Horror at Vecra by Henry Hasse | A Cthulhu Mythos Story

0:00Welcome to the Lovecraft Vault by Horror Pable. Horror at Vecra by Henry Hasse. An ancient evil that will not die, but draws men, soul and brain. The pale stars peering fearfully down, remember when it came? The very darkness where they wait, Doth Shudder at the name. Monsters and their kind. One. Now, after twelve years, vague reports are issuing again from the vicinity of Vecra. Because yet there are little more than rumors, but they have served to awaken the remote horror in my brain. Horror! For I now realize I must have failed a dozen years ago, when I stood there on that brink

1:03of madness for a few hailed-filled seconds. I used dynamite then, enough of it I thought, and believe that was the end. Now I can only wonder if this is the same evil, or some spawn of it that will never die. Perhaps even now it is not too late. I've kept silence, but now I shall tell my story. And if I cannot then enlist aid, I will myself, but less I become too incoherent. I'd best begin on that day a dozen years ago. Bruce Tarton and I were returning to Boston from a two-week camping trip. Bruce was driving, and before very long I began to suspect that he had taken the wrong fork back at Northeaton, though he maintained a stolid silence, as the dirt road became gradually narrower, and rutier. I had a disquieting feeling that it was luring us on and on into this strange New England backcountry.

2:05Our way twisted through gloomy stretches of forest, where limbs hung low over the road. They seemed strangely niled and mischapen. Queer patches of colorless vegetation pressed in upon us. We crossed narrow wooden bridges whose loose planks rumbled beneath us, as the car rolled slowly over them. We dipped into shallow valleys where the evening sunshine seemed oddly depressing, and not as bright as it should be. For the most part these valleys seemed barren and rock-stream. But after a while we came upon occasional poorly-tilled fields, and square, ungainly unpainted farmhouses. These were set upon slopes far back from the road, reminding me of nothing so much as dead things sprawled there in that unhealthy sunshine. Now the verse had spoken much since leaving Northeaton, but I somehow got the impression that Bruce was secretly enjoying all this. At last we rumbled across a rickety wooden bridge, followed the turn of the road to the

3:10right, and with startling suddenness found ourselves in a little village. My first impression was one of surprise that it should be there at all. Then, without exactly knowing why, I knew that I loathed the place. I guess this is Vecra, Bruce said, almost to himself. How do you know that? He turned and looked at me quirly. Huh? Why the sign, at the other end of the bridge back there? Didn't you see it? I looked at him suspiciously. No, I hadn't seen it. And I thought that was strange, because for the last twenty miles I had been watching for some such sign of a town. But I didn't say anything. Instead I looked about me. Vecra had evidently been at one time a more prosperous town than present indication showed. A score of frame-houses lined each side of the road that was the main street. But now most of them were desolate, empty, and weather-beaten, long since fallen into

4:12a state of sad decay. Only in a scattered few did we see pitiful enough signs of habitation, as oil lamps gleamed meagaly in the approaching dusk. Those lamps seemed no more meager than our own and gloomy situation. Apparently the only way out of this forsaken country was back along the road we had traveled, and the prospect of retracing that route at night did not appeal to me. We stopped at what appeared to be the general store, to enquire where we might stay overnight. A small bent leathery old man shuffled toward us as we entered. I took an immediate dislike to him. Maybe it was his suspicious black eyes that appeared from beneath a tangle of dirty white hair. Maybe it was his coin-told dialect, and the way he seemed to be secretly enjoying something at our expense. Lost your way, have you young fellas? I said you drive up out there, and I reckoned as out that for the case.

5:14Ain't many outside, and says God has come this away, except in their mistakes the wrong road back at North-Eaten. He peered close to us and chuckled. Them as does all as comes clear on Tevecra, because the right no other way they can come. I glanced nervously at Bruce, but saw that he was listening with intense interest to the old man's archaic speech. After another evil chuckle, he went on. Now, as I was saying, Fox's gets up Tevecra in daylight, most all as comes back to North-Eaten, and them as gets up here by dark, they be mustly scared to travel back afar morning. Melead at us with yellowish blood short eyes. Which be? I guess we'll stay over for the night, I said hurriedly. If there's someone who will be kind enough—yup, rack an ab-car, I can fix you up for the night. His place bees it a find, and the big ass down-tender the rut.

6:15Tell Ab that Lyle Wilson sent you. As we went out the door I looked back, and saw the old man still leering at us. Although I couldn't hear him, I imagined he was chuckling evilly again. Well, I don't like him, I said to Bruce. Bruce chuckled, and it didn't sound much better than the old man's. I do. He's certainly a queer old bird. I think I'll come down here tomorrow and have a longer talk with him. We found the quarry place without any trouble. Ab-Cory, at all, gaunt, slow-speaking man, received us stoletly. However, I imagined his wife was vaguely perturbed. There was something tragic about her, especially in her eyes, as though she'd been haunted a long time ago, and had never quite forgotten. She served us a plain but substantial meal, and we ate appreciatively. The room was large, and appeared to me as definitely 19th century, including the smell.

