Titus Crow [1] The Burrowers Beneath (7 page)

But the worst is still to come. I myself have yet to face a similar end. I know it, for no matter what I do the tremors haunt me. Or is it only in my mind? No, there is little wrong with my mind. My nerves may be gone but my mind is intact. I know too much! They have visited me in dreams, as I believe they must have visited my uncle, and what they have read in my mind has warned them of their danger. They dare not allow me further to investi-gate, for it is just such meddling which may one day fully reveal them to men

- before they are ready!

God! Why hasn’t that folklorist fool Wilmarth at Mis-katonic answered my telegrams? There must be a way out! Even now they dig - those dwellers in darkness …

But no - this is no good! I must get a grip on myself and finish this narrative. I have not had time to tell the authorities the truth, but even if I had I know what the result would have been. ‘There’s something wrong with all the Wendy-Smith blood,’ they would say. But this manuscript will tell the story for me and will also stand as a warning to others. Perhaps when it is seen how my passing so closely parallels that of Sir Amery, people will be curious; with this manuscript to guide them perhaps men will seek out and destroy Earth’s elder madness before it destroys them …

A few days after the collapse of the cottage on the moors, I settled here in this house on the outskirts of Marske to be close at hand if - though I could see little hope of it - my uncle should turn up again. But now some dread power keeps me here. I cannot flee … At first their power was not so strong, but now … I am no longer able even to leave this desk, and I know that the end must be coming fast. I am rooted to this chair as if grown here and it is as much as I can do to type!

But I must … I must … And the ground movements are much stronger now.

That hellish, damnable, mocking stylus - leaping so crazily over the paper!

I had been here only two days when the police delivered to me a dirty, soil-stained envelope. It had been found in the ruins of the cottage - near the lip of that curious hole - and was addressed to me. It contained those notes I have already copied and a letter from Sir Amery which, if its awful ending is anything to go on, he must have just finished writing when the horror came for him. When I

consider, it is not surprising that the envelope survived the collapse; they would not have known what it was, and so would have had no interest in it.

Nothing in the cottage seems to have been deliberately damaged - nothing inanimate, that is - and so far as I have been able to discover the only missing items are those terrible spheres, or what remained of them!

But I must hurry. I cannot escape and all the time the tremors are increasing in strength and frequency. No! I will not have time. No time to write all I intended to say. The shocks are too heavy … to o heav y. Int erfer in g with my t ypi ng. I will finis h this i n th e only way rem ain ing to me and staple S ir Amer y’s lett er to th is man use rip t no w.

Dear Paul,

In the event of this letter ever getting to you, there are certain things I must ask you to do for the safety and sanity of the world. It is absolutely necessary that these things be explored and dealt with - though how that may be done I am at a loss to say. It was my intention, for the sake of my own sanity, to forget what happened at G’harne. I was wrong to try to hide it. At this very moment there are men digging in strange, forbidden places, and who knows what they may unearth? Certainly all these horrors must be tracked down and rooted out - but not by bumbling amateurs. It must be done by men who are ready for the ultimate in. hideous, cosmic horror. Men with weapons. Perhaps flamethrowers would do the trick … Certainly a scientific knowledge of war would be a necessity … Devices could be made to track the enemy … I mean specialized seismological instruments. If I had the time I would prepare a dossier, detailed and explicit, but it appears that this letter will have to suffice as a guide to tomorrow’s horror-hunters.

You see, / now know for sure that they are after me - and there’s nothing I can do about it! It’s too late! At first even I, just like so many others, believed myself to be just a little bit mad. I refused to admit to myself that what I had seen happen had ever happened at all! To admit that was to admit complete lunacy - but it was real, all right, it did happen - and will again!

Heaven only knows what’s been wrong with my seismograph, but the damn thing’s let me down in the worst possible way! Oh, they would have got me eventually, but I might at least have had time to prepare a proper warning.

