Authors: Pete Rawlik
Steeling my resolve, I moved from the sidewalk and made my way across the small yard that separated the Witch House from the dream street. The door opened of its own accord, creaking slowly and ominously into the house as if inviting me in. As I stepped through the door I took one last look behind me, and I knew that I had no choice but to go inside, for the dream world behind me had simply ceased to be. The interior of the house reeked of death, not of decay like the real house, but of death, fresh, wet and red. Shadows and patches of light careened at random around the foyer. The droning insectile voices grew louder. Something, things really small and brown, moved along the walls, but every time I tried to focus on them they would dart out of sight or vanish into the walls themselves. Doors lined the hallway but they were all shut, the knobs significantly, symbolically absent. The only path to follow was up a wooden staircase ravaged by time and neglect.
Mounting the stairs, I had to catch my balance as the nightmare illusion shifted, the foyer fell away and the hallway and rooms below vanished. I found myself on a surreal staircase suspended in darkness that seemed to stretch endlessly in both directions. The stink that filled the air grew in strength and I gagged as it wormed its way into my senses. With each successive step the runners warped and creaked and as I shifted my weight from step to step the entire staircase shuddered. I climbed faster, moving smoothly and swiftly up the stairs, ignoring the creaks and bone-jarring snaps of wooden supports that Frank Elwood’s mind had manufactured. Soon I was running, pounding up the stairs with only my heartbeat and the sound of my own breath to fill my ears and my mind. But no matter how fast or with how much purpose I ran, the view never changed. Though I climbed hundreds, perhaps thousands of stairs, no landing, no door, no end ever came within sight.
I paused. I knew the stairwell was nothing more than a symbol, a representation of the isolation of Elwood’s mind from the world. It could be overcome, but how? The stairs were endless, climbing seemed fruitless and was getting me nowhere. I drew a deep if imaginary breath, and firmed my resolve to reach the top of the stairs. That was all it took to change the scene. I recognized the rules and then was suddenly no longer bound by them. The stairs were gone and I was standing on a wooden landing facing a single closed door. Thankfully, this one had a knob. The door itself was old, and covered in flaking chips of paint that once were white but were now a dirty grey. The wood itself was pocked, riddled with holes where worms and other things had crawled and burrowed through it. The knob and the plate behind it were green with verdigris. I reached for the decaying metal; it was cold and felt wrong in my hand, as if touching it was a forbidden thing.
I gave the knob a firm twist, to no avail; the door was locked, and my attempts to gain entry merely rattled in futility. The sound of the lock was replaced by the sound of movement from within the room. Papers rustled and something skittered across the floor. With no other recourse, I knocked gently and called, “Is someone in there?” I heard more rustling, followed by a low mewling sound, then strong distinct footsteps that drew close. I stepped back as the door unlocked and swung wide open.
Framed in the doorway was a haggard young man that bore little resemblance to how I had thought Frank Elwood would appear. His eyes were sunken and his hair greasy and unkempt. His face was unshaven. He wore a wrinkled shirt that showed several large stains and obvious frays around the collar and cuffs. His hands were covered with scabbed-over scratches and his nails were long, broken and dirty. The fingers were covered with fine white chalk. His pants were overly large and his belt was pulled tight. He wore no shoes or socks and his yellowed toe nails were overgrown.
The sad sickly man opened his mouth in obvious frustration and shouted. “I told the landlady I would have her rent on the morrow!” Spittle flew as he spoke. “Now leave me alone!”
I spoke back calmly. “I’m not here about the rent. I’m here to offer you a job.”
The figure peered back at me suspiciously. “I can’t. I haven’t finished!” His voice became a sing-song of nonsense and he rushed back into the room. With a clear view of the interior I was shocked to discover the extent of the madness that had consumed this wretch. Beyond the door every surface of the room was covered, inscribed, imbedded with arcane mathematical formulae. To make matters worse, the writings were two or three layers thick with pencil being covered by ink, which in turn was covered by chalk. Though I recognized some of the esoteric mathematical symbols, the vast majority of the writings had smeared into an undecipherable mess.
“Dr. Hartwell sent me to find you. We need your help young sir,” I pleaded as chalk was once more taken to the wall. “The world is in danger.”
“Hee Hee,” a manic whispered reply. “The world is always in danger. What makes today something special?”