7:18It was lighted by only two or three oil lamps, and shadows clung to the far corners. The room seemed full of dozens of children of all sizes, though we learned later they were only five. As their mother sent them upstairs to bed, they peered back at us curiously through the stair-banister. Me outside as up this way, who sast at last, when we had finished the meal. Last was a few months ago. Corrie replied, he seemed reluctant to talk. Bruce lit his pipe and blew a wreath of smoke at the ceiling. His next words were so abrupt and inventive they startled even me. I hear you've got some mighty queer land hereabouts. I'm a government soil inspector, sent up from Boston. I gaped at the lie, knowing he was nothing of the kind. But he sent me a silencing look. About land, especially about his land, and most particularly about what was wrong with

8:19his land, Ebb Corrie was more than willing to talk. For an hour or more they talked, while I smoked cigarettes in silence and listened amazingly to the technical knowledge of soil that Bruce displayed. He was a professor of languages at Boston College, a far cry from an expert in soil conditions, but then I'd learned always to expect the unexpected from Bruce Tarton. Before retiring, we went out to move the car. We came back in time to hear Mrs. Corrie remonstrating with a husband. It seemed to have something to do with our sleeping quarters. Corrie was shaking his head stubbornly, and Mrs. Corrie retired from the argument as we entered. It's that room in the back wing upstairs. Ebb explained, as he led the way up the worn wooden stairs, lamp in hand. There's been some tale about it for more than fifty years. Martha's made me keep it locked lately. My grandfather built this place.

9:20I did the wing later. Not haunted is it? Bruce asked with a shell of jocularity. I noticed the falseness of his tone, the suppressed excitement. But Ebb Corrie did not. No, he said. The story's got something to do with a funny kind of dream people sometimes have when they sleep in that room. I don't know what it is. Martha said she does, but she won't talk about it. I slept in there a couple of times, but I never had any dream. That's all right. Bruce said, I don't dream either. A new, a scientific man like you wouldn't put up with such stock. There's only a small card in there that one of you can use, and then there's another small room across the hall. Sorry I can't offer you better. I looked about me dubiously as we passed along a narrow hole toward the rear of the old house. The lamp light made a pale, moving pattern on the paper-tools that were worn, smooth,

10:23and brown, from the contact of generations. I stopped at my door, and Bruce went along to his, which directly faced the length of the hall. Ebb unlocked the door, and said, I'll be out in the south field tomorrow, Mr. Toughton. Up you'll come out and take a look at the saw. I saw Bruce nod, and I waited until Ebb Corrie made his way expertly back downstairs in the dark. When I quickly crossed the hall to where Bruce stood with the lamp in his hand, I don't like this at all, I began. What's this business about you being? Come on in here, and I'll tell you. Everywhere in this house I'd been aware of that, dank, age-old peculiar odour. I might almost call it a yellow odour. I had smelled it in other old houses. But the moment we entered this upstairs room it seemed magnified, became almost tangible. The place seemed half-bedroom and half-store-room.

11:25One side was piled haphazardly with trunks, boxes, broken tables and chairs. Bruce held the lamp high, looked around, and grinned most delightedly. Already he despised a tall, clumsy bookcase in the far corner. He strode over to it, and examined the faded tomes. Quickly he pulled one out, and another, and another. I groaned, I might have known this. Bruce had had this detour planned all the time. He had come up here deliberately. I sat down on a rickety chair, and watched him. Finally I said, all right, what is it this time, and don't give me any more of that necronomicon stuff, or I know that's a myth. Bruce was an authority on certain terrible laws and forbidden books dealing with such laws, and he had told me things from a certain necronomicon that literally made my flesh crawl. What?

12:25He said in answer to my question. Well, look at these. Not necronomicons, but most interesting. He thrust a couple of worn leather-bound volumes into my hands. I glanced at the titles. One was horrid mysteries by the marquee of Groce, the other Namedian chronicles. I looked up at Bruce, and saw that he was genuinely excited. And do you mean to say, I said, that you really didn't expect to find these? Of course not, I'll admit I came up here deliberately because I've heard certain rumors. Something to do with the dream? No, nothing to do with the dream. But I'm as surprised as you are to see these books. These two I've seen before in expagated editions, but this I've never seen before, although I've heard vaguely of it. He looked fondly at a third-booky held, and I could see that his eyes were a glow with a sort of wild anticipation.

13:26I reached for the tone, and he relinquished it almost reluctantly. It was huge, heavy, and the pages were brittle and brown. There was no title on the spine or cover, but on the first page I read in a delicate, faded script, monsters, and their kind. Each word was in script, capital letters, free of each other. No author was mentioned. I placed the book on my knees, and saw that the edges of the leather binding were well worn, frayed in places. As I turned a few pages at random, a powdery brown dust blew out and lodged in my nose. I sneezed. Hey, be careful how you handle that. Bruce took the volume back solicitously, as a mother with her child. I took one more look around the room, sniffed the air distastefully, and said, I'm getting sleepy. Good night. I don't think he even hurt me. When I left in there, to cross the hall into my own room, he was sitting hunched over

14:30the table by the oil lamp, opening monsters in their kind tenderly, peering down into it. The next morning I was downstairs early, only to be informed by Mrs. Corey, that Bruce had preceded me. He had eaten hastily, and said he was going down the road to see Lyle Wilson. She pronounced the name distastefully, and I could see that she didn't like the old man. I didn't blame her. I waived breakfast. My only concern being to get out of this morbid town as soon as possible. I was doomed to disappointment, however. Upon reaching Lyle Wilson's store, I saw that Bruce and the old man had been talking in what appeared to be a mutual earnestness, if not eagerness. I came up in time to hear the letters say. I'm certainly glad you intend to stick around, I might. And many outside and tankers to do that. I veered mon or one, I'm cow-claired as how the sunshine and the land and all around

