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I know that because of my intended career as a horror writer, most people will dismiss my claims as either a deliberate hoax or some wild fit of imagination. I argue, however, that neither explanation can account for the strange affliction acquired by Dr. Murnangast, his subsequent disappearance, or the bizarre condition of his family’s estate in which the police found it. Still, I wish to God that I could believe it had been just a delusion or an elaborate hoax perpetrated by Dr. Murnangast himself. The consequences of what I’m about to write, if true, are beyond comprehension and rational thought. Perhaps it is better that I remain silent and leave the world in blissful ignorance, but I feel that to do so would jeopardize my own sanity-if it hasn’t already gone.

On the evening of November 2, I went to see my long time mentor and friend Dr. Murnangast. His invitation had come by mail just a week before, briefly asking me to come to his house for dinner. The letter came as a surprise, for we had not spoken since the last day of the Spring semester, when he had informed me that he was quitting the University to devote himself full time to his writing. As I drove toward my old teacher’s estate, I thought about that last day and how much he had changed since the first day I met him three years earlier.

I remember that first day of my sophomore year very clearly. I made sure that I was early to his class, so could sit in the front. This was unusual for me, because being naturally shy, I always sat in the back. I was a big fan of his writing and was eager to learn from him. To me he was the modern Lovecraft or Poe. I waited eagerly as class time grew near and the other students slowly arrived. Dr. Murnangast waited till the last second before making his entrance. He was an impressive sight to behold back then. He walked with a confident stride, his riding boots stepping out a steady rhythm. With his back straight and head held high, he was a paragon of regalia. He wore a gray tweed jacket and his trousers were tucked into his boots. His full head of raven hair showed a tint of blue and his well groomed mustache was curled at the ends. When he stood up to the podium, he gazed out at the students, curling his mustache with his fingers. His dark eyes fell on me and gleamed as though he were reading my thoughts and found them amusing.

But two summers later a change began to manifest itself in Dr. Murnangast. He was a collector of antiques and occult paraphernalia, frequently traveling to support his hobby. That year he had journeyed to New England as he had done often. When he returned he was noticeably pale and seemed unusually excited, his eyes sparkling like a kid. I questioned him about it and when we were alone he explained that he had discovered an ancient manuscript partially written in several languages. The idea intrigued me. I asked to see it, but he said that it was in poor condition and until it was restored no one could see it. He assured me, however, that when the time was right, he would let me see it. As the year went he began to spend all of his free time at his estate and was no longer available after class. He grew more pale everyday it seemed.

At the annual Halloween party, sponsored by the Society of Creative Anachronism, his appearance had become decidedly unhealthy. Being normally a stout fellow, he was unnaturally thin and sickly, his usually snug fitting clothes hanging loosely about him. A strong odor clung to his body and breath. The smell wasn’t body odor-in fact, he appeared rather clean. Rather, it was as if he had been exposed to some fetid miasma for so long that it had been absorbed into his clothes and skin. As president of the Society, Dr. Murnangast began the party every year with a tale or poem befitting the macabre occasion. As usual, he was wearing the ceremonial priest robes of some obscure cult, which he had acquired during one of his expeditions. It was of a black, silk-like fabric, interwoven with silver runes and glyphs. He was absolutely giddy when I saw him before he was to make his presentation. The gleam in his eyes had turned fanatical and he smiled constantly-an unwholesome spectacle in his present condition. The expression seemed almost demonic.

That year’s poem was no different from his previous expositions, except in its gruesome explicitness. The poem, he said, was found in a forgotten volume of lore during one of his travels. Entitled Necrophilia, it was a lurid and detailed account of the ceremonial sacrifice of a maiden and the subsequent violation of her corpse. In his strong musical voice, he spoke with perfect rhyme and meter, the entire one hundred and eleven lines. The assembled throng listened in silence throughout the entire piece, as if mesmerized. I myself was shocked. I was revolted by the gory images the poem conveyed, yet at the same time I was caught up in its flow. It was stirring. It evoked feelings and emotions that I can only describe as originating from my ‘dark’ side. When it was done I found myself applauding with the rest of the crowd.

The biggest change in Dr. Murnangast’s appearance came after the Winter break. When the classes started again, I was shocked to see that he had shaved his mustache and that his hair was beginning to turn white. On the same day, he announced that Weird Tales had agreed to publish his new story, The Betwixt. By the end of the semester, his hair had lost all of its color.

His story was published and received rave reviews. It was about a young writer who buys an odd looking mirror at an antique store. He begins having strange visions that inspire him to write stories about them. Eventually, the mirror begins talking to him, telling him what to write. The stories he writes, as dictated by the mirror, are so close to the style and creative genius of Edgar Allen Poe, that critics begin to openly speculate that he has somehow unearthed a treasure of unpublished Poe stories. The writer comes to realize that he is no longer himself; that somehow the mirror has altered his mind and eroded his will-but it is too late. The stories are like a drug to him. He cannot give up his writing. He has become a slave to the mirror. Finally, at the end, he realizes that the spirit of Edgar Allen Poe-somehow contained within the mirror-was slowly possessing his body.

So, it was with a strange sense of foreboding and anticipation, that I arrived at Dr. Murnangast’s Ravenwood estate, just past sunset. I wondered just how much further the physical and mental deterioration had progressed. The horizon burned with a red twilight as I came to a stop in front of the closed gates. Dr. Murnangast disliked unexpected visitors and normally kept them locked, but I could see that the chain wrapped around only the left gate. I stepped out of my car and was surprised by the chilly autumn air. It hadn’t been that cold when I set out. Despite the chill, I was in no hurry as I approached the gates. There was something unsettling about them. The two flanking columns seemed somehow taller and the mounted ravens more menacing than I remembered. The iron bars were coated with a layer of rust and I thought it was strange that I had never noticed it before on any of my previous visits. I tested the corroded metal. Rusted flakes fell between my fingers, covering them with tiny, red specks. Rubbing my hand against my pants leg, caused most of it to come off, but my hand continued to itch where the rusted flakes had touched it. As I scratched my hand, I glanced through the bars at the road beyond. The shadows there seemed unnaturally distorted and twisted, stretching down the drive in unearthly proportions. I stepped back and kicked the bars with the bottom of my shoe. The rusty hinges squeaked loudly in the silence air as the gate swung open. My eyes shot to the two ravens perched on top of the twin columns to either side. From the corner of my eyes, I was sure I had seen their metallic wings flutter. I got back into my car and drove through the gate, not stopping to close them.

The drive went on for about a hundred yards, with orchards on either side. The bare limbs of ancient oaks reached over the road as if to block the remaining light, gray moss hanging from them like spider webs. It was weird driving under those stoic sentinels. There was something odd in their appearance that my conscious mind could not quite place, yet which none the less put me on edge. Past the orchards, the drive turned left, making a circle in front of the manor house. As the unkempt grounds came into view, I instantly perceived that there was something wrong. The rose hedges bordering the gardens to the right were clearly overgrown, but also gray and sickly looking. Thorny branches stuck out everywhere. Withered pedals clung to their buds. The lawn grass was knee high, yet it appeared as pale and unhealthy as the roses. A large pile of decayed leaves lay up against the house as though clinging to it, surrounding the building as far as I could see.

The edifice itself was a strange mix of architecture. Gray stones, a gabled roof and arched windows gave it a Gothic look, while tall columns and a large porch were clearly antebellum. I couldn’t help but be reminded of the immemorial relics described by Lovecraft and Poe, with their worm-eaten walls and fathomless windows that peered sinisterly outward. In contrast to the dim smouldering of the horizon, the landscape here seemed to glow with a pale radiance, as if bathed in the silvery rays of the moon; yet I knew that was impossible since it was the second night of the new moon. In all, the vista before me was like a nightmarish vision conjured up by one the said authors.

I parked in front of the stone steps leading to the house. When I got out of the car, the air seemed even colder than it had before. I climbed the steps and followed the path to the wide porch. As I passed between the columns that held up the porch overhang, I felt like I was entering a wooded grove. Each pillar had a base as big as an oak and stretched upward almost three stories to reach the dark ceiling above. I gazed up into the shadows half expecting to see the eyes of some arboreal predator staring down at me.

I arrived at the door and pounded the knocker against the wood. I waited a while then knocked again. “Dr. Murnangast,” I yelled. “It’s me, James.” The door opened and a wave of nausea swept over me. A stench exactly like the one I had noticed at the Halloween Ball wafted through the doorway, only a thousand times worse. At the same time I was stunned at what I saw. The man who stood before me was nothing like the man who impressed me so much in my sophomore year. His body was emaciated, the skin on his face and hands stretched so tight that his bones showed through. The pallor of that skin was such that compared to the black robes he was wearing, his skin seemed whiter than snow. His eyes were sunken and lightless-like black holes they seemed to absorb the light around them. Where once was thick, lustrous raven hair, thin, white strands hung down over frail shoulders.

The astonished expression on my face must have been exaggerated, for he seemed to find it amusing. His thin, wasted lips parted, revealing stained and yellowed teeth. “It’s good to see you too, James,” he said in a hollow voice. My spine shivered at the sound. His voice mocked its former self.

“Dr. Murnangast!” I said in overt surprise. My mouth opened to ask him what had happened, but I stopped short, leaving my jaw dangling. “Are… you all right?” I finally managed to say.

“Yes, James, I feel fine,” he said, seeming to enjoy my astonishment. “As a matter of fact, you could say that I’ve never been better in my entire life.”

I stared openly at his appalling visage, not knowing what to say or do. His change was worse than I could have ever imagined. After an awkward silence, he stepped back and asked me to come in. Beyond the door was a small entrance room with a wooden closet and an umbrella urn. An old fashion oil lamp sat on a stand against the wall, providing the only source of light. He reached for the lamp and, despite his sickly demeanor, lifted it with ease. It was then that I really took note of his clothing. He was wearing the ceremonial priest robe he usually saved for the Halloween Ball, but there were dark red stains covering the black fabric in a way that didn’t appear random. They seemed to form definite patterns and designs similar to the cryptic symbols already woven into the occult garb. I was afraid to ask if the sinister looking stains were dried blood.

He offered to take my jacket, but I declined. It was as cold in here as it was outside-though I didn’t mention that fact to Dr. Murnangast, who seemed unperturbed by the cool air. He lead me into the main hallway. As we walked I could hear the bones of his joints scraping against one another. Still, he showed no outward sign of discomfort.

