. He paused and seemed caught off guard.
“'You can call me Mr. Samuel,' he eventually answered. 'Can you filter this tape?'
“'I can sure try,' I answered. 'But it depends on how bad the recording is.' I took the cassette from him and placed it in the tape deck. The three of us listened to the whole thing. Man, it was the strangest fucken' thing I've ever heard.”
Professor Neilson broke into Tim's narrative. “We know. We've heard the tape.”
Tim looked confused for a moment and then continued. “Right. Okay professor. Whatever you say. Anyway, I asked this Mr. Samuel – if that really was his name – what the hell was this recording?
“'I'm giving you $600 to simply filter the tape. No questions asked. Do you want the money or not?'
“Well, I'm no fucken' idiot when it comes to bread, man. I'd shut my mouth and simply filter the tape. Rick sat in the studio on a stool and began to finish off our last 6 beer. Fucken' jerk! He sat there smiling 'cause he knew I had to sober up and do this job right.
“I went back upstairs and got the cassette of Megadeth's So Far, So Good... So What? 'You mind if I listen to some tunes while I work?' I asked Samuel. He had a sour look on his face, but said it was fine. I put the cassette in the ghetto blaster.
“Not a great deal happened during the next few hours. I struggled with the noise filtration of the recording. I was still sobering up and it really was a difficult recording to filter.
“Rick finished the beer around 1 am and he passed out on the floor around 1:30.
“The batteries in the ghetto blaster died shortly afterwards. I went back upstairs and got brand new ones, much to Samuel's disapproval. He hated the music and complained about having a headache. Well, fuck him, I thought. I'm doing this guy the favour, working through the night, the least he could do was put up with my music. He grudgingly did so, mumbling about the filth they played nowadays.
“Rick came to around 2:30. He began complaining about being hungry. Samuel said he was starving as well.
“'There's a 24 hour Seven-Eleven down the street on the corner,' Rick said. 'You wanna go?'
“I was very close to finishing the filtration. I told them to go. I'd stay and continue working. Rick and Samuel left. Samuel offering to buy me a snack. A bag of chips would do me wonders!
“The electric clock in the studio said 2:57 am when I finished the tape. I remember because it's how I record various tracks and recordings. Rick and Samuel hadn't yet returned. I was going to wait for them but then I changed my mind. I was curious to hear the final result.
“I played the tape. The music was weird. Like nothing I've every heard. It started softly and slowly. But the tempo crept faster and faster. Man! I couldn't even identify what instruments were what! Then the music stopped being rhythmic. There was no patterns anymore! Only non-repeating bar after bar of music!
“Rick and Samuel walked into the studio. Man, the look on Samuel's face was sheer horror when he heard the music. He dropped the bag of food and charged into the room. He bowled me to the floor as he frantically tore the cassette out of the tape deck, but the music continued!
“The fluorescent lights flickered and blew out! The clock radio's digital numbers began running wild! Then in the centre of the studio there appeared a small black ball or sphere. I don't know what it was. It was small at first, I don't know, maybe a foot or so, but then it expanded – fast-like too! Like an explosion, except it didn't do any damage. It just expanded past us, almost like it grew big enough to encompass us, the whole studio actually. And where the little black ball used to be was a purplish sphere with neon-blue marble-like veins dancing across its surface. Like lightning. It really wasn't very bright, but the music was thundering out of it. It sounded like flutes, but it was creepy, like the flute-players were insane.
“'God damn it! Get out of here!' Samuel screamed.
“Then a figure stepped out of the purple sphere. Samuel froze. At first I couldn't make it out. It was a silhouette of a woman with long flowing hair. It was only when she turned to one side that the bluish-purple light from the sphere made her face visible. She looked middle-aged. I couldn't tell what colour her hair was with that strange light, but her eyes were crisp and sharp. They reflected something strange. Like an alien intelligence. I know it sounds weird, but her eyes just weren't human! Then she said something. I don't know what, it didn't make any sense, must've been another language or something.
“Rick stood on the stairs, frozen with fear. The woman's gaze fell upon him. She hadn't seen me. Samuel began to scream at Rick but we couldn't hear him over the roaring music. The woman fixed her eyes on Rick and seemed to be concentrating. And then it happened! My God, it was horrible!
“Rick's eyes bulged and he began to scream – only that his voice seemed to drop on and off, like someone playing with the volume of a stereo of something. The woman's voice raised and joined Rick's
broken howl. It was awful! Then, all of a sudden, his voice simply cut off. Like somebody turned his voice off. But the woman kept up her howl. Then, Rick's body just exploded into billions and billions of pieces, man! Like all his atoms simply split and ran away. The pieces were like sand! And when they flew away from him they disappeared into thin air!
“But that wasn't it, that wasn't all! Just after all the pieces blew away from Rick, for only a split second, there was a transparent form of him still standing there – like a ghost or a spirit. It then collapsed and condensed into a very small point of light and hurtled itself at the woman!
“Oh my God, it was terrifying. She consumed it, man! My God, she fucken' ate it!
“Then the woman took notice of me! I was horrified. My blood ran cold. I began to feel a tingling sensation throughout my body. I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to end up like Rick!” Tim broke down and began to weep.
“I charged straight for her and punched her in the face. She staggered back, very much surprised. Her nose was bleeding. She looked past me and her eyes took on a blazing green hue. I felt a current of energy flooding the room. It was a strange sensation. Then my 16-track recorder crumpled like a tin can! My God, she was using ESP or something! Then she focused on the equalizer. Jesus Christ, the equalizer was crushed into a twisted mass of sparking metal and plastic! She did this over and over! She was systematically destroying my entire studio! But it seemed like she was searching for something. Now that I think about it, I think she was looking for the tape to destroy.