15:30the air be sawed unhealthy like. He stopped a moment when I came up, then went on with renewed eagerness, as if he didn't often have such an audience. And they may tell you something young, sirs, they may be right. There be certain things I could tell about the cause of it, too, things such as you'd never believe. But mark you this. There be mine this well, nor meets the eye, and there be other things aside, them as walks on top of the ground. He looked from one to the other of us, grinning, and I moved back a pace to avoid his obnoxious breath. But Bruce, to my surprise, said, you mean such things as, and he pronounced a word that I wouldn't even attempt. Lyle Wilson's eyes popped out in amazement. He looked at Bruce with a sudden, startled suspicion. I read about it, Bruce hurried to explain, in a book called Monsters and Their Kind. You regard in the old man carefully, to see the effect his woods would have.

16:34The effect was one of relief. Oh, that book! Mid-art much. belonged to Old Hans-Zickler, Abkore's grandfather, A. The Built the House. But you know, I got a better book than that. He chuckled in a way that sent a cold chill up my spine. He paused and peered at Bruce, as though waiting for him to exhibit some curiosity. But Bruce wisely did not. I'll tell you anyway. I got Old Six Dyery. Abkore, he used to have it. But real, sudden, one day told me as he would go and aburn it. I recognized how he'd been reading into it. I asked Abkore'd, and I guess he would be more and glad to give it as payment for some things he were owing. But he didn't care what become of it. Septine as he wouldn't have it in his house no longer. Now I could see Bruce's curiosity surge up, and his voice bordered almost on excitement.

17:35You so you still have this diary? Yep. I can be the only person that's ever seen into it, Septine Abkore's self, and I don't think he read much yet. He thought to hardly the old man's crazy ravens. Paulson's voice became confidential. Janon, I'm kind of glad you fell as dropped by. Focker-bop won't listen to me. Because they be scared to that's what. They be scared of what I could tell my bad old Zechleron, and certain things I see them do. Things that weren't just right. Sometimes when I get to pondering and remembering and reading in the diary again, there comes a kind of hankering lack, and I want to try. So I can know them things too like I was dictated, and sometimes the hankering gets too strong lack. He stopped suddenly. As though afraid he would go too far, and a wild light died slowly out of his eyes. Of course, he went on more calmly.

18:36I was just a young and then, when I spied on all sick, but I remember's right enough. And even if the land you be getting better every year and things around here ain't so bad as they used to be, there's still something about an active once in a while. Look at the young man-ra, boy. He has the clam wandered off and fell down in the ravine. But I know's a heap better. Every fell down the ravine. Why'd they ever find the body? He moved his stool closer to Bruce, leared at him and repeated almost defiantly. Am? Why'd they ever find the body? The old man chuckled delightedly at the sensation he had made. I was becoming considerably annoyed at all this crazy gibberish. I told Bruce I was going back to the house. He nodded absolutely. As I left, he hunched forward, listening intently, as Lyle Wilson started on another wild trend. At noon, Bruce showed up for lunch, seemingly preoccupied and puzzled about something.

19:41I wondered what further stories he had succeeded in getting out of Lyle Wilson. I suddenly remembered, too, something I'd intended to ask Bruce, but had forgotten. So half-feas�iously I asked, well, did you dream last night? Ab Corey, who had come in from the fields, looked at me curiously. But not angrily. Mrs. Corey, however, shot me a look that made me wish I hadn't asked the question. Nevertheless, we all awaited Bruce's answer. She most anxiously of all. Yes, he said. I did. And that's peculiar, because I usually never dream. Maybe it was because I was, ah, pretty late reading in those books. At the mention of the books, Mrs. Corey looked at Bruce quickly, quizzically. Oh, Bruce said. I'm sorry if I wasn't supposed to look at them, but you see, I'm interested in that kind of law. It's all right.

20:42Please go on. Sure, I reminded him. What about the dream? But I suppose you don't remember it. Most people don't. But I do. It was just a fragment of a dream, really, but too vivid for me to forget. It seemed that I was walking somewhere in a sort of mist, down a narrow, dirt road. There was a rusty wire fence to my right, and I came to a gap in it. Automatically I'd turned and passed through it, and walked down a path behind a large house. Bruce turned to me and smiled, as though he were reciting a fairy story to a child. All this while, mind you, something was drawing me. I wasn't walking of my own volition. I knew I should make an effort to run back. But at the same time paradoxically I seemed very anxious to get to whatever was drawing me. Well, the path was tangled with coarse grass and weeds, and suddenly I saw where I was walking, in a graveyard.

21:44All around me were tombstones, but not stones, really. For most of them were ancient nameboards of wood, inclining at all angles and overgrown with weeds and brambles. Then, right before me, I saw a low cement tomb. It was cracked and moss-covered, but the wooden door was still solid, and the huge iron hinges, though rusty, were still intact. I stood a moment before that door. Now I felt a very strong attraction, almost an affinity to whatever lay beyond. I don't doubt that I would have entered. In fact I was just about to. But at that moment I awoke. I was lying on my caught-up stairs, and a cool breeze was coming in the window at my head. I closed the window and went back to sleep, but I didn't dream anymore. I glanced at Mrs. Quarry. She had sat there, taught and silent, as Bruce talked.

