Robert Price - Tales of the Lovecraft Mythos

Overcoming my repugnance, I went in and climbed the steps to Eliphas’ room. It was in dreadful disorder, as if someone had left hurriedly. I was told that a bag had been packed and was missing. Eliphas’ bed had not been slept in; the room was strewn with books, manuscripts, papers, diaries, and curious old relics.

During the next days, while elsewhere state police and federal authorities were making a futile search for young Snodgrass, I went over the items I had found in his room. I shudder at the terrible notes and the things they implied.

Primarily, I found a notebook, the sort children use for copying lessons, in which I seemed to sense a series of clues. Evidently Snodgrass kept memoranda in it. There was a yellowed newspaper clipping from some San Francisco paper, which said in part:

FREIGHTER IN PORT WITH STRANGE TALE

The Kungshavn arrives with story

of Boiling Sea and Sinking Islands.

San Francisco: The Swedish freighter Kungshavn arrived in port today with its crew telling a strange story of a weird storm at sea, and almost incredible manifestations. Most of the crew were reluctant to speak of it, but reporters drew out a fantastic tale of a sudden storm which hit the ship two days out of New Guinea, of a terrible waterspout that pursued the ship for five hours in the semi-darkness of the storm, and of an island that seemed to sink into the water before their very eyes, and of sailing through a sea of boiling, bubbling water for two solid hours. Third Mate Swenson, who seemed most deeply overcome by the experience, kept praying and mumbling of a terrible demon or sea-monster whom he called Kichulu or Kithuhu.

The clipping went on for several more paragraphs, giving mainly farther details on the above.

Following this was another clipping from the same paper, but dated several days after. This reported the sudden death of one Olaf Swenson, a member of the crew of the Kungshavn , who was found in a back alley of San Francisco with his face chewed off .

Beside this clipping, the oddly crabbed handwriting of Eliphas Snodgrass read: “Kichulu — does he mean Cthulhu?”

This meant nothing to me at the time. Oh, would that it had! Perhaps I still might have saved Eliphas.

Then there was a note in Eliphas’ handwriting:

Tuesday must say the Dho chant and widdershin six times. Hastur is ascendant. Dagon recumbent? Must investigate. See Lovecraft on the proper incantation for Yog-Sototh. Pygnont says he has copy of Eibon for me; must write to him to send it by special messenger. I feel that the time is close. I must consult Alhazred — must find a way to obtain the volume. It is all in the old Arab’s book; he bungled; I must not. So little time. The Day of Blackness is approaching. I must be ready. Lloigor protect me.

After this, there was a sheaf of pages crammed with what looked like chemical and astrological configurations.

I felt very disturbed after reading the above. It was so out of the ordinary. I have but one thing more to mention from that investigation. On the ceiling of Eliphas’ room was a curious, wide wet mark. I knew that the roof leaked, but still it was sinister.

Gradually the city settled back to normal. Normal! When I think now what a horror was amongst us, I shudder that we can say such things as “back to normal.” The stench in the Snodgrass home gradually abated.

I went back about my studies and soon had almost forgotten Eliphas. It was not until the early winter that the matter came up again. At that time, Mrs. Snodgrass called to say that she had heard footsteps in the dead of night in Eliphas’ room, and thought she had heard conversations: yet, when she knocked, there was no one there.

I returned with Mrs. Snodgrass to the Crombleigh mansion and re-entered Eliphas’ chamber. She had placed the room in order, carefully filing the papers and objects. I thought nothing was out of place until I chanced to glance up at the ceiling. There were wet footprints against the white kalsomine of the ceiling — footprints leading across from the top of the door to where the large closet opened!

I went at once to the closet; at first glance nothing was wrong. Then I noticed a bit of paper lying on the floor. I picked it up. On it was written one word in a hand unmistakably that of the missing student.

One word — “Alhazred”!

As soon as I was free, I went to Miskatonic University and secured permission to peruse that damnable volume by Abdul Alhazred. Would that I had not! Would that I had forgotten the whole affair!

Never will I forget the terrible knowledge that entered my brain during those hours when I sat reading the horror-filled pages of that loathsome book. The demoniac abnormalities that assailed my mind with indisputable truth will forever shake my faith in the world. The book should be destroyed; it is the encyclopedia of madness. All that afternoon I read those madness-filled pages and it was well into the night before I came across the passage which answered my riddle. I will not say what it was for I dare not. Yet I started back in dread; what I saw there was horror manifold. And I knew that I must act at once, that very night, or all would be lost. Perhaps all was lost already. I rushed out of the library into the darkness of the night.

A strange snow was falling, a curious flickering snow that fell like phantoms in the darkness. Through it I ran across block after endless block of ancient houses to the Snodgrass mansion. As I came down the street, I thought I saw a flicker of green outlined against the roof. I redoubled my pace and dashing up their porch, hammered upon the door. It was near twelve and it took some time before the family let me in. Hastily I said I had to make another search of Eliphas’ room and they let me pass. I dashed up the stairs and threw open the door of his chamber. It was dark and I flicked on the light.

Shall I ever forget the terrible thing I saw there? The horror, the dread, the madness seemed too much for the human mind to bear. I flicked the light off at once, and, closing the door, fled screaming out into the street. Well it was that a raging fire broke out immediately afterward and burned that accursed house to the ground. Well — for such a damnable thing must not be, must never be on this world.

If man but knew the screaming madness that lurks in the bowels of the land and the depths of the ocean, if he but caught one glimpse of the things that await in the vast empty depths of the

hideous cosmos! If he knew the secret significance of the flickering of the stars! If the discovery of Pluto had struck him as the omen it was!

If man knew, I think that knowledge would burn out the brains of every man, woman, and child on the face of the Earth. Such things must never be known. Such unspeakable, unfathomable evil must never be allowed to seep into the mentalities of men lest all go up in chaos and madness.

How am I to say what I saw in the room of that cursed house? As I opened the door, there on the bedspread, revealed by the sudden flash of the electric light, lay the still quivering big toe of Eliphas Snodgrass!

Early on the evening of September 14th last I stepped down onto the venerable brick platform of the Arkham station of the Boston and Maine Railroad. I could have flown in, arriving at the fine new Arkham Airport north of town, where I am told a suburb of quite tasteful Modern Colonial homes now covers most of Meadow Hill, but I found the older conveyance convenient and congenial.

Since I was carrying only a small valise and a flat square cardboard box of trifling weight, I elected to walk the three blocks to the Arkham House. Midway across the old Garrison Street Bridge, which repaired and re-surfaced only ten years ago spans the rushing Miska- tonic there, I paused to survey the city from that modest eminence, setting down my valise and resting my hand on the old iron railing while an occasional dinner-time car rumbled past close beside me.