Graham Masterton - The Manitou

Then — against a tearing hurricane — we reached the door itself. Singing Rock looked in first, and abruptly turned his head away in sheer terror, jerking his hand over his face like a man in the spasms of electrocution. I looked too, and I was stunned into such dread and fear that I felt as if I could never move from that doorway again.

The room was thick with evil — smelling smoke, pouring ceaselessly from two fires which Misquamacus had lit in metal bowls, and placed on either side of his astral gateway. On the floor was marked out the most sinister and bizarre circle of figures that I had ever seen, all elaborately drawn and colored in what must have been the gore of Lieutenant Marino's police officers. There were strange goats and hideous creatures like enormous slugs, and naked women with loathsome beasts emerging from their wombs. Presiding over this circle, hunched and deformed, his dark body blurry through the smoke, was Misquamacus. But it was not Misquamacus himself that struck the greatest terror in us — it was what we could dimly perceive through the densest clouds of smoke — a boiling turmoil of sinister shadow that seemed to grow and grow through the gloom like a squid or some raw and massive confusion of snakes and beasts and monsters.

What was so terrifying was that I recognized the Great Old One — I recognized how close he had always been to me. He was the fright of strange shapes in wallpaper and drapes; the terror of faces that appear in the grain of wooden wardrobes; the fear of darkened stairs or curious and half-seen reflections in mirrors and windows. Here, in the writhing shape of the Great Old One, I discovered where all my long-buried fears and anxieties had come from. Every time you hear disembodied breathing in your bedroom at night; every time the clothes you have carelessly left on your chair seem to take the form of a sinister and monkish figure; every time you think you hear footsteps behind you as you climb the stairs — it is the evil presence of the Great Old One, straining malevolently at the locks and seals which keep him on the other side!

Misquamacus raised his arms, and howled a chilling howl of triumph. His eyes seemed to be lighted from within, goat-like and satanic, and his body, on its stunted legs, was glistening with sweat. He had gloves of blood where he had torn bloodied bones out of Lieutenant Marino's men and used them to draw on the floor. Behind him, almost invisible in the smoke, the hideously frightening shape of the Great Old One twisted and squirmed.

"It's now, Harry!" screamed Singing Rock. "Help me now — it's now! It's now!"

He buried his face in his hands, and began to recite numbers and words, endless invocations to his own manitous and spirits, and the great spirit of white technology. I clung on to him, holding him tight, concentrating my terrified mind on Unitrak — Unitrak — Unitrak. The shrieking wind made it impossible for me to hear what Singing Rock was saying, but I pressed my mind into supporting him — into loving him — into keeping him safe while he tried to overwhelm Misquamacus and the murky presence of He-Who-Feeds-in-the-Pit.

There was a moment when I thought Singing Rock would make it. He was talking breathlessly fast, reciting and chanting and nodding, faster and faster as if building up to the great summoning of Unitrak's technological manitou. All this time, though, Misquamacus was chanting too, and sweeping his arm in our direction as if to encourage the Great Old One to consume us. I saw things move through the smoke that were frightening beyond belief — shapes more ghastly and dreadful than the worst nightmares I had ever had — and octopus-like coils of mist that began to unfold from the gloomy cloud of the Great Old One. I knew we only had seconds in which to survive. I was tensed up so tightly that my muscles were locked and I had bitten into my tongue.

Abruptly, Singing Rock slumped. He sagged, and then fell to his knees. I knelt down beside him, brushing my hurricane-blown hair from my eyes, and yelled at him to carry on.

He looked up at me, and there was nothing but fear on his face. "I can't!" he shouted. "I can't summon Unitrak! I can't do it! It's a white man's manitou! It won't come! It won't obey me!"

I couldn't believe it. I looked over my shoulder and saw Misquamacus pointing toward us with both hands, and the dark snakes of the Great Old One unrolling over his head, and I knew that this was the end of it. I snatched the crumpled fragment of paper from Singing Rock's hand, and held it up to the flickering astral light of the weird and horrifying gateway.

"Unitrak, save me!" I shouted. "Unitrak, save me!" And I screamed out the numbers, again and again and again. "UNITRAAAKKK! FOR GOD'S SAKE — UNIIITRAAKKKK!!"

Singing Rock, still clutched in my arms, moaned in fear. Misquamacus, his face stretched in a wolfish grin, was actually floating in the air above me, his arms outstretched, and his deformed legs curled up underneath him. All around, the shifting and terrifying shapes of the Great Old One grew and grew.

I was silent with fright for a moment. Then — because it was all I could think of to do — I raised my own arms, just like Misquamacus had raised his, and cast my own idea of a spell.

"Unitrak, send your manitou to destroy this wonder-worker. Unitrak, protect me from harm. Unitrak, seal off the gateway to the great beyond, and dismiss this hideous spirit."

Misquamacus, floating eerily close, began to invoke the Great Old One in retaliation. His words sounded heavy and foggy, blurring through the howl of the hurricane like a vengeful beast.

"Unitrak!" I bellowed. "Come to me Unitrak! Come!"

It was then that Misquamacus was almost upon me, and his devilish eyes glared luridly from his dark, sweat-glossed face. His mouth was drawn back in a snarl of pain and effort and revenge. He drew circles and invisible diagrams in the air around me, bringing down the evil tumult of the Great Old One, arranging through his sorcery the most hideous of deaths that he could devise.

"Unitrak," I whispered, unheard above the shriek of the gale. "Oh, God, Unitrak."

It was so violent and sudden when it happened that I couldn't understand it at first. I thought that Misquamacus had struck me down with the lightning-that-sees, or that the whole building had ripped apart around us. There was an ear-splitting sound that overwhelmed even the moan of the hurricane — an electrical crackling of millions upon millions of supercharged volts — a roar like a thousand short circuits. The room was blotted out by a dazzling array of incandescent grid shapes — tier after tier of brilliant circuitry — crawling with white and blue sparks and shimmering with its own blinding symmetry.

Misquamacus fell from the air, charred and blackened and bloody. He dropped to the floor like a carcass of beef, his hands clutched up underneath him, his eyes tight shut.

The grids, pulsing and glowing, formed a fence between me and the murky shape of the Great Old One. I could see the demonic being shrink and twist — as if confused and frustrated. The voltage from the grid was so enormous that I could only look at it with my eyes half-shut, and I could hardly see through it to the twitching, shadowy form of the Great Old One.

There was no question in my mind what this blinding apparition was. It was the manitou, the spirit, the internal essence of the Unitrak computer. My spell — my white man's invocation — had brought the blinding retaliation of a white man's demon.

The Great Old One boiled and rolled in powerful coils of darkness. It let out a tortured groan that became an enraged bellow, louder and louder until I felt I was being swallowed by its deafening vibrant depths — a tunnel of screaming fury that made the walls shake and the floor tremble.