22:44Now she was biting her lips, as though to keep from screaming. But the scream showed in her eyes. She rose in sudden agitation, and left the room. Her husband continued eating for a moment in silence. He looked up, unperturbed, and said, Martha's easy upset. But maybe there's good reason. You see, she had a sister that slept in that room once, and she dreamed that same dream. And then she just disappeared. No trace ever found of her. Before that it was the Monroe Boy. I remember it like it was yesterday. Yes, Lyle Wilson was telling me about the Monroe Boy's disappearance. Said Bruce. Do you know anything about it? Martha in next step too was playing out in the fields near the ravine, and he disappeared. We searched, but no trace of him. Then it must have been all of a week later. His younger brother came running arm, and said he'd seen Willie's face with a lot of others.

23:48His face? Bruce sat bolt upright. Is that what he said? Yep, that's all he could say. It's seen his brother's face with a lot of others. Said he'd been playing down in the ravine, but he didn't know just where. Bruce looked at me, and he wasn't smiling now. Corey seemed to take everything stoically. Of course he went on. It used to be a horse, isn't cattle that disappeared. No trace. This all happened some few years ago. The land was pretty bad then too, but hasn't been so bad since. Not till just recent. What do you think of all this hip? Ep Corey looked at Bruce stoically. Mr. Tarton, you're a scientific man. I'm just trying to make a living ear off of land that ain't right somehow. He said that books like them upstairs is a kind of obby of yours, and you ought to know more about all of this than I do. I looked into one then books once, just once.

24:51I can say this. I didn't understand much of it, but I know such study won't bring you to now good end. But that's your affair. Me I just try not to think too much about it. That's the longest speech I ever heard Ep Corey make, and it seemed definite enough. Bruce apparently thought so too, for he said, I think I'll come out there a little later this afternoon and take a look at your soil. Where she would, Mr. Tarton, where she would, you'll find me down on the south end. I had listened to all this in silence, but something was bothering me, almost haunting me. I couldn't get it out of my mind. Bruce's dream. I arose from the table and left them there, still talking, and went upstairs, wondering just what it was about that dream that bothered me. The path across the old graveyard. The ancient tomb, something drawing him on.

25:52On a sudden impulse, I entered that room where Bruce had slept. A faded green blind was still drawn over the single window. I raised the blind. Even before I looked, I knew. Then I looked and saw. The scene swept across my brain like a dash of icy water. As I stood there momentarily paralyzed, I felt the first hint of the cosmic horror that was soon to engulf both Bruce and myself, and come near to belasting my mind. There was the narrow dirt road to the left. There was the rusty wire fence. The broken gap. There was the grass tangled path, and the fallen tombstones in the ancient graveyard. Just behind this house. And there was the cracked cement tomb. Just as Bruce had described it from his dream, I only a short distance away from this window.

26:52Two. A few hours later, as we walked across the fields, I told Bruce what I had discovered. The graveyard behind the house, and the exact parallel to his dream. He wasn't surprised, said he'd seen it, too. I suppose you're beginning to think that what I experienced wasn't a dream at all, that I actually walked down that path toward the tomb. Well you're wrong. It was nothing but a dream. I know I never left my room. He seemed from moment about to tell me more. Then changed his mind. What I was by now, very curious, not with the ability of a student of the ancient law such as Bruce displayed, but with a certain skepticism. Did, Lyle Wilson tell you any more stories? What about that diary? I know you were dying to see it. I saw it. But not enough of it. He brought it out and read me certain parts.

27:55Remember saying he had a certain hanker in sometimes? Well, I told him I often had a sort of hanker in, too. Then he brought out the diary. A hanker in for what in heaven's name? I don't know. But I'm afraid it isn't in heaven's name. Whatever he was talking about, that's what I wanted to find out. And did you? Very little. I got too curious, I guess. Lyle got suspicious. Still he read me quite a few passages from that diary of Han Zichler's. But I'm beginning to piece things together. Remember Corey saying his grandfather built this house and added the back wing later? Well, that's right. Maybe you noticed the wing brings that room pretty close to the edge of the graveyard. What about the diary, I insisted? Well, I learned this much. Old Zichler used to sit at the window of that upstairs backroom in the late evenings and mumble a kind of gibberish. That window's easily visible from the road.

28:57Neighbors passing by soon got the idea that Zichler was crazy. Lyle Wilson says that he was just a young man then, but he remembers seeing Old Zich sitting there, could hear him, too, and he was certainly a wild sight. Well, it seems that there was something in that tomb, and Zichler suggested that it had answered him, but in a strange way, not audibly, but mentally. A sort of unearthly telepathy, I guess. Old Zich couldn't explain it quite right. All I can gather is that it was teaching Zichler something, and that occasionally it thanked him for something. I'd certainly like to read more in that part of the diary, but Old Lyle isn't too shrewd. Along about this time, a lot of livestock was disappearing, and a few children. It seems that Zichler had them all carefully recorded, but it's hard to place any of these circumstances consecutively. As Lyle read to me, he kept skipping about in the diary haphazardly, looking up every

29:59once in a while to see what impression it made. There was one place where Zichler hinted at being dissatisfied and restless, and wanting to learn more. But to do that, he would have to look up a certain passage in the necronomicon. He mentioned saving his money so he could take a trip over to Warkham, to look into the copy of the necronomicon at his room and they have hidden away in the mischatonic university there. But evidently he never did make the trip. At least there's no mention of it, and Lyle tells me that Zich never left Vecra, died a natural death here, though he was mumbling bizarre things on his deathbed. We walked on to the south field, where we found Epcury busily plowing. He stopped for a while and watched Bruce poking around in the ground at various spots. I bet you never saw any soil like that before. Epc heard grimly as Bruce straightened up with a sample. Yet when that bethull ranked, look at this stuff, will you?