By the dim light of the lamp, I could see the thick layer of dust covering everything. Even without the dust the place held an aura of antiquity. Relics of all sorts decorated the hall; from paintings and tapestries, to chairs and cabinets, it was a menagerie of timeless wonders which seemed more of a museum than anyone’s home. Whenever I would come to visit, as soon as I stepped through the door, it was as though I were crossing the boundaries of time and into the myriad, mystic worlds of the past. But now, as I looked around and the gritty smell of dust and age mingled with that strange fetid odor, it felt like a shroud of ancient death had descended upon the house, pressing down on me like the close, hoary walls of a tomb. I shivered spasmodically as a chill ran through me even colder than the frosty air.

“Are you ready for dinner?” Dr. Murnangast asked. I nodded and we headed down the hall toward the dining room.

The dining room was just as musty and age ridden as the hallway. More grime-covered paintings and antique furnishings bedizened the large chamber, while an empty fireplace yawned cold and somber against the inner wall. The gothic carvings on the mantle writhed and shifted in disconcerting ways as the light of the lantern swept across its obsidian surface. At the center of this gloomy hall was a huge dining table, covered with a tablecloth now gray with time and dust. Tarnished silverware, soiled glasses and filthy plates set in their proper places around the table, as though left for some long ago dinner that never transpired. Eight chairs surrounded the table, one at each end and three to a side. The wood of the chairs, I remember, was once a polished cut of ebony. The cushions were of fine cloth, embroidered in bright floral patterns, but now the plush, colorful seats were dull and faded, the wood covered with a gray fungus. The pungent stench of rot rose stronger than before. My nostrils flared as the fetid air burned them. I hadn’t eaten for hours, yet I had to fight the urge to throw up. “God!” I gasped, covering my mouth and nose.

The Doctor turned to me with what I thought was a quizzical expression-it was hard to tell with his features such as they were. Then he looked at the table as if noticing it for the first time. “Oh, yes, I see,” he responded in what probably was an attempt to sound nonchalant, but he was visibly surprised or embarrassed. His eyes sunk deeper into their sockets amid a grave expression of consternation. His free hand went up and attempted to curl the mustache that was no longer there. He looked down at his hand like it had betrayed him. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but all that came out was a wheezing sign.

“Dr. Murnangast, are you all right?” I asked, taking a step toward him. At the same time, memories of the Halloween Ball and the foul odor wafting from his body evoked a sudden aversion at the prospect of touching or even getting near his person. Luckily, I was saved from my dilemma when the Doctor held up a hand to stop me.

“I’ll be fine,” he said. “I’ve been so caught up in my work lately that I sometimes forget what day it is.” He looked at the table again. “I must apologize for the mess. I haven’t had time to clean, but if you give me a minute I can-“

“No, no, that’s OK,” I interrupted. “I’m not hungry.” Despite my empty stomach, I don’t believe I could have held down anything while breathing that terrible foetor.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” I said. “But why don’t we sit down and talk while you eat?”

“Talk, yes. Let us talk, but I do not require any food.”

“Doctor, please. You look ill. You need to eat something.”

“I assure you, I have never felt better in my entire life.”

“Please, I insist. I might not be a medical doctor, but I can plainly see that you’re malnourished.”

“Yes, yes, that’s it,” he said, suddenly excited. “You see with your eyes, your earthly eyes. You see exactly what they tell you to see-a physical device for observing the physical world. But what does your mind tell you? What does it see? My mind says that you think I’m crazy. Your mind reasons that I’m crazy because the logic of the physical world dictates it, but my mind also sees in you the capacity to look beyond the mere physical to the infinite possibilities beyond. I saw it in you the first time we met.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that. It was worse than I had feared. He had lost all hold on reality. Yet what he had just mentioned about that first day of class when he had looked at me with that strange glint in his eye-it was as if he had actually looked into my soul!

“Even now I can see that you want to believe, but your rational mind forbids it. Like the dreamer who wants to awaken, you struggle to lift the heavy veil from your eyes, but find it difficult to shed the comforting embrace of sleep.”

“Doctor,” I protested. “Please! You invited me over for dinner, so let’s sit down and continue this over dinner.”

“Ah, hungry after all, are we?”

“No! Doctor, you must eat something. I insist. If you want me to hear you out then you have to eat, or I’ll leave!”

“Blackmail, James?” he said in mock surprise. He started to say something else, but broke out into a coughing fit.

I was suddenly embarrassed by the way I had tried to strong-arm my mentor. “I’m sorry,” I said, placing a hand on his shoulder. Under his robe, his shoulder felt like bare bone.

“It’s OK. I’ll be fine. I appreciate your concern, James, but food, being of an earthly nature, only reinforces the ties to the physical world. My aim is to slip these mortal bonds. My mind must be free of all contaminants. My body must be pure tonight.”

Dr. Murnangast needed help. I thought about leaving right then to get some, but I had no idea who to contact, especially at such a late hour. On the other hand if I stayed there and played along, I might find the source of his delusions, a clue to his recovery. “What’s so special about tonight?” I asked.

“Come on, James. Don’t pretend that you don’t know.”

“It’s a new moon?” I offered, not really knowing what he was getting at. I did, however, remember that according to certain occult lore, the new moon was the preferred time for casting ‘black’ magic, while the full moon was desired for ‘white’ magic. Traditionally, witches of both ‘colors’ held their ceremonies, or sabbats, at night under their respective moons. A period of ritual fasting was usually observed beforehand to purify the body and mind, so that the mystical energies involved could flow through them unhindered.

“Yes, but it’s not just an ordinary new moon,” the Doctor replied. “Tonight, it happens to coincide with a very special event-a once in a lifetime occurrence! Think James. What is today?”

It was November 2, two days after Halloween. Halloween? An idea pop into my head. “Samhain?”

“Exactly, James!” he said in triumph before falling into another coughing fit. “This conjunction…happens…once…a century.”

Samhain was the ancient celebration of the Celtic new year and the end of the harvest season. All the crops that weren’t harvested before then were left in the field as a gift to the elves, nymphs and fairies that the Celts believed inhabited the earth. Also called Hallowmass, it was the time when they paid homage to the dead; for they believed that the barrier separating this world from the next was at its weakest, allowing the souls of the departed to once again walk among the living. But like so many other holidays through the years, Hallowmas, or Halloween, has become a watered-down commercialized/Christianized version of a much older celebration whose original significance has long been forgotten. Still, even today certain pagan cults recognize Samhain as one of their most important holy days.

“But I thought Samhain was on October 31,” I said, confused.

“Do the solstices and equinoxes fall on the same day every year?” Dr. Murnangast asked in response. “No. The moon and the stars make their own time, and the seasons follow a calendar much grander than the one mankind knows. There are things in the universe, James, that are much older and wiser than mankind will ever be.”

Now the Doctor was beginning to scare me. He sounded as if he were acting out one of his stories. What he had just said about cosmic designs and things older than man was so Lovecraftian that it spurred visions of the Great Old Ones and Mighty Cthulhu, dreaming in his watery vault, waiting since time immemorial for the stars to return to their places in the sky, when ancient R’lyeh shall rise from the bottom of the sea, and Great Cthulhu shall awaken from his slumber to once again tread his monstrous feet upon the earth.

Of course, I knew that such ideas were nothing more than the fanciful imaginations of a lonely, maladjusted recluse, yet they never failed to inspire a claustrophobic fear in me; a feeling that mankind was constantly surrounded by infinite unseen forces, so vast and terrible that the mere knowledge of their existence would drive a man insane.

“Doctor, I’m not sure I know what you’re trying to tell me. Why exactly did you invite me over for?”

“Impatient as usual,” he said with a sigh. “Do you remember that book I promised to show you?”

“The one written in several languages?” I said. After all that time listening to him talk about it, was I finally going to see it?

“The same,” he replied. “I’m ready to show it to you now. Follow me.” He walked back into the main hall and went along the wall to a spot opposite the stairs. With his back to me I couldn’t see what he did, but after some brief fumbling sounds a section of wall moved slightly, revealing the outline of a door. Dr. Murnangast pushed on the wall and the section pivoted around a central axis, opening to a dark passage beyond. Without pausing he entered, carrying the lantern with him, casting the hallway into shadows.

I stepped into the entrance and was assaulted by the most hellish and dank air imaginable. Like the exhalation from the foulest of swamps it wafted through the door with the maleficent odor of a demon’s breath. Undoubtedly, it was the source of that ungodly stench that permeated the place. I shivered in revulsion as well as from the simple fact that the draft was cold, unbelievably so. Dr. Murnangast left me no time to adjust to the noxious, icy vapor as he disappeared down the narrow steps just within the doorway, taking the only source of light with him. Covering my nose, I quickly followed, the shadows chasing me as I went.

The walls of that cramped passage were once made of brick, I think, but were now so covered by a slimy, gray mildew that I couldn’t tell. I held my nose and tried breathing through my mouth, yet somehow I could still smell that terrible odor-even worse, I could taste it. The stairs ended in a small room about twenty feet square. Moldy boxes and rotting crates were stacked everywhere. The only free space was a narrow path leading to a door in the opposite wall. The air seemed heavier down here, thicker with corruption and decay. I began holding my breath for short intervals, trying to limit the number of times I had to breathe that poisonous atmosphere, but all it seemed to do was make the few breaths I took that much worse. I even held back the multitude of questions that came to mind, so that I would not have to take in the necessary air to voice them.

Dr. Murnangast went straight for the door without taking any apparent notice of the ruins around him, as if the rotting heaps were nothing unusual. He threw open the door with an air of triumph and shimmering rays of light poured forth from the open portal, bathing him in a watery glow. He paused there for a moment, basking in the flickering radiance like a sunbather at the beach, his head cocked in a queer way, listening to music that only he could hear. The strange, blissful expression on his face made me shudder for some reason and I was glad when he finally moved through the door.

As strange as the night had been so far, I was totally unprepared for what I was to encounter next. The room beyond was the center and source of all the cancerous rot and disease which infected the Murnangast estate. The fetid air was so laden with filth and corruption that it had condensed into a kind of putrid mist, covering everything with a slimy, viscous substance. It oozed down the walls and dripped from the ceiling like pus from a open wound. Flames from a myriad candles flooded the chamber with an eerie, uncertain illumination. Shadows cast by the light played and danced upon the walls, making the oozing stones appear almost alive. The net effect of the dim light, damp air and shifting walls was to create the impression that I was underwater, at the bottom of an ocean. The whole room seemed to undulate and sway back and forth, as if to the pull of some great tidal force.