Something rustled in the corner as I approached. There was a weak chattering noise from beneath a pile of papers. “Mr. Elwood please pay attention.”
The writing never stopped. “I’m not . . .” More rustling drowned out the man’s whisper.
I shook my head quickly, “What did you say?”
Chalk and spit flew as the man turned to me enraged. “I AM NOT ELWOOD YOU TOAD! IF YOU WANT ELWOOD GO LOOK IN THE CORNER! NOW LEAVE ME ALONE!”
I fell backwards into the pile of newspapers and something squealed and then squirmed out from beneath. I cautiously pushed the papers away, only to recoil at the horror hidden beneath. It was the size of a cat, or a small dog, and was entirely devoid of clothes. Its pale skin was sickly and covered with bites and bleeding sores. It looked up at me with huge green eyes from a horrid parody of a human face, a face that I recognized as belonging to none other than Frank Elwood.
With some difficulty it opened its mouth and chattered out “Heeelp Meeee, pleasee.”
I stared at the rat thing and then at the figure writing on the wall. “If this is Elwood, then who are you?”
The figure paused in obvious frustration and then threw down the chalk. “You really are quite bothersome you know.” He reached down and in a single movement wrenched the wooden arm off of a chair and drew it up menacingly. “If you must know, when I was alive, they called me Walter Gilman. Now that I am dead, I have no name, though the things that haunt this world have given me a title, they call me The Student.” He took a step toward me. “I wonder what they will call you, once you are dead.”
I rose up on my feet clutching the Elwood rat to my chest. “Frank, listen to me.” The thing lolled in my arms. “This isn’t real, it’s just an illusion, a fantasy generated by your mind. You have the power here!”
Walter Gilman, or some facsimile thereof, stalked forward. “Oh I assure you that poor Frank is in no position to assert any sort of control in this place. You see he feels quite guilty, distraught really, over my death. He blames himself, and rightfully so. I was a brilliant student, I would have revolutionized the study of spatial and temporal physics, and I would have given mankind the ability to conquer the world, the galaxy, the universe, perhaps even time itself.” He looked at the Elwood rat in disgust and gestured with his makeshift club. “He let me die. Cut short my studies. And then had the gall to return to classes, to study, to write up his thesis, and to graduate with honors. I am The Student, and that rat bastard dares to obtain his Master’s degree? I will not allow my work to be forgotten while he is allowed to live!”
He swung the club which I dodged easily, and while he was still caught up in the momentum I dashed out the door and onto the landing. The stairs, indeed an entire house had appeared, and with some trepidation I barreled down the steps, taking them two at a time, all the while trying to hold on to the struggling creature in my arms. “Hold still Elwood, I’m going to get you out of here, but you have to help me.” I launched down past another floor, looking at the doors that all seemed to lead nowhere. “This place is an illusion, but it is also an allusion as well. The city, the house, the stairs, they’re all allegories for what has been happening to you. You’re trapped in the past, feeling guilty over what happened to Gilman. You’ve become so obsessed by it that you’ve recreated him, imagined him to be alive once more, but you’re overshadowed by his monstrous genius, or at least that is how you perceive it. Therefore he’s taken over, and turned your mind into a prison where he can work forever, and you are condemned to be little more than vermin rustling in the corner.”
Gilman’s voice boomed down the stairwell, “A fine bit of psychoanalysis but ultimately useless. There is nothing you can do to save Elwood, and you sir are still going to die.”
I reached the ground floor and leapt from the stairs and toward the front door. It was closed but the handle was unlocked and the door swung free. With Elwood clutched in my arms I flung myself headlong out of the Witch House and into the street of dreams. But the street as I knew it was gone; indeed all of the dream Arkham had vanished. Instead of on a city street I was on the terrace of some immense building overlooking a city so vast that I could see buildings stretching to the horizon. I thought for a moment that I was in some dream metropolis, a utopia generated by Gilman’s mind, for about me everywhere where the signs of an obsessive mind. The edifices, the architecture, the monuments and features all revolved around one single number, the number five. Pentagonal motifs decorated the buildings which were themselves five-sided. Behind me a five-sided doorway led from the terrace into a corridor which itself was comprised of five walls. Beneath my feet the terrace itself was comprised of interlocking pentagonal tiles. I stood up and wondered where in the world we were.
