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The Dunwich Horror

H.P. Lovecraft (1928)

Gorgons and Hydras, and Chimaeras - dire stories of Celaeno and the Harpies - may reproduce themselves in the brain of superstition - but they were there before. They are transcripts, types - the archtypes are in us, and eternal. How else should the recital of that which we know in a waking sense to be false come to affect us all? Is it that we naturally conceive terror from such objects, considered in their capacity of being able to inflict upon us bodily injury? O, least of all! These terrors are of older standing. They date beyond body - or without the body, they would have been the same... That the kind of fear here treated is purely spiritual - that it is strong in proportion as it is objectless on earth, that it predominates in the period of our sinless infancy - are difficulties the solution of which might afford some probable insight into our ante-mundane condition, and a peep at least into the shadowland of pre-existence.

- Charles Lamb: Witches and Other Night-Fears

When a traveller in north central Massachusetts takes the wrong fork at the junction of Aylesbury pike just beyond Dean's Corners he comes upon a lonely and curious country.

The ground gets higher, and the brier-bordered stone walls press closer and closer against the ruts of the dusty, curving road. The trees of the frequent forest belts seem too large, and the wild weeds, brambles and grasses attain a luxuriance not often found in settled regions. At the same time the planted fields appear singularly few and barren; while the sparsely scattered houses wear a surprisingly uniform aspect of age, squalor, and dilapidation.

Without knowing why, one hesitates to ask directions from the gnarled solitary figures spied now and then on crumbling doorsteps or on the sloping, rock-strewn meadows. Those figures are so silent and furtive that one feels somehow confronted by forbidden things, with which it would be better to have nothing to do. When a rise in the road brings the mountains in view above the deep woods, the feeling of strange uneasiness is increased. The summits are too rounded and symmetrical to give a sense of comfort and naturalness, and sometimes the sky silhouettes with especial clearness the queer circles of tall stone pillars with which most of them are crowned.

Gorges and ravines of problematical depth intersect the way, and the crude wooden bridges always seem of dubious safety. When the road dips again there are stretches of marshland that one instinctively dislikes, and indeed almost fears at evening when unseen whippoorwills chatter and the fireflies come out in abnormal profusion to dance to the raucous, creepily insistent rhythms of stridently piping bull-frogs. The thin, shining line of the Miskatonic's upper reaches has an oddly serpent-like suggestion as it winds close to the feet of the domed hills among which it rises.

As the hills draw nearer, one heeds their wooded sides more than their stone-crowned tops. Those sides loom up so darkly and precipitously that one wishes they would keep their distance, but there is no road by which to escape them. Across a covered bridge one sees a small village huddled between the stream and the vertical slope of Round Mountain, and wonders at the cluster of rotting gambrel roofs bespeaking an earlier architectural period than that of the neighbouring region. It is not reassuring to see, on a closer glance, that most of the houses are deserted and falling to ruin, and that the broken-steepled church now harbours the one slovenly mercantile establishment of the hamlet. One dreads to trust the tenebrous tunnel of the bridge, yet there is no way to avoid it. Once across, it is hard to prevent the impression of a faint, malign odour about the village street, as of the massed mould and decay of centuries. It is always a relief to get clear of the place, and to follow the narrow road around the base of the hills and across the level country beyond till it rejoins the Aylesbury pike. Afterwards one sometimes learns that one has been through Dunwich.

Outsiders visit Dunwich as seldom as possible, and since a certain season of horror all the signboards pointing towards it have been taken down. The scenery, judged by an ordinary aesthetic canon, is more than commonly beautiful; yet there is no influx of artists or summer tourists. Two centuries ago, when talk of witch-blood, Satan-worship, and strange forest presences was not laughed at, it was the custom to give reasons for avoiding the locality. In our sensible age - since the Dunwich horror of 1928 was hushed up by those who had the town's and the world's welfare at heart - people shun it without knowing exactly why. Perhaps one reason - though it cannot apply to uninformed strangers - is that the natives are now repellently decadent, having gone far along that path of retrogression so common in many New England backwaters. They have come to form a race by themselves, with the well-defined mental and physical stigmata of degeneracy and inbreeding. The average of their intelligence is woefully low, whilst their annals reek of overt viciousness and of half-hidden murders, incests, and deeds of almost unnameable violence and perversity. The old gentry, representing the two or three armigerous families which came from Salem in 1692, have kept somewhat above the general level of decay; though many branches are sunk into the sordid populace so deeply that only their names remain as a key to the origin they disgrace. Some of the Whateleys and Bishops still send their eldest sons to Harvard and Miskatonic, though those sons seldom return to the mouldering gambrel roofs under which they and their ancestors were born.

No one, even those who have the facts concerning the recent horror, can say just what is the matter with Dunwich; though old legends speak of unhallowed rites and conclaves of the Indians, amidst which they called forbidden shapes of shadow out of the great rounded hills, and made wild orgiastic prayers that were answered by loud crackings and rumblings from the ground below. In 1747 the Reverend Abijah Hoadley, newly come to the Congregational Church at Dunwich Village, preached a memorable sermon on the close presence of Satan and his imps; in which he said:

"It must be allow'd, that these Blasphemies of an infernall Train of Daemons are Matters of too common Knowledge to be deny'd; the cursed Voices of Azazel and Buzrael, of Beelzebub and Belial, being heard now from under Ground by above a Score of credible Witnesses now living. I myself did not more than a Fortnight ago catch a very plain Discourse of evill Powers in the Hill behind my House; wherein there were a Rattling and Rolling, Groaning, Screeching, and Hissing, such as no Things of this Earth could raise up, and which must needs have come from those Caves that only black Magick can discover, and only the Divell unlock".

Mr. Hoadley disappeared soon after delivering this sermon, but the text, printed in Springfield, is still extant. Noises in the hills continued to be reported from year to year, and still form a puzzle to geologists and physiographers.

Other traditions tell of foul odours near the hill-crowning circles of stone pillars, and of rushing airy presences to be heard faintly at certain hours from stated points at the bottom of the great ravines; while still others try to explain the Devil's Hop Yard - a bleak, blasted hillside where no tree, shrub, or grass-blade will grow. Then, too, the natives are mortally afraid of the numerous whippoorwills which grow vocal on warm nights. It is vowed that the birds are psychopomps lying in wait for the souls of the dying, and that they time their eerie cries in unison with the sufferer's struggling breath. If they can catch the fleeing soul when it leaves the body, they instantly flutter away chittering in daemoniac laughter; but if they fail, they subside gradually into a disappointed silence.

These tales, of course, are obsolete and ridiculous; because they come down from very old times. Dunwich is indeed ridiculously old - older by far than any of the communities within thirty miles of it. South of the village one may still spy the cellar walls and chimney of the ancient Bishop house, which was built before 1700; whilst the ruins of the mill at the falls, built in 1806, form the most modern piece of architecture to be seen. Industry did not flourish here, and the nineteenth-century factory movement proved short-lived. Oldest of all are the great rings of rough-hewn stone columns on the hilltops, but these are more generally attributed to the Indians than to the settlers. Deposits of skulls and bones, found within these circles and around the sizeable table-like rock on Sentinel Hill, sustain the popular belief that such spots were once the burial-places of the Pocumtucks; even though many ethnologists, disregarding the absurd improbability of such a theory, persist in believing the remains Caucasian.

II.

It was in the township of Dunwich, in a large and partly inhabited farmhouse set against a hillside four miles from the village and a mile and a half from any other dwelling, that Wilbur Whateley was born at 5 a.m. on Sunday, the second of February, 1913. This date was recalled because it was Candlemas, which people in Dunwich curiously observe under another name; and because the noises in the hills had sounded, and all the dogs of the countryside had barked persistently, throughout the night before. Less worthy of notice was the fact that the mother was one of the decadent Whateleys, a somewhat deformed, unattractive albino woman of thirty-five, living with an aged and half-insane father about whom the most frightful tales of wizardry had been whispered in his youth. Lavinia Whateley had no known husband, but according to the custom of the region made no attempt to disavow the child; concerning the other side of whose ancestry the country folk might - and did - speculate as widely as they chose. On the contrary, she seemed strangely proud of the dark, goatish-looking infant who formed such a contrast to her own sickly and pink-eyed albinism, and was heard to mutter many curious prophecies about its unusual powers and tremendous future.

Lavinia was one who would be apt to mutter such things, for she was a lone creature given to wandering amidst thunderstorms in the hills and trying to read the great odorous books which her father had inherited through two centuries of Whateleys, and which were fast falling to pieces with age and wormholes. She had never been to school, but was filled with disjointed scraps of ancient lore that Old Whateley had taught her. The remote farmhouse had always been feared because of Old Whateley's reputation for black magic, and the unexplained death by violence of Mrs Whateley when Lavinia was twelve years old had not helped to make the place popular. Isolated among strange influences, Lavinia was fond of wild and grandiose day-dreams and singular occupations; nor was her leisure much taken up by household cares in a home from which all standards of order and cleanliness had long since disappeared.

There was a hideous screaming which echoed above even the hill noises and the dogs' barking on the night Wilbur was born, but no known doctor or midwife presided at his coming. Neighbours knew nothing of him till a week afterward, when Old Wateley drove his sleigh through the snow into Dunwich Village and discoursed incoherently to the group of loungers at Osborne's general store. There seemed to be a change in the old man - an added element of furtiveness in the clouded brain which subtly transformed him from an object to a subject of fear - though he was not one to be perturbed by any common family event. Amidst it all he showed some trace of the pride later noticed in his daughter, and what he said of the child's paternity was remembered by many of his hearers years afterward.

'I dun't keer what folks think - ef Lavinny's boy looked like his pa, he wouldn't look like nothin' ye expeck. Ye needn't think the only folks is the folks hereabouts. Lavinny's read some, an' has seed some things the most o' ye only tell abaout. I calc'late her man is as good a husban' as ye kin find this side of Aylesbury; an' ef ye knowed as much abaout the hills as I dew, ye wouldn't ast no better church weddin' nor her'n. Let me tell ye suthin - some day yew folks'll hear a child o' Lavinny's a-callin' its father's name on the top o' Sentinel Hill!'

The only person who saw Wilbur during the first month of his life were old Zechariah Whateley, of the undecayed Whateleys, and Earl Sawyer's common-law wife, Mamie Bishop. Mamie's visit was frankly one of curiosity, and her subsequent tales did justice to her observations; but Zechariah came to lead a pair of Alderney cows which Old Whateley had bought of his son Curtis. This marked the beginning of a course of cattle-buying on the part of small Wilbur's family which ended only in 1928, when the Dunwich horror came and went; yet at no time did the ramshackle Wateley barn seem overcrowded with livestock. There came a period when people were curious enough to steal up and count the herd that grazed precariously on the steep hillside above the old farm-house, and they could never find more than ten or twelve anaemic, bloodless-looking specimens. Evidently some blight or distemper, perhaps sprung from the unwholesome pasturage or the diseased fungi and timbers of the filthy barn, caused a heavy mortality amongst the Whateley animals. Odd wounds or sores, having something of the aspect of incisions, seemed to afflict the visible cattle; and once or twice during the earlier months certain callers fancied they could discern similar sores about the throats of the grey, unshaven old man and his slattemly, crinkly-haired albino daughter.

In the spring after Wilbur's birth Lavinia resumed her customary rambles in the hills, bearing in her misproportioned arms the swarthy child. Public interest in the Whateleys subsided after most of the country folk had seen the baby, and no one bothered to comment on the swift development which that newcomer seemed every day to exhibit. Wilbur's growth was indeed phenomenal, for within three months of his birth he had attained a size and muscular power not usually found in infants under a full year of age. His motions and even his vocal sounds showed a restraint and deliberateness highly peculiar in an infant, and no one was really unprepared when, at seven months, he began to walk unassisted, with falterings which another month was sufficient to remove.

It was somewhat after this time - on Hallowe'en - that a great blaze was seen at midnight on the top of Sentinel Hill where the old table-like stone stands amidst its tumulus of ancient bones. Considerable talk was started when Silas Bishop - of the undecayed Bishops - mentioned having seen the boy running sturdily up that hill ahead of his mother about an hour before the blaze was remarked. Silas was rounding up a stray heifer, but he nearly forgot his mission when he fleetingly spied the two figures in the dim light of his lantern. They darted almost noiselessly through the underbrush, and the astonished watcher seemed to think they were entirely unclothed. Afterwards he could not be sure about the boy, who may have had some kind of a fringed belt and a pair of dark trunks or trousers on. Wilbur was never subsequently seen alive and conscious without complete and tightly buttoned attire, the disarrangement or threatened disarrangement of which always seemed to fill him with anger and alarm. His contrast with his squalid mother and grandfather in this respect was thought very notable until the horror of 1928 suggested the most valid of reasons.

The next January gossips were mildly interested in the fact that 'Lavinny's black brat' had commenced to talk, and at the age of only eleven months. His speech was somewhat remarkable both because of its difference from the ordinary accents of the region, and because it displayed a freedom from infantile lisping of which many children of three or four might well be proud. The boy was not talkative, yet when he spoke he seemed to reflect some elusive element wholly unpossessed by Dunwich and its denizens. The strangeness did not reside in what he said, or even in the simple idioms he used; but seemed vaguely linked with his intonation or with the internal organs that produced the spoken sounds. His facial aspect, too, was remarkable for its maturity; for though he shared his mother's and grandfather's chinlessness, his firm and precociously shaped nose united with the expression of his large, dark, almost Latin eyes to give him an air of quasi-adulthood and well-nigh preternatural intelligence. He was, however, exceedingly ugly despite his appearance of brilliancy; there being something almost goatish or animalistic about his thick lips, large-pored, yellowish skin, coarse crinkly hair, and oddly elongated ears. He was soon disliked even more decidedly than his mother and grandsire, and all conjectures about him were spiced with references to the bygone magic of Old Whateley, and how the hills once shook when he shrieked the dreadful name of Yog-Sothoth in the midst of a circle of stones with a great book open in his arms before him. Dogs abhorred the boy, and he was always obliged to take various defensive measures against their barking menace.

III.

Meanwhile Old Whateley continued to buy cattle without measurably increasing the size of his herd. He also cut timber and began to repair the unused parts of his house - a spacious, peak-roofed affair whose rear end was buried entirely in the rocky hillside, and whose three least-ruined ground-floor rooms had always been sufficient for himself and his daughter.

There must have been prodigious reserves of strength in the old man to enable him to accomplish so much hard labour; and though he still babbled dementedly at times, his carpentry seemed to show the effects of sound calculation. It had already begun as soon as Wilbur was born, when one of the many tool sheds had been put suddenly in order, clapboarded, and fitted with a stout fresh lock. Now, in restoring the abandoned upper storey of the house, he was a no less thorough craftsman. His mania showed itself only in his tight boarding-up of all the windows in the reclaimed section - though many declared that it was a crazy thing to bother with the reclamation at all.