I became instantly sick. I couldn’t stand that terrible smell anymore, nor the hundreds of thousand slimy tendrils of mist brushing against my face. My empty stomach retched, trying to expel what was not there. My head spun. Every fiber of my being wanted to get out of there, yet I couldn’t move. My legs had turned to jelly. I could barely stand. I’m still amazed I didn’t collapse.

I’m not sure exactly what happened next. I think I blacked out for a second. I know I didn’t fall. It was like waking from a dream, except I was standing on my feet. Everything was black and I no longer smelled that odor. I said I couldn’t see, but I knew something was in front of me. I felt its presence. Actually, it felt like a he, not an it. I could feel a consciousness, a mind at work before me-and it could feel me! The darkness began to take shape and that odor started to creep back. The consciousness I felt began to fade as a definite form coalesced in front of me and as my own mental faculties started to return, I wondered if it had ever really been there. When I finally recognized the object materializing before me, I realized that the presence I had detected had merely been my own reflection. At some point during my blackout spell I must have walked across the room, for I was no longer where I had been next to the door. Instead, I found myself at the far wall, staring into a dark mirror; yet it was like no mirror I had ever seen. Its intricately carved silver frame writhed in the flickering candle light like coiled snakes. There was no apparent pattern to its design, no symmetry between the four sides. Even more unusual was the actual looking glass itself. The polished black surface projected only vague, shadowy images. It was no wonder I had mistaken my distorted reflection for a stranger.

Despite the weird nature of the mirror, or perhaps because of it, I found the glass utterly fascinating. The images on its dark surface were so strange, so unlike myself, that it seemed as if I was gazing at the reflection of someone else. If that were true, could that person see my reflection? I kept staring into the mirror trying to pierce the veil of distortion, so I could see into the virtual world beyond. The more I looked, the more solid and three-dimensional the images appeared. The glass became less and less like a mirror and more and more like a window. I began to think that if I reached my hand out it would pass through the surface. I raised my hand and watched as my dark counterpart raised a distorted appendage in response. With a dream-like slowness our hands began to converge on each other, and I was struck with the impression that I was standing on another planet, about to make contact with an alien being!

A shadow suddenly rose up behind my counterpart, materializing out of the black background. With no definite shape it seemed like the hideous outline of some unnamable monster. It grew rapidly, expanding like a giant amoeba until it engulfed my reflection, completely filling the surface of the mirror. “Don’t touch the Mirror,” Dr. Murnangast commanded behind me. “You are not ready yet.” Jumping at the sound of his voice, I turned and was startled by what I saw. The pupils of his eyes had grown so large that they filled the sunken recesses of his sockets. There was no white to them that I could see. Even more unnerving were the murky images moving inside the glassy orbs. It was like looking into that dark mirror all over again. “Fascinating, isn’t it?” he said.

The macabre parody of the smirk he gave when we first met brought home all the changes which had come over him in the past year. I realized that he was no longer the same man I knew, and never would be again; yet even then as I did before, I was overcome with a certainty that he could gaze into the deep well of my soul and lift out secrets about myself that even I did not know. For the first time that night, after all the bizarre things I had witnessed, I felt fear-fear of a very real and specific danger. It was suddenly obvious to me that Dr. Murnangast was so lost in his own world that there was no way of knowing what he was capable of doing. If while trying to help him I began to threaten his little world, he might even try to kill me! In his insanity he might not even know what he had done. My heart was pounding a mile-a-minute. My head spun. I could feel the adrenaline rushing through my veins. I wanted to bolt and run, but he was standing between me and the door. “What is it?” I asked, saying the first thing that came to me.

“Don’t you know?” he asked in return. I shook my head. “I think you do, James.” His eyes probed me, trying to pluck the answer out of my head. I hesitated. The wrong word could set him off. “Use your imagination,” he instructed. Light and shadow rippled across his eyes as he spoke. “What have I been trying to tell you all night?”

Instantly I recalled the distorted reflections in the mirror and the strange feeling of another world. For a moment I thought I could actually see the exact same alien landscape in the depths of his eyes. “A window,” I replied. “It was like looking through a window.”

“See, I knew you had it in you.”

I was shocked by easily the answer came to me. All of the doctor’s raving actually started to make sense. I found myself half believing it. Part of me wanted to. “It’s just a mirror,” I said, trying to convince myself.

“Stop rationalizing, James. Trust your instinct. You were right. It is a window…and much more. It is a chance to escape the mortal coils of this mundane world, and journey beyond the Gate of Silence to realities undreamed of by Man, except for the gifted few who have gone before, those in whose possession the Mirror has been passed down through the ages, until today it has come to me! They were granted the opportunity to see and experience, however brief and limited in scope, the boundless, unfathomable expanses of the Cosmos, unknown and unbelieved by mankind, full of wonders and horrors both profound and profane. Some of them even wrote of their experiences in hopes of enlightening this poor, ignorant race, but of course society dismissed their work as mere inspired fiction!”

His words sent a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions through me. I was appalled by their insanity and terrified by their possibilities. I didn’t believe him, however. I couldn’t believe him… but I wanted to. I wanted to believe that my mentor was not totally insane. Perhaps he was insane because what he said was the truth. Perhaps his mind had been blasted by the overwhelming, incomprehensible truth. Yet, what was the truth? I wasn’t sure exactly what he was talking about. Gate of Silence? Was that a reference to Robert Loveman’s collection of poems by the same name? Was he one of the previous owners that the Doctor mentioned? “Doctor, what-where did you find that thing?”

He told me he bought it that same summer he found the Book. They were both being auctioned off at an antique shop in New England, part of a collection of items recently discovered when a demolition team was leveling a block of old buildings. It seems that there was an entire complex of rooms and passages underneath the area that no one had know about. Along with the Book and Mirror there had been a strange assortment of artifacts, including three wooden tubes sealed with wax, a clay bowl of apparently native American origin with a suspicious dark stain, and a mummified hand. Dr. Murnangast said he would have bought them all if he could have, but another gentleman out bid him for them. It took a sizable portion of his savings just to get the Book and Mirror.

As he told his story, I felt the same morbid thrill I always get whenever I read a good horror story. The tale touched my imagination. It was straight out of Lovecraft. So much so, that my logical mind saw it as more proof that the Doctor was caught up in his own fantasy. It was just another part of his delusion. Yet that part of me that loves the night and dreams of old cemeteries under eldritch moons kept asking the same question over and over. What if it were true? What if it were true? “Where’s the book?” I asked, eager to see the now infamous tome. I had a feeling that one way or another it would prove the truth of his story.

He led me over to a large desk on the opposite side of the room. As I walked, the slimy substance covering the floor stuck to the bottom of my shoes, making a disgusting squishing sound with each step I took. I was instantly reminded of the cloying vapor filling the air and I was disturbed at how fast I had grown accustomed to its foul stench. Before each placement of my foot, I cringed inwardly, shuddering whenever I felt the gelatinous tendrils pulling at my shoes. I tried not to think about it, but the oozing, dripping mass was everywhere, covering everything. To my loathing, I noticed that some of it had even dripped on me. I began to panic, but fought off the impulse to flee. It was only mildew, I told myself, some form of slime-mold or similar organism.

The desk was cluttered with books, paper and the stumps of used candles. In the center of this mess, like an altar to chaos, was a tall book stand upon which rested a large object wrapped in what must have once been rich velvet. The fabric was now stained with gray mildew. Standing beside him, I watched as Dr. Murnangast unwrapped the cloth. While the last folds of the fabric fell away, an immense foreboding came over me as though my life was about to be inevicably changed.

“Behold,” he pronounced. “As promised, I give you the collected works of Lovecraft, Poe and a dozen or so authors spanning five hundred years.”

So overwhelmed was I by the sight of the Book that the importance of the Doctor’s words did not at first impose itself upon my mind. The ancient tome was bound in black leather, worn yet in remarkably good condition. A design of some sort was carved into the front cover. My eyes tried to follow the lines, but became quickly lost. The sputtering light thrown off by the candles caused the pattern to shift and blur beyond distinction. I had the wild notion that I was looking at the dreaded Necronomicon itself!

“What?” I said in disbelief as the Doctor’s words finally came to me. I turned my head toward him, but found that I could not take my eyes away from the ominous appearing tome.

“Yes, extraordinary isn’t it? I could hardly believe it myself when I opened the Book for the first time and found hand written pieces by Poe and Lovecraft. Indeed, it is the most singular discovery in literary history!”

The Doctor was right, it was unbelievable. It was too wonderful to be true; and yet what if it were true? Without any conscious intent I reached for the black tome. Just before my fingers touched the leather cover Dr. Murnangast grabbed my hand. “Not yet,” he explained. “We must do this properly. Before the Book can be passed on to the next owner there is a particular ritual that must be followed. Otherwise, the transition will not be complete. It must be done before I leave tonight.”

To say that I was shocked by his announcement would not be quite accurate, for I was still in a state of shock over the very existence of the Book. Imagine how you would feel if someone showed you a heretofore unknown painting by van Gogh and then before you even finished looking at it suddenly announced that he was giving it to you. No words can truly describe how I felt. Here was a collection of hand written works by Lovecraft and Poe-and it was to be mine! It seemed too impossible. I stared at the dark, mysterious cover and wondered if I might be dreaming.

The Doctor began to tell some of the history of the Book, but I must confess I was only half listening at the time. I was hypnotized by the cryptic design on the cover of the volume. He went on to explain that the text was more than just a collection of poems. It contained everything the authors experienced and learned from the Mirror. According the Book’s first owner, a dubious monk named Bartolomeo, the Mirror was found by the Inquisition during a raid on a pagan cult. No mention was made about the construction of the Book itself. From the very first night he owned the Mirror, Dr. Murnangast said he began dreaming of other worlds and places. As he read through the poems left by the authors, he learned how to guide his nightly flights through the outer realms of sleep, exploring lands peopled by strange men and terrible beasts. He realized that some of these were the exact same vistas and landscapes visited by Lovecraft and Poe-that these ethereal journeys were the very source of the authors’ literary visions of horror. He knew then that the Mirror was a nexus, a link to other dimensions normally inaccessible to Man. He also realized that the Mirror was only partially open, but that when fully opened would allow a person to completely leave this world, both in mind and body. As he closed in on the last entry he began to recognize a pattern behind the poems. Each rhyme was a piece of a puzzle, a clue to a much greater secret that would only be revealed when the last of the pieces was discovered. When the doctor finally reached the last entry in the Book, it all began to come to together. Every line was a revelation leading him on to the next, so that when he was finished he knew instinctively what the next paragraph in the Book should be. Like a seed that had been planted in his mind, a poem began to unfold within him. The words flowed out of his pen, filling the blank pages. Creative energies that had laid dormant and untapped suddenly were released.