31:01And Bruce handed a clot to me. It was the most peculiar looking soil I'd ever seen, a queer, grayish color, almost powdery, and it wasn't dry, well like slightly damp ashes. It seemed tainted somehow and evil, even felt tainted to the touch, not like fresh clean earth-shud. I dropped it, repressing a shudder, and wiped my fingers clean. Bruce looked at him in amazement. Do you mean to say that things grow in this? Oh, sure. Tagnia's so bad down on this end as it is closer to the house. closer to the old graveyard, you mean? Ep looked at Bruce. Then shrugged. Well, same thing, not as bad as it was in my grandfather's day, either. Only thing is, stuff don't quite get to normal size somehow, and often as not I raise some things that I might—well, queer distorted like, but it all seems edible enough.

32:03I wonder what your grandfather thought about this land. He must have had some idea about it. I shrugged again. Now tell him what grandfather's ecloth art, especially in his last years. He was off-crazy then, and everybody knew that. All I can say is, he was drove to it. Drive his self to it. I remember him saying once that the land didn't belong to us now, and the way he said it, he didn't mean just this little piece of land. He meant all the land everywhere, I guess. It gives me the creeps the way used to talk. But something about—we was here just temporary like, and some day they would wake and claim the land that was rightfully theirs. He used to mention they saw the reverent black. There was an awakened light of interest in Bruce's eyes, as he tried to press this point. He didn't say how, or when this was to happen, he didn't mention certain names such as

33:04Läuger, or Bermoth, or Fattacca. But Ab didn't seem to remember. Old Zickler had spoken too many queer words. Bruce put a sample of that evil soil in an envelope, and before we left, he asked one more question. Ab? Do you remember Lyle Wilson taking a trip to Arkham fairly recently? Maybe he said something about visiting the Misscotonic University Library. Now, Ab shook his head, then he seemed to remember something. Maybe a mean that time a little more than a year ago. Wilson made a trip then, was gone two or three days, but he never breathed the word to anybody where it been. Thanks. Bruce seemed deeply immersed in thought. Cori resumed his plowing, and Bruce and I cut across a field toward the ravine. It was quite steep where we reached it, full of small trees and scrubbushes.

34:04In the direction of the house, however, a quarter of a mile away, it shallowed into a little galley that ended by the edge of the old graveyard. Bruce looked intently down into the ravine for a moment, then turned away. What did you mean by those names you asked, Cori? I said, as we walked back to the house. And what do they mean? What knows I won't attempt to pronounce them the way you did? And I laughed. Bruce didn't laugh. What do they mean? He repeated. His voice was different than I'd ever heard it. I'd come almost to believe that they meant nothing, that they were only names. But now, my God, I'm beginning to believe again. Do there really exist embodiments of those names? Perhaps old Zichler knew, and others from time to time. After all those names and the rumors and the books do persist through the years, and where there is legend there is a basis effect, if only it could be traced back through the

35:06years. That was all I got from Bruce, but he didn't need to tell me more. For a long time I'd been aware, disinterestedly, of his study of ancient laws. I knew he had in his library a certain shelf of old books, besides scores of fiction pieces on the subject. I'd read a few of the fiction pieces, and was amused. Deep in my mind was the safe and comfortable knowledge that they were fiction, and nothing more. But now I wasn't so sure, and I didn't feel so safe. Perhaps all that fiction, after all, had been based on—on something I didn't like to think of. My vague perturbation was enhanced by the way Bruce had said those words. But now my God, I'm beginning to believe again. Just how much Bruce believed, I don't know. Know what he was trying to learn, or why he left his room that night. I'd out now if I could have acted in any way to stop him, even if I had known.

36:11The one fact I see clearly now is that neither of us then realized how slowly and insidiously everything was building up to that tragic climax. That night, after supper, Bruce went upstairs to his room, intending he said, to look more carefully into those ancient books. I stepped outdoors to smoke my pipe. Somehow I always enjoyed more outdoors and at night. It helps me to think, and that's what I needed to do. In a muddled sort of way I was trying to decide how much of this ancient lore business I dared and how much I feared to believe. I only knew that I liked this place less and less, and if Bruce didn't want to leave in the morning, I would take the car myself. Finding I was nearly out of tobacco. I walked down to Lyle Wilson's store. The place was dark. I stepped onto the porch, and was about to try the door, thinking perhaps he hadn't blocked up yet.