Less inexplicable was his fitting up of another downstairs room for his new grandson - a room which several callers saw, though no one was ever admitted to the closely-boarded upper storey. This chamber he lined with tall, firm shelving, along which he began gradually to arrange, in apparently careful order, all the rotting ancient books and parts of books which during his own day had been heaped promiscuously in odd corners of the various rooms.

'I made some use of 'em,' he would say as he tried to mend a torn black-letter page with paste prepared on the rusty kitchen stove, 'but the boy's fitten to make better use of 'em. He'd orter hev 'em as well so as he kin, for they're goin' to be all of his larnin'.'

When Wilbur was a year and seven months old - in September of 1914 - his size and accomplishments were almost alarming. He had grown as large as a child of four, and was a fluent and incredibly intelligent talker. He ran freely about the fields and hills, and accompanied his mother on all her wanderings. At home he would pore dilligently over the queer pictures and charts in his grandfather's books, while Old Whateley would instruct and catechize him through long, hushed afternoons. By this time the restoration of the house was finished, and those who watched it wondered why one of the upper windows had been made into a solid plank door. It was a window in the rear of the east gable end, close against the hill; and no one could imagine why a cleated wooden runway was built up to it from the ground. About the period of this work's completion people noticed that the old tool-house, tightly locked and windowlessly clapboarded since Wilbur's birth, had been abandoned again. The door swung listlessly open, and when Earl Sawyer once stepped within after a cattle-selling call on Old Whateley he was quite discomposed by the singular odour he encountered - such a stench, he averred, as he had never before smelt in all his life except near the Indian circles on the hills, and which could not come from anything sane or of this earth. But then, the homes and sheds of Dunwich folk have never been remarkable for olfactory immaculateness.

The following months were void of visible events, save that everyone swore to a slow but steady increase in the mysterious hill noises. On May Eve of 1915 there were tremors which even the Aylesbury people felt, whilst the following Hallowe'en produced an underground rumbling queerly synchronized with bursts of flame - 'them witch Whateleys' doin's' - from the summit of Sentinel Hill. Wilbur was growing up uncannily, so that he looked like a boy of ten as he entered his fourth year. He read avidly by himself now; but talked much less than formerly. A settled taciturnity was absorbing him, and for the first time people began to speak specifically of the dawning look of evil in his goatish face. He would sometimes mutter an unfamiliar jargon, and chant in bizarre rhythms which chilled the listener with a sense of unexplainable terror. The aversion displayed towards him by dogs had now become a matter of wide remark, and he was obliged to carry a pistol in order to traverse the countryside in safety. His occasional use of the weapon did not enhance his popularity amongst the owners of canine guardians.

The few callers at the house would often find Lavinia alone on the ground floor, while odd cries and footsteps resounded in the boarded-up second storey. She would never tell what her father and the boy were doing up there, though once she turned pale and displayed an abnormal degree of fear when a jocose fish-pedlar tried the locked door leading to the stairway. That pedlar told the store loungers at Dunwich Village that he thought he heard a horse stamping on that floor above. The loungers reflected, thinking of the door and runway, and of the cattle that so swiftly disappeared. Then they shuddered as they recalled tales of Old Whateley's youth, and of the strange things that are called out of the earth when a bullock is sacrificed at the proper time to certain heathen gods. It had for some time been noticed that dogs had begun to hate and fear the whole Whateley place as violently as they hated and feared young Wilbur personally.

In 1917 the war came, and Squire Sawyer Whateley, as chairman of the local draft board, had hard work finding a quota of young Dunwich men fit even to be sent to development camp. The government, alarmed at such signs of wholesale regional decadence, sent several officers and medical experts to investigate; conducting a survey which New England newspaper readers may still recall. It was the publicity attending this investigation which set reporters on the track of the Whateleys, and caused the Boston Globe and Arkham Advertiser to print flamboyant Sunday stories of young Wilbur's precociousness, Old Whateley's black magic, and the shelves of strange books, the sealed second storey of the ancient farmhouse, and the weirdness of the whole region and its hill noises. Wilbur was four and a half then, and looked like a lad of fifteen. His lips and cheeks were fuzzy with a coarse dark down, and his voice had begun to break.

Earl Sawyer went out to the Whateley place with both sets of reporters and camera men, and called their attention to the queer stench which now seemed to trickle down from the sealed upper spaces. It was, he said, exactly like a smell he had found in the toolshed abandoned when the house was finally repaired; and like the faint odours which he sometimes thought he caught near the stone circle on the mountains. Dunwich folk read the stories when they appeared, and grinned over the obvious mistakes. They wondered, too, why the writers made so much of the fact that Old Whateley always paid for his cattle in gold pieces of extremely ancient date. The Whateleys had received their visitors with ill-concealed distaste, though they did not dare court further publicity by a violent resistance or refusal to talk.

IV.

For a decade the annals of the Whateleys sink indistinguishably into the general life of a morbid community used to their queer ways and hardened to their May Eve and All-Hallows orgies. Twice a year they would light fires on the top of Sentinel Hill, at which times the mountain rumblings would recur with greater and greater violence; while at all seasons there were strange and portentous doings at the lonely farm-house. In the course of time callers professed to hear sounds in the sealed upper storey even when all the family were downstairs, and they wondered how swiftly or how lingeringly a cow or bullock was usually sacrificed. There was talk of a complaint to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals but nothing ever came of it, since Dunwich folk are never anxious to call the outside world's attention to themselves.

About 1923, when Wilbur was a boy of ten whose mind, voice, stature, and bearded face gave all the impressions of maturity, a second great siege of carpentry went on at the old house. It was all inside the sealed upper part, and from bits of discarded lumber people concluded that the youth and his grandfather had knocked out all the partitions and even removed the attic floor, leaving only one vast open void between the ground storey and the peaked roof. They had torn down the great central chimney, too, and fitted the rusty range with a flimsy outside tin stove-pipe.

In the spring after this event Old Whateley noticed the growing number of whippoorwills that would come out of Cold Spring Glen to chirp under his window at night. He seemed to regard the circumstance as one of great significance, and told the loungers at Osborn's that he thought his time had almost come.

'They whistle jest in tune with my breathin' naow,' he said, 'an' I guess they're gittin' ready to ketch my soul. They know it's a-goin' aout, an' dun't calc'late to miss it. Yew'll know, boys, arter I'm gone, whether they git me er not. Ef they dew, they'll keep up a-singin' an' laffin' till break o' day. Ef they dun't they'll kinder quiet daown like. I expeck them an' the souls they hunts fer hev some pretty tough tussles sometimes.'

On Lammas Night, 1924, Dr Houghton of Aylesbury was hastily summoned by Wilbur Whateley, who had lashed his one remaining horse through the darkness and telephoned from Osborn's in the village. He found Old Whateley in a very grave state, with a cardiac action and stertorous breathing that told of an end not far off. The shapeless albino daughter and oddly bearded grandson stood by the bedside, whilst from the vacant abyss overhead there came a disquieting suggestion of rhythmical surging or lapping, as of the waves on some level beach. The doctor, though, was chiefly disturbed by the chattering night birds outside; a seemingly limitless legion of whippoorwills that cried their endless message in repetitions timed diabolically to the wheezing gasps of the dying man. It was uncanny and unnatural - too much, thought Dr Houghton, like the whole of the region he had entered so reluctantly in response to the urgent call.

Towards one o'clock Old Whateley gained consciousness, and interrupted his wheezing to choke out a few words to his grandson.

'More space, Willy, more space soon. Yew grows - an' that grows faster. It'll be ready to serve ye soon, boy. Open up the gates to Yog-Sothoth with the long chant that ye'll find on page 751 of the complete edition, an' then put a match to the prison. Fire from airth can't burn it nohaow.'

He was obviously quite mad. After a pause, during which the flock of whippoorwills outside adjusted their cries to the altered tempo while some indications of the strange hill noises came from afar off, he added another sentence or two.

'Feed it reg'lar, Willy, an' mind the quantity; but dun't let it grow too fast fer the place, fer ef it busts quarters or gits aout afore ye opens to Yog-Sothoth, it's all over an' no use. Only them from beyont kin make it multiply an' work... Only them, the old uns as wants to come back...'

But speech gave place to gasps again, and Lavinia screamed at the way the whippoorwills followed the change. It was the same for more than an hour, when the final throaty rattle came. Dr Houghton drew shrunken lids over the glazing grey eyes as the tumult of birds faded imperceptibly to silence. Lavinia sobbed, but Wilbur only chuckled whilst the hill noises rumbled faintly.

'They didn't git him,' he muttered in his heavy bass voice.

Wilbur was by this time a scholar of really tremendous erudition in his one-sided way, and was quietly known by correspondence to many librarians in distant places where rare and forbidden books of old days are kept. He was more and more hated and dreaded around Dunwich because of certain youthful disappearances which suspicion laid vaguely at his door; but was always able to silence inquiry through fear or through use of that fund of old-time gold which still, as in his grandfather's time, went forth regularly and increasingly for cattle-buying. He was now tremendously mature of aspect, and his height, having reached the normal adult limit, seemed inclined to wax beyond that figure. In 1925, when a scholarly correspondent from Miskatonic University called upon him one day and departed pale and puzzled, he was fully six and three-quarters feet tall.

Through all the years Wilbur had treated his half-deformed albino mother with a growing contempt, finally forbidding her to go to the hills with him on May Eve and Hallowmass; and in 1926 the poor creature complained to Mamie Bishop of being afraid of him.

'They's more abaout him as I knows than I kin tell ye, Mamie,' she said, 'an' naowadays they's more nor what I know myself. I vaow afur Gawd, I dun't know what he wants nor what he's a-tryin' to dew.'

That Hallowe'en the hill noises sounded louder than ever, and fire burned on Sentinel Hill as usual; but people paid more attention to the rhythmical screaming of vast flocks of unnaturally belated whippoorwills which seemed to be assembled near the unlighted Whateley farmhouse. After midnight their shrill notes burst into a kind of pandemoniac cachinnation which filled all the countryside, and not until dawn did they finally quiet down. Then they vanished, hurrying southward where they were fully a month overdue. What this meant, no one could quite be certain till later. None of the countryfolk seemed to have died - but poor Lavinia Whateley, the twisted albino, was never seen again.

In the summer of 1927 Wilbur repaired two sheds in the farmyard and began moving his books and effects out to them. Soon afterwards Earl Sawyer told the loungers at Osborn's that more carpentry was going on in the Whateley farmhouse. Wilbur was closing all the doors and windows on the ground floor, and seemed to be taking out partitions as he and his grandfather had done upstairs four years before. He was living in one of the sheds, and Sawyer thought he seemed unusually worried and tremulous. People generally suspected him of knowing something about his mother disappearance, and very few ever approached his neighbourhood now. His height had increased to more than seven feet, and showed no signs of ceasing its development.

The following winter brought an event no less strange than Wilbur's first trip outside the Dunwich region. Correspondence with the Widener Library at Harvard, the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the British Museum, the University of Buenos Ayres, and the Library of Miskatonic University at Arkham had failed to get him the loan of a book he desperately wanted; so at length he set out in person, shabby, dirty, bearded, and uncouth of dialect, to consult the copy at Miskatonic, which was the nearest to him geographically. Almost eight feet tall, and carrying a cheap new valise from Osborne's general store, this dark and goatish gargoyle appeared one day in Arkham in quest of the dreaded volume kept under lock and key at the college library - the hideous Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred in Olaus Wormius' Latin version, as printed in Spain in the seventeenth century. He had never seen a city before, but had no thought save to find his way to the university grounds; where indeed, he passed heedlessly by the great white-fanged watchdog that barked with unnatural fury and enmity, and tugged frantically at its stout chaim.

Wilbur had with him the priceless but imperfect copy of Dr Dee's English version which his grandfather had bequeathed him, and upon receiving access to the Latin copy he at once began to collate the two texts with the aim of discovering a certain passage which would have come on the 751st page of his own defective volume. This much he could not civilly refrain from telling the librarian - the same erudite Henry Armitage (A.M. Miskatonic, Ph.D. Princeton, Litt.D. Johns Hopkins) who had once called at the farm, and who now politely plied him with questions. He was looking, he had to admit, for a kind of formula or incantation containing the frightful name Yog-Sothoth, and it puzzled him to find discrepancies, duplications, and ambiguities which made the matter of determination far from easy. As he copied the formula he finally chose, Dr Armitage looked involuntarily over his shoulder at the open pages; the left-hand one of which, in the Latin version, contained such monstrous threats to the peace and sanity of the world.

Nor is it to be thought (ran the text as Armitage mentally translated it) that man is either the oldest or the last of earth's masters, or that the common bulk of life and substance walks alone. The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall be. Not in the spaces we know, but between them, they walk serene and primal, undimensioned and to us unseen. Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth. He knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again. He knows where They had trod earth's fields, and where They still tread them, and why no one can behold Them as They tread. By Their smell can men sometimes know Them near, but of Their semblance can no man know, saving only in the features of those They have begotten on mankind; and of those are there many sorts, differing in likeness from man's truest eidolon to that shape without sight or substance which is Them. They walk unseen and foul in lonely places where the Words have been spoken and the Rites howled through at their Seasons. The wind gibbers with Their voices, and the earth mutters with Their consciousness. They bend the forest and crush the city, yet may not forest or city behold the hand that smites. Kadath in the cold waste hath known Them, and what man knows Kadath? The ice desert of the South and the sunken isles of Ocean hold stones whereon Their seal is engraver, but who bath seen the deep frozen city or the sealed tower long garlanded with seaweed and barnacles? Great Cthulhu is Their cousin, yet can he spy Them only dimly. Iä! Shub-Niggurath! As a foulness shall ye know Them. Their hand is at your throats, yet ye see Them not; and Their habitation is even one with your guarded threshold. Yog-Sothoth is the key to the gate, whereby the spheres meet. Man rules now where They ruled once; They shall soon rule where man rules now. After summer is winter, after winter summer. They wait patient and potent, for here shall They reign again.

Dr. Annitage, associating what he was reading with what he had heard of Dunwich and its brooding presences, and of Wilbur Whateley and his dim, hideous aura that stretched from a dubious birth to a cloud of probable matricide, felt a wave of fright as tangible as a draught of the tomb's cold clamminess. The bent, goatish giant before him seemed like the spawn of another planet or dimension; like something only partly of mankind, and linked to black gulfs of essence and entity that stretch like titan phantasms beyond all spheres of force and matter, space and time. Presently Wilbur raised his head and began speaking in that strange, resonant fashion which hinted at sound-producing organs unlike the run of mankind's.

'Mr Armitage,' he said, 'I calc'late I've got to take that book home. They's things in it I've got to try under sarten conditions that I can't git here, en' it 'ud be a mortal sin to let a red-tape rule hold me up. Let me take it along, Sir, an' I'll swar they wun't nobody know the difference. I dun't need to tell ye I'll take good keer of it. It wan't me that put this Dee copy in the shape it is...'