As Dr. Murnangast told his story, his voice rose and fell dramatically in a kind of weird rhythm, building to a frenzy before dropping to a whisper. I became entranced by his words, the same way I did a year ago at the Halloween Ball. Though his voice lacked the same sonorous qualities it used to have-and in fact there was nothing aesthetically pleasing to it at all-there was, however, a subtle note of power and confidence, as from one who saw with absolute clarity his role in the workings of the universe. Like the slow, but irresistible force of the ocean tides, his words wore down the firmament of my skepticism, carrying away with each rise and fall of his breath a well established piece of logic. All the constructs of reason and common sense that holds our rigid, three-dimensional world together fell to nothing under the waves of insane impossibilities that crashed against my mind. It was madness, absolute madness, but at the core of all madness lies truth, and I could not doubt the truth any longer.

Still staring at the dark grimoire, it was some time before I realized that Dr. Murnangast had stopped speaking. I could have sworn that someone had been talking to me the entire time, whispering sibilantly just below the level of understanding. The shadows in the room suddenly grew darker as the candles sputtered dimly to a wind that could not be felt. The shifting designs on the Book appeared to respond to the changing light, seeming to cut deeper into the black leather, taking on a more sinister aspect.

“The time is nigh!” the Doctor announced. “We must prepare ourselves. The ultimate destiny of the Book is about to be fulfilled!”

Dr. Murnangast’s words combined with the sudden darkening of the room brought me out of my trance. There was a palpable sense of foreboding in the air, in the way the shadows seemed to gather themselves. I noticed that Doctor was not where he had been when he had unveiled the Book. While my mind had been occupied, he had moved around to the opposite side of the desk. Now he was coming back around. His eyes glowed with a wild intensity. I couldn’t have thought it possible, but he looked even more like a walking corpse than ever. His skin was pulled so tight around his face that I could see the outline of his teeth though his lips. He reached into his robes and pulled out a primitive looking knife carved out of a green-gray stone. “Doctor!” I cried. I tried to step backwards, but the slime covered floor clung desperately to the bottom of my shoes, holding me fast. I held up my arm to protect myself. With a dexterity that surprised me, Dr. Murnangast lashed out and grabbed my defending hand.

“The power of knowledge does not come without its price,” he said. “You must give something of yourself to the Book before it will offer up its secrets.” I tried to pull away as he brought the knife near my captured hand, but I could not shake his grip. In helpless terror I watched as the stone blade slid effortlessly down my index finger, leaving a thin trail of crimson in its path. “Only the life-blood of the owner can bind him to the Book,” Dr. Murnangast continued. Pain shot down my finger. Blood spurted out of the wound in a series of pulses, each beat of my heart shooting another stream into the air. “A little blood is a small price to pay for immortality.“

He guided my hand toward the dark grimoire. My heart pounded with a mix of horror and morbid thrill as I realized what he intended to do. Before I even touched the Book, some of my blood splattered onto the cover. Almost immediately, the precious fluid was absorbed by the black leather. I didn’t resist as Dr. Murnangast placed my bleeding hand on the ancient tome, but the instant my flesh made contact I recoiled in disgust. The leather felt like warm, living skin! With a preternatural strength belying his feeble appearance, the Doctor held my arm in place. He began to speak in a language I couldn’t identify, yet it sparked a sense of the familiar. He chanted the words more than he spoke them, singing them to a music that only his ears could hear.

My head spun. I would have fallen over if Dr. Murnangast hadn’t held me up. With an all too acute awareness I could feel my veins pulse beneath my skin, as each beat of my heart sent another spurt of blood through the rift in my finger. Continuing his chant, the Doctor used my hand to smear the blood over the entire Book. Still the precious fluid kept flowing. It didn’t seem to want to stop. It was as if the leather bound tome was sucking the blood right out of me!

My heart pounded loudly in my head, beating slower and slower, trying to match the rhythm of the Doctor’s chant. The strange yet familiar words, repeated over and over, were hypnotic and soothing in a way. I felt myself slipping out of consciousness. Darkness closed in around me. Like demons, the shadows converged to smother what little light remained. Above it all, I could still hear Dr. Murnangast’s voice repeating the same exotic phrases again and again. Yet even this began to fade as my senses shut down. Then from out of the Darkness emerged blurry spots of color to dance like fireflies before me. For a while I floated there in a sea of blackness, interrupted only by the swarming dots of color. Then one by one they too winked out of existence, turning a dull red before finally being swallowed by the Darkness. I was alone in oblivion.

I drifted through the blackness of unconsciousness expecting at any moment to wake up in my bed. I realized now that I was dreaming, hovering between one dream and the next. Time passed without measure and I slowly became aware that I was not alone. The Darkness itself was alive! I could see it. It was like a hole in space, darker than night and blacker than black. More than just the absence of light, it ate light. It devoured all life and energy. It was a gnawing pit of emptiness, hunger incarnate-and it was growing larger, eclipsing the surrounding void as it moved closer.

I was dying. I realized this with a calm certainty. Even in the dark waters of oblivion I could not deny the truth, for here was the avatar of Death, coming to take me. Somewhere under Ravenwood Manor, I was lying unconscious on the floor, bleeding to death. In fact, I think I could feel my hand itch as the blood spilled through the open wound on my finger. I was sprawled out behind Dr. Murnangast’s desk, or perhaps he had dragged me off to a hidden altar to be sacrificed in the name of some forgotten god his twisted mind had obsessed upon. That might be what the whole night had been about-to lure me to his house so that he could trap me in his web of occult intrigues.

The moment of the End was upon me as the giant maw drew near. Already I felt the cold embrace of Death as the life slipped out of me. Yet I felt no fear. I was surprisingly content with my fate. It seemed funny that, contrary to the numerous reports of near death experiences, there was no light at the end of the tunnel, only darkness…the ultimate darkness.

I was sucked into the black hole and began to hear a slow droning sound similar to a whale’s song, but hauntingly more tragic. It seemed alien as much as it was familiar, like the same notes played on a different instrument. The ‘music’ came from everywhere at once, surrounding me in a wall of sound. It seemed to me, as I floated there in that cold nothingness, that I was merely an observer to the strange song, that it was intended for somebody or something else. My presence was merely incidental. As I floated deeper into the Beast or rather as it floated past and around me, I realized it was calling out to someone as though expecting an answer. But none came. The Beast continued with the droning song, repeating the same long, drawn out series of notes as if it had been doing so for the last thousand years.

I felt something brush against my hand-a real physical sensation, not the insubstantial touch of dreams. I tried to look at my hand, but I couldn’t even tell if my eyes were open or not. All I could see was blackness. I reached out with my hand and pressed my palm against the warm leathery surface I found there. It was coated by a slimy substance, and there was a crisscrossing pattern of raised ridges that pulsed beneath my touch, rubbing against the knife wound on my finger, creating an itching sensation that was at once uncomfortable and strangely pleasurable. The heart-like pulsing formed a steady rhythm over which the alien song played in a slow harmonic dance.

The itching-tickling sensation in my finger became more pronounced, moving deeper into the wound as if the pulsing ridges were burrowing into my flesh. Like an infection I could feel it spread up my finger, snaking through my veins until the entire digit throbbed with the beat of a heart that was not my own. I couldn’t pull away. Perhaps, I didn’t want to. I was irrevocably linked to whatever it was that was out there. I knew my finger was not entirely mine anymore, and to separate myself would have meant losing the finger. So I did nothing as the pulsing spread from my index finger to my middle finger and into my palm, until every vein in my right hand throbbed with alien ‘blood’.

I sensed a change in the Beast’s song, a note of expectation. More than that, I felt the sudden presence of an enormous potential, like the build-up of static charge just before lightning strikes. I knew that something big was about to occur, like a thousand year old cycle coming to its conclusion, a conjunction of planets and stars never seen in modern astronomy. I suddenly realized just how insignificant I was in the vast scheme of things. As if from far away I thought I heard a bell toll. One, two, three. With each ring, tiny points of light began to pierce the Darkness. Four, five, six. Shadowy images coalesced in front of me. Seven, eight, nine. The points of light grew into tiny flames that danced back and forth. Ten, eleven, twelve. At last the cold, damp basement came into focus as I returned to consciousness.

Everything was exactly the way I remembered it, except Dr. Murnangast was standing in front of the Mirror with his arms raised up, his hands making an occult sign in the air. As the last echoes of the bell faded, I heard Dr. Murnangast whisper, “At last.” The room fell completely still. The tidal motion that had defined every aspect of the room stopped. The candle flames ceased to flicker, the walls no longer crept, even the ceiling stopped dripping. The whole universe held its breath and waited, gathering itself for God knew what. Dr. Murnangast turned and looked at me. “I have waited my entire life for this moment, and the Cosmos has waited for eternity.” He paused as if expecting me to say something, but I was utterly speechless. Through his watery orbs, I saw a million stars staring back at me. “There is one blank page left; and after I am gone, it will be up to you to fill it. When the time comes, your hand will know what to write.”

I glanced down, instantly recalling that vicious knife wound and bizarre dream from which I had only just awoke. My palm still rested on the black grimoire. I had a sudden fear that I might not be able to wrest it from the ancient cover, but with a quick jerk my hand came free, creating a noisome sucking sound as it tore loose. I was free of that evil Book! My finger was swollen and red, and covered with drying blood. The inch and a half long cut was an ugly shade of purple. The Book itself seemed bloated, its black leather engorged on my blood.

Dr. Murnangast shouted something I couldn’t understand, but it sounded like a single word. Almost simultaneously all the candles flared brightly, momentarily blinding me. “O friend and companion of the night, thou who rejoices in the baying of dogs and spilt blood, who wanderest in the mist of shades among the tombs, who longest for blood and bringest terror to mortals, Gorgo, Mormo, thousand-faced moon, look favourably on my sacrifice!” When Dr. Murnangast spoke those words, it sent a dreadful chill up my spine, the likes of which I hope you never feel, for I knew those phrases well. They were from the Lovecraft story, The Horror at Red Hook. Any other time and I would have been amused, thrilled even, but after everything that had occurred that night I wished to God that I didn’t understand the meaning of those words.