37:13But then I decided he must be in bed, and I'd better wait until morning. I stepped off the porch and was almost out to the road again when I heard his front door open. I turned, and was about to call out to him when something stopped me. It may have been partly intuition, but mainly it was Lyle's actions. I could see him only dimly, and apparently he did not see me at all, but the way closed his door, ever so softly, crept furtively across the porch, interested me. He disappeared around the corner of his store, and I followed. He passed through a gate at the rear of his property, crossed a field, climbed a low fence into another field. I stayed a safe distance behind him, just keeping him in sight. I could barely make out something that he carried under his arm, apparently a thick book, and out of the diary that both him Bruce seemed so interested in. I soon saw that he was heading for the ravine.

38:15Undoubtedly he had travelled this route before, because he seemed very sure of his direction, and seemed to be heading for a certain point. I lost him in the dark for a moment, harried forward, bumped into the low-hanging branches of a tree, and scratched my fix. When I reached the ravine, he had disappeared entirely. But I could hear him faintly as he climbed down some path nearby. I searched for a few minutes, finally finding it. I descended. Rather I skidded, rolled, and tumbled down that steep path in the dark, arriving at the bottom by the simple expedient of plunging headfirst the last five feet. I arose, brushed off my clothes. By that time Lyle Wilson had disappeared entirely. I couldn't hear a sound. Couldn't even guess which direction he'd taken. And if the night were dark before, it was positively stigian at the bottom of this ravine.

39:16As disgruntled as I was puzzled, I tried to climb back up the path, but I couldn't. I stood there for a minute nursing my bruises and cursing myself for a fool. Then I remembered that the ravine became shallower until it led out by the edge of the graveyard, a quarter of a mile away. The only thing to do was to follow it in that direction. After all I decided, I might come upon Wilson again. But I didn't see him. Once I stopped thinking I heard the sound of metal striking on metal. But I didn't hear it again. I proceeded in the dark, avoiding small clumps of bushes and trees as best I could. It wasn't until I was almost at the graveyard, that I remembered, suddenly, disturbingly, something Ebb Corrid said about the youngest man-row boy who had been playing in the ravine, and had run home to tell his mother he'd seen his lost brother's face with a lot of others.

40:17But the thought of it, I hurried my steps. I cat across a corner of the graveyard to the house. Looking up at the window of the rear room, I saw no light there. Thinking Bruce must be asleep, I went around the house, entered the front door a bit breathlessly, and hurried upstairs. I had intended to wake and Bruce, if necessary, to tell him of Lyle Wilson's nocturnal excursion, for it might mean something to him. I pushed open the door and entered his room, and moved through the darkness to the table and the dimly-seen oil lamp. I searched in my pocket for a match, while with the other hand I fumbled for the lamp. Damn! My searching fingers had found the lamp alright, and I'd burned them on the still hot glass chimney. Bruce must have turned it off no more than a few minutes before. I finally managed to light it again, and as the shadows flickered about the room, I saw that Bruce wasn't there at all, nor had his bed been slept in.

41:20Perhaps he had stepped out for a breath of air. On the table one of the heavy tomes lay open, which I recognized as monsters, and that kind. I decided it was a soft-ledded pencil. Then I noticed that Bruce apparently had been checking certain passages with the pencil, very likely on the crisp yellowish pages. I decided to wait for him. So I drew up a chair and began to read those passages which Bruce had so painstakingly marked. Now, after twelve years I cannot precisely remember those excerpts, but I do know they were in a quaint old English spelling, and the first paragraph to strike my eye was almost as follows. These be not manifest, but they do wait in patience for time that is not yet. Of a hideous potency be the blackness wherein they dwell, for they do not always sleep. They be remote one from another, nonetheless they do have a devious intercourse.

42:25Near that far north, in the ancient times a clapped hyperborea, do they wait. A fire in the east beneath vast plateaus, they be rumoured. In the new dark lands across the seas they surely be. Men of the sea of whispered of unspeakable manifestations on strange islands. Indeed there be fearful rumour of the fate of men who go down with doomed ships. These creatures be nameless, but assuredly must they be spawned of ancient Bermothen, Fatacca, Lleuger and Cthulm and the others, in silence do they await the call of those elder ones. I stopped reading there, aware that this all sounded vaguely familiar. My must have read similar things in other old books of Bruce's. I turned a few pages to see if he had checked other passages. He had. Some mortals there be who revere them, and some few also whom they instruct in a certain

43:28wise. One of these was the eyeball of that ancient hyperborea, and there have been others. Suddenly startled. I remembered old Zickler sitting at that very window, talking a sort of gibberish to something in the tomb, which he hinted at, answered him. Now I read on suddenly Eager, seeking out those passages which Bruce had marked. There be divers' waves, mostly forgot, in which they may be awakened, and it is then that they become restless and impatient for the time and provoke their powers. One of the ways is set down by Ibon in his book, Doth Follow. There was only the beginning of a long incantation of indistinguishable words. Most of it had faded away, as though from constant reference to this page. As I thought again of old Zickler sitting mumbling at this window, my interests surpassed all previous bounds.

44:30I turned back a few pages to where Bruce had first begun marking. So evil they be, but the land which under they lie, Doth become strangely polluted, and the very soil Doth crawl, and strangely be the things which grow thereon. Our has read in his chronicle, Hathavoud, that whom so ever be attracted unto them, by the nefarious influence which they project when invoked, Doth remain forever a part of them, not dead, but new and oddly bodied, instructing the very ground and adding to the power of them. Also Hathavoud has read, said, evil the mind, which is held by no head, and dire is the ground which. For the moment I stopped reading there, and my eyes skipped over to the next page where Bruce seemed to have underlined several of the statements as if they were of the utmost importance. I read that passage carefully.