He stopped as he saw firm denial on the librarian's face, and his own goatish features grew crafty. Armitage, half-ready to tell him he might make a copy of what parts he needed, thought suddenly of the possible consequences and checked himself. There was too much responsibility in giving such a being the key to such blasphemous outer spheres. Whateley saw how things stood, and tried to answer lightly.

'Wal, all right, ef ye feel that way abaout it. Maybe Harvard won't be so fussy as yew be.' And without saying more he rose and strode out of the building, stooping at each doorway.

Armitage heard the savage yelping of the great watchdog, and studied Whateley's gorilla-like lope as he crossed the bit of campus visible from the window. He thought of the wild tales he had heard, and recalled the old Sunday stories in the Advertiser; these things, and the lore he had picked up from Dunwich rustics and villagers during his one visit there. Unseen things not of earth - or at least not of tridimensional earth - rushed foetid and horrible through New England's glens, and brooded obscenely on the mountain tops. Of this he had long felt certain. Now he seemed to sense the close presence of some terrible part of the intruding horror, and to glimpse a hellish advance in the black dominion of the ancient and once passive nightmare. He locked away the Necronomicon with a shudder of disgust, but the room still reeked with an unholy and unidentifiable stench. 'As a foulness shall ye know them,' he quoted. Yes - the odour was the same as that which had sickened him at the Whateley farmhouse less than three years before. He thought of Wilbur, goatish and ominous, once again, and laughed mockingly at the village rumours of his parentage.

'Inbreeding?' Armitage muttered half-aloud to himself. 'Great God, what simpletons! Show them Arthur Machen's Great God Pan and they'll think it a common Dunwich scandal! But what thing - what cursed shapeless influence on or off this three-dimensional earth - was Wilbur Whateley's father? Born on Candlemas - nine months after May Eve of 1912, when the talk about the queer earth noises reached clear to Arkham - what walked on the mountains that May night? What Roodmas horror fastened itself on the world in half-human flesh and blood?'

During the ensuing weeks Dr Armitage set about to collect all possible data on Wilbur Whateley and the formless presences around Dunwich. He got in communication with Dr Houghton of Aylesbury, who had attended Old Whateley in his last illness, and found much to ponder over in the grandfather's last words as quoted by the physician. A visit to Dunwich Village failed to bring out much that was new; but a close survey of the Necronomicon, in those parts which Wilbur had sought so avidly, seemed to supply new and terrible clues to the nature, methods, and desires of the strange evil so vaguely threatening this planet. Talks with several students of archaic lore in Boston, and letters to many others elsewhere, gave him a growing amazement which passed slowly through varied degrees of alarm to a state of really acute spiritual fear. As the summer drew on he felt dimly that something ought to be done about the lurking terrors of the upper Miskatonic valley, and about the monstrous being known to the human world as Wilbur Whateley.

VI.

The Dunwich horror itself came between Lammas and the equinox in 1928, and Dr Armitage was among those who witnessed its monstrous prologue. He had heard, meanwhile, of Whateley's grotesque trip to Cambridge, and of his frantic efforts to borrow or copy from the Necronomicon at the Widener Library. Those efforts had been in vain, since Armitage had issued warnings of the keenest intensity to all librarians having charge of the dreaded volume. Wilbur had been shockingly nervous at Cambridge; anxious for the book, yet almost equally anxious to get home again, as if he feared the results of being away long.

Early in August the half-expected outcome developed, and in the small hours of the third Dr Armitage was awakened suddenly by the wild, fierce cries of the savage watchdog on the college campus. Deep and terrible, the snarling, half-mad growls and barks continued; always in mounting volume, but with hideously significant pauses. Then there rang out a scream from a wholly different throat - such a scream as roused half the sleepers of Arkham and haunted their dreams ever afterwards - such a scream as could come from no being born of earth, or wholly of earth.

Armitage, hastening into some clothing and rushing across the street and lawn to the college buildings, saw that others were ahead of him; and heard the echoes of a burglar-alarm still shrilling from the library. An open window showed black and gaping in the moonlight. What had come had indeed completed its entrance; for the barking and the screaming, now fast fading into a mixed low growling and moaning, proceeded unmistakably from within. Some instinct warned Armitage that what was taking place was not a thing for unfortified eyes to see, so he brushed back the crowd with authority as he unlocked the vestibule door. Among the others he saw Professor Warren Rice and Dr Francis Morgan, men to whom he had told some of his conjectures and misgivings; and these two he motioned to accompany him inside. The inward sounds, except for a watchful, droning whine from the dog, had by this time quite subsided; but Armitage now perceived with a sudden start that a loud chorus of whippoorwills among the shrubbery had commenced a damnably rhythmical piping, as if in unison with the last breaths of a dying man.

The building was full of a frightful stench which Dr Armitage knew too well, and the three men rushed across the hall to the small genealogical reading-room whence the low whining came. For a second nobody dared to turn on the light, then Armitage summoned up his courage and snapped the switch. One of the three - it is not certain which - shrieked aloud at what sprawled before them among disordered tables and overturned chairs. Professor Rice declares that he wholly lost consciousness for an instant, though he did not stumble or fall.

The thing that lay half-bent on its side in a foetid pool of greenish-yellow ichor and tarry stickiness was almost nine feet tall, and the dog had torn off all the clothing and some of the skin. It was not quite dead, but twitched silently and spasmodically while its chest heaved in monstrous unison with the mad piping of the expectant whippoorwills outside. Bits of shoe-leather and fragments of apparel were scattered about the room, and just inside the window an empty canvas sack lay where it had evidently been thrown. Near the central desk a revolver had fallen, a dented but undischarged cartridge later explaining why it had not been fired. The thing itself, however, crowded out all other images at the time. It would be trite and not wholly accurate to say that no human pen could describe it, but one may properly say that it could not be vividly visualized by anyone whose ideas of aspect and contour are too closely bound up with the common life-forms of this planet and of the three known dimensions. It was partly human, beyond a doubt, with very manlike hands and head, and the goatish, chinless face had the stamp of the Whateley's upon it. But the torso and lower parts of the body were teratologically fabulous, so that only generous clothing could ever have enabled it to walk on earth unchallenged or uneradicated.

Above the waist it was semi-anthropomorphic; though its chest, where the dog's rending paws still rested watchfully, had the leathery, reticulated hide of a crocodile or alligator. The back was piebald with yellow and black, and dimly suggested the squamous covering of certain snakes. Below the waist, though, it was the worst; for here all human resemblance left off and sheer phantasy began. The skin was thickly covered with coarse black fur, and from the abdomen a score of long greenish-grey tentacles with red sucking mouths protruded limply.

Their arrangement was odd, and seemed to follow the symmetries of some cosmic geometry unknown to earth or the solar system. On each of the hips, deep set in a kind of pinkish, ciliated orbit, was what seemed to be a rudimentary eye; whilst in lieu of a tail there depended a kind of trunk or feeler with purple annular markings, and with many evidences of being an undeveloped mouth or throat. The limbs, save for their black fur, roughly resembled the hind legs of prehistoric earth's giant saurians, and terminated in ridgy-veined pads that were neither hooves nor claws. When the thing breathed, its tail and tentacles rhythmically changed colour, as if from some circulatory cause normal to the non-human greenish tinge, whilst in the tail it was manifest as a yellowish appearance which alternated with a sickly grayish-white in the spaces between the purple rings. Of genuine blood there was none; only the foetid greenish-yellow ichor which trickled along the painted floor beyond the radius of the stickiness, and left a curious discoloration behind it.

As the presence of the three men seemed to rouse the dying thing, it began to mumble without turning or raising its head. Dr Armitage made no written record of its mouthings, but asserts confidently that nothing in English was uttered. At first the syllables defied all correlation with any speech of earth, but towards the last there came some disjointed fragments evidently taken from the Necronomicon, that monstrous blasphemy in quest of which the thing had perished. These fragments, as Armitage recalls them, ran something like 'N'gai, n'gha'ghaa, bugg-shoggog, y'hah: Yog-Sothoth, Yog-Sothoth ...' They trailed off into nothingness as the whippoorwills shrieked in rhythmical crescendos of unholy anticipation.

Then came a halt in the gasping, and the dog raised its head in a long, lugubrious howl. A change came over the yellow, goatish face of the prostrate thing, and the great black eyes fell in appallingly. Outside the window the shrilling of the whippoorwills had suddenly ceased, and above the murmurs of the gathering crowd there came the sound of a panic-struck whirring and fluttering. Against the moon vast clouds of feathery watchers rose and raced from sight, frantic at that which they had sought for prey.

All at once the dog started up abruptly, gave a frightened bark, and leaped nervously out of the window by which it had entered. A cry rose from the crowd, and Dr Armitage shouted to the men outside that no one must be admitted till the police or medical examiner came. He was thankful that the windows were just too high to permit of peering in, and drew the dark curtains carefully down over each one. By this time two policemen had arrived; and Dr Morgan, meeting them in the vestibule, was urging them for their own sakes to postpone entrance to the stench-filled reading-room till the examiner came and the prostrate thing could be covered up.

Meanwhile frightful changes were taking place on the floor. One need not describe the kind and rate of shrinkage and disintegration that occurred before the eyes of Dr Armitage and Professor Rice; but it is permissible to say that, aside from the external appearance of face and hands, the really human element in Wilbur Whateley must have been very small. When the medical examiner came, there was only a sticky whitish mass on the painted boards, and the monstrous odour had nearly disappeared. Apparently Whateley had had no skull or bony skeleton; at least, in any true or stable sense. He had taken somewhat after his unknown father.

VII.

Yet all this was only the prologue of the actual Dunwich horror. Formalities were gone through by bewildered officials, abnormal details were duly kept from press and public, and men were sent to Dunwich and Aylesbury to look up property and notify any who might be heirs of the late Wilbur Whateley. They found the countryside in great agitation, both because of the growing rumblings beneath the domed hills, and because of the unwonted stench and the surging, lapping sounds which came increasingly from the great empty shell formed by Whateley's boarded-up farmhouse. Earl Sawyer, who tended the horse and cattle during Wilbur's absence, had developed a woefully acute case of nerves. The officials devised excuses not to enter the noisome boarded place; and were glad to confine their survey of the deceased's living quarters, the newly mended sheds, to a single visit. They filed a ponderous report at the courthouse in Aylesbury, and litigations concerning heirship are said to be still in progress amongst the innumerable Whateleys, decayed and undecayed, of the upper Miskatonic valley.

An almost interminable manuscript in strange characters, written in a huge ledger and adjudged a sort of diary because of the spacing and the variations in ink and penmanship, presented a baffling puzzle to those who found it on the old bureau which served as its owner's desk. After a week of debate it was sent to Miskatonic University, together with the deceased's collection of strange books, for study and possible translation; but even the best linguists soon saw that it was not likely to be unriddled with ease. No trace of the ancient gold with which Wilbur and Old Whateley had always paid their debts has yet been discovered.

It was in the dark of September ninth that the horror broke loose. The hill noises had been very pronounced during the evening, and dogs barked frantically all night. Early risers on the tenth noticed a peculiar stench in the air. About seven o'clock Luther Brown, the hired boy at George Corey's, between Cold Spring Glen and the village, rushed frenziedly back from his morning trip to Ten-Acre Meadow with the cows. He was almost convulsed with fright as he stumbled into the kitchen; and in the yard outside the no less frightened herd were pawing and lowing pitifully, having followed the boy back in the panic they shared with him. Between gasps Luther tried to stammer out his tale to Mrs Corey.

'Up thar in the rud beyont the glen, Mis' Corey - they's suthin' ben thar! It smells like thunder, an' all the bushes an' little trees is pushed back from the rud like they'd a haouse ben moved along of it. An' that ain't the wust, nuther. They's prints in the rud, Mis' Corey - great raound prints as big as barrel-heads, all sunk dawon deep like a elephant had ben along, only they's a sight more nor four feet could make! I looked at one or two afore I run, an' I see every one was covered with lines spreadin' aout from one place, like as if big palm-leaf fans - twict or three times as big as any they is - hed of ben paounded dawon into the rud. An' the smell was awful, like what it is around Wizard Whateley's ol' haouse...'

Here he faltered, and seemed to shiver afresh with the fright that had sent him flying home. Mrs Corey, unable to extract more information, began telephoning the neighbours; thus starting on its rounds the overture of panic that heralded the major terrors. When she got Sally Sawyer, housekeeper at Seth Bishop's, the nearest place to Whateley's, it became her turn to listen instead of transmit; for Sally's boy Chauncey, who slept poorly, had been up on the hill towards Whateley's, and had dashed back in terror after one look at the place, and at the pasturage where Mr Bishop's cows had been left out all night.

'Yes, Mis' Corey,' came Sally's tremulous voice over the party wire, 'Cha'ncey he just come back a-postin', and couldn't half talk fer bein' scairt! He says Ol' Whateley's house is all bowed up, with timbers scattered raound like they'd ben dynamite inside; only the bottom floor ain't through, but is all covered with a kind o' tar-like stuff that smells awful an' drips daown offen the aidges onto the graoun' whar the side timbers is blowed away. An' they's awful kinder marks in the yard, tew - great raound marks bigger raound than a hogshead, an' all sticky with stuff like is on the browed-up haouse. Cha'ncey he says they leads off into the medders, whar a great swath wider'n a barn is matted daown, an' all the stun walls tumbled every whichway wherever it goes.

'An' he says, says he, Mis' Corey, as haow he sot to look fer Seth's caows, frightened ez he was an' faound 'em in the upper pasture nigh the Devil's Hop Yard in an awful shape. Haff on 'em's clean gone, an' nigh haff o' them that's left is sucked most dry o' blood, with sores on 'em like they's ben on Whateleys cattle ever senct Lavinny's black brat was born. Seth hes gone aout naow to look at 'em, though I'll vaow he won't keer ter git very nigh Wizard Whateley's! Cha'ncey didn't look keerful ter see whar the big matted-daown swath led arter it leff the pasturage, but he says he thinks it p'inted towards the glen rud to the village.

'I tell ye, Mis' Corey, they's suthin' abroad as hadn't orter be abroad, an' I for one think that black Wilbur Whateley, as come to the bad end he deserved, is at the bottom of the breedin' of it. He wa'n't all human hisself, I allus says to everybody; an' I think he an' Ol' Whateley must a raised suthin' in that there nailed-up haouse as ain't even so human as he was. They's allus ben unseen things araound Dunwich - livin' things - as ain't human an' ain't good fer human folks.

'The graoun' was a-talkin' las' night, an' towards mornin' Cha'ncey he heered the whippoorwills so laoud in Col' Spring Glen he couldn't sleep nun. Then he thought he heered another faint-like saound over towards Wizard Whateley's - a kinder rippin' or tearin' o' wood, like some big box er crate was bein' opened fur off. What with this an' that, he didn't git to sleep at all till sunup, an' no sooner was he up this mornin', but he's got to go over to Whateley's an' see what's the matter. He see enough I tell ye, Mis' Corey! This dun't mean no good, an' I think as all the men-folks ought to git up a party an' do suthin'. I know suthin' awful's abaout, an' feel my time is nigh, though only Gawd knows jest what it is.