“I charged her again, but this time some invisible force stopped me dead in my tracks. I was battered by it and thrown across the room. I slammed into the concrete wall and landed on the smashed electronic equipment.
“I felt my consciousness slipping away, but before I fainted I saw the foreigner, Samuel, run across the room, grab my ghetto blaster and charge at the purplish neon-blue veined sphere. He plunged through just as it collapsed and was nowhere to be seen! The purple sphere was gone! It was at that point that I passed out. When I came to it was early morning, around 4:45 am. My studio was trashed. Rick, Samuel and the woman were nowhere to be found.
“The only thing I found in the broken and smashed debris was an envelope. It must have fallen out of Samuel's pocket as he ran into that purple sphere. It was a letter from Prof. Neilson addressed to a Mrs. V.L. Francois in Montreal Canada.
“I didn't know what to do. So I came to see you professor. Your name was on the envelope. I thought you might know what happened.”
The four sat in silence for a moment.
“Well, that answers the question,” began Neilson, “as to how the Filipino impostor knew exactly when I'd be arriving at your place, Veronica. He must have been intercepting our letters.”
“Did you say you played the tape at 3 am, Tim?” Veronica asked.
“Yeah, around then.”
Veronica looked at Neilson. “That's when I had my nightmare last night.”
Neilson was nodding slowly even as she spoke, taking his note pad out. “Yes, I realize that,” he said. The thought came to him again: Nyarlathotep was free.
Veronica turned back to Tim. “That woman you described; the description sounds like Nadia.”
“Who's Nadia?” Tim was confused.
“Yes, it sounds very much like her.” Neilson added. “And that means Nyarlathotep is free.”
Michael Richardson, Neilson, and Veronica fell completely silent. It was Tim who broke that hanging stillness:”What the fuck is Nyarlathotep? What the hell are you guys talking about?!”
Neilson quieted Tim down and began to explain everything – from beginning to end. It took the better part of two hours.
* * *
“So, what're we to do?” Tim asked, “If everything you've said is right, we're all screwed!”
Neilson and Richardson exchanged knowing looks. “What we plan to do,” answered the professor, “is to play the tape of the music of Lorne Gibbons again.”
Tim's face went white. He couldn't speak but only shook his head. Professor Neilson continued. “We know only two things about the musical piece. One, that it opens a gateway, or creates a pocket between our universe and Nyarlathotep's prison-universe, and this pocket is very temporary. It doesn't last long. The second thing we know is that every time the music's played – correctly that is – Nyarlathotep appears. What we need to know is this: Does the musical piece only open this gateway and Nyarlathotep steps through of its own free will, or does it summon Nyarlathotep – is it forced to appear?”
“How can we know these answers?” asked Veronica.
“Unfortunately, we can't,” replied Neilson. “We have got to make an educated guess. I'm hoping it summons both the gateway and Nyarlathotep. I believe that if the Nadia-Nyarlathotep Symbiot is killed within this “pocket” that Nyarlathotep will be forced out of Nadia's body and back into its prison-universe. If we can kill her – or it - just before the gateway shuts, I think we might succeed.”
“Kill her?” Tim sputtered incredibly. “My G-God, you want to kill her! That's murder.”
“No, it really isn't,” stated Neilson. “There is no more Nadia. Not really. Yes, she is in there somewhere, but she has no chance of salvation. None at all. Her body is only playing host to this thing. The Nadia-Nyarlathotep Symbiot is an alien entity.”
Richardson retrieved a pack of cigarettes and offered one to Paupst. The boy took it gracefully. Richardson lite up also. Tim's hand was shaking.
“Timothy,” Neilson said gently. “It's alright. We will keep this quiet. You know as well as the rest of us that we can't let this go public, or to the police. You're right. If the police found out we'd be arrested for murder. But we all know that we are not going to be committing murder tonight.”
“Tonight!” Veronica and Tim said in unison.
“Yes. There's no time to waste. It must be tonight.”
“How... how are you going to kill her?” Tim asked.
Again Neilson and Richardson exchanged knowing glances. “Mr. Richardson and I have been colleagues for quite some years now. We have dealt with -” He paused for a moment trying to find the right word, but to no avail. “-bizarre situations like this before... well... not quite like this.”
“But how?” Tim asked again.
“Mr. Richardson is a trained marksman. He shoots for a hobby. Target practice. I myself will also have a pistol and we have another colleague who will join us. But to directly answer your question, Tim, we'll shoot her.”
Silence.
“How will you open the gateway again?” asked Veronica.
Richardson answered quickly, “Tim successfully filtered the Filipino's tape.”
“Yeah, but the Filipino's copy got destroyed with the rest of my equipment,” Paupst answered while butting out his cigarette.
“You said the Filipino took the filtered tape copy out first.”
“Yeah, but I also said he ran through the gateway with it. There's no more tape, man!”
“The Filipino's tape was a copy,” cut in Neilson. “We have the original right here. Veronica has it.”
She nodded in agreement.
“Yeah, but my equipment, my studio's wrecked,” added Tim.
“The University has the proper equipment.” Neilson answered stoically. “Timothy, I know you don't want to do this, but I'm afraid we don't have much choice.”
“I don't want to filter that tape!” the boy pleaded. “I don't want to see that bitch again! I just want out! Why can't you get someone from the University to filter that fucken' tape. Get another student engineer.”
Professor Neilson sighed. “Timothy. We can't go letting every Tom, Dick, and Harry knowing about these happenings. The less people involved the better. It's bad enough that you and Veronica are involved. Do you want more people involved? Would you want anyone else to go through the terrible ordeal you went through?”
The Symbiot Page 8