Bernard Smyth says No
this is a story i wrote a while back. it was influenced by the work of Howard Phillip Lovecraft.
hope you enjoy.
Here name was Clara. I had met her whilst visiting a colleague at the Arkham Asylum, where she was a patient. She had not spoken a word to a single person in the five years since she had been found screaming and drenched in blood in her university campus dormitory. All attempts to rehabilitate her had been unsuccessful and now she stood fractured in the corner. She appeared to me as strangely calm in that room full of mad men. Her steel blue eyes drinking in the room like bright portals and her milky white skin almost luminescent under the harsh neon light.
I did not know it then but I think that is when I fell in love with her. Looking back at it now I should have heard the steel of the trap as it clanged shut around me, drawing me into her nightmare. But at the time I saw her as a patient, some one perhaps I could save and thusly I approached professor Nolby and enquired as to wether I could take on her case.
Knowing that my first session with her would be pivotal to my being able to succeed where others had failed I set about to learn as much about her as I could. I read and reread her file. She had no family so I instead met with her former colleagues and tried to discover who she was or at least who she had been. I even managed to see inside her domicile even though it was now occupied by someone else.
Having been informed that I would not be able to take her into my office, due to the fact she would become uncontrollably hysterical if made to enter any of the rooms in the east wing where the offices were located. Also since hospital policy forbade me to enter her room until she had given me permission, I waited until she was in the rec room and it was relatively devoid of other patients.
When I was ready I approached her whilst she sat in the rec room staring out the barred window. I introduced my self and asked permission to join her. Knowing I would not receive a reply I pulled up a chair and sat facing her. As we talked she seemed calm and composed but her eyes were wild and darted ceaselessly across the room. In such close proximity I found it hard not to drink in her beauty, so I resolved to face the window and talk indirectly with her even though she seemed oblivious to my existence.
We talked as such for three months. I say WE but that is not entirely true. For in reality it was I who did all the talking. I even took to reading to her from books that I was currently reading. Near the end of each session I would ask her if she wished for me to stop or to continue reading. It was a simple ploy and at each successive meeting I would ask Clara at some crucial point of the story if she wished for me to continue. Sometimes she would nod and other times she would ignore me and stare out the window at which I would close the book and thus end the session.
But on this day, I believe I was reading the poetry of Byron, that in response to the question Clara leaned forward and placed her hand across the page of the book. She had a large scar across her palm that looked like a pentacle but wholly different at the same time. I looked into her eyes and could see that she was imploring me to stay. “Do you want me to continue?” I asked again hoping that finally she would reply. She appeared to consider it for a moment, and then she whispered “Please!” My outward demeanour remained the same but inside I was dancing a touchdown shuffle! I continued reading until the end of the day.
Our sessions progressed more rapidly from that point and after several more months of quiet hello’s and whispered goodbyes I decided to change tack. It was Clara’s turn to talk. So I began by asking her little questions like “did you sleep well?” “What’s the food like in this place?” “Would you like me to bring you anything?”
Her answers began as single words. “yes!” “No.” “Maybe?” but slowly Clara began to talk. She told me that she had been researching an ancient cult that had been linked to most of the ancient civilisations. How the god of this ancient cult had punished her for learning to many of its secrets. I listened intently, a Dictaphone recording each of our conversations rather than my having to take notes.
It had taken six month’s but I felt that Clara was well on the way to recovery and I gleefully expounded my success With Professor Nolby. I played for him the tapes of Clara talking and discovered to my disgust that some fault of the device had caused it to clearly record my own voice but to render Clara’s voice as muffled and incomprehensible. Later that evening I listened to each of the tapes in turn and was dismayed to find that all of the tapes were useless.
As I strained to hear what Clara was saying I began to fancy that I could hear inhuman voices chanting and the thumping of tribal drums. But I discounted it as the stress of the late night and retired to my bed. That night my dreams were encircled by a dark and bilious fog through which strange shapeless creatures undulated and writhed within its nameless darkness. Inhuman voices chanted “Ia Ia Chtulhu fhatagan” to the beat of distant drumming. I awoke in such a state that it was impossible to return to sleep.
As I entered the rec room for our next session it was as if a shadow had fallen over Clara. When she saw me the smile faded from her face and she said “I want to show you my room” and that was that. She led me down the hall and signalled that I should open the door and enter first. I was taken a back upon entering.
The phrase “That is not dead which can eternal lie and with strange eons even death may die.” Covered the walls, the floor, and parts of the ceiling. Photographs of standing stones were scattered about the room. And numerous newspaper clippings had been pinned about the place. My focus was drawn to a large diagram upon the floor that was similar in every aspect to the scar upon Clara’s hand.
A sound drew my eyes up from the floor; I looked to see that Clara had closed the door and crossed the room to the window. She seemed to be chanting but I could not hear what she was saying. I stepped closer and stood on the diagram on the floor. I could see her sad smile reflected in the glass. “Have you figured out why I lost my mind yet professor? Have the dreams started yet?” I responded by reminding her that she had not told me about her dreams but I would listen if she wished to tell me. At that Clara laughed, I had never heard such a hauntingly sad sound before.
Clara turned and I was staggered at the transformation, every detail of her soft features stood in sharp contrast and her beautiful blue eyes seemed more like bottomless pits, in which darkness writhed! My mind began to reel “You know professor, when the great old one appeared before me and showed me the extent of its power. At the time, I thought that I would be lost in the vastness of his presence forever. But your voice has been like a candle in the darkness!”
From somewhere behind her Clara produced a steel blade. She reached toward me. My entire being screamed in horror and I tried to draw back but my feet would not move. The dread growing within me, I looked down at the floor. Clara’s black pentagram now writhed like an inky gelatinous fiend and terror clawed at my heart as I realised I was sinking down into its amorphous blackness.
“NO! This isn’t real!” I screeched as the beautiful but accursed Clara loomed over me. “Yes Professor it is! Ia Ia Chtulhu fhatagan!” The last thing I remember is the coppery taste of blood on my lips. The sound of drums and then the all consuming blackness.
“it’s been five years since that night Dr. Smythe. I can’t put into words what happened to me that night. But Clara was right Bernard it is real. The drums are calling again and your standing in the same place I stood all those moons ago. And now it’s your turn to scream!”
NNNNNOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!