'Did your Luther take accaount o' whar them big tracks led tew? No? Wal, Mis' Corey, ef they was on the glen rud this side o' the glen, an' ain't got to your haouse yet, I calc'late they must go into the glen itself. They would do that. I allus says Col' Spring Glen ain't no healthy nor decent place. The whippoorwills an' fireflies there never did act like they was creaters o' Gawd, an' they's them as says ye kin hear strange things a-rushin' an' a-talkin' in the air dawon thar ef ye stand in the right place, atween the rock falls an' Bear's Den.'

By that noon fully three-quarters of the men and boys of Dunwich were trooping over the roads and meadows between the newmade Whateley ruins and Cold Spring Glen, examining in horror the vast, monstrous prints, the maimed Bishop cattle, the strange, noisome wreck of the farmhouse, and the bruised, matted vegetation of the fields and roadside. Whatever had burst loose upon the world had assuredly gone down into the great sinister ravine; for all the trees on the banks were bent and broken, and a great avenue had been gouged in the precipice-hanging underbrush. It was as though a house, launched by an avalanche, had slid down through the tangled growths of the almost vertical slope. From below no sound came, but only a distant, undefinable foetor; and it is not to be wondered at that the men preferred to stay on the edge and argue, rather than descend and beard the unknown Cyclopean horror in its lair. Three dogs that were with the party had barked furiously at first, but seemed cowed and reluctant when near the glen. Someone telephoned the news to the Aylesbury Transcript; but the editor, accustomed to wild tales from Dunwich, did no more than concoct a humorous paragraph about it; an item soon afterwards reproduced by the Associated Press.

That night everyone went home, and every house and barn was barricaded as stoutly as possible. Needless to say, no cattle were allowed to remain in open pasturage. About two in the morning a frightful stench and the savage barking of the dogs awakened the household at Elmer Frye's, on the eastern edge of Cold Spring Glen, and all agreed that they could hear a sort of muffled swishing or lapping sound from somewhere outside. Mrs Frye proposed telephoning the neighbours, and Elmer was about to agree when the noise of splintering wood burst in upon their deliberations. It came, apparently, from the barn; and was quickly followed by a hideous screaming and stamping amongst the cattle. The dogs slavered and crouched close to the feet of the fear-numbed family. Frye lit a lantern through force of habit, but knew it would be death to go out into that black farmyard. The children and the women-folk whimpered, kept from screaming by some obscure, vestigial instinct of defence which told them their lives depended on silence. At last the noise of the cattle subsided to a pitiful moaning, and a great snapping, crashing, and crackling ensued. The Fryes, huddled together in the sitting-room, did not dare to move until the last echoes died away far down in Cold Spring Glen. Then, amidst the dismal moans from the stable and the daemoniac piping of the late whippoorwills in the glen, Selina Frye tottered to the telephone and spread what news she could of the second phase of the horror.

The next day all the countryside was in a panic; and cowed, uncommunicative groups came and went where the fiendish thing had occurred. Two titan swaths of destruction stretched from the glen to the Frye farmyard, monstrous prints covered the bare patches of ground, and one side of the old red barn had completely caved in. Of the cattle, only a quarter could be found and identified. Some of these were in curious fragments, and all that survived had to be shot. Earl Sawyer suggested that help be asked from Aylesbury or Arkham, but others maintained it would be of no use. Old Zebulon Whateley, of a branch that hovered about halfway between soundness and decadence, made darkly wild suggestions about rites that ought to be practiced on the hill-tops. He came of a line where tradition ran strong, and his memories of chantings in the great stone circles were not altogether connected with Wilbur and his grandfather.

Darkness fell upon a stricken countryside too passive to organize for real defence. In a few cases closely related families would band together and watch in the gloom under one roof; but in general there was only a repetition of the barricading of the night before, and a futile, ineffective gesture of loading muskets and setting pitchforks handily about. Nothing, however, occurred except some hill noises; and when the day came there were many who hoped that the new horror had gone as swiftly as it had come. There were even bold souls who proposed an offensive expedition down in the glen, though they did not venture to set an actual example to the still reluctant majority.

When night came again the barricading was repeated, though there was less huddling together of families. In the morning both the Frye and the Seth Bishop households reported excitement among the dogs and vague sounds and stenches from afar, while early explorers noted with horror a fresh set of the monstrous tracks in the road skirting Sentinel Hill. As before, the sides of the road showed a bruising indicative of the blasphemously stupendous bulk of the horror; whilst the conformation of the tracks seemed to argue a passage in two directions, as if the moving mountain had come from Cold Spring Glen and returned to it along the same path. At the base of the hill a thirty-foot swath of crushed shrubbery saplings led steeply upwards, and the seekers gasped when they saw that even the most perpendicular places did not deflect the inexorable trail. Whatever the horror was, it could scale a sheer stony cliff of almost complete verticality; and as the investigators climbed round to the hill's summit by safer routes they saw that the trail ended - or rather, reversed - there.

It was here that the Whateleys used to build their hellish fires and chant their hellish rituals by the table-like stone on May Eve and Hallowmass. Now that very stone formed the centre of a vast space thrashed around by the mountainous horror, whilst upon its slightly concave surface was a thick and foetid deposit of the same tarry stickiness observed on the floor of the ruined Whateley farmhouse when the horror escaped. Men looked at one another and muttered. Then they looked down the hill. Apparently the horror had descended by a route much the same as that of its ascent. To speculate was futile. Reason, logic, and normal ideas of motivation stood confounded. Only old Zebulon, who was not with the group, could have done justice to the situation or suggested a plausible explanation.

Thursday night began much like the others, but it ended less happily. The whippoorwills in the glen had screamed with such unusual persistence that many could not sleep, and about 3 A.M. all the party telephones rang tremulously. Those who took down their receivers heard a fright-mad voice shriek out, 'Help, oh, my Gawd! ...' and some thought a crashing sound followed the breaking off of the exclamation. There was nothing more. No one dared do anything, and no one knew till morning whence the call came. Then those who had heard it called everyone on the line, and found that only the Fryes did not reply. The truth appeared an hour later, when a hastily assembled group of armed men trudged out to the Frye place at the head of the glen. It was horrible, yet hardly a surprise. There were more swaths and monstrous prints, but there was no longer any house. It had caved in like an egg-shell, and amongst the ruins nothing living or dead could be discovered. Only a stench and a tarry stickiness. The Elmer Fryes had been erased from Dunwich.

VIII.

In the meantime a quieter yet even more spiritually poignant phase of the horror had been blackly unwinding itself behind the closed door of a shelf-lined room in Arkham. The curious manuscript record or diary of Wilbur Whateley, delivered to Miskatonic University for translation had caused much worry and bafflement among the experts in language both ancient and modern; its very alphabet, notwithstanding a general resemblance to the heavily-shaded Arabic used in Mesopotamia, being absolutely unknown to any available authority. The final conclusion of the linguists was that the text represented an artificial alphabet, giving the effect of a cipher; though none of the usual methods of cryptographic solution seemed to furnish any clue, even when applied on the basis of every tongue the writer might conceivably have used. The ancient books taken from Whateley's quarters, while absorbingly interesting and in several cases promising to open up new and terrible lines of research among philosophers and men of science, were of no assistance whatever in this matter. One of them, a heavy tome with an iron clasp, was in another unknown alphabet - this one of a very different cast, and resembling Sanskrit more than anything else. The old ledger was at length given wholly into the charge of Dr Armitage, both because of his peculiar interest in the Whateley matter, and because of his wide linguistic learning and skill in the mystical formulae of antiquity and the middle ages.

Armitage had an idea that the alphabet might be something esoterically used by certain forbidden cults which have come down from old times, and which have inherited many forms and traditions from the wizards of the Saracenic world. That question, however, he did not deem vital; since it would be unnecessary to know the origin of the symbols if, as he suspected, they were used as a cipher in a modern language. It was his belief that, considering the great amount of text involved, the writer would scarcely have wished the trouble of using another speech than his own, save perhaps in certain special formulae and incantations. Accordingly he attacked the manuscript with the preliminary assumption that the bulk of it was in English.

Dr Armitage knew, from the repeated failures of his colleagues, that the riddle was a deep and complex one; and that no simple mode of solution could merit even a trial. All through late August he fortified himself with the mass lore of cryptography; drawing upon the fullest resources of his own library, and wading night after night amidst the arcana of Trithemius' Poligraphia, Giambattista Porta's De Furtivis Literarum Notis, De Vigenere's Traite des Chiffres, Falconer's Cryptomenysis Patefacta, Davys' and Thicknesse's eighteenth-century treatises, and such fairly modern authorities as Blair, van Marten and Kluber's script itself, and in time became convinced that he had to deal with one of those subtlest and most ingenious of cryptograms, in which many separate lists of corresponding letters are arranged like the multiplication table, and the message built up with arbitrary key-words known only to the initiated. The older authorities seemed rather more helpful than the newer ones, and Armitage concluded that the code of the manuscript was one of great antiquity, no doubt handed down through a long line of mystical experimenters. Several times he seemed near daylight, only to be set back by some unforeseen obstacle. Then, as September approached, the clouds began to clear. Certain letters, as used in certain parts of the manuscript, emerged definitely and unmistakably; and it became obvious that the text was indeed in English.

On the evening of September second the last major barrier gave way, and Dr Armitage read for the first time a continuous passage of Wilbur Whateley's annals. It was in truth a diary, as all had thought; and it was couched in a style clearly showing the mixed occult erudition and general illiteracy of the strange being who wrote it. Almost the first long passage that Armitage deciphered, an entry dated November 26, 1916, proved highly startling and disquieting. It was written,he remembered, by a child of three and a half who looked like a lad of twelve or thirteen.

Today learned the Aklo for the Sabaoth (it ran), which did not like, it being answerable from the hill and not from the air. That upstairs more ahead of me than I had thought it would be, and is not like to have much earth brain. Shot Elam Hutchins's collie Jack when he went to bite me, and Elam says he would kill me if he dast. I guess he won't. Grandfather kept me saying the Dho formula last night, and I think I saw the inner city at the 2 magnetic poles. I shall go to those poles when the earth is cleared off, if I can't break through with the Dho-Hna formula when I commit it. They from the air told me at Sabbat that it will be years before I can clear off the earth, and I guess grandfather will be dead then, so I shall have to learn all the angles of the planes and all the formulas between the Yr and the Nhhngr. They from outside will help, but they cannot take body without human blood. That upstairs looks it will have the right cast. I can see it a little when I make the Voorish sign or blow the powder of Ibn Ghazi at it, and it is near like them at May Eve on the Hill. The other face may wear off some. I wonder how I shall look when the earth is cleared and there are no earth beings on it. He that came with the Aklo Sabaoth said I may be transfigured there being much of outside to work on.

Morning found Dr Armitage in a cold sweat of terror and a frenzy of wakeful concentration. He had not left the manuscript all night, but sat at his table under the electric light turning page after page with shaking hands as fast as he could decipher the cryptic text. He had nervously telephoned his wife he would not be home, and when she brought him a breakfast from the house he could scarcely dispose of a mouthful. All that day he read on, now and then halted maddeningly as a reapplication of the complex key became necessary. Lunch and dinner were brought him, but he ate only the smallest fraction of either. Toward the middle of the next night he drowsed off in his chair, but soon woke out of a tangle of nightmares almost as hideous as the truths and menaces to man's existence that he had uncovered.

On the morning of September fourth Professor Rice and Dr Morgan insisted on seeing him for a while, and departed trembling and ashen-grey. That evening he went to bed, but slept only fitfully. Wednesday - the next day - he was back at the manuscript, and began to take copious notes both from the current sections and from those he had already deciphered. In the small hours of that night he slept a little in a easy chair in his office, but was at the manuscript again before dawn. Some time before noon his physician, Dr Hartwell, called to see him and insisted that he cease work. He refused; intimating that it was of the most vital importance for him to complete the reading of the diary and promising an explanation in due course of time. That evening, just as twilight fell, he finished his terrible perusal and sank back exhausted. His wife, bringing his dinner, found him in a half-comatose state; but he was conscious enough to warn her off with a sharp cry when he saw her eyes wander toward the notes he had taken. Weakly rising, he gathered up the scribbled papers and sealed them all in a great envelope, which he immediately placed in his inside coat pocket. He had sufficient strength to get home, but was so clearly in need of medical aid that Dr Hartwell was summoned at once. As the doctor put him to bed he could only mutter over and over again, 'But what, in God's name, can we do?'

Dr Armitage slept, but was partly delirious the next day. He made no explanations to Hartwell, but in his calmer moments spoke of the imperative need of a long conference with Rice and Morgan. His wilder wanderings were very startling indeed, including frantic appeals that something in a boarded-up farmhouse be destroyed, and fantastic references to some plan for the extirpation of the entire human race and all animal and vegetable life from the earth by some terrible elder race of beings from another dimension. He would shout that the world was in danger, since the Elder Things wished to strip it and drag it away from the solar system and cosmos of matter into some other plane or phase of entity from which it had once fallen, vigintillions of aeons ago. At other times he would call for the dreaded Necronomicon and the Daemonolatreia of Remigius, in which he seemed hopeful of finding some formula to check the peril he conjured up.

'Stop them, stop theml' he would shout. 'Those Whateleys meant to let them in, and the worst of all is left! Tell Rice and Morgan we must do something - it's a blind business, but I know how to make the powder... It hasn't been fed since the second of August, when Wilbur came here to his death, and at that rate...'

But Armitage had a sound physique despite his seventy-three years, and slept off his disorder that night without developing any real fever. He woke late Friday, clear of head, though sober with a gnawing fear and tremendous sense of responsibility. Saturday afternoon he felt able to go over to the library and summon Rice and Morgan for a conference, and the rest of that day and evening the three men tortured their brains in the wildest speculation and the most desperate debate. Strange and terrible books were drawn voluminously from the stack shelves and from secure places of storage; and diagrams and formulae were copied with feverish haste and in bewildering abundance. Of scepticism there was none. All three had seen the body of Wilbur Whateley as it lay on the floor in a room of that very building, and after that not one of them could feel even slightly inclined to treat the diary as a madman's raving.

Opinions were divided as to notifying the Massachusetts State Police, and the negative finally won. There were things involved which simply could not be believed by those who had not seen a sample, as indeed was made clear during certain subsequent investigations. Late at night the conference disbanded without having developed a definite plan, but all day Sunday Armitage was busy comparing formulae and mixing chemicals obtained from the college laboratory. The more he reflected on the hellish diary, the more he was inclined to doubt the efficacy of any material agent in stamping out the entity which Wilbur Whateley had left behind him - the earth threatening entity which, unknown to him, was to burst forth in a few hours and become the memorable Dunwich horror.