“A colony world of the Q’Hrell,” Elwood’s weak voice replied. “That is not their real name, it translates as the Progenitors. They are an ancient and learned race, so old that they have forgotten more about the universe than mankind has learned. Their dominion spans whole galaxies, and they have seeded life on millions of planets: sometimes to grow food, sometimes to create slaves, sometimes to provide a home, and sometimes simply because they can. When those from Xoth filtered down from the stars, it was the Q’Hrell who waged war against them and finally sank their stronghold into the sea. It was the Q’Hrell who brought forth the lizard kings and their avatar, and then crucified him for his disobedience. It was the Q’Hrell that taught Keziah Mason the secrets of moving through space. It was through them that she was able to survive as long as she did. Their blood is particularly potent; it makes them nearly immortal, and can even reanimate the dead flesh of any of their creations. They are powerful allies, and dangerous enemies.”
I looked at Elwood; he seemed slightly more human than previously. “And these things commune with Gilman?”
He shook his furry head. “These are just more hallucinations, fantasies created by Gilman to populate his dream world. He communes with them, but they are no more real than anything else here. That doesn’t make them any less dangerous than the real thing, in fact more so.”
“Why is that?”
“Isn’t it obvious? As constructs of Gilman’s mind they do whatever he says.” Something dark passed in front of the sun. “Oh, by the way, the Q’Hrell, they can fly.”
That is when I saw them: a whole flock of the creatures spinning through the sky like some horrid cross between squid and sharks pin wheeling on five great pulsing wings. They moved through the air in great arcs like raptors spiraling in for a final killing swoop. There were dozens of the things, but they all seemed to be moving in formation, a complex aerial ballet that was as beautiful as it was most probably deadly.
I turned back to look at Elwood. “How do we get back to the Witch House? How do we get out of the dream?”
“There’s no way out,” he whimpered. “Gilman has complete control. He always knew what he was doing. He was so smart. It’s no wonder that Keziah picked him to be her disciple. Here in this place he can do anything, be anything he wants to. Compared to him, I am nothing.”
“That’s not true,” I said. Suddenly I was running again, this time I was moving up. The terrace had turned into a ramp, and while going down might have seemed the more logical thing to do, somehow running up seemed more right. “It’s I that can’t do anything here,” I said. Around me the terrace ramp turned into stairs, I was back in the Witch House. “But you, you Elwood, you are the real power here.”
Behind us something large and grey slammed onto the stairs and screamed in a high-pitched whine that sounded like a mad flutist. There was a tune, a rhythm that filled me with fear, but despite my desire to cower in terror I ran faster while the thing behind us whistled insanely, “Tekelili Tekelili!”
I was pounding up the stairs. My legs felt like lead weights and my lungs, as inhuman as they were, seemed ready to burst. As I drove up the staircase, the wood screeched and groaned, the railing fell away, and once more I was left climbing into nothingness. I brought Elwood up so that I could speak to him plainly. “Elwood, I understand how you got this way. Gilman’s genius was immense. His understanding of space and time was unprecedented. His accomplishments were unparalleled. Anyone would shrink to nothingness in comparison. Yet for all his genius he made mistakes Elwood, he was after all only human.”
The beast behind us roared. I could see it. On the stairs it moved like a great cat, propelled by a series of small tentacles near its head, if one could call that starfish-shaped thing a head, and another set of larger tentacles in the rear. Even when moving like this, it still was spiraling around, drilling itself forward, the wings of the thing still pulsing open and closed as they rotated about. It was faster than I would have thought possible, but of course that is almost always the case when it came to monsters. In moments it would be upon us.
“Elwood,” I was pleading, “listen to me. Gilman died, he failed. He beat Keziah Mason, but he overlooked Brown Jenkin, and overlooking something like that can mean everything. He may have been brilliant, even a genius, but he wasn’t a god. He failed to consider all the facts and factors, and because of that he not only died, but he was condemned to be trapped forever. You on the other hand have done things that Gilman can’t, and never will.” He looked at me with those strange violet eyes. “You lived Elwood. You went through those same horrid events, and you lived. Gilman can’t ever do that again. He’s dead, he’ll never be alive again. And because you lived you were able to move on.”