I struggled to open my eyes, trying to force them to adjust to the bright light. I had to know what the doctor was doing. I could see his darkened form in front of the Mirror, silhouetted by the glow of the myriad candles. He raised his hands and I could see the slender outline of the stone knife. I knew for certain this time I was going to die. Holding it high above his head, he brought the blade against his free hand. His frail body trembled from the effort, as he applied pressure to knife and hand. Very faintly, almost under his breath, I heard him chanting that unknown song. Then something fell, making an unwholesome splat as it hit the floor.

Again Dr. Murnangast shouted something I could not comprehend. All the candles went out, blinding me yet again. Soon though, I noticed that the darkness was not complete. I began to make out three candles with purple flames that grew brighter as my eyes adjusted to the dark. The candles sat on the floor in front of the Mirror in a triangular configuration, and despite their apparent brightness, gave off only a faint illumination. In the Mirror their reflections were only as three tiny points of light in a sky absent of stars.

Dr. Murnangast continued his chanting for a while, pausing occasionally to howl out exotic words I can’t even try to repeat. Eventually he broke into English again. “In Darkness We find, out of Emptiness We are, in the depths of the Mind, from Between the Stars!” Then another unknown verse before speaking those words that are so potently familiar to me. “The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall be; not in the spaces we know, but in between. Yog-Sothoth knows the Gate. Yog-Sothoth is the Gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and the Guardian of the Gate. Iä! Shub-Niggurath!”

I had heard those words before and had even spoke them out loud in jest, amusing myself by wondering what it would be like if such things as black magic really existed, safe in the knowledge that they didn’t; but now I know the truth, the horrible, undeniable truth. I wished I had never heard of the name Cthulhu or of the dreaded Necronomicon. I curse whatever caused me to take an interest in the realms of horror and the macabre, for it was my own morbid propensities that eventually lead me to this house and down into this basement and to this moment of my dark epiphany.

What happened next is hard to explain. I almost thought I had lost consciousness again and was dreaming. The points of light on the surface of the Mirror shimmered and rippled before winking out of existence. The Mirror had turned completely black, blacker than the darkest shadow in the room, darker than night. It was the blackness of emptiness. It was the same ‘color’ as the thing in my dream! Then suddenly the universe opened up before me. I didn’t see it with my eyes; it was as if the mind of God had reached out and implanted the images directly into my head. In an instant all of time and space passed through the room-planets, stars, and even whole galaxies rushed by. There was darkness as well, great seas of nothingness, eating away at the spheres of light and life, boiling over with hunger. I felt a kind of tugging at my soul. For one insane moment I feared I was going to get pulled into the chaos and lose myself in that mad flight toward infinity.

Then just as suddenly as they had appeared, the images were gone, leaving me once again in the dark, damp basement. Dr. Murnangast had stopped his chanting. The stillness hung like a shroud over the room, forbidding me to move or speak. The candles had gone out, yet after a moment I noticed that the room was filled with a dim illumination. The surface of the Mirror was still black, but it glowed like a blank television screen right after you turn it off. An image slowly began to appear-hazy and indistinct at first, but gradually focusing and growing in brightness until a shimmering picture of a city filled the Mirror-if it was a city. Its architecture was so phantastic, so alien that it was impossible for me to say for sure what it was. It was definitely a structure of some kind, made up entirely of a white, luminescent material put together seamlessly so that it looked like one gigantic piece, carved, chiseled, molded or otherwise formed into its present shape. There wasn’t any lines or edges to indicate that it had been artificially constructed at all. It was unwholesomely smooth. I had the bizarre impression that the thing had been grown-that it was alive! The fact that it shimmered with its own internal glow only reinforced that impression. The light emitting from the material was very faint, but the size of the structure was so great that the combined glow illuminated both sides of the Mirror. In truth, it was the only tangible source of light, for the small bit of sky I saw above the city was black and featureless, totally devoid of color.

“It’s wonderful,” Dr. Murnangast whispered. “Isn’t it wonderful, James?” His voice rose to a shout. “Behold! All of time and space lies open before us! Is it not more than you have ever dreamed?” It was certainly more than I had ever dreamed. I could never in my wildest dreams have ever imagined something so horribly alien as what lay beyond the surface of that mirror. If only I could say that it had been more than I had ever wanted to dream.

If the doctor had expected a reply he didn’t wait very long before continuing. “Observe, James, and remember this moment. For the first time a man shall cross the bridge into another world. The first of a million, million worlds. The entire Cosmos is mine!” He took a step toward the shimmering city.

Though a small part of me was still excited by the events going on around me, for the most part I did not share my mentor’s enthusiasm. I was overcome by a terrible fear of what was beyond that dark looking glass. Like some preternatural sixth sense, I could feel a presence on the other side; a lurking menace of evil intelligence. “No, Dr. Murnangast, don’t do it!” I warned, but he was already in a place where my words could not reach him. He didn’t notice as he knocked over two of the purple candles, breaking the triangle. He reached out a hand toward the plane of the Mirror. Silhouetted against the soft glow of the city, I could clearly see that his index finger was missing. The touch of his remaining three digits sent ripples across the surface as his hand passed through the Mirror. That didn’t really surprise me, but I was shocked when the ‘glass’ started to run over the frame of the Mirror and onto the wall, like water overflowing the rim of a bathtub! Amazingly, the liquid didn’t fall to the floor, but hugged the wall as if gravity was pulling it in that direction. Uncaring, Dr. Murnangast stepped through the frame and onto the streets of the alien city. The strange fluid began filling the room. Stretching like a wall from floor to ceiling, it slowly crept its way toward me. I wanted to flee, but Dr. Murnangast was on the other side and despite everything I still felt some loyalty toward the man who had been my mentor for so long. I could not leave him.

The wall hit with much less force than I expected. It was like facing into a strong wind. I could feel the increase in pressure not only on my face, but all around me. I felt instantly lighter, as though I was wading in a pool, supported by a buoyant force that was much less than that of water, but significant none the less. I looked around in amazement as a shimmering haze covered the entire room. My lungs began to burn from the effort of holding my breath.

Dr. Murnangast wandered out of my field of view, happily exploring the alien city like a kid in a candy store. Foolishly, I made a move to go after him when something floated in through the Mirror. It reminded me of some monstrous creature from the depths of the ocean. Over a foot long, it had spikes on top and short tentacles on its belly. At what must have been its head were three longer tentacles. I panicked when I saw it, accidentally breathing in the surrounding liquid. To my surprise, I found that I could breathe the stuff with no problem. It felt heavy in my lungs, but there was no pain. The creature floated over to the purple-burning candle that was left standing. When I thought that it was turned away I ducked behind the desk. Pulling out my pocket knife, I crawled into the recess under the desk, expecting at any moment to see the monster swimming around the corner after me. Seconds passed and nothing happened. When it became clear that the creature hadn’t noticed me I began to take stock of my situation. I took two deep breaths with no ill effects and was amazed at how easy it was. By all known science I should have been dead, but somehow this ‘liquid air’ provided enough oxygen for me to breathe. I waved my hand back-and-forth, and met hardly any resistance.

It was then that I realized something. How was it that I was able to see? There was no shadow cast by the desk. I should have been lost in darkness, sitting where I was underneath the desk, but the space was illuminated by the same hazy glow as the rest of the room. It was the liquid! The glow was coming from the ‘air’ all around me! I peered closer and there they were-millions of minute amoeba-like things, floating everywhere and covering everything, their amorphous bodies shedding the dimmest of light. Only their multitude allowed them to be noticed at all. How many had I unknowingly inhaled? What were they doing inside my lungs right now? Were they still alive, infesting my body? It occurred to me that maybe they were the reason I could breathe at all. I was reminded of that fetid odor of dampness and rot that had permeated the place. My sense of smell had almost become accustomed to it, but even now through this liquid I could smell it.

I held my breath-if that is what you would call it. I was determined not to take any more of those things into my lungs. I crawled out from under the desk, looking toward the door to see if there was anything blocking my escape. The door stood open, the way it apparently had been since I had entered. I could see the boxes and crates on the other side. They were bathed in the same spectral light that covered the rest of the basement. Just how far did the ‘liquid-air’ extend? Was it still expanding or had it stopped? It couldn’t go on forever. There had to be a limit somewhere.

I peeked over the top of the desk and quickly ducked back down, taking several short breaths of that noxious liquid, despite my inhibitions at doing so. There were now at least a dozen or so of those larger, fearsome creatures; one of them disturbingly close to the desk! I was trying to work up enough courage to make a run for it when I heard Dr. Murnangast shout, “Oh, my God! What are you doing?” What followed next was the sound of absolute terror; a sound that a man only makes once in his life, just before he dies. To my shame I did nothing as I listened to my mentor scream. I huddled beneath the desk like a coward, too afraid to move or lift a finger to help the man who had once been my friend. It has been said that a coward dies a thousand deaths; I have died every night since, waking up in terror, screaming in a vain attempt to drown out the voice of my friend, crying out from beyond the grave, asking me why I did nothing to save him.

I don’t know how long I coward in the recess of the desk before I realized Dr. Murnangast had stopped screaming. In another vain attempt to escape the unbearable horrors around me, my consciousness had retreated into the lower depths of my mind. I remember running down streets of smooth white stone, past windowless buildings of impossible architecture, trying to escape a presence I could not see, but which I knew was there anyway. The streets twisted and curved in on themselves, always bringing me back to where I started. I felt like I was trapped in one of those phantastic drawings by Escher. Then finally the awful silence caught up with me. Like pitch dripping from the black sky above, it burned the truth into my brain. Dr. Murnangast was dead.

My mind snapped-I know that is what you are thinking as you read this. In all honesty, I can’t deny it. After all that I had witnessed that night, hearing the death of my mentor had been the final straw that sent me spiraling down into madness; but fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately for me, that madness was not complete. The human mind has a great capacity for regeneration. It was that most basic of instincts, self-preservation, that brought me back from the abyss. The ominous silence that choked the room called out to me like a warning-now that whatever it was had finished with Dr. Murnangast it would come for me next unless I made my escape.