Monday was a repetition of Sunday with Dr Armitage, for the task in hand required an infinity of research and experiment. Further consultations of the monstrous diary brought about various changes of plan, and he knew that even in the end a large amount of uncertainty must remain. By Tuesday he had a definite line of action mapped out, and believed he would try a trip to Dunwich within a week. Then, on Wednesday, the great shock came. Tucked obscurely away in a corner of the Arkham Advertiser was a facetious little item from the Associated Press, telling what a record-breaking monster the bootleg whisky of Dunwich had raised up. Armitage, half stunned, could only telephone for Rice and Morgan. Far into the night they discussed, and the next day was a whirlwind of preparation on the part of them all. Armitage knew he would be meddling with terrible powers, yet saw that there was no other way to annul the deeper and more malign meddling which others had done before him.

IX.

Friday morning Armitage, Rice, and Morgan set out by motor for Dunwich, arriving at the village about one in the afternoon. The day was pleasant, but even in the brightest sunlight a kind of quiet dread and portent seemed to hover about the strangely domed hills and the deep, shadowy ravines of the stricken region. Now and then on some mountain top a gaunt circle of stones could be glimpsed against the sky. From the air of hushed fright at Osborn's store they knew something hideous had happened, and soon learned of the annihilation of the Elmer Frye house and family. Throughout that afternoon they rode around Dunwich, questioning the natives concerning all that had occurred, and seeing for themselves with rising pangs of horror the drear Frye ruins with their lingering traces of the tarry stickiness, the blasphemous tracks in the Frye yard, the wounded Seth Bishop cattle, and the enormous swaths of disturbed vegetation in various places. The trail up and down Sentinel Hill seemed to Armitage of almost cataclysmic significance, and he looked long at the sinister altar-like stone on the summit.

At length the visitors, apprised of a party of State Police which had come from Aylesbury that morning in response to the first telephone reports of the Frye tragedy, decided to seek out the officers and compare notes as far as practicable. This, however, they found more easily planned than performed; since no sign of the party could be found in any direction. There had been five of them in a car, but now the car stood empty near the ruins in the Frye yard. The natives, all of whom had talked with the policemen, seemed at first as perplexed as Armitage and his companions. Then old Sam Hutchins thought of something and turned pale, nudging Fred Farr and pointing to the dank, deep hollow that yawned close by.

'Gawd,' he gasped, 'I telled 'em not ter go daown into the glen, an' I never thought nobody'd dew it with them tracks an' that smell an' the whippoorwills a-screechin' daown thar in the dark o' noonday...'

A cold shudder ran through natives and visitors alike, and every ear seemed strained in a kind of instinctive, unconscious listening. Armitage, now that he had actually come upon the horror and its monstrous work, trembled with the responsibility he felt to be his. Night would soon fall, and it was then that the mountainous blasphemy lumbered upon its eldritch course. Negotium perambuians in tenebris... The old librarian rehearsed the formulae he had memorized, and clutched the paper containing the alternative one he had not memorized. He saw that his electric flashlight was in working order. Rice, beside him, took from a valise a metal sprayer of the sort used in combating insects; whilst Morgan uncased the big-game rifle on which he relied despite his colleague's warnings that no material weapon would be of help.

Armitage, having read the hideous diary, knew painfully well what kind of a manifestation to expect; but he did not add to the fright of the Dunwich people by giving any hints or clues. He hoped that it might be conquered without any revelation to the world of the monstrous thing it had escaped. As the shadows gathered, the natives commenced to disperse homeward, anxious to bar themselves indoors despite the present evidence that all human locks and bolts were useless before a force that could bend trees and crush houses when it chose. They shook their heads at the visitors' plan to stand guard at the Frye ruins near the glen; and, as they left, had little expectancy of ever seeing the watchers again.

There were rumblings under the hills that night, and the whippoorwills piped threateningly. Once in a while a wind, sweeping up out of Cold Spring Glen, would bring a touch of ineffable foetor to the heavy night air; such a foetor as all three of the watchers had smelled once before, when they stood above a dying thing that had passed for fifteen years and a half as a human being. But the looked-for terror did not appear. Whatever was down there in the glen was biding its time, and Armitage told his colleagues it would be suicidal to try to attack it in the dark.

Morning came wanly, and the night-sounds ceased. It was a grey, bleak day, with now and then a drizzle of rain; and heavier and heavier clouds seemed to be piling themselves up beyond the hills to the north-west. The men from Arkham were undecided what to do. Seeking shelter from the increasing rainfall beneath one of the few undestroyed Frye outbuildings, they debated the wisdom of waiting, or of taking the aggressive and going down into the glen in quest of their nameless, monstrous quarry. The downpour waxed in heaviness, and distant peals of thunder sounded from far horizons. Sheet lightning shimmered, and then a forky bolt flashed near at hand, as if descending into the accursed glen itself. The sky grew very dark, and the watchers hoped that the storm would prove a short, sharp one followed by clear weather.

It was still gruesomely dark when, not much over an hour later, a confused babel of voices sounded down the road. Another moment brought to view a frightened group of more than a dozen men, running, shouting, and even whimpering hysterically. Someone in the lead began sobbing out words, and the Arkham men started violently when those words developed a coherent form.

'Oh, my Gawd, my Gawd,' the voice choked out. 'It's a-goin' agin, an' this time by day! It's aout - it's aout an' a-movin' this very minute, an' only the Lord knows when it'll be on us all!'

The speaker panted into silence, but another took up his message.

'Nigh on a haour ago Zeb Whateley here heered the 'phone a-ringin', an' it was Mis' Corey, George's wife, that lives daown by the junction. She says the hired boy Luther was aout drivin' in the caows from the storm arter the big bolt, when he see all the trees a-bendin' at the maouth o' the glen - opposite side ter this - an' smelt the same awful smell like he smelt when he faound the big tracks las' Monday mornin'. An' she says he says they was a swishin' lappin' saound, more nor what the bendin' trees an' bushes could make, an' all on a suddent the trees along the rud begun ter git pushed one side, an' they was a awful stompin' an' splashin' in the mud. But mind ye, Luther he didn't see nothin' at all, only just the bendin' trees an' underbrush.

'Then fur ahead where Bishop's Brook goes under the rud he heerd a awful creakin' an' strainin' on the bridge, an' says he could tell the saound o' wood a-startin' to crack an' split. An' all the whiles he never see a thing, only them trees an' bushes a-bendin'. An' when the swishin' saound got very fur off - on the rud towards Wizard Whateley's an' Sentinel Hill - Luther he had the guts ter step up whar he'd heerd it fust an' look at the graound. It was all mud an' water, an' the sky was dark, an' the rain was wipin' aout all tracks abaout as fast as could be; but beginnin' at the glen maouth, whar the trees hed moved, they was still some o' them awful prints big as bar'ls like he seen Monday.'

At this point the first excited speaker interrupted.

'But that ain't the trouble naow - that was only the start. Zeb here was callin' folks up an' everybody was a-listenin' in when a call from Seth Bishop's cut in. His haousekeeper Sally was carryin' on fit to kill - she'd jest seed the trees a-bendin' beside the rud, an' says they was a kind o' mushy saound, like a elephant puffin' an' treadin', a-headin' fer the haouse. Then she up an' spoke suddent of a fearful smell, an' says her boy Cha'ncey was a-screamin' as haow it was jest like what he smelt up to the Whateley rewins Monday mornin'. An' the dogs was barkin' an' whinin' awful.

'An' then she let aout a turrible yell, an' says the shed daown the rud had jest caved in like the storm bed blowed it over, only the wind w'an't strong enough to dew that. Everybody was a-listenin', an' we could hear lots o' folks on the wire a-gaspin'. All to onct Sally she yelled again, an' says the front yard picket fence hed just crumbled up, though they wa'n't no sign o' what done it. Then everybody on the line could hear Cha'ncey an' old Seth Bishop a-yellin' tew, an' Sally was shriekin' aout that suthin' heavy hed struck the haouse - not lightnin' nor nothin', but suthin' heavy again' the front, that kep' a-launchin' itself agin an' agin, though ye couldn't see nothin' aout the front winders. An' then... an' then...'

Lines of fright deepened on every face; and Armitage, shaken as he was, had barely poise enough to prompt the speaker.

'An' then.... Sally she yelled aout, "O help, the haouse is a-cavin' in... an' on the wire we could hear a turrible crashin' an' a hull flock o' screaming... jes like when Elmer Frye's place was took, only wuss...'

The man paused, and another of the crowd spoke.

'That's all - not a saound nor squeak over the 'phone arter that. Jest still-like. We that heerd it got aout Fords an' wagons an' rounded up as many able-bodied men-folks as we could git, at Corey's place, an' come up here ter see what yew thought best ter dew. Not but what I think it's the Lord's jedgment fer our iniquities, that no mortal kin ever set aside.'

Armitage saw that the time for positive action had come, and spoke decisively to the faltering group of frightened rustics.

'We must follow it, boys.' He made his voice as reassuring as possible. 'I believe there's a chance of putting it out of business. You men know that those Whateleys were wizards - well, this thing is a thing of wizardry, and must be put down by the same means. I've seen Wilbur Whateley's diary and read some of the strange old books he used to read; and I think I know the right kind of spell to recite to make the thing fade away. Of course, one can't be sure, but we can always take a chance. It's invisible - I knew it would be - but there's powder in this long-distance sprayer that might make it show up for a second. Later on we'll try it. It's a frightful thing to have alive, but it isn't as bad as what Wilbur would have let in if he'd lived longer. You'll never know what the world escaped. Now we've only this one thing to fight, and it can't multiply. It can, though, do a lot of harm; so we mustn't hesitate to rid the community of it.

'We must follow it - and the way to begin is to go to the place that has just been wrecked. Let somebody lead the way - I don't know your roads very well, but I've an idea there might be a shorter cut across lots. How about it?'

The men shuffled about a moment, and then Earl Sawyer spoke softly, pointing with a grimy finger through the steadily lessening rain.

'I guess ye kin git to Seth Bishop's quickest by cuttin' across the lower medder here, wadin' the brook at the low place, an' climbin' through Carrier's mowin' an' the timber-lot beyont. That comes aout on the upper rud mighty nigh Seth's - a leetle t'other side.'

Armitage, with Rice and Morgan, started to walk in the direction indicated; and most of the natives followed slowly. The sky was growing lighter, and there were signs that the storm had worn itself away. When Armitage inadvertently took a wrong direction, Joe Osborn warned him and walked ahead to show the right one. Courage and confidence were mounting, though the twilight of the almost perpendicular wooded hill which lay towards the end of their short cut, and among whose fantastic ancient trees they had to scramble as if up a ladder, put these qualities to a severe test.

At length they emerged on a muddy road to find the sun coming out. They were a little beyond the Seth Bishop place, but bent trees and hideously unmistakable tracks showed what had passed by. Only a few moments were consumed in surveying the ruins just round the bend. It was the Frye incident all over again, and nothing dead or living was found in either of the collapsed shells which had been the Bishop house and barn. No one cared to remain there amidst the stench and tarry stickiness, but all turned instinctively to the line of horrible prints leading on towards the wrecked Whateley farmhouse and the altar-crowned slopes of Sentinel Hill.

As the men passed the site of Wilbur Whateley's abode they shuddered visibly, and seemed again to mix hesitancy with their zeal. It was no joke tracking down something as big as a house that one could not see, but that had all the vicious malevolence of a daemon. Opposite the base of Sentinel Hill the tracks left the road, and there was a fresh bending and matting visible along the broad swath marking the monster's former route to and from the summit.

Armitage produced a pocket telescope of considerable power and scanned the steep green side of the hill. Then he handed the instrument to Morgan, whose sight was keener. After a moment of gazing Morgan cried out sharply, passing the glass to Earl Sawyer and indicating a certain spot on the slope with his finger. Sawyer, as clumsy as most non-users of optical devices are, fumbled a while; but eventually focused the lenses with Armitage's aid. When he did so his cry was less restrained than Morgan's had been.

'Gawd almighty, the grass an' bushes is a'movin'! It's a-goin' up - slow-like - creepin' - up ter the top this minute, heaven only knows what fur!'

Then the germ of panic seemed to spread among the seekers. It was one thing to chase the nameless entity, but quite another to find it. Spells might be all right - but suppose they weren't? Voices began questioning Armitage about what he knew of the thing, and no reply seemed quite to satisfy. Everyone seemed to feel himself in close proximity to phases of Nature and of being utterly forbidden and wholly outside the sane experience of mankind.

In the end the three men from Arkham - old, white-bearded Dr Armitage, stocky, iron-grey Professor Rice, and lean, youngish Dr Morgan, ascended the mountain alone. After much patient instruction regarding its focusing and use, they left the telescope with the frightened group that remained in the road; and as they climbed they were watched closely by those among whom the glass was passed round. It was hard going, and Armitage had to be helped more than once. High above the toiling group the great swath trembled as its hellish maker repassed with snail-like deliberateness. Then it was obvious that the pursuers were gaining.

Curtis Whateley - of the undecayed branch - was holding the telescope when the Arkham party detoured radically from the swath. He told the crowd that the men were evidently trying to get to a subordinate peak which overlooked the swath at a point considerably ahead of where the shrubbery was now bending. This, indeed, proved to be true; and the party were seen to gain the minor elevation only a short time after the invisible blasphemy had passed it.

Then Wesley Corey, who had taken the glass, cried out that Armitage was adjusting the sprayer which Rice held, and that something must be about to happen. The crowd stirred uneasily, recalling that his sprayer was expected to give the unseen horror a moment of visibility. Two or three men shut their eyes, but Curtis Whateley snatched back the telescope and strained his vision to the utmost. He saw that Rice, from the party's point of advantage above and behind the entity, had an excellent chance of spreading the potent powder with marvellous effect.

Those without the telescope saw only an instant's flash of grey cloud - a cloud about the size of a moderately large building - near the top of the mountain. Curtis, who held the instrument, dropped it with a piercing shriek into the ankle-deep mud of the road. He reeled, and would have crumbled to the ground had not two or three others seized and steadied him. All he could do was moan half-inaudibly.

'Oh, oh, great Gawd... that... that...'

There was a pandemonium of questioning, and only Henry Wheeler thought to rescue the fallen telescope and wipe it clean of mud. Curtis was past all coherence, and even isolated replies were almost too much for him.

'Bigger'n a barn... all made o' squirmin' ropes... hull thing sort o' shaped like a hen's egg bigger'n anything with dozens o' legs like hogs-heads that haff shut up when they step... nothin' solid abaout it - all like jelly, an' made o' sep'rit wrigglin' ropes pushed clost together... great bulgin' eyes all over it... ten or twenty maouths or trunks a-stickin' aout all along the sides, big as stove-pipes an all a-tossin' an openin' an' shuttin'... all grey, with kinder blue or purple rings... an' Gawd it Heaven - that haff face on top...'