45:32But some there be among them which weight restless and impatient for the time. To set these few, do inherit the elder power to attract unto them small animals, then the cattle and small children, then the weak and the sick, and whichever men who sleep close to them, upon whom they do project a kind of dream. As also said, that whom so ever be vastly attracted unto them, Doth become a part of them, that is to say, the all in one which the elder ones await, and Doth instruct the creatures and the very ground in which they be. In this wise, when the time Doth come, shall they endure the ultimate consummation, thusly shall they inherit the land again, which once was theirs. Act as as much as I read. I remembered old Zicklaus' statement about the earth not belonging to us. I remembered Mrs. Corey's vague hintings of people who had slept in this room, and who

46:36had dreamed and then disappeared. I remembered Bruce's dream the previous night, of the graveyard and the tomb behind this house. For perhaps five minutes I sat there in the flickering lamp light, remembering these and other things. Suddenly I leaped to my feet, shuddering, and icy cold wave of horror sweeping over me. Here I had been sitting waiting for Bruce to come back. In that moment I knew what I must do. I went leaping down the stairway out into the dark night, and around to the side of the house where we had left the car. The forty-five automatic that Bruce usually carried in the glove compartment was gone. So was the flashlight. Anyway. It made no difference now. I found another flashlight in my kit. The batteries were very weak, but I was thankful for it. I went through the gap in the fence, and down that path behind the house toward the tomb.

47:36I remembered Bruce's description of his dream, wherein something had drawn him here against his will. Nothing was drawing me of that I was certain. How true is the saying, fools are Russian! Not until I was standing right before the tomb. Did I see that Bruce had indeed been there? The heavy plank door was pulled slightly ajar, making a little lock in the dirt. The iron chain which had held it was now broken. It was a tight squeeze since the door would open no further, but I finally managed to enter. Flashing my light around. I saw a few mouldering wooden coffins at one side. I scarcely glanced at them. Instead I examined the cement walls that were damp and musty. Then I gave a start of surprise. Without quite knowing what I was looking for, I had found it. At the rear of the tomb I saw a roughly rectangular hole in the cement.

48:40Quirky I crossed to it. I flashed my light into a passage that led slightly downward for about ten feet. The iron seemed to level off. Determine now to go where Bruce had gone. I bent low and squeezed into the passage. At the bottom of the slight incline I again flashed my light ahead. Then my heart pounded in excitement and amazement. The passage was narrow, but high enough for a man to stand erect. And it extended far beyond the feeble beam of my flashlight. I moved slowly ahead. Soon I began to distinguish what seemed to be other smaller passages branching off. But what struck me so forcibly was that this main passage seemed to extend straight toward the ravine. There was a stagnant, loathsome stench that seemed to roll over me in tangible waves. I touched the earth walls and recoyled.

49:40It was the same, dampish, grayish kind of soil Bruce had examined, but much worse. It was slimy. It seemed to crawl under my touches though it were alive. I came near then to giving up and going back, but gritting my teeth I went on. My foot struck something hard. I bent, fumbled and picked it up. It was Bruce's automatic. It still felt faintly warm. I knew it had been fired. Now there was no more doubt. Only a vague fear and foreboding. I stood there in that noisome passage, holding the gun that had been fired, wondering what I should do next. It was decided for me. Just then I heard the sound. Quickly I snapped off the flashlight and stood there in the dark, tense and listening. My heart pounded blood into my ears, so that I could hardly hear the sound when it came again.

50:41But I heard it all right faint and far away, not close as I had first thought. The sound was a voice, a blurred and mumbled voice that seemed to chant, and the chant was a thing obscene and alien for all its vagueness, if that much I was sure. But still I stood and listened, and still the sound came, faintly from far away down that passage toward the ravine. It seemed jubilant and joyous, now uttering peons of praise, now again descending to a garbled undertone of obscene implications that made my flesh crawl. Despite that I could distinguish none of the words. I knew, as I stood there listening to that loathsome ritual, that there were things I should piece together, something to do with Lyle Wilson. But somehow I couldn't remember anymore. My thoughts were becoming jumbled and uncertain, not daring to use the flashlight.

51:43I moved wearily forward a few more paces. Bruce, I called softly, and listened, then a bit louder. Bruce, can you hear me? You must be in here. Oh, God, then I heard a sound that was not the chanting, a sound much closer, just ahead of me. I stopped and listened, and didn't breathe. Something a few yards away was moving toward me in the darkness. Bruce, is that you? I called again. And suddenly I knew those were not footsteps, nor anything resembling footsteps, nor anything I'd ever heard before. I never used to have nightmares. I never used to feel an awful fear of an enclosed room. I never used to wake in the middle of the night with a dread of a monstrous, unclean thing coming toward me out of the dark, so that I must fumble frantically for the light-court and Lyle sweating afterwards, and fear to sleep again.