I ask you to think, Paul … Think of what has happened at the cottage … I can write of it as though it had already happened - because I know it must! It will! It is Shudde-M’ell, come for his spheres …

Paul, look at the manner of my death, for if you are reading this then I am either dead or disappeared - which means the same thing. Read the enclosed notes carefully, I beg you. I haven’t the time to be more explicit, but these notes of mine should be of some help. If you are only half so inquiring as I believe you to be, you will surely soon come to recognize a fantastic horror which, I repeat, the whole world must be made to believe in … The ground is really shaking now but, knowing that it is the end, I am steady in my horror .

. . Not that I expect my present calm state of mind to last. I think that by the time they actually come for me my mind will have snapped completely. I can imagine it now. The floor splintering, erupting, to admit them. Why! Even thinking of it my senses recoil at the terror of the thought. There will be a hideous smell, a slime, a chanting and gigantic writhing and … and then - Unable to escape I await the thing. I am trapped by the same hypnotic power that claimed the others at G’harne. What monstrous memories! How I awoke to see my friends and companions sucked dry of their life’s blood by wormy, vampirish things from the cesspools of time! Gods of alien dimensions! I was hypnotized then by this same terrible force, unable to move to the aid of my friends or even to save myself!

Miraculously, with the passing of the moon behind some wisps of cloud, the hynotic effect was broken. Then, screaming and sobbing, utterly broken, temporarily out of my mind, I fled, hearing behind me the droning, demoniac chanting of Shudde-M’ell and his hordes.

Not knowing that I did it, in my mindlessness I carried with me those hell-spheres … Last night I dreamed of them. And in my dreams I saw again the inscriptions on that stone box. Moreover, I could read them!

All the fears and ambitions of those hellish things were there to be read as clearly as the headlines in a daily newspaper! ‘Gods’ they may or may not be but one thing is sure: the greatest

setback to their plans for the conquest of Earth is their terribly long and complicated reproductory cycle! Only a handful of young are born every thousand years; but, considering how long they have been here, the time must be drawing ever nearer when their numbers will be sufficient! Naturally, this tedious buildup of their numbers makes them loath to lose even a single member of their hideous spawn - and that is why they have tunnelled these many thousands of miles, even under deep oceans, to retrieve the spheres!

I had wondered why they should be following me - and now I know. I also know howl Can you not guess how they know where I am, Paul, or why they are coming?

Those spheres are like a beacon to them; a siren voice calling. And just as any other parent - though more out of awful ambition, I fear, than any type of emotion we could understand - they are merely answering the call of their young!

But they are too late!

A few minutes ago, just before I began this letter, the things hatched! Who would have guessed that they were eggs - or that the container I found them in was an incubator? I can’t blame myself for not knowing it; I even tried to have the spheres X-rayed once, damn them, but they reflected the rays! And the shells were so thick! Yet at the time of hatching those same shells just splintered into tiny fragments. The creatures inside were no bigger than walnuts. Taking into account the sheer size of an adult they must have a fantastic growth rate. Not that those two will ever grow! I shrivelled them with a cigar … and you should have heard the mental screams from those beneath!

If only I could have known earlier, definitely, that it was not madness, then there might have been a way to escape this horror. But no use now. My notes -look into them, Paul, and do what I ought to have done. Complete a detailed dossier and present it to the authorities. Wilmarth may help, and perhaps Spencer of Quebec University. Haven’t much time now. Cracks in ceiling.

That last shock - ceiling coming away in chunks - the floor -coming up! Heaven help me, they’re coming up. I can feel them groping inside my mind as they come -

Sir, Reference this manuscript found in the ruins of 17 Anwick Street, Marske, Yorkshire, following the earth tremors of September this year and believed to be a ‘fantasy’ which the writer, Paul Wendy-Smith, had completed for publication. It is more than possible that the so-called disappearance of both Sir Amery Wendy-Smith and his nephew, the writer, were nothing more than promotion stunts for this story: it is well-known that Sir Amery is/was interested in seismography and perhaps some prior intimation of the two quakes supplied the inspiration for his nephew’s tale. Investigations continuing.

Sgt J. Williams

Yorks County Constabulary

2nd October 1933

Cursed the Ground

(From de Marigny’s Notebooks)

It soon became obvious that the occultist, despite his denials, was far more tired than he admitted, for he did in fact doze, closing his eyes and drowsing, breathing deep and rhythmically where he sat in his chair, while I read the letters and the - fantasy? - of Paul Wendy-Smith.