This final memory, whatever it was, proved too much for poor Curtis; and he collapsed completely before he could say more. Fred Farr and Will Hutchins carried him to the roadside and laid him on the damp grass. Henry Wheeler, trembling, turned the rescued telescope on the mountain to see what he might. Through the lenses were discernible three tiny figures, apparently running towards the summit as fast as the steep incline allowed. Only these - nothing more. Then everyone noticed a strangely unseasonable noise in the deep valley behind, and even in the underbrush of Sentinel Hill itself. It was the piping of unnumbered whippoorwills, and in their shrill chorus there seemed to lurk a note of tense and evil expectancy.

Earl Sawyer now took the telescope and reported the three figures as standing on the topmost ridge, virtually level with the altar-stone but at a considerable distance from it. One figure, he said, seemed to be raising its hands above its head at rhythmic intervals; and as Sawyer mentioned the circumstance the crowd seemed to hear a faint, half-musical sound from the distance, as if a loud chant were accompanying the gestures. The weird silhouette on that remote peak must have been a spectacle of infinite grotesqueness and impressiveness, but no observer was in a mood for aesthetic appreciation. 'I guess he's sayin' the spell,' whispered Wheeler as he snatched back the telescope. The whippoorwills were piping wildly, and in a singularly curious irregular rhythm quite unlike that of the visible ritual.

Suddenly the sunshine seemed to lessen without the intervention of any discernible cloud. It was a very peculiar phenomenon, and was plainly marked by all. A rumbling sound seemed brewing beneath the hills, mixed strangely with a concordant rumbling which clearly came from the sky. Lightning flashed aloft, and the wondering crowd looked in vain for the portents of storm. The chanting of the men from Arkham now became unmistakable, and Wheeler saw through the glass that they were all raising their arms in the rhythmic incantation. From some farmhouse far away came the frantic barking of dogs.

The change in the quality of the daylight increased, and the crowd gazed about the horizon in wonder. A purplish darkness, born of nothing more than a spectral deepening of the sky's blue, pressed down upon the rumbling hills. Then the lightning flashed again, somewhat brighter than before, and the crowd fancied that it had showed a certain mistiness around the altar-stone on the distant height. No one, however, had been using the telescope at that instant. The whippoorwills continued their irregular pulsation, and the men of Dunwich braced themselves tensely against some imponderable menace with which the atmosphere seemed surcharged.

Without warning came those deep, cracked, raucous vocal sounds which will never leave the memory of the stricken group who heard them. Not from any human throat were they born, for the organs of man can yield no such acoustic perversions. Rather would one have said they came from the pit itself, had not their source been so unmistakably the altar-stone on the peak. It is almost erroneous to call them sounds at all, since so much of their ghastly, infra-bass timbre spoke to dim seats of consciousness and terror far subtler than the ear; yet one must do so, since their form was indisputably though vaguely that of half-articulate words. They were loud - loud as the rumblings and the thunder above which they echoed - yet did they come from no visible being. And because imagination might suggest a conjectural source in the world of non-visible beings, the huddled crowd at the mountain's base huddled still closer, and winced as if in expectation of a blow.

'Ygnailh... ygnaiih... thflthkh'ngha.... Yog-Sothoth ...' rang the hideous croaking out of space. 'Y'bthnk... h'ehye - n'grkdl'lh...'

The speaking impulse seemed to falter here, as if some frightful psychic struggle were going on. Henry Wheeler strained his eye at the telescope, but saw only the three grotesquely silhouetted human figures on the peak, all moving their arms furiously in strange gestures as their incantation drew near its culmination. From what black wells of Acherontic fear or feeling, from what unplumbed gulfs of extra-cosmic consciousness or obscure, long-latent heredity, were those half-articulate thunder-croakings drawn? Presently they began to gather renewed force and coherence as they grew in stark, utter, ultimate frenzy.

'Eh-y-ya-ya-yahaah - e'yayayaaaa... ngh'aaaaa... ngh'aaa... h'yuh... h'yuh... HELP! HELP! ...ff - ff - ff - FATHER! FATHER! YOG-SOTHOTH!...'

But that was all. The pallid group in the road, still reeling at the indisputably English syllables that had poured thickly and thunderously down from the frantic vacancy beside that shocking altar-stone, were never to hear such syllables again. Instead, they jumped violently at the terrific report which seemed to rend the hills; the deafening, cataclysmic peal whose source, be it inner earth or sky, no hearer was ever able to place. A single lightning bolt shot from the purple zenith to the altar-stone, and a great tidal wave of viewless force and indescribable stench swept down from the hill to all the countryside. Trees, grass, and under-brush were whipped into a fury; and the frightened crowd at the mountain's base, weakened by the lethal foetor that seemed about to asphyxiate them, were almost hurled off their feet. Dogs howled from the distance, green grass and foliage wilted to a curious, sickly yellow-grey, and over field and forest were scattered the bodies of dead whippoorwills.

The stench left quickly, but the vegetation never came right again. To this day there is something queer and unholy about the growths on and around that fearsome hill Curtis Whateley was only just regaining consciousness when the Arkham men came slowly down the mountain in the beams of a sunlight once more brilliant and untainted. They were grave and quiet, and seemed shaken by memories and reflections even more terrible than those which had reduced the group of natives to a state of cowed quivering. In reply to a jumble of questions they only shook their heads and reaffirmed one vital fact.

'The thing has gone for ever,' Armitage said. 'It has been split up into what it was originally made of, and can never exist again. It was an impossibility in a normal world. Only the least fraction was really matter in any sense we know. It was like its father - and most of it has gone back to him in some vague realm or dimension outside our material universe; some vague abyss out of which only the most accursed rites of human blasphemy could ever have called him for a moment on the hills.'

There was a brief silence, and in that pause the scattered senses of poor Curtis Whateley began to knit back into a sort of continuity; so that he put his hands to his head with a moan. Memory seemed to pick itself up where it had left off, and the horror of the sight that had prostrated him burst in upon him again.

'Oh, oh, my Gawd, that haff face - that haff face on top of it... that face with the red eyes an' crinkly albino hair, an' no chin, like the Whateleys... It was a octopus, centipede, spider kind o' thing, but they was a haff-shaped man's face on top of it, an' it looked like Wizard Whateley's, only it was yards an' yards acrost....'

He paused exhausted, as the whole group of natives stared in a bewilderment not quite crystallized into fresh terror. Only old Zebulon Whateley, who wanderingly remembered ancient things but who had been silent heretofore, spoke aloud.

'Fifteen year' gone,' he rambled, 'I heered Ol' Whateley say as haow some day we'd hear a child o' Lavinny's a-callin' its father's name on the top o' Sentinel Hill...'

But Joe Osborn interrupted him to question the Arkham men anew.

'What was it, anyhaow, an' haowever did young Wizard Whateley call it aout o' the air it come from?'

Armitage chose his words very carefully.

'It was - well, it was mostly a kind of force that doesn't belong in our part of space; a kind of force that acts and grows and shapes itself by other laws than those of our sort of Nature. We have no business calling in such things from outside, and only very wicked people and very wicked cults ever try to. There was some of it in Wilbur Whateley himself - enough to make a devil and a precocious monster of him, and to make his passing out a pretty terrible sight. I'm going to burn his accursed diary, and if you men are wise you'll dynamite that altar-stone up there, and pull down all the rings of standing stones on the other hills. Things like that brought down the beings those Whateleys were so fond of - the beings they were going to let in tangibly to wipe out the human race and drag the earth off to some nameless place for some nameless purpose.

'But as to this thing we've just sent back - the Whateleys raised it for a terrible part in the doings that were to come. It grew fast and big from the same reason that Wilbur grew fast and big - but it beat him because it had a greater share of the outsideness in it. You needn't ask how Wilbur called it out of the air. He didn't call it out. It was his twin brother, but it looked more like the father than he did.'

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creekycoffee · 7 years ago

Text

Story in progress

Eddie was in the back seat of his mother’s car. His sister Isabelle was right there next to him. She look bored, and had her headphones in looking out the window at the passing cars. He was doing something similar. Every now and then he looked out the window. The pitter patter of rain against glass caused him to tense and grip the railing of Izzy’s cage that rested on his lap.

The bearded lizard looked up at Eddie and licked its lips. Eddie like to think that she liked him. He always did relate to animals more than people. The Voice of his mother was blurry like a sheet of fog that had invaded his head. He felt dizzy and nauseous.

Eddie would often space out like this, but today was different. Today there had been a reason. Their small car was packed with boxes, suitcases, and all their belongings. Their whole lives were in that car.

Today they would start a new period in a new town. Eddie hated it. He tried his best to keep the tears from falling down his cheeks. If Isabelle saw she would call him a baby again. He missed his best friend. He missed Toronto where he could go and do anything, and there was always something to do. He missed his dad.

Eddie didn’t know anyone in this new place. What was the name of this town? Eddie thought to himself then he remembered. “ Riverdale” that’s what it was called. It had a population of 1200. Not 12000 but 1200.

“Edd, Eddy. Don’t look so glum. Mrs. Perkins said. I know you don’t want to be here. But this is a fresh start for us. A new place”.

“ I hate it”. Isabel said.

“ young lady language. And Eddie please don’t make this harder than it needs to be”.

Eddie bit his lip and tried to hold back the tears.

Mrs. Perkins followed close behind the movers truck. Well because she had to make sure they didn’t steal anything or broke anything. When they finally arrived at their new home, and everything was loaded into the house it was 9:30 p.m. Eddie’s mother shouted the entire three hours at the Young 20 year olds on exactly where she wanted everything placed. So on the account it was late Eddie’s mother didn’t have time to cook. So the three of them headed into town to grab something to eat.

They didn’t have to wait long the drive only took 5 minutes at the max. Riverdale was small. Mrs. Perkins parked her car in the parking lot of the local mall. It was at the very most 10 p.m. so it was closed on the account it was a small town in everything closed early and it was also Sunday.

But there was a small Diner across the street. It reminded any of his favorite painting Nighthawks by Edward Hopper.

Eddie and his sister saw it one summer when they visited the art gallery of Chicago. Their father took them but he was always busy and never spent a lot have time with him or Isabelle. But that summer his dad Caldo de of the blue, and said “Hey Eds why don’t you and your sister come spend some time with me over the weekend”. That’s what his old man called him Ed’s. And it was something that carried over to his mother.

It was the most time he spent with him in his entire life. They went to a baseball game. Isabel didn’t seem to like that part very much, but she did like the hot dogs. And afterwards they went to the art gallery.

As they we’re walking on the sidewalk up to the diner Eddie spotted engaged into the window display of a nearby shop. His blue eyes grew wide. The display reminded him of his dad. The red bike. It was glossy and perfect. Just like the bike his dad gave him, and taught him how to ride. But unfortunately it got stolen just before they moved.

“Hey mom”… but before the words could fully leave Eddie’s mouth the answer was clear.

Mrs. Perkins stood there on the sidewalk Crossing her arms. She looked at her son with his long blonde hair and tattered Army pattern jacket. And then she said. “ Eddie we’re not made of money. Your father didn’t exactly leave us well off now did he”.

“ Yes ma'am” Eddie said looking down at his feet and pulling the sleeve of his jacket.

Mrs. Perkins sighed. “Eddie if you want something why don’t you get a job. Nobody’s going to give you a hand out in this world. After all it’s still fall break you have another month before school starts. Honestly I wish you would let me cut your hair you look like a delinquent”.

…

Eddie was laying on his bed looking at the ceiling and he was bored. As much as he disagreed with his mother she was right. Nothing was free. But it also wasn’t his dad’s fault. The more he thought about it the more he came to realize he didn’t know the first thing about his father. He wanted to know. But then the voices he started hearing the voices, and all the doctor’s appointments, therapy, and pills. Pills and list pills. Of course who wouldn’t want to leave. He was angry he felt like screaming. the whole world was messed up and nobody could understand him. everyone just thought he was violent but

He wasn’t and his head hurt. Eddie decided he wasn’t going to spend all his time inside. That’s what he did all summer break and the brake before that and the brake before that. Maybe he could get that job. But he didn’t know anybody, or Riverdale for a matter of fact. He would change that though. No more feeling sorry for himself he jumped out of bed and grabbed his coat. His stomach rumbled but as usual his mother wasn’t home, and he didn’t want to bother his sister who was upstairs. He could hear the music coming from her room.

He opened the fridge nothing good he thought to himself. An empty carton of milk some eggs in 3 slices of stale bread there was some ham and cheese too. Eddie quickly made himself a ham and cheese. Not wanting to announce to anyone he was leaving not that anyone would notice no one ever noticed him.

The house where Eddie lived was three stories tall. It was Gray with Victorian moulding. Hard wooden floors, hexagon shaped windows, and 6 balconies. The house was over a hundred years old from the late 18th century it was divided into four different floors. Each one rented to a different tenant. Eddie and his mother along with Isabel lived on the third floor.

The little bell on the front door chimes when he exited. Did he forget anything? Coat, Keys, backpack, sandwiches. It looked like it was all there. Looking back from the far end of the street the house brought chills down his spine. No one would ever know anyone was living there it looked abandoned and in fact the whole neighborhood did.

“ Eddie. Eddie”. He heard his name being called, but no one was there.

“ Not again”. Eddie muttered under his breath. They wouldn’t leave him alone. He kept walking but two blocks later again. “Eddie, Eddie”. It was coming from the direction of a house down the street. The host was calling him the voice with sweet like a woman’s. Different from the ones he normally heard different from his mother’s different from his sisters. They were different from the ones he heard in his head the ones that told him he was useless and the ones that told him to hurt himself.

All his instincts told Eddie not to go but his feet just moved it was like he lost his free will. The house on Wilson Street is where he found himself. He crossed the gate it was rusted and it creaked when he open the latch. Eddie stood on the front steps so close to whatever was drawing him. He reached for the handle so close he could almost feel the brass.

With a Smash he fell back and landed on his ass.

“What the hell are you doing kid” he heard. They’re standing above Eddie was a boy no older than him. He was shorter but that wasn’t a surprise. Although Eddie was only 14 no one came close to his height.

“What the hell who jumps out like that, and what’s with the stupid mask”?

Indeed whoever he was had a mask on and not just any mask it was a mask of a white wolf. It reminded Eddie of Okami.

Then he said “oh you know scaring kids not much else to do in Riverdale”.

“You’re psychotic”. Eddie said as he got up and brush the dirt from his torn jeans.

“Wait seriously you shouldn’t go in there. The guy in The Mask said. That house has been abandoned for years people go missing in this town”.

Eddie had walked past him as his arm was reaching for the door like before. “ you believe in that stuff he said”?

“ Not really he said, it’s just it’s common sense you know.”

Eddie looked. “ yeah I guess you’re right. This isn’t a horror movie. It’d be pretty stupid if I just walked in there. Say what’s your name?”

The boy stood up for a moment then he pulled the mask over his head. Eli my name’s Eli".