After a quick peek to make sure the way was clear, I scrambled out of my hiding place and gathered my feet under me to spring up into a run. Just before I was to make my move I saw the tips of three tentacles poke around the corner of the desk, near the top. I froze. I don’t know if it was just my warped perception of the moment or if the creature was moving slow, but I crouched there for agonizing seconds, watching as the tentacles grew longer and longer, wondering if they were going to keep on growing; that maybe an even larger and more ferocious version of those creatures had slipped through the Mirror while I had been unaware. When the monstrous head finally came into view I swung my pocket knife at it as hard as I could, stabbing at it with a ferocity inspired by mortal fear. All three inches of the blade buried itself in the head, so that my hand slammed into its spiny exoskeleton. It wasn’t nearly as hard as it looked, and the blow didn’t so much crush the head as it did squash it. Black fluid gushed out, spreading like a cloud, obscuring its body from view.

I jerked my hand back in pain, leaving my knife imbedded in the creature. One or more of the spiny projections covering its body had stung me, shooting fire through my nerve endings like a million needles jabbing my flesh. Even as I cradled the wounded hand in my other, I knew that I didn’t have time to worry about it. I knew my confrontation with that hell spawn would surly attract the attention of the rest. Given the fact that now both of my hands were injured, even if I managed to retrieve my knife out of that growing cloud of ink, I doubted I would stand a chance against two or more of them. I had to get out of there.

I scrambled to my feet. I had every intention of racing for the door without looking back, but something moved in the black cloud, freezing me where I stood. For a second, I thought that the creature I had just attacked was still alive; however, the thing that came partially out of the cloud before darting back in did not appear to be injured. Another came swimming around the desk and dived into the nebulous ink. I realized that they were feeding on their dead companion. I backed up. It seemed to me that while they were busy I could sneak by the other way. I turned to go around the desk and there was one coming straight at me.

I don’t know what made me go for the Book. I guess it was the nearest object I could grab. It wasn’t until later, when I had time to recall the event, that I remembered how easily I picked it up. It was surprisingly light for such a ponderous volume. My swollen and bloodied hands latched on to it with no problem. As soon as I had it in my grasp, I swung it around toward the onrushing creature. I didn’t think I was going to make it in time, for I was already in reach of its foot long tentacles, but I twisted my body away as I swung. I felt no impact, yet the thing recoiled from the Book as though it had struck home. Another came at me from the left and I threw the Book out to block it. The creature stopped short and backed up, but it continued to face me, as if it were waiting for an opening.

With my back to the wall, I held the Book out like a shield. More approached and soon I was surrounded by a pack of those alien monstrosities. It was clear that they were somehow frightened or repelled by the black bound grimoire. I recalled the presence I encountered during my dream-the spectre that had haunted me while the Book drank the blood from my hand. Was it possible that these beasts could perceive something in this tome that is not normally detectable by human beings, except perhaps in altered states of consciousness? It is generally believed that animals possess a heightened sense of danger that was lost to Homo sapiens during the process of evolution; and from what I’ve read it is common for mediums to go into a trance before trying to contact the spirits of the deceased. Was it possible? I ran my hand over the surface of the Book and wondered if there had been more reality to my dream than phantasy. Beneath my fingers, the black leather felt as warm and supple as any human flesh. I could almost feel my own blood, pumping beneath its skin. Could the Book somehow really be alive? Even after all that I had seen I still hesitated to believe, but there was something extraordinary about that tome. Perhaps it wasn’t sentient or even alive by the way we understand life, but there was definitely a presence-a force of some kind-a concentration of latent energy. I didn’t completely understand it, yet I could not deny it. Yes, as incredible as it may sound, that the Book was alive!

My hand continued to explore the surface of the Book and I soon forgot about the abyss-spawned creatures around me. Somehow I knew that as long as I possessed that black grimoire I was safe. I had the urge to open it up and peruse its eldritch pages, yet despite my longing to discover its secrets I also feared the cost of such knowledge. The literature is very clear on what happens to the hapless fools who delve into matters that were not meant for mankind. The price for gleaning the dark mysteries hidden inside ancient manuscripts and worm-eaten codices was usually madness and often a gruesome end. After witnessing the fate of Dr. Murnangast, I had no doubt of the validity of those warnings.

Still, in the face of everything I just wrote, I found my old fascinations for all things arcane and macabre as strong as ever. With such an artifact as I now had in my hands I could not resist at the very least exploring its outside cover. It’s shameful, I know-just minutes after the death of my friend-but I was actually starting to enjoy myself, tracing the shifting lines in the leather binding. That forbidden tome had me spellbound, both figuratively and, I believe, literally. Didn’t Dr. Murnangast say the Book was now linked to me? During that blasphemous ceremony, didn’t that black, life-like skin partake of my blood, and in my dark vision inject a part of itself into me? Whatever the case, whether from preternatural causes or from my own morbid propensities, I was inevitably drawn to that mystical grimoire. In particular I was fascinated by the engraved lines on the cover. Their intricate, constantly shifting lines had me hypnotized. How clever the person must have been who had carved the pattern into the leather, so that in the right illumination the lines would actually appear to move. Whenever I would concentrate on a certain spot and wait for it to change, nothing would happen, yet all around the lines would bend and curl into new directions. I became dizzy as my eyes darted back and forth, trying to catch the dancing patterns. Eventually, I discovered that if I unfocused my eyes and stared through the Book, I could see the entire design change before me. It was as if two or more images had been placed on top of each other so that they blurred together. The longer I stared the more I began to recognized the different shapes. They were not just random designs, but a series of glyphs and runes. At first they were the same patterns repeated over and over, but then as if responding to my recognition, new smaller symbols lined up together in the unmistakable form of words. I couldn’t read them, yet it was definitely some sort of writing. The Book was attempting to communicate with me! All trace of the original glyphs had gone, and the carved lines had stopped moving.

The thought that the Grimoire might be trying to communicate with me reinforced my beliefs that my mind and soul were somehow linked to that eldritch text; the implications of which I did not want to think about, yet it hovered at the back of my mind like a pall of doom, casting a shadow across all of my thoughts. Then as if my eyes had just opened up, I noticed how dark the leather covering was-dark as in the absence of any light. In complete contrast to every other object in the room, there was absolutely no trace of the phosphorous creatures anywhere on the surface of the Book. Whatever it was about the Book that was holding the larger creatures at bay also appeared to affect their microscopic brethren.

Somewhere in the distance I heard the great-grandfather clock chime one o’clock. A shadow passed over the chamber as the glow of the tiny organisms blinked out for a second one after another in a wave that swept across the room. In that brief moment of darkness, I saw the universe sprawled before me, my consciousness spinning through the yawning void of space. I saw a million stars die a fiery death and witnessed a million more being born inside spiraling clouds of gas. I felt the rise and fall of tidal forces, and the juxtaposition of potential fields large beyond measure. Then everything everywhere stopped. The Cosmos ground to a halt, hanging in the balance as the wheel of time turned an infinitesimal fraction of a degree in its eternal cycle. The infinite trembled as a door closed somewhere. I experienced an unexplained sense of loss, like the passing of a momentous occasion. Then suddenly, I was pulled backwards through light-years of space, and was standing in the cellar holding the black grimoire. I looked around in a half-daze. Everything seemed the way it had been; the walls glowed, the spiny creatures hovered around me, and beyond the Mirror, the alien city slept, dreaming in silence under a black sky. Still, I had the feeling that something had changed…something important.

I came to the quick decision that it was time to leave, and this time nothing was going to stop me. Slowly, taking great care to avoid the cloud of ink, I made my way to the open door. As I had hoped, the tentacled abominations stayed outside of the radius of the glyph inscribed tome, letting me pass. Just as I reached the door and thought I was going to make it, I felt a chill run up my spine. My finger throbbed insistently. Call it instinct or a sixth sense, but I knew that someone or something had just entered the room, even before I heard the strange sound behind me.

I wouldn’t call it music-for it was too cacophonous to be called that-but it was a short burst of high-pitched fluting, played just at the upper range of human hearing, like a dog whistle; yet it sounded like no instrument I had ever heard. Perhaps it was only my imagination, but as the last notes faded I thought for second I detected the muffled voices of several women whispering in unison. Then the room fell silent.

I froze. My mind swarmed with images of monstrosities that might be lurking behind me. For a split second I even thought about Great Cthulhu himself! A ripple passed through the liquid-air. I felt it hit my back and flow around my body. Everything went black. There was no light anywhere. The glow of the phosphorescent organisms simply turned off. At the same time, the liquid-air ‘evaporated’. My lungs felt like they were collapsing as the ‘air’ was sucked right out of me. With the buoyancy that the liquid-air provided gone, the full weight of my body fell again on my legs; that combined with the sudden darkness caused me to stumble. I reached out for the door frame to steady myself and my hand almost slipped off the slime coated surface. After a few choking gasps for breath I realized with a sickening horror that my lungs were clogged with the same gunk that covered the walls! I coughed and spat, desperately trying to clear my wind pipe. I could feel the slime all over my face, in my mouth and up my nose. It was the foulest, most disgusting taste you could ever imagine; the same rank foetor as before, only a thousand times worse.

Even as I gagged a voice in the back of my mind was screaming for me to run. Whatever had emitted that strange piping could only be a few feet away! Then over the sound of my own coughing I thought I detected a kind of slobbering, slithering noise from the direction of the Mirror. I bolted through the doorway, oblivious to the hazards of running blind. I ran into one of the many crates stored in the outer room. Its rotting wood disintegrated beneath me as I fell forward into the muck on the floor. I dragged myself to my feet. My lungs wheezed. My head spun. Dots danced before my eyes. I thought I might pass out. Still, the relentless throbbing in my finger and the terror at my back drove me on. I set out again in the direction I hoped the stairs were. This time I walked with my arm out before me. A few steps brought me to another crate. To my right I felt more crates, but the left was clear. I went that way. A few steps and again another crate. This time the right was open. One, two, three, four steps and I felt nothing. Five, six, seven-something cold and slimy brushed against my fingers! I jerked back, my mind racing with the dreadful possibilities of what it might be. Perhaps one of those tentacled abominations had survived! I braced for an attack. One then two seconds passed. Nothing happened. Not a sound. I began to suspect that it was just another crate. Knowing I didn’t have time to be cautious, I reached out with my hand, searching the darkness. There it was. The wall! The stairs would be just a few feet to the left. At last I was going to escape from this hell hole.