I admit quite frankly that when I was finished with that document my mind was in something of a whirl! There had been so many factual references in the supposed ‘fiction’, and why had the author deliberately chosen to give his characters his own, his uncle’s, and many another once-living person’s names?

Considering the letters I had read prior to this disturbing document, the conviction was rapidly growing in me that Crow’s assertions - so far at least

- stood proven. For while my friend had not directly said so, nevertheless I could guess that he believed the Wendy-Smith manuscript to be nothing less than a statement of fantastic fact!

When I had properly done with my reading, and while I checked over again the contents of certain of the letters, Crow still nodded in his chair. I rustled the papers noisily as I put them down on his desk and coughed politely. These sudden sounds brought my friend back in an instant to full consciousness.

There were many things for which I would have liked explanations; however, I made no immediate comment but remained intently alert and thoughtful as Crow stirred himself to pass me the box containing … what?

I believed I already knew.

I carefully removed the cardboard lid, noting that my guess had been correct, and lifted out one of the four beautifully lustrous spheres the box contained.

‘The spawn of Shudde-M’ell,’ I quietly commented, placing the box back on the desk and examining the sphere in my hand. ‘The eggs of one of the lesser known deities of the Cthulhu Cycle of myth. Bentham did send them to you, then, as you requested?’

He nodded an affirmative. ‘But there was no letter with the box, and it seemed pretty hastily or clumsily wrapped to me. I believe I must have frightened Bentham pretty badly … or at least, something did!’

Frowning, I shook my head, doubt suddenly inundating my mind once more. ‘But it’s all so difficult to believe, Titus, and for a number of reasons.’

‘Good!’ he instantly replied. ‘In resolving your own incredulity, which I intend to do, I might also allay the few remaining doubts which I myself yet entertain. It is a difficult thing to believe, Henri - I’ve admitted that -but we certainly can’t afford to ignore it. Anyhow, what reasons were you speaking of just now, when you voiced your reluctance to accept the thing as it stands?’

‘Well for one thing’ - I sat back in my chair - ‘couldn’t the whole rigmarole really be a hoax of some sort? Wendy-Smith himself hints of just such a subterfuge in that last paragraph of his, the “police report”.’

‘Ah!’ he exclaimed. ‘A good point, that - but I’ve already checked, Henri, and that last paragraph was nor part of the original manuscript! It was added by the author’s publisher, a clever extract from an actual police report on the disappearances.’

‘Then what about this Bentham chap?’ I persisted. ‘Couldn’t he have read the story somewhere? Might he not simply be adding his own fancies to what he considers an intriguing mystery? He has, after all, admitted to a certain interest in weird and science-fiction cinema. Perhaps his taste also runs to macabre literature! It’s possible, Titus. The Wendy-Smith story may, as you seem to suspect, be based on fact - may indeed have been drawn from life, a veritable diary, as the continuing absence of Sir Amery and his nephew after all these years might seem to demand - but it has seen print as a fiction!’

I could see that he considered my argument for a moment, but then he said: ‘Do you know the story of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”, Henri? Of course you do. Well, I’ve a feeling that Paul Wendy-Smith’s last manuscript was dealt with on a similar principle. He had written a fair number of macabre stories, you see, and I’m afraid his agent and executor - despite some preliminary doubts, as witness the delay in publishing - finally saw this last work as just another fiction. It puts me disturbingly in mind of the Ambrose Bierce case. You know the circumstances to which I refer, don’t you?’

‘Hmmm?’ I murmured, frowning as I wondered what he was getting at. ‘Bierce?

Yes. He was an American master of the macabre, wasn’t he? Died in 1914 …?’

‘Not “died”, Henri,’ he quickly corrected me. ‘He simply disappeared, and his disappearance was quite as mysterious as anything in his stories - quite as final as the vanishment of the Wendy-Smiths!’

He got down on his hands and knees on the floor and began to collect up some of the books and maps. ‘But in any case, my friend, you’ve either not been listening to me as well as you might, or’ - he smiled up at me - ‘you have very little faith in what I’ve sworn to be the truth. I’m talking about my dreams, Henri - think about my dreams!’