Robert Price - Tales of the Lovecraft Mythos

Presently it opened, and I was shocked at the change in my friend’s face. He had aged five years; new lines creased his pale brow. His greeting was mechanical. We sat in the parlor and talked, while he lit one cigarette after another.

When I asked him if he’d had any sleep or solid food, he refused to answer. Baldwyn did his own light housekeeping, and unless watched, never ate enough to keep more than half alive. I told him he looked terrible, but he passed it off with a wave of his hand. What hellish thing had made him a gaunt image of his former self? I remonstrated; I demanded that he leave that sinister music and get some rest. He wouldn’t listen.

I began to become afraid of what he’d discovered, for it was evident he had met with success of a sort. His very manner said so. Without further conversation, he remarked that he’d be busy all afternoon, and told me to return at ten-thirty that evening. I inquired about the experiment, but it was of no use. I left, promising to come back at the appointed hour.

When I rapped on his door again I had in my pocket a.38 revolver I’d bought in town that very afternoon. I cannot say precisely what I planned to shoot; the gesture was prompted by a feeling of impending tragedy. There had been in Baldwyn’s manner a reticence I didn’t like. Always before he had told me of his triumphs and discoveries.

Without a word Baldwyn led me to the upstairs room. Motioning me to a chair near the Lunachord, he sat on the bench and turned the switch that operated the electric motors. The thinness and pallor of his cheeks frightened me. He crushed out his cigarette and faced me.

“Rambeau, you’ve been very patient — I know you’re curious. You also think I’m killing myself. I’ll rest up for a while when I get through — here. I think I’ve found what I’m after — the rhythm of space, the music of the stars and the universe that may be very near or very far. You know how we’ve hunted for those other books, the Necronomicon, and so on? This translation of Yergler isn’t very clear, but I’ve tried to bridge the gaps and produce the results he hinted at.

“You see, at the very beginning there were two altogether different types of music — the type we know and hear today, and another one that isn’t really earthly at all. It was banned by the ancients, and only the early historians remember it. Now, the negro jazz element has revived some of these outre rhythms. They’ve almost got it! These polyrhythmic variants are close; boogie-woogie has a touch. Earl Hines came near with his improvisation, ‘Child of a Disordered Brain.’…

“What will happen I can’t say. Yesterday I had a letter from Lancaster in Providence, and he’s positively scared! I told him my plans the last time I wrote.

“He finally admitted that he’d read the original Chronike , which is infinitely more terrible than this book we have. Lancaster warns me repeatedly against playing the music he’s afraid I’ve written. Actually, it can’t be written — there are no such symbols! It would require a new musical language. I’m not going to try that just yet, however…

“But it can’t be that bad. He says there might even be some violent manifestation — the music might summon a certain thing from the shadows of another dimension.

“What I’ve done surely can’t do anything like that… but it will be an interesting experiment. And remember, Rambeau, no interruptions.”

I wanted to grab him by the neck and shake some sense into his head. My mouth opened twice, but no words came. He had started to play, and the whispering chords silenced me quicker than a hand clapped over my mouth. I had to listen; genius will permit nothing else. I was bewitched, eyes fastened on his flying fingers.

The music swelled, following strange rhythm patterns I had never heard before and hope never to hear again. They were unearthly, insane. The music stirred me deeply; goose-pimples raced over me; my fingers twitched. I crouched forward on the edge of the chair — tense, alert.

A wave of cold horror swept me as the awful melody and counter-melody rose to a higher pitch. The instrument quivered and screamed as with agony. The mad fantasia seemed to reach beyond the four walls of the room, to quaver into other spheres of sound and movement, as if some of the notes were escaping my ear and going elsewhere. Baldwyn’s pale lips were set in a grim smile. It was madness; the rhythms were older than the dawn of mankind, and infinitely more terrible. They reeked of a nameless corruption. It was evil — evil as the Druid’s song or the lullaby of the ghoul.

During a sudden lull in the music, it happened. The skylight above us rattled, and the moonlight splashing the glass seemed to liquify and race downward. A single bolt of intense whiteness smashed the glass, and the entire pane buckled inward. It struck the floor with a crash. The floor-lamp dimmed and went out. Still the mad overture continued, its hideous echoes shaking the entire house, seeming to reach into infinity — to caress the very stars….

In the dim uncertain moonlight I saw my friend crouched over the keyboard, oblivious to all else but the music. Then, above his head, I saw something else. At first it was only a deeper shadow. Then it moved. My mouth opened and I screamed, but the sound was lost in that bedlam of horror.

The blob of shadow floated downward, a shapeless mass of denser blackness. It thickened and gradually took shape. I saw a flaming eye, a slimy tentacle, and a grisly paw extending downward.

The music stopped, and the silence of the utter void enveloped us. Baldwyn leaped to his feet, turned and looked upward. He screamed as the blackness shifted nearer, and a smoky talon seized him. His face in the dim light was a mask of horror.

I pawed at the gun in my pocket, gazing transfixed as the writhing shadow from outside slowly encircled his head. Unsteadily, imitating the movements of a zombie, Baldwyn raised his arms to fend off the monstrosity, and they were lost in the heaving shadow.

I must have gone slightly mad then, for there is much I cannot remember. I know I leaped at the cloud, drove my fists into it. My hands touched nothing… though I recall a foetid odor. The revolver had somehow leaped into my hand and I fired at the mass, five times. The bullets smashed the wall — nothing else. Something struck me on the temple, and I fell backward. It may have been one of Baldwyn’s pawing arms; I do not know.

A loud crash of discordant sound brought me to my senses. I lay on my back on the moonlit floor, revolver in hand. A nauseating odor brought me to my knees, gasping for air. Baldwyn had slumped backward over the keyboard, inert. The notes piped on, filling the chamber with hideous discord. The horror I could not see, but I felt it near.

Baldwyn’s head rolled and jerked up. It was no longer human — something ghastly and alien. It was dotted with tiny gouts of blood and with holes that looked like burns, but were something else. His lips writhed, and he groaned through clenched teeth… Rambeau!.. Rambeau!.. I can’t see… Are you there…? It’s got me — part of me!.. run for your life!.. Shoot me! Kill me! I can’t let it — get the rest…”

His command froze me with horror. In that instant I lived ten years. I forgot the impossible shadow and the lurking fear. I saw only my friend’s face and the fond memories it recalled. I thought of peaceful sunny days spent in earnest conversation beneath the huge maple; I thought of saner nights and saner music.

But that vision darkened and the horror returned. Baldwyn sank lower, his grip on the instrument gave way, and he tumbled to the floor, face upward in the moonlight. The last ghastly echoes rang in my ears; then silence. I saw the awful shadow near his head, its groping claws outstretched….