I paused at the first step to gather my strength for the climb. At the same time I listened for that horrible slobbering sound. I hadn’t heard it since that first time. Could I have imagined it? I looked back toward where I thought the door was and strained my eyes trying to penetrate the darkness. Seconds passed. I heard nothing, but my own wheezing. I waited. Even after I was sure I could make it up the stairs, I still waited. In the solitude of the utter darkness and silence, it is easy to doubt one’s self; your imagination tends to play tricks on you. At that moment I seriously began to doubt whether any of what I had experienced that night had actually occurred. A part of me wanted it to be real. I wanted to know that I wasn’t insane, despite the consequences of that reality.

Innumerable seconds passed, each indistinguishable from the last. It could have been one minute or it could have been five. I can’t be sure. Without any sensory input for reference, the mind cannot accurately track time. Then finally the answer I had been waiting for came. The silence was broken by a gurgle-a bubbling, spitting noise from the doorway across the room-the same unnamable sound as before. I was relieved and terrified at the same time. For one brief, strange moment, I had the absurd notion to stay. The chance to catch a glimpse of the abomination that was the source of those grotesque noises seemed like an opportunity too unique to pass. Luckily my courage has never been strong. I turned and clambered up the stairs. I had gone only half way up when the tip of my shoe caught on a step. My knee landed hard against the stone. Pain shot through my joint, momentarily stunning me. I writhed in helpless agony on the steps, holding my knee, wondering if I’d even get a chance to see the monster before it killed me.

The noisome slobbering trailed off. I thought perhaps the monster was moving away. Then there erupted that haunting, alien cacophony that I will never stop hearing for as long as I live. It was like an orchestra of deranged flutists and mad pipers, each playing frantically to their own inner child-a chaotic jumble of notes with no recognizable pattern or melody. Only a sudden rise in pitch at the end distinguished it from the last outburst, or gave any hint of organization to the discord. As the notes faded away, I was sure I detected a chorus of female voices, gently whispering like the wind in my ear.

The pain in my knee suddenly forgotten, I half-crawled, half-ran up the stairs. So much adrenaline was pumping through me that my leg could have been broken and it wouldn’t have mattered; I was going up those stairs no matter what! Expecting at any moment to feel rubbery tentacles wrap around my ankles, I climbed step by step up the dripping stones, my hands and feet slipping every so often in the fetid muck. Despite my fears, nothing of that sort happened. I had just about reached the top when the stones shattered beneath me, as if a tremendous weight had been placed on the steps below. Whatever it was that was down there was trying to climb the stairs!

At last I crawled out of the secret passage into the hallway. Only the dimmest of light filtered in through the windows, but compared to the total darkness I had just escaped from it was the light of heaven. Using the railing of the main staircase I hauled myself to my feet. Then as fast as my injured knee could take me, I ran to the front door and out of that hell house.

I hardly noticed the chill wind as I stepped into the night. In fact, if anything, the fresh air felt pleasantly warmer then the stifling miasma from which I had just exited. Still, this observation was made on the lowest level, for the nightmare behind me was at the utmost in my mind as I hurried down the weed-choked walkway toward my car. With escape apparently at hand, I was quite unprepared for the queer sensations that came to possess me. I had made it to the steps at the end of the walk, when I suddenly stopped short without fully understanding why. I scanned the nocturnal scene around me, trying to locate the source of my uneasiness. But for the wind, the land lay silent and dreaming under the soft glow of starlight. Except for the peculiar features I had observed on my way in, there was no obvious culprit for my trepidation. Still, I felt naked and extremely vulnerable to some unknown menace lurking nearby. One thing was for sure, after the suffocating closeness of the cellar everything seemed far too open.

I shrugged my vague fears off, remembering the Thing that was even now climbing the stairs after me. Moving quickly I rounded my car to the driver’s side. As I was trying to squeeze my swollen hand into my pocket to reach my keys, I caught a movement in the door window. Looking closer, I saw the image of the trees reflecting off the glass. The bare branches were silhouetted against the twinkling background of autumn stars, waving back and forth in the wind. That may seem normal enough, but there was something disquieting in the way the limbs bowed before the wind, something which I had noticed once before when I was driving up the road, under those moss-choked branches. That first time I couldn’t tell exactly what it was that bothered me, but this time-I can’t really be sure exactly when I fully realized it; my memories of the next events are still a bit fuzzy. I might have had an inkling as soon as I saw the reflection in the window, but when I spun around and stared at the twisted limbs with my own two eyes, there could no longer be any doubt. I wonder how I could have not noticed it before. It was so obscenely obvious. The branches were not bowing before the wind, but bowing against the wind-against the very laws of physics! Everywhere, all around me, the trees were leaning in one direction; their limbs bent and stretching, struggling against their own natures, reaching out as if to touch the walls of the manor house!

I spun back around, fumbling in my pocket to get my keys. Finally, I got them out, but struggled to find the right one because, as I suddenly realized, my other hand was already full. In my right hand was the black, leather-bound Book. I had been carrying it the entire time-through the darkness and up the dripping stairs-without even noticing. How? Why did I do that? I gazed at the eldritch tome with shock and horror. I couldn’t help but recall Dr. Murnangast’s words, “Only the life-blood of the owner can bind him to the Book.” The knife wound on my finger throbbed against the soft leather. I could feel fresh blood oozing from the torn flesh. I held out my arm, intending to drop the thing, but my hand cramped up, tightening my grip on the Book. I concentrated on the muscles in my hand, willing them to open. Then I hesitated. I thought of the wealth of knowledge and literature contained within the pages before me. Lovecraft, Poe and Dr. Murnangast-all of their work was in there. How could I throw it away?

Then for the third time that night I heard that discordant flurry of high-pitched piping, sending a wave of cold dread down to the very marrow of my bones. The alien tune floated on the night air, resonating through the trees like the moaning of the wind. As if dancing to that unholy music, I swear I saw the trees lean closer toward the mansion, their limbs swaying in front of them like puppets on a string.

It was more than I could take. After everything that I had gone through and all the insane, impossible occurrences that I had witnessed, it was too much for me. The accumulated horror and madness-the spiny, tentacled creatures, the death of Dr. Murnangast, and my flight from that alien thing in the cellar-it all came flooding back to merge with the twinkling stars and the skeletal trees dancing to that twisted tune from beyond the walls of sanity. My mind collapsed under the intolerable weight. Darkness descended upon my consciousness, shielding me from what was to follow.

When the darkness lifted, I found myself sitting behind the wheel of my car along the side of the road, with two police officers shining flashlights in my face. I was dazed and confused, not knowing where I was or how I got there. The police were saying something to me, but I couldn’t understand them. One of them opened the door and reached in to help me out. The cabin light turned on as he opened the door and that’s when I noticed my hands. They were both red and swollen like balloons. The right was caked in dried blood, with a purple gash running down the index finger. That brought home the events of the evening. I couldn’t remember everything, but I remembered enough to begin raving about Dr. Murnangast. I don’t think I was completely intelligible at first; and perhaps that’s for the best-at least for my sake. Eventually, however, after the officers managed to calm me down, they asked me to explain more slowly. This time, having come more or less to my senses, I choose my words carefully. I decided it was best not to tell them everything-at least not yet. I simply told them that I had witnessed a murder. I could tell they had their doubts about my story right away, which is quite reasonable considering that I couldn’t tell them anything other than the fact that I had heard a scream. They probably thought I was high or something, but they said that they would send a car out to investigate. In the meantime, they were sending for paramedics to take care of my hands.

As we waited for the paramedics to arrive, I tried to evade their questions. I wanted to delay telling my story for as long as possible for fear they would recall that police car before it reached the estate. I needed the police to prove to the world that I wasn’t mad, but more importantly to prove to me that I wasn’t mad.

When the ambulance arrived the paramedics were worried about my left hand. It was obviously a bite or sting, but from what they were at a loss to know, so they thought it best to rush me to a hospital. I was saved from any further questions for at least a while. The doctors at the emergency room were as equally baffled by the two strange puncture wounds as the paramedics had been. When asked how I came by them I replied that it had been too dark to see. They finally concluded that it must have been a wasp or an hornet that stung me, explaining that the abnormal swelling was just an allergic reaction. For the record, let it be known that I am not allergic to wasps or hornets, or any other insect that I’m aware of. Those wounds can’t be explained away that easily. As for my other hand, the stone dagger had cut all the way to the bone. My finger had become infected, causing it and the rest of my hand to swell. When asked about it, I told them that I had been cut by a knife. He agreed that the wound was consistent with a knife injury, but he wanted to know how tiny shards of stone had imbedded themselves into the wound. They gave me a tetanus shot and a heavy dose of antibiotics. They also thought it best that I remain overnight so that they could check up on me in the morning.

Not long after sunrise a group of grave-faced police detectives came to see me. The tone of their voices made it quite clear that something serious had occurred. They asked me to explain what had happened last night. Without a thought otherwise I began to tell them my story-the whole story, as far as I could remember it. As I told my tell, various points and details of my story seemed to strike a chord in them, as if I were verifying certain facts that had been unclear to them. Still, it was obvious that they did not believe me, or at least they didn’t want to believe me. When I had finished, they asked me to start again, this time with the truth. They interrogated me for well over an hour, but I would not change my story. They brought me down to the police station and questioned me again with the same results. I was left alone in the interrogation room for a while, until a man came in who talked in a very soft voice and who claimed to be a doctor, a psychologist. I told him my story and he questioned me at length in the same level voice, almost as if he were keeping an open mind and hadn’t already passed judgment on me. Eventually, they released me, but visited my apartment several times over the next few weeks. In the end, the police and the doctors, they all reached the same conclusion; that I was delusional. All the fantastic horrors that I had seen and felt-the floating creatures, the shimmering other world beyond the Mirror, the thing in the darkness-was created by my rich, Lovecraftian imagination to mask the real, but terrible events that occurred that night. That is what they think, and to tell the truth I can’t really blame them. It is the sensible explanation, for everybody knows that trees don’t bend against the wind and books don’t drink blood. Still, they cannot explain the bizarre condition of Dr. Murnangast’s estate, nor the strange fate of the two officers who were sent out to investigate my claims.

When the officers failed to report in or respond to repeated calls over the radio, a second car was sent out. They arrived at the estate around sunrise. Before they had gotten halfway down the canopied drive, they called in for backup and a rescue unit. All of the trees nearest the manor house had been uprooted, and two of them-the ones on either side of the road-had fallen on that first police car. The car had been on its way out when it happened, and apparently only one of the officers had been inside-the driver. The strange thing about it was that his gun was found lying on the passenger seat, all of its rounds spent. The body of the other officer was never found. Only his hat, one of his shoes, and his weapon were discovered, lying out on the front lawn. Three shots had been fired from the gun. Whatever happened to him, he did not go without a fight.

