

Dreams of Eschaton

Copyright © 2015 by Josh Shiben

All rights reserved

Even that one you're thinking of right now

Special thanks to my beautiful wife Erin for encouraging me to dream, and to the legion of friends and family whose support (and tireless reviews) made this endeavor possible. Special thanks to Ellen for her amazing illustrations and Ryan for helping me put the whole beast together.

# Prologue

# The Fall of the Weders

It was midmorning and Heinrich was drunk. He'd somehow maintained a state of continuous activity for the past two nights, expertly wavering between drunken exhaustion and reckless excitement, but now he worried he may have reached the end of his reserves of energy. As the sacking seemed to be winding down, he decided the best course of action would be to keep drinking and delay the hangover as long as possible – he knew he could force himself to be alert a few more hours, and it wouldn't do to be sick quite yet. A woman was sobbing quietly somewhere in the large room, but he ignored her and took another gulp of wine from the holy vessels. The women were always sobbing now - the air was filled by an almost constant chorus of wails. He had gotten used to the sound, the way one might get used to life beside a river or a heavily traveled road, and he briefly wondered if he would miss the background noise when he traveled home; if the stillness of the night would trouble him. Pushing the thought from his mind, he eased his large body from the smooth floors of the domed temple, making a note to compliment the next living priest he found on the quality of the Greek wine.

He wobbled unsteadily on his feet for a moment before aimlessly setting out in a direction that took him near the center of the ruined temple. Smashed sculptures and shredded books littered the floor, making his steps crackle and pop in a way