The Cthulhu Cult: A Novel of Lovecraftian Obsession

by Rick Dakan

  The acolyte with the chalice finally made it around to me. I looked across the room and could see that most of my fellow guests were already swooning under its effects while in the background Kym continued to extol the concoction’s virtues as a mind-opening aid. The acolyte lowered the cup to me and I saw there was more than enough, so I decided to give it a small taste. I brought it to my lips and he tipped the cup forward. The first taste was syrupy sweet, and as it passed my lips the acolyte tipped the chalice farther, sending more into my mouth. I swallowed it all, finding it had a hot, spicy aftertaste. I felt it all the way down my throat and almost coughed. It was indeed strong stuff, and I almost immediately started to feel the tingling effects and light-headedness that Kym had described.

  Conrad paused and at first tried to refuse the drink, but the acolyte kept offering it to him. The delay seemed to be enough to garner Kym’s attention, and she fixed her gaze on us both as if noticing us for the first time. “Conrad!” she said, coming over to us on shaky feet. “I didn’t see you there. And Rick!” She looked at me. “I see Rick’s had a taste of enlightenment. Won’t you have some too?”

  “What’s in it?” Conrad asked, dubious.

  “I’ll never tell. But don’t worry, I promise I’m not sure something bad will happen if you drink it.”

  “I’m driving,” Conrad said, once again pushing the chalice away from him.

  Kym took the cup from her acolyte’s hands and knelt down in front of Conrad. “Now, now, Connie boy, we’re all partaking here. That’s the price of admission. I assure you, I’ll make sure you’re safe to drive before all is said and done. Don’t you want the revelations we’re offering her tonight? Don’t you want to see beyond the veil?”

  “Is Shelby here? I need to talk to—”

  “Just me and my little piggies tonight. A priestess is as good as a priest to a blind theist.” She offered him the drink once more. “Now take a sip or take your leave, if you please.”

  Conrad shot her a scathing look, but she just smiled her drunken smile and pressed the rim of the cup against his lips. He opened them slightly and she tipped the chalice forward. I watched in fascination as it took him what seemed like forever to drink a small mouthful of the liquid. Was it really so slow or just some sort of time dilation effect?

  Kym smiled and handed the chalice back to her acolyte. “There,” she said. “That wasn’t so bad was it? Not so terribly bad at all. You can feel it now too, coursing through your body, the heat rising in you.” Still kneeling in front of him, Kym touched each part of his body as she described the liquid’s effects. “Suffusing your chest. Making you weak in the knees. It’s a good thing you’re sitting down, it might be hard to walk.”

  I watched Conrad as he leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. He was taking deep breaths at regular intervals, but not in a meditative way — more like someone trying very hard to keep calm. Kym seemed to notice this too, and she leaned forward until her face was but a few inches from his. She talked in a low voice, and I doubt anyone except the three of us could hear what she said next. “Are you not feeling OK, Conrad? Are you feeling nauseous? Is the drug making you sick to your stomach? You’re not going to throw up, are you?” She then drew back from him and stood up, returning to the center of the room to confer with her acolytes.

  Even I started to feel some nausea when I heard her say those words. Conrad turned pale and started to sweat and shake. “Are you OK?” I asked him, worried.

  “No… ” he whispered. “I think I’m going to… step out… get some air.”

  “Let me help you to your feet,” I said, starting to stand up.

  “No!” Conrad insisted, putting a shaking hand on my shoulder. “They won’t let us back in. You’ve got to stay. See what happens.”

  Before I could insist on helping him, he lurched to his feet under his own power. Cara hurried over and opened the front door for him, as Conrad stumbled outside, his hands covering his mouth. I should have gotten up and gone after him, but sitting where I was just felt so good, and as soon as he was gone my own stomach settled and the euphoria returned. Looking around I could see that hardly anyone else had noticed. Most of them seemed lost in the same kind of euphoria I was experiencing. I sat back and enjoyed the show.

  Chapter 15

  I finally left the house, bleary-eyed and stinking of incense about three hours later. There was a lot of hugging and laughing and spirits were generally high. I got out ahead of the pack because I wanted to make sure Conrad had actually waited for me. If he hadn’t, I’d need to ask one of my new friends for a ride home. Perhaps I could even convince Cara to take me home, although she’d disappeared into the back room with Kym and the other acolyte as the evening ended and Kym revealed the truth — the “elixir” was just flavored water. After hours of chanting and sniffing incense and feeling as high as I’ve ever felt, Kym just snapped us all out of it with a couple words. It had been one of the most amazing things I’d ever experienced.

  I’d have sworn up and down that I was drunk, and indeed, from a practical point of view, I might as well have been. “It was all through suggestion,” Kym explained to us. “We all tricked our own brains into believing that the potion would inebriate us up and so it did.” That was the lesson that she was teaching tonight — just because we experience something, that doesn’t mean it’s really happening. Our brains are powerful simulation machines, capable of fooling us completely, and I’d felt gloriously foolish. Although I hadn’t gotten to talk with Cara, we’d exchanged first shy and then flirtatious smiles and looks throughout the evening. So much so that I felt sure that she’d forgiven me for the confrontation with her at the gate.