As for the rest of the estate, one officer was quoted as saying that the place looked like an atomic bomb had gone off there. As I have already mentioned, all the trees surrounding the house had fallen inward, creating a ring around the mansion, but those just outside that ring were leaning over with their roots half out of the ground; their branches noticeably bent and warped. The manor house itself had partially collapsed. The wooden beams supporting the roof and upper floors had rotted away. Only the framework of stone walls held it up. A weird fungus had gotten a hold of everything. All the vegetation in the area had withered and died. Even the trunks of the trees still standing had turned a lifeless gray. None of the specialists who were later called in couldn’t identify the virulent fungus.

The ruins of the house and grounds was searched thoroughly, but no trace was ever found of Dr. Murnangast. Nothing was discovered to verify my story, except the decayed state of the place itself. Everything inside of the mansion that was made out of organic material-the furniture, the books, the priceless antiques-all had rotted away. Only slime, mold and mildew remained. No evidence of creatures large or small existed, nor anything resembling the dark Mirror ever found. This last frightens me. The Mirror was made of glass and metal-it couldn’t have been destroyed by the fungus, which leaves only one possibility. Someone or something had taken it!

The police have never believed me, even from the start when I had simply claimed that Dr. Murnangast had been murdered; so I kept my theories to myself, for anything that I might say would only come across as the ravings of a madman. They think that Dr. Murnangast is alive and that he either killed or abducted the missing policeman. And they think I’m mad? Do they honestly believe a middle-aged English professor could take on two police officers carrying guns? They probably even think I’m an accomplice, but of course they have no proof. They have no proof of anything. They refuse to believe anything that doesn’t fit into their narrow view of the world. Fools!

What did happen to the missing officer? I fear I know all too well what happened to him, and I think so do you, even if you’re afraid to admit it. I often have nightmares about what might have happened-one among many-for I am responsible for his fate and that of his partner. I sent them out there, knowing what awaited them-that thing from beyond, the same abomination that chased me up those stairs and was the source of that blasphemous, alien piping to which the very trees danced to! Yet the world had to know, didn’t it? The world must be warned.

And where is that creature now? What of that cursed Book? It wasn’t with me when the police found me off the road. What did I do with it? What happened during that black time between that moment I was standing outside the manor house and the moment I awoke in my car? It has been months now and I still can’t recall directly the events that unfolded then, but for brief flashes of insight after I awake screaming in the night I half remember pieces of horror-filled dreams. Sometimes I manage to write them down before they fade back into oblivion. I can’t be certain if these visions are actual memories or just the gross stuff of nightmare, but I believe I can now piece together what happened during that missing time.

When I was standing in front of the house and heard for the third time that indescribably sinister piping, it sounded as if it came from just inside the shadows of the open door. I knew with a fatal certainty that Death was about to step through that portal. I recall distinctly the very last thought that went through my mind before my consciousness fled me. I remember clearly because it was such an odd thing to think at the time. I berated myself for not closing the door as I ran out of the house. I called myself stupid, as if a closed door would have made any difference to that monstrosity. After that I can’t be sure of anything. The alien music seemed to swell from all around as the darkness engulfed me, the trees echoing the unholy chorus like the walls of a cathedral. In my nightmares I have relived this scene over and over a thousand times; and for the first few days after the incident I would always wake up screaming at this point, but as the weeks went by I would find myself cowering on the ground next to my car with my hands over my ears, trying to drown out that dreadful cacophony with my own screams.

I’m mad-I know that’s what your thinking; and I’ll agree that for the second time that night my sanity fled me. I don’t believe anybody could not have gone at least a little mad if they had been through what I had. My sanity, my logic, my reason could not stand up to the impossibilities that had become reality, so they ran from that reality, leaving me alone with my madness. That is why I can’t consciously remember, because there was no consciousness to remember. I had become no better than an animal, incapable of thought or reason; and the only thing I was aware of was terror-sheer, blind, animal terror. Noisome, creeping horror lay all about. Closing in on me. Run! I wanted to run, but there was nowhere to go. I was surrounded. Trapped! The only path of escape lay down that road. Past the trees. Under that canopy of hanging moss and twisting branches!

I guess not all of my reason abandoned me for I thought of the car. I yanked on the door handle. I banged on the window, trying to break it. Then I remembered the keys. Somehow, I had sense enough to remember the keys. I fumbled with my pocket. Something in my hand prevented me from reaching inside. It was a long, black leather book. In my current frame of mind, I don’t think I fully realized exactly what the Book was, but I did know that it was keeping me from getting my key, so I tried to toss it on the roof of the car. My fingers wouldn’t let go! I pulled on the tome with my free hand, trying to yank it loose. I succeeded, but then found that I couldn’t let go with that hand either. A renewed sense of panic and desperation set in as the sound of wood splitting filled my ears. The trees! It was the trees-or was it the sound of the door frame being forced outwards by a mass too big to fit through the door? The noise seemed to be coming from all around. I was too afraid to look, too busy trying to reach my keys, desperately trying to get rid of the Book. The nightmare closed in on me.

There came another burst of that abhorrent piping, so loud and powerful that I could feel it reverberate inside my chest. I tried to scream, but my vocal chords were constricted, straining to mimic the unnatural tones filling the night air. At the same time there was a tremendous crash of breaking wood, as if the trees were falling down on me. I looked, but in that gloom of a moonless night it was impossible to see the bottom of the trees. Only the tops were visible, silhouetted against the starry sky, looming larger and closer than I had remembered them. I know it was dark, and even then only a dream, but I swear that I saw those twisted, undulating branches reaching down at me! The hands of Death were at my throat!

Fear, adrenaline and horror surged through my body. I threw the accursed black Book at the approaching trees. I watched as the eldritch text flew from my hand and disappeared into the shadows. Turning to my car, I quickly found the key and opened the door. As I got into the car I caught a glimpse of the house. The roof had partially collapsed. I couldn’t tell in the darkness just how much damage had been done, but where the gabled attic had once been I now saw open sky. Yet that was the least of what I saw. What caused me to glance back when I did I cannot say. It could have been a last bit of curiosity or perhaps more likely, a final check to see if that thing from the cellar was coming after me. Whatever the case I wish I hadn’t done so. With my escape so close at hand, I should never have looked back. All I had to do was to get in my car and drive down the road to freedom. But I did glance up and saw an image which haunts me to this very day. There inside the doorway, where the shadow of the overhang should have swallowed all starlight, was the ghostly outline of the Thing from the cellar; a gray silhouette moving against a black backdrop. It was huge. Its great bulk filled the doorway. I could only see the outline of its monstrous body and even then the frame of the door hide parts of it from view, but God… that was enough! Enough to drive me or any man insane. Even now I find it hard to write. I wish I could banish the image from my mind. A white shadow against a black background. Rope-like appendages attached to a bloated body, waving in the air like branches in the wind!

The rest is a mad flight through confusion and terror. Sometimes I’m running, sometimes I’m driving down the road, under a canopy of withered, moss-covered limbs that reach down and try to grab me as I pass. That’s all I can remember from my dreams. Every night I wake up, shaking in a cold sweat, with no clear memory of what happened before the police discovered me on the roadside. Mercifully, those visions quickly fade into oblivion before my conscious mind can latch on to them. I’m only left with a vague sense of dread-a feeling of an ultimate horror above and beyond everything else that occurred during that hideous night. Sometimes I think I can half recall what it was-but no. Thank God for the darkness which hides, conceals, and obfuscates! For surely, if I did remember, it would send me over the brink of complete madness.

There you have it. That is the truth about what happened on November 2; at least as I know and believe it to be. I realize that most of you don’t believe me and probably agree with the opinions of the police-that I’m delusional, possibly mad. Yet you must also understand why I have risked public ridicule to tell my story. If you have followed me this far then a small part of you must also think that what I say might be true. You know that the world is not as simple as society pretends. This is what I am counting on-that one day, when you read about a mysterious disappearance, or bizarre death, you will remember what I have said and start to believe. For know this, that what happened on that moonless night, to me, Dr. Murnangast, and those two officers is only the beginning. Out there somewhere lurks a monster, a thing of utterly alien origin, with terrible power-strength enough to withstand the firepower of two policemen-and intelligence; for I believe that this chain of events was no accident, but part of an incredibly detailed and far-reaching plan. Sure, it was Dr. Murnangast who opened the Gate and allowed the Thing to enter our world, but he did not come up with the idea alone. He was inspired by that Book, that insidious, black grimoire of eldritch magic. For the thousand years of its history, it used and manipulated its owners in order to get to the point where Dr. Murnangast could free that monster. Yet for what purpose? What is that thing doing even now? Is it using the Mirror to summon more of it’s kind? I shudder to imagine what alien horrors could be shambling through that extradimensional doorway. My only hope is that the Mirror can only be opened at certain times, when the various cosmic spheres are aligned and the barrier between worlds is thin.

I say again that this is only the beginning. There is still one blank page in the Book to be written-the final chapter in the story; and I have a role in that story. I have a Doom over my head. I know this to be true. My soul is bound to that Book of Blood. Even now my index finger begins to throb. Tomorrow is the new moon and, as every month since that night, the knife wound will bleed anew. It will never heal. Somewhere out there, the Book waits for me to finish it, the curving lines on its black cover spelling my name.

There is so much more I would like to tell about the revelations given to me in my dreams-visions sent to me by that entity that is the Book, just as it did Dr. Murnangast, Lovecraft, and Poe; the strange, wonderful, horrible places I have visited during flights of altered consciousness-but I fear I’m beginning to lose coherence, and it would only serve as evidence to further question my sanity-as if there were any doubt! Yes, I am mad all right. The whole world is mad! Everything that I thought I knew, everything that you think you know is but a lie, a thin veil to mask the sea of horror which lies teeming all around us. Astronomers are only just beginning to realize how vast the universe is, yet even they cannot fathom just how tiny a speck humanity really is in the order of the Cosmos. In his arrogance, even in the face of the truth, Man’s great ego refuses to believe that he is anything other than the master of his world and the controller of his fate. But let it not be thought that Man is the oldest or last race to populate the Earth. The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall be. For the universe is not as it should be and we are not alone!

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