52:45I wish I had never clicked on my flashlight there in that passage behind the tomb. Something stopped there. Half revealed at the end of my pale beam of light. I know only that it wasn't human. My fire'd the gun, and I didn't miss. There only three bullets left, and I remember hearing every one of them hit with a soggy, sucking sound like pebbles thrown into thick mud. It could not have been more than ten seconds, but it was ten attorneys. I suddenly knew that it did not fear the light, but was only momentarily confused. And then it came just a little ne'er into the beam of light, and stood fully revealed. I didn't hear myself scream, but I know I must have. For my throat was raw afterward. I felt my mind slipping slowly away into a chaos of vertiginous order. I knew it was I that moved, and I must have screamed again.

53:47Yes, it was I who moved steadily, slowly closer, and I could not help myself. I knew I must move closer still, until… Until what I never knew. For at that moment strangely, I seemed touched with a surging wave of coolness that beat down my rising panic. It no longer seemed I that moved. It was another part of me, a part that had been eons ago, that was trying now to go back to the soft, safe warmth of the primordial. It was the kind of ecstatic feeling I'd had as a child when I squeezed thick black mud between my hands. But this was magnified a thousandfold, cosy and dreamy and logical. And yet there was something wrong, vaguely disturbing. There was another eye, an important and far away somewhere, but persistently imploring, imploring me not to succumb, not to go back. To remember.

54:48For what? That tiny far away me was so pitifully amusing, as it tried with a feeble sort of intensity to burst the surrounding, comfortable darkness. It was trying to tell me something to do with… A dream? Was that it? Seemingly eons ago I remembered a dream a friend had told me, of something irresistibly drawing, an affinity, house swiftly did comprehensionfully back to me then. I was newly rising panic, as I remembered. How quickly I was back in that passage again, as the ancient part of me and the present part of me merged with a frantic rush, and I saw… Then it was that I screamed for the third and final time, an articulate scream. Bruce! I was very near now to that thing that was drawing me, and I saw it quite clearly. But with that last articulate scream, something about me abruptly shivered, wavoured, and I felt

55:51a sudden surge of power. I could feel something trying to help me tear my mind away, something softly, subtly, urgently aiding me, something whispering, do not come, do not move, go back, now, quickly. And that urging was the greatest horror of all. For I knew Bruce was there. I what supreme effort I did tear my eyes and mind away. I shall never know. I do not remember it. I only remember the frantic escape up that last ten feet of slope, of something surging soundlessly behind, something that touched my ankle, as I squeezed through the broken wrecked angle into the tomb. Then the awful sodden sound of it, hitting, seconds too late, with a sort of squish, like a heavy wet sponge against a wall. There remained one more thing to be done. Out of the tomb I fled, across the graveyard, and into the ravine.

56:54I knew now what I was searching for, and I found it despite the darkness. I found it, well concealed in a little galley behind masses of bush and vine. The other end of that passage. I saw the iron-barred gate across the tiny entrance, probably placed there by Lyle Wilson himself. It now stood open with a snap-lock hanging from it. Just inside the gate I could dimly see Lyle Wilson, a crouching figure, wrapped, and listening. He had heard my revolver shots. He had heard my screams, and then silence. Now he began another of those low-chance that gradually rose in volume to a jubilant peon of praise. I could not have remembered the words even if I had wanted to. They were hardly even articulate words. I saw him accompany it with an unholy little ritual and dance that ordinarily would have second me to the soul, but already I was beyond that.

57:56He didn't hear or see me until I had leaped forward to swing that gate-shutter upon him and snapped the lock. The most horrible part of it was that his chant didn't even stop as he rushed at me, clawing with a whitish sort of foam around his mouth. He crashed into the gate, tugged furiously at it, and then his chant turned into a sickening gurgle of terror as he quite suddenly realized what was going to happen. He sank down just within the tunnel, groveling in stark fear. I think his mind snapped. For soon his cries reverted again to an incoherent gibberish like the memory of a horrible language long dead. I waited there until I was very sure I heard, coming swiftly nearer down the tunnel, that surging primordial horror. I have destroyed, of course, the book which Bruce was reading on that last night, and I, myself, may someday forget most of those excerpts at which I glanced.

59:00But never the one which read, whom so ever be attracted unto them, by the nefarious influence which they project when invoked, doth remain forever a part of them, not dead, but new and oddly bodied, instructing the very ground. I have said it was ten seconds that were ten eternities there in the darkness of that passage, but my mind was numbed then. It is the horrible remembering, later. If there be gods I pray to them to set my brain at rest. And surely as there be things of evil I pray to them to let me forget. But neither prayer is answered. So I must still remember that writhing, surging thing of iridescent evil, all shapes and yet shapeless, that primal quasi-omorphous thing that moved as worms move, that sightless mass not complete of itself, but with the power to draw men to it.

1:00:02That much I could forget, that much would not make me dreamer, wake up screaming with an awful fear of the dark. But those dim faces that appeared from out of it, that were now eternally part of it, still horribly alive and wide-eyed with the terrible anguish of knowing. Those human faces that could not speak could only implore in silent agony that I destroy them, and this thing that should not be. Those distorted faces enmeshed and folded in the confluent parts of that blasphemous thing. Those faces among which I saw dimly but surely, that of my friend, Bruce Tartan. Thank you for listening. If you'd like to support our work, you can find horror-babbling easily with a quick online search, or by seeking us out on Patreon, Bandcamp or YouTube.

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