  Outside I breathed in the muggy night air and saw no sign of Conrad, although I could see the car was still there. Thinking that he might have been spying on us from somewhere hidden, I looked around for possible cover and found only one likely candidate: the bushes that bordered the driveway along the side of the house. A glance over my shoulder revealed that the rest of the ritual’s participants were still inside except for a couple of smokers clustered at the front door who were deep into each other and oblivious to me. I stepped into the shadows beside the house, moving around Shelby’s white conversion van towards Conrad’s suspected hiding place. But I’d overestimated the foliage’s virtues as camouflage — they were too thin to hide much more than a raccoon. Maybe behind the house? I followed the driveway to the back yard. Though it was full of junk, from abandoned or incomplete sculpture projects in wood, plaster, and aluminum cans to moldering plastic lawn furniture and an overgrown plot of framed soil that might once have been a small garden, there was no place to hide a Conrad.

  Heading back to the front of the house, my gaze was forced to focus on that white van again, and I remembered watching the two acolytes, Ash and the one who’d helped Cara and Kym in the ceremony, loading something into the back. I wondered why Ash hadn’t been in the ceremony and where he was now. As I came up behind the van I peered through the rear door window into the back. It was dark in there of course, but in the dim light from the neighbor’s house I could make out several large plastic bins, along with some blankets or maybe tarps. I thought of the story Lauren had told about the animal she’d heard in the back of the van, but there didn’t seem to be any sign of life. From inside the house I heard laughter, joking, smiles, and I knew that if they felt anything like me, those inside didn’t want to leave yet, like that feeling after a really good concert or play when you just want to stand around with your fellow audience members and bask in the minutes-old memories because it keeps the evening from actually being over quite so soon. I looked back into the van. What had they brought out here beforehand? There hadn’t been much in the way of props besides the “elixir” that Kym had given us, certainly nothing that demanded such large containers. I thought that perhaps it contained more copies of the Cthulhu Manifesto, maybe even some more of the rare handmade editions. I could snag one quick for Sinclair to exa
mine and still hang on to my own copy. Still a little drunk on my own mind, I figured if they were giving them away anyway, they wouldn’t mind if I took one for myself. I tried the door.

  Not only was it was unlocked, it didn’t appear to even have a lock anymore. The door swung open with a grinding creak, and I saw that the van was in much worse shape on the inside than the out, rusty and worn. Although it sported a fresh coat of paint, I didn’t think it was good for too many more miles. The boxes were far enough in that I had to clamber inside to get at them. Crouching in the rear of the vehicle, I lifted off the plastic lid of the nearest container, but found it wasn’t full of manifestos at all. Instead it was packed with wooden frames standing on end, with pieces of cloth stuffed between each one to separate them. I ran a finger along the wood and snaked it down to feel along the glass face of one of them. They seemed like picture frames, each about fifteen by eleven inches with glass on both sides. I assumed they were maybe art pieces from the Cthulhu Cult show, but I didn’t remember any of them being framed at all, much less with glass. I pulled one corner up and saw what looked like a sheet of aged parchment sandwiched between two panes of glass. Pulling it further from its snug packaging revealed a page from a book, printed on both sides. No, not printed. Handwritten in what looked like Greek letters. I pulled the framed piece of text all the way out and laid it flat on top of the container. Greek letters in faded black ink on yellowed parchment, with strange symbols and diagrams mixed in, including one I’d come to recognize quite well — the branch-like Elder Sign that Sinclair had warned me about.

  I took out my phone and snapped a quick picture, flooding the van with the light of the flash and the annoying sound of the fake shutter click that the phone made to inform me and anyone within earshot that I’d taken a picture. I looked around, nervous, but didn’t see anyone. I flipped the page over and took another picture of the other side. I moved to replace the page, but the cloth packing material was now bunched at the bottom of the box and I couldn’t slide it back in so it was flush with the others. I heard a door open behind me and light flooded out into the driveway from that side door I’d forgotten about. I put the lid on the box and spun around, trying to think of some excuse to tell Kym about why I was crouched in the back of her van, pawing through her stuff.

  But it was Cara. She cocked her head to one side and strode towards me as I clambered out of the back and to the ground.

  “Rick?”

  “Hey, Cara.” I tried to sound casual, but it came out hoarse and scratchy.

  “You need something?” She asked, eying the open van door.

  “I was wondering if you had any more copies of the Cthulhu Manifesto,” I said, looking down at the ground, seemingly unable to not appear like a child caught by his mother in the act of flushing family heirlooms down the toilet for the fun of it. My eyes lighted for a moment on that Elder Sign tattoo of hers and flashed to the book pages I’d just seen. I couldn’t define it, but the connection between the two hung heavy in my mind.

  “No, I don’t think so.” She took my hand in hers and gently pulled me away from the van before closing the door. I couldn’t tell if she meant she didn’t think they had any copies or if she didn’t think I was telling the truth. I decided not to ask for clarification. “Did you enjoy the ritual?” she asked me.

  Relieved that she was letting me go without further chastisement, I mumbled something about being blown away by it all.