I know that Eddie got a closer look at him. Eli was shorter than he thought. With an olive complexion and short black hair and green eyes.

“ I’m new in town me and my mom and sister just moved here yesterday”.

“ sister huh she hot? Chill I was just kidding what was your…”

“ Eddie the name’s Eddie”.

“ Eddie that has a nice ring to it you know you can tell a lot about someone just by their name. Where exactly do you live Eddie”?

“The the house on 22nd Street”

“ wow that old piece of junk the four Story one. Interesting. Interesting”

“What’s interesting about it?”

You know you got some interesting characters who live there. Don’t worry you’ll meet them you’re new in town. My dad works there. He’s the janitor".

…

Eddie was sitting down at the dining room table for dinner. He didn’t have much of an appetite but he did his best to eat his lamb and brussel sprouts. He hated brussel sprouts and he had a creeping suspicion that his mother gave them to him on purpose to screw with him. Isabel was there sitting across from him and again listening to her music.

“ Eddie how was your day”? mrs. Perkins asked.

“My day well uh”…

“ that’s right son of mine did you do anything”?

“I guess you could say I made a friend”.

“ see what did I tell you a fresh start. Everything will be better you’ll see. She said picking up the empty plates and taking them to the sink. By the way I pulled some strings and if you still interested in that bike”.

Eddie was anxious he had never been very independent. For the most part he relied on Isabel she would help him with his homework, she would help him order food, she would help him with anything that involved human interaction. So it was no surprise that Eddie was panicking. A job he’d never had a job before.

He pulled out the sleep of his shirt and bit his nails. Both bad habits so that were clear signs that Eddie was stressed. He paced back and forth. Any minute now his mother would come home and introduce him to his future employer.

“ Hey Isabel” he said barging into his sister’s room. And immediately she got up from where she was sitting in the corner of her room, on her bed.

“Ed what is it now”?

Eddie was in full panic mode. His breathing was irregular. Up and down in and out his chest rised as he struggled to get the words out.

“ You want to do the thing Ed”? Isabel said.

Eddie nodded.

She got up off her bed and laid down on the floor. The carpet was shagging green. It had been there since the late 70s.

“ No cheating” Eddie said.

Eddie got down on the floor and kicked his legs up into the air. Isabel smiled and did the same. They played this little game ever since Eddie was 4 and Isabel was 6.

Their feet touched, Eddie’s bright green socks clashing with his sister’s equally as bright neon pink socks. The game was a tug of war Eddie trying to push Isabelle back, Isabel trying to do the same. The loser would be whoever said Uncle first or whoever knocked the other against the wall. It was a heated match, but then Eddie shouted “ ouch” cheater". It was no use his sister had always been stronger. and today was no exception she had pushed him back and in the process already had smashed his head against the back of his sister’s desk.

“Feel better Ed”?

“ Yeah thanks Izzy”.

“I wish you hadn’t named your lizard after me”.

Eddie simply smiled.

“You have that job thing today right”?

“ Yeah just waiting for Mom to come home”.

“Don’t worry about it it’s all in your head. A job isn’t so bad. It’s like school just the same boring routine once you get used to it you won’t even notice. You taking your pills”?

Eddie nodded. “ Yeah but there’s so God damn many of them”. He took out the transparent orange container which housed the pills. “One , two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight… wait to you see this ninth one”? Eddie said.

“ 9th. His sister looked at his brother’s hand and saw the blue, white and orange capsules. Nope only eight Ed. You must be seeing things again”.

There were only eight pills. But Eddie only Eddie could see the invisible 9th pill. He could see a lot of things no one else could see. Like the Shadows that shifted in and out in the corners of his vision just barely out of reach. They followed him for as long as he could remember. He could see strange things that no one else could perceive. When a dog barks and nothing’s there to an ordinary person it’s nothing, but animals have a sixth sense.They sense danger and some say they can see what’s beyond in the Supernatural Realm perhaps they see what’s beyond death.

Eddie could certainly see something but what he saw weren’t ghosts or the Grim Reaper the common things associated with death. What Eddie saw he always saw eyes. The pills helps and he hadn’t seen them for over a year now but now he remembered when he was at the abandoned house on Nelson Street Wilson Street. Elie was there and he saw a pair of eyes looming in the shadow they had purple irises Did they belonged to that voice that lured him to that place?

Eddie. It called him. The eyes that led to despair that reveal what’s not there. The Crimson eyes see what’s not there. He couldn’t remember where he heard that from but he had always heard it. maybe it was something one of the many voices said to him.

“Ed you’re spacing out again”. Isabel snapped her fingers. And then he heard the door downstairs turn. It was Talia.

“It’s mom”. Eddie said in Rush downstairs.

It was indeed Eddie’s mother. Talia was Dripping head to toe in rain she hung her trench coat on the hook near the front door and after shaking off the excess water from her umbrella she tucked it into the umbrella stand right beside where the guests put their shoes.

And speaking of guests Talia wasn’t alone. A man in his mid-30s accompanied her He Wore a Yellow Slicker that was drenched in rain. He had red curly hair and a thick beard in Eddie’s mind the man look like how he’d imagined a fisherman to look. He was like the man on the box of fish sticks his mother would sometimes buy.

“Eddie, Eddie don’t just stand there gawking come down here and meet Mark”.

“ Hello son. The man said. He had a kind voice. So you want a job” he said.

“Yes sir. I’m willing to work hard whatever it takes”. Eddie said.

Mark Daniels worked at Cedar Manor he was the caretaker. He looked after the garden, fixed what needed fixing. When the lights went out or there was something like a busted smoke alarm that wouldn’t shut up he was the man the folks at Cedar Manor Estate would call.

In the summer time the garden was full of red blooming roses. The garden was the one thing that kept mark sane. He was happy to help anyone who’d ask. These days anything he could do to preoccupy his time was a blessing. It seemed everything that could go wrong this year had gone wrong. His wife had run out on him she often said he was too busy with work. His father refused to talk to him in fact he refused anything from Mark. His dad had left the reservation and was living here at the Manor. So now it was just him and Elie. And it seemed he didn’t even know what his own son was thinking. Did Elie hate him? Did he blame him for his own mother running out on him. Elie never lashed out like Mark would have done at his age. He only kept quiet and bottled up his emotions deep inside.

On one occasion Elie even suggested that Mark should date. There were no women on the reservation or even in the rest of town that interested him, and he was no good at dating Lord knows how he snagged Elaine in the first place.

Mark would often stop off after work at the Old Dublin and irish-style Pub if it wasn’t already clear enough from its name. But he’d been sober for a year now ever since Elaine left to the very second. Whenever Wendy the waitress would walk by doing her rounds mark would say just a cup of coffee please. And she’d smile she knew him by name. He was practically her father from how much he’d hang around.

It was raining Thursday night and their Mark was at the Dublin work was done with for the night, and not wanting to head home and face Elie’s silence he was here in the corner Booth looking out the window watching the rain.

It never stopped with the rain in Riverdale, Mark thought to himself as he watched the rain drops Sizzle and evaporate on the neon sign of the strip club across the street. It was like the rain had everyone in Riverdale trapped in its endless sorrow, a bubble in which time repeated in a never-ending cycle. He was about to head home when a woman in a long gray coat walked in. She was soaked from head to toe and it looked like her umbrella she was carrying didn’t do her much good. it was almost torn apart from the howling wind outside.

She sat down two booths from Mark. He had never seen her in town before she must have just moved or was passing through. Wendy greeted her “what y'all have” the woman only ordered a cup of coffee and a fried egg. Some may have found that odd at almost 1:30 in the morning. Personally Mark like breakfast for dinner.

“Looks like you’re having a rough day” he said as he walked up to her.

“Thats putting it lightly it seems like everything that could go wrong has gone wrong”. I just moved here seems like my kids there growing further and further apart. My first day of work let’s just say it could have gone better. This was supposed to be a fresh start".

Mark looked at the woman and slid in the seat across from her.

“I hear that I have a son of my own he doesn’t say a word to me”. She smiled at that I knew you looked out of place I never seen you before and I know everyone in Riverdale"

“He sure does”. Wendy said pouring a glass of beer to a customer sitting at the front of the bar.

“So whereabouts do you live” Mark asked.

“The old house just up the road, Cedar manor” she said. Marks face lit up.

“Small world I’m actually the caretaker at that old place um… I didn’t catch your name.

“Talia. Talia Perkins”.

“And I’m mark. Mark Daniels”

That cold rainy night was the first time they meet, and mark didn’t know what it was about Talia, but there was something missing from her. There was loneliness in her eyes. Just like there was loneliness in his. They may have only just met but it seemed she trusted Mark at least enough to ask for a ride.

The motor of his pickup rumbled and the white exhausted it made stood bright against the black backdrop of the pitch black sky.

“I know I don’t know you she said. But my son he has trouble fitting in. Maybe since you’re in charge here.. She stumbled with her words. Maybe he could help you around. I’m sorry my English isn’t very good”.

“You mean a Job”.

Eddie was tall skinny and lanky and fast oh he was fast Mark couldn’t leave out that fact. Everything Eddie did seemed Todd from how he moved. He had a nervous demeanor he cracked his knuckles he would always check if there was someone behind him, and his eyes would always shift back and forth.

One week 14 hours and 36 minutes that’s exactly how long and he had been working for Mark Daniels. Mark called him down which was odd because to Eddie’s knowledge marked showed him how to do everything, and for the most part mark left him on his own to get things done. The job was simple. Sweep the Halls, rake the leaves in the courtyard, and help with anything that needed tending to down in the maintenance room.

Eddie hated going down there it was dark creepy and there were spiders everywhere. The humming and clicking the boiler made brought a chill up Eddie spine.

“Eddie. Mark called him into the room where he was busy stocking the shelves of the Supply Closet was light bulbs. His back was turned. I have a new job for you Ed. Aside from what we usually do around here there are a lot of older folks who live in the manor. These tenants need help even if they’re too stubborn to admit it”.

“ what kind of help”? Eddie asked.

“Well Ed some of them don’t have family and can’t go out to buy their groceries. They need a little help. I want you to go up to the third floor room 306 and take this to mr. Daniels”.

“ Daniel’s isn’t that your name”?

Mark looked a little embarrassed “yes Ed he’s my father”.

Eddie thought it might be rude to pry so he only took the two plastic bags of food and made his way up the old stairs up to the third floor. It took Eddie 10 whole minutes to knock on the door. He never was good at Social things.

“Yeah, who’s there”. A voice came through the door. It sounded tired and rough.

“ My name is Eddie mr. Daniels I got some things from Mark”.

The door swung open and in front of him stood up man with white long hair down to his waist. He was maybe in his 70s to mid 80s but he was in good shape considering his age.

“You tell that useless pile of crap to mind his own business”! The door slammed in Eddie’s face. The old man smiled behind the door thinking that was that but then he heard Eddie small voice.

“Please sir if not for Mark at least take it from me. I wouldn’t want to be responsible for you dying or anything”. Eddie stood there staring at the door until finally a full 10 minutes had passed the door slowly creaked open.

“Well you might as well come inside. Come on don’t just stand there looking stupid. Take off your shoes put the bag over there on the table by the couch”.

Eddie did what he was told and sat down. Mr. Daniels was in the kitchen he could hear the clicking and clanging of pots and pans and the boiling of steam in the tea kettle. Room 306 was much smaller than theirs it was basically all one room besides the kitchen and what Eddie assumed was the bedroom. The living room was cluttered there were things everywhere. Things that a normal person wouldn’t dream of keeping. Piles and piles of old newspapers some of the dates going as far back as 1975. There were eight cartons and pizza boxes colorful glass. Things that someone might find laying on the street like a crow might pick up shiny objects that catch its eye. but the thing that most intrigued Eddie was the wall by the window overlooking a dense forest shrouded in fog. There were endless newspaper clippings and strange pictures pinned to the wall and all connected to one another like a web with butcher string.

“They’re missing people. Eddie jumped at mr. Daniels voice. I’ve lived in this town my whole life he began to say. I remember when I was your age my best friend disappeared. It would stop for a time but eventually it would always happen again. The police never cared eventually they forgot about all these people all these kids someone’s family lost souls. They never found my friend. His name was Allen we both decided we were going to run away. Leave the reservation run away from her abusive home from our drunk fathers and neglectful mothers. no one would miss a couple of Indians like us”.

“ What happened”? Eddie asked his eyes bright but anxious.

“We went into those woods over there mr. Daniels looked out the window. Our elders always told us to stay out of those woods. They told us the legend. my grandmother called it the skin taker but it has had countless names some know it by the Wendigo”.

“What’s that”?

A spirit a spirit of the forest. It takes many forms but it’s most well-known to infect a person’s thoughts. People close to it it breaks their mind fills their thoughts with a ravenous hunger that makes the person go mad. They here it’s voice and kill each other. But I know better. It takes the Flesh in devours its victims lures them in".

Eddie remembered what Eli said and the sweet voice of the woman that lured him to that abandoned house. He always heard the voices but he always thought it was just his mind playing tricks on him he had gone to many doctors and they told him he was schizophrenic. But he would always see things and not just see things he would feel them he would wake up certain mornings when he was four years old with bruises on his chest in the shape of handprints. he glanced at the jumbled web of pictures and string. All the faces of missing children no older than him. but there was one picture that caught his eye that stood out more than the rest. it was a drawing done in charcoal it was abstract and didn’t have much of a form. It was some sort of blob covered in eyes.

“ I’ve seen this before” Eddie said pointing to the charcoal drawing.

“Where”! Mr. Daniels asked with a troubling tone.

“In my dreams” is what Eddie replied with.

It was 7:40 a.m. twenty minutes until Kevin Parker had to get ready for school. He yawned and shambled to the bathroom mirror. His short black hair was a mess, and matted like a tattered birds nest. Again he yawned, brushed his teeth and looked into the mirror. Starring back was the same nerdy boy with the thick horn framed glasses.

When he made his way downstairs the sight he was meet with was all to common. An empty house. Kevin opened the fridge, at least there was food today. He made himself a couple of eggs and a cup of black coffee just the way he liked it. Maybe it was a little odd, most kids his age thought coffee was gross but not Kevin. He liked the dark bitter flavor. He grabbed his backpack and headed out the door but as he open it his father stepped in. His toolbox hanging from his left hand.

He wore his denim overalls soaked in the old oil from the mechanic shop where he worked. “ Hey Dad you stayed all night again”.

“ sorry Kev I know I’ve been busy it’s that time of year. I worry about you Kev I know those kids bullying you be careful”.

“ Thanks Dad”.

Kevin’s mother died when he was only 4 years old. He couldn’t really remember what she looked like. There were no pictures of her anywhere his dad didn’t like to talk about her. All his dad would tell him was “it was a car accident”. When he mentioned to his father he should put himself out there all Mr Parkers would say was “ Not today kev too busy”. And he was he never missed a day of work in all of Kevin’s life. But he didn’t need to worry Kevin Parker could take care of himself. He had Bean at Riverdale High almost a year and in all that time he hadn’t made a single friend. He probably could if you wanted to but Kevin was happy to be with himself. Other people always would flock together in crowds but Kevin was fine with being on his own. He valued the time he had to himself. every day when most kids his age would eagerly awaited the Bell to hang out with their friends, but not Kevin he would stay hours until the school closed until mrs. Hawkins the school librarian with glare and tell him to leave.