  “I’m glad. It’s good to see you. Good to see you with an open mind.”

  “I want to apologize for Conrad the other day. He’s a little high strung. But his heart’s in the right place.”

  “In the center of his chest?”

  “What?”

  “His heart’s in the right place in the center of his chest?”

  “I meant… ”

  “Forget about it. Forget about Conrad, Rick. He showed tonight that he’s not ready for this. And you showed tonight that you are.” She looked meaningfully past me towards the van. “And as soon as you shrug off Conrad and his suspicions, you’ll be ready to understand so much more.” I noted with some pleasure that she was still holding my hand. She gave it a comforting squeeze. I was at a loss for words for a moment and thought wildly about kissing her, but that didn’t seem quite right. “Why don’t we try and find some time to talk. Now that your mind is open, perhaps there’s a chance for us to move forward.”

  Did she mean “us” as in her and me? Or “us” as in her and Shelby’s cult? I looked back down again, past her breasts and to the tattoo. Was this how Shelby had talked to her in the limo that night? Would I have to mark myself with the Elder Sign too? Or was that even what was really going on? I pulled my hand away. “Sure,” I said. “That sounds nice. Let’s get a cup of coffee or something? Lunch maybe?” I did want to meet her, talk with her, but in public, in daylight, away from Shelby and the others.

  “That sounds nice,” she said, smiling. “I’ll give you a call.”

  “You will?”

  “This time, I really will.” She leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. “Now you should be going.”

  “I should. I should be going.”

  “Going, but not gone,” Cara said. “Not gone yet.”

  I smiled and backed away, thinking that all this talk of “gone” suddenly sounded ominous. “Call me.” And then turned and headed for Conrad’s car, breathing hard but trying to hide it. Where was Conrad anyway?

  I got to the car and looked inside and saw Conrad lying on his back, his eyes closed, the seat fully reclined. He heard me open the door and looked up, wild-eyed. “Get in,” he said, springing to seeming instant alertness as he brought his seat back forward and started the car.

  “What happened?” I asked. “Are you feeling all right? You shouldn’t worry about that drink—”

  Conrad peered out the window, scanning the crowd emerging from the house. “You know that third man that was with Kym, the one who never came into the ritual?”

  “Ash, right?”

  “Yeah, yeah.” He turned to me, eyes narrowing. “Apparently he’s on some sort of probationary status with Shelby or something, so he was just standing around out by the van, smoking, when I came out and tossed my cookies. He came over to see if I was OK. When I told him I thought I might have been poisoned, he just laughed and took me by the shoulders and looked into my eyes and said, ‘You’ll be fine. There was no poison. It was just flavored water,’ but that didn’t make me feel any better.” Conrad turned onto US 41 and headed south back towards my house.

  “That’s exactly what I was going to say! It was all a mind fuck, making us think we were drunk.”

  “And making me sick. Ash explained the whole thing to me. I think I might have mentioned calling the police and he wanted to convince me there was no point. He said the suggestion technique is a powerful ritual that Kym and Shelby can both do, and that I must’ve done something to piss Kym off if she made me nauseated instead of high. Well of course I already knew from the dreams that Shelby was angry at me, so I shouldn’t be surprised that Kym took the chance to lay her own little curse on me when she had the chance.”

  “Well,” I said, “You can take some comfort in the fact that you didn’t miss much after that. We just sat there and chanted and a few people got really into it, almost like they were possessed, but again that was all a trick of their own minds according to Kym. She didn’t go into any other Cthulhu details or anything like that, other than to say that since we’d all experienced this first lesson, we’d be eligible for the next step and that we’d get a new encoded message about the time and place.”

  “If you want to have your mind fucked with again, maybe you should go, but I’d think twice about it. I’m still not feeling great, and even after Ash assured me again and again that it wasn’t poisonous, I was feeling so sick and talking about how I might have actually been poisoned that Ash seemed really worried. I don’t know if he was worried that I’d call the cops or just that
I was sick, but eventually I offered him fifty bucks to run over to the store and get me some Pepto Bismol or something. Then I lay down.”

  “Are you OK to drive now?” I asked, worried. I’d retained some residual head-created drunkenness even after that fact, so it didn’t surprise me that Conrad still felt sick. His bribe also explained why Ash hadn’t been standing guard over the van when I came out.

  “I’m fine. So what else happened in there? Tell me everything. Every detail could be important.”

  “I will, but first let me tell you what happened afterward.” I related the story of my discovery in the van and my encounter with Cara. I thought twice about telling him about her warning to sever my ties with him, but ended up telling him the whole thing. After all, she was the one in the cult, and Conrad was my best friend, and I wanted him to know everything. As soon as I told him about the pictures on my phone, he pulled off into an empty doctor’s office parking lot and demanded to see them.

  “It’s Greek, right?” Conrad said, his face lit by the blue glow from my phone’s screen.

  “Yeah, Ancient Greek I think. It’s been a while and I only had the one year in college, but I might be able to puzzle my way through it,” I said, regretting that I’d sold my Liddell-Scott Greek Lexicon way back when in college and doubting that I could in fact translate it effectively anymore. “On second thought, maybe we should put in a call for help.”