He could take care of himself he had being for years.

That day was like any other Kevin was taking notes as their science teacher Mr. Hale shuffled through the slides on the overhead projector. The shutter the ancient machine caused a smirk to appear on Kevin’s face.

“ mr. Parker mr. Hale looked at Kevin with a Stern expression then it broke. Mr. Hale was always the jokester. He was everyone’s favorite teacher but behind that comedic expression was a hidden sorrow. All the students in room for a new that mr. Hale had a daughter and that she passed away the year before. It was does a brain tumor which cost a blood vessel to rupture she almost died instantly. And for that reason they are forced to smile at his lame jokes.

The hierarchy of the class was simple the smart kids aka what people would call nerds set in the front row. The kids that eagerly answered the teacher’s questions the moment they were called upon. The other group were the ones that set at the very back never did their homework and prayed that they were never called upon.

Trevor Duvall was exactly one of those some buddies. He sat why the back window surrounded by his friends. Unbeknownst to him Trevor stared at the boy with the thick frame glasses as he carved a skull and crossbones into the ancient desk with his Swiss Army knife which he kept hidden under the sleeve of his shirt.

Just as quickly as class begin it ended in like usual Kevin headed to the library to fill his head with research to escape the troubles of his life. Here there were no worries no responsibilities. Just Kevin and his books. He headed down the hall avoiding the Swarms of teenagers the 10th and 12th graders. He had to. It was a common practice to Haze the 9th graders . Travis was in the 9th grade but he was the oldest he had repeated the 9th grade two times already. His mother would always say he wouldn’t amount to much. ” dumber than a sack of rocks" that’s what his mother would say.

Travis could never live up to his older brother no matter what he did his brother wood outshine his every effort. But when he disappeared even with him gone would always bring up if Michael was here he would do it right. Why can’t you be more like Michael.

Kevin thought he was so smart teacher’s pet. It made the anchor in Travis grow he grit his teeth. Kevin Parker took his time removing his things from his locker. His coat, his textbooks for science math and history. Then Kevin like always quietly made his way out through the back door of the school where no one would see him. No one did he was never very noticeable that is every day but today. He was almost at his place of Refuge the library when Travis and his three friends Pete, Zack and Jeff came up behind him and surrounded him from all sides.

“ Hey Travis Kevin nervously said. I don’t want any trouble”.

Travis laughed and all three of the other members of his group began to laughed as well. It was nervous laughter like the three of them were afraid. Afraid of what Travis might do. He had gone over the edge before. His daddy always use to tell him people who were different weren’t to be trusted. That their very exsistance tainted the rest of the good hard working folks around them. And so Travis believed that to. It was his daddy and why would his daddy lie.

“I don’t like you parker. In fact no one likes you. You and you’re dad are freaks”.

“Yeah your dad looks mexican and is too poor to feed you”. Zack laughed.

“Look his clothes"Jeff also began to laugh.

Kevin stood there in his clothes that his dad got from his aunt and thrift stores. He clenched his fists. So what if he was poor his dad was a good person more than he could say for any of them.

“And don’t forget he’s super religious to” Peter the last member of Travis group chuckled in his moronic voice.

“THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT”!! Kevin shouted.

“What’s wrong slant eyes baby gonna cry. Word around town is that your old man murdered your mom”.

Kevin bolted at Travis and try to slug him in the gut but the boy who had at least 60 pounds on him narrowly dodged.

“ did we get you mad baby boy. What even are you anyway you’re white yellow? You’re just ugly muddy trash”.

They had a saying in Japan for children who were half Japanese half something else. They would call them hafu. I’m pure there blood was contaminated muddy. No matter how hard they tried they would never live up to the nobility of a pure Japanese. Kevin’s father had met his mother during the war when he was stationed in Hiroshima. He fell in love with the tall Slender Woman and brought her back to Canada to their little hometown of Riverdale. Kevin could almost pass for Canadian but there was something different about him his mother knew this and told his father to never mention his culture. She tried to hide the fact that he was different. People would just think he was an illegitimate child and it would bring shame to her family. But Travis picked up on the fact that he didn’t look quite like everyone else his fair skin his slightly slanted eyes. Travis’s father said those type of people we’re better off dead. And his daddy was never wrong. When he was five he questioned this to his father and he made himself clear and told Travis to take off his shirt. And like the innocent five-year-old he did so. His father took off his belt and with the Brass Buckle he beat him. The sound of the leather thrashing through the air and breaking Travis skin what’s deafening. He learned his lesson never question. If a man reacted so savagely over a simple question it must have been a universal law. That these people weren’t human.

Mr. Dubell was a police officer he dealt with criminals murderers rapists but that wasn’t the reason he hated them, People who were of different race. The reason was they were different. And since the beginning of time humans feared what was different. The eyes watched and grew relishing in the suffering a smirk appeared on the Shadows face it fed on the negativity and grew stronger.

Travis was Furiously grabbed Kevin and pushed him up against the brick wall in the courtyard where the 12th graders smoked. No one would see because it was the last period of the day and everyone either skipped or were already in class. Travis three friends looks nervous until finally Zack was the one who spoke.

"Hey Travis don’t you think this is taking it a little too far”.

And at that Travis lost what little restraint he had. He pulled out the Swiss Army knife from his jean pocket and at the same time he was holding up Kevin he grabbed Zack’s shirt.

“ Don’t ever tell me what to do. I’ll tell you when it’s too far”.

Kevin’s eyes grew as he saw the gleam of the metal reflect in the sunlight followed by an intense burning. Travis had plunged the blade of his Swiss army knife into Kevin’s Temple it dragged down cutting the side of his face from the top of his head to halfway down his cheek. But in Desperate situations people who ordinarily thought they had no strings found it deep down. Kevin kneed Travis right in the balls, and he ran. Without any regards to his things he ran. His bag full of his belongings that were most precious to him, his books his Spider-Man comics his countless hours of research all Left Behind in the water drenched pavement of the school basketball court.

Travis quickly chased after him he screamed at his friends to go after Kevin has the small teenager ran across the street almost being hit by a passing car. The people in the car saw him they saw the Panic on his face but they just kept driving. Kevin muttered under his breath “bitch”. He fell to his knees and there he was standing on the edge up the Willow Creek Woods, the only thing between him was a flimsy railing that separated the woods from the road.

“Nowhere to go now baby”.

But there was yes. Kevin jumped he plunged into the Ravine the palms of his hands were torn by the gravel in broken glass his jeans which were brand new and a birthday gift from his father we’re torn to shreds. Kevin heard the leaves crunching in the Twigs breaking in the distance. Travis and his friends were coming after him. Their voices getting louder and louder. He did the only thing he could do and that was hide.

Kevin landed in knee-deep water in the small Creek that ran through the woods. He ran faster and faster hoping he could get away then he saw it. There was a cave. In the back of his mind he thought there was something strange about that cave but he went in anyways. He thought there probably were Bears inside but he took the risk because this was a sign it was a miracle that this cable was even there.

Inside it was dark and wet so dark that it was Pitch Black. The kind of dark that he rent a boat in the National Geographic Magazines at the library that he loved so much. He read an article in one of them about the creatures that lived at the bottom of the ocean floor we’re not a sliver of light would reach. The animals there were born without eyes or if they did have eyes they had no purpose anymore.

His heart was racing in his chest. “Please God don’t let them find me. I’m sorry I’m sorry I’ll be a good Christian. God I didn’t mean to skip church last Sunday. And I’m sorry I got a boner when Henry Thomas showed me his brothers 30 magazines with the naked ladies. Please don’t let Travis find me”.

Travis was so close that Kevin could almost feel his voice on the back of his neck.

“ Come on let’s go he must have slipped into town”.

Kevin’s Hart settled back down it was a miracle. “ what a dreadful child” a voice came from the darkness. Kevin turned but it was pointless he couldn’t see anything even if he wanted to. But much to his surprise a pair of violet colored eyes appeared in the Darkness. They glowed bright showing what was behind them. Standing before Kevin was a deer, but it wasn’t a normal deer and one could tell as much from its eyes. But what made this year different was that it’s good on its hind legs.

Kevin jumped back. “WHAT THE HE’LL ARE YOU”

It looked at Kevin and walked around him in a circle its Hooves clattering against the stone ground.

“ Don’t be afraid Kevin Parker”.

“How do you know my name”?

“Kevin I know all in this world you are a high school student in the 9th grade do you live with your father Matthew Parker. And deep down Even If you deny it you are lonely and wish to have a best friend”.

The deer was right no matter how much Kevin tried he was lonely.

“ I can make it happen it began to say. Whatever your greatest desire is I can make it so. All I ask from you is to come with me”.

And as soon as the deer spoke those words the came was brought to life with light. Hundreds of thousands of eyes begin to open all around them on the moss covered walls. They were pure Scarlet with light green pupils that shifted from side to side. But there was one gigantic one in the center of the cave. It opens and there was a blinding light stronger than the Sun. It was a gateway.

“Come Kevin”.

“I’m sorry” I can’t he finally spilled the words.

“ I thought as much your time hasn’t come yet but my offer still stands return to me when you have made a decision”. The deer turned away and made its way to the portal.

“Wait what’s your name”?

“My dear boy my name matters not but you may call me Gremish”. And as quickly as he appeared in a flash of light it was gone. The eyes the deer . Kevin felt around but there was nothing no portal no nothing it was just an ordinary cave.

When it saw through the trees it knew everything about Emily.

It was cold and the little girl shivered in her torn pink winter coat. No one noticed that an eight year old girl wandered from her home to the isolated park just beyond the forest. Douglas Spencer the girls father was a drunk. There were many fights between him and his wife Alison. Bruises, black eyes, and broken bottles was all there ever were in Emily Spencer’s home.

Emily although covered with bruises and broken blood vessels smiled as she swung back and forth on the swing. She was hopeful that one day everything would be alright. That her daddy would stop drinking, and her and her mom and dad would be a family again.

It knew what Emily’s greatest desire was.

She looked up into the dark sky as snow fell on her face. It accumulated on her eyelashes. Creek crunch. Creek crunch. The sound of footsteps in the snow. When she looked in the direction of the sound she saw her mother. Emily was slightly confused. Her mother had come to get her. It was what the girl had always wanted from her mother, for her to care.

She held her hand as they walked, and Emily looked up at her. “Where are we going”? Emily asked. But her mother did not respond. But the girl knew it wasn’t the way home. She knew the way home. They had walked it together every day when Alison would pick her up from kindergarten.

The full moon hung low and bright in the night sky, but tonight it had a red hue to it. This girl would do it, it thought to itself as it read every thought in Emily’s mind, every desire that was ever in her head. Every fear,every joy was known to it at that moment.

“Emily what do you want in the whole world”. Her mother asked.

She thought about it for a moment then she looked into her mothers eyes. “I wish you and dad would stop fighting so we can be a family again”.

Alison smiled and answered That’s why i’m here everything is going to be alright now. Lets gets some ice cream.

Emily smiled at that as she remembered the Rock Cold Creamery, and how she would see all the happy families having their ice cream. She wished that could be them.

It seemed that they had been walking for hours, and Emily didn’t recognize anything around her. “Mom are you sure were going the right way”? she cried. But all Alison would say was.

“Just a little further; its a shortcut”.

The moon continued to shine bright through the thick trees.

“Emily you do want to be a family forever. Isn’t that your greatest desire”?

Something was wrong they were nowhere near town, nowhere near anything. And the expression on Alison’s face . Emily knew something wasn’t right. This wasn’t her mother. Her skin had turned pure white, and the look on her face wasn’t Alison. Still time slowed as minutes felt like days. But soon enough they had come to the center of the woods. Not a sign of anyone or civilization to be heard or seen.

“Emily i’m going to take you to a place where everything will be perfect like when your dad and i were happy. It promised me. Alison said.

“Mom who promised you, what are you talking about, where we going”? Emily’s voice rose with panic as each word left her mouth. Then she saw something peculiar. It was a deer. Not like anyone she had ever seen. It’s eyes glowed pale like moonlight, and it stood on its hind legs like a man. It bowed moving its hoofs down gesturing for the two females to come over to it.

It stood in the entrance to a cave. The cavern Emily remembered it somehow from a dream.

Inside was not what one would expect from the inside of a cavern. The walls were perfectly smooth and pure white. There were no doors, entrances of any kind. In fact the space Emily and her mother had used to come inside had vanished. All there was , was a blinding light in the center of the room, and that was all there was to the room. A room, space that seemed to stretch out endlessly. Light poured from the portal. It was the very thing staining everything white. Emily’s mother was standing next to it. The figure of the deer had disappeared into the light. There was a feeling of warmth, comfort.

“Come Emily, come everything will be alright”. Her mother held out her hand as she began to disappear as well into the portal.

The girls instincts told her not to go, but she ignored them all as every one of them were overwhelmed by the feeling of warmth the light filled Emily with. It was too late then. She had stared into the void. Poking her little face through the light. And what she saw was something indescribable. Her mother told her it was a perfect world where all dreams came true. Where her, her mom, and her dad would be happy again. But what she saw in the light was none of those things. She was completely submerged in the light now. It felt like Emily was deep underwater. It was heavy and suffocating, and there was nothing around her. Emily floated in the void that stretched into infinity. She cried out “Mom, mom where are you”? But there was no answer.

In the blackness they appeared, three rubies. Perfect spears of red light. They fickered fading in and out of exsistance. Until finally it was clear what they were. Eyes,eyes as big as planets, and when the girl saw who or what they belonged to her blood ran cold. It was a shapeless mass that somewhat resembled an angler fish. A type of fish that dwelled in the darkest depths of the sea where not a shred of light would ever reach. Like the angler it had an antenna that protruded

from its forehead, with a gland at the end that produced a light. It opened what would be its mouth was the closest way to describe it. For it was a creature not of this world, and was formless and indescribable to mortal eyes. Inside was spiral that stretched to infinity with rows and rows of jagged teeth cascading down like a stairway. In its center was the light. The light that Emily saw before. It came from the inside of this creature.

The girl was in a trance her eyes clouded in a pale hue of white. She saw what she most desired in the void of the creature’s mouth. Her mother, her father, and herself as a family.

“Come Emily join us” the creature called out. Emily heard the words, but not out loud but in her mind.

She could not control herself, and was drawn to the creature. And as quickly as it appeared the angler pounced tearing the girls head from her body.

The three perfect spears glowed as the creature had absorbed another victim. At that moment Eddie Perkins awoke in his bed, sweating, his heart pumping so violently he thought it would exploded in his chest. Not sure if it was a dream.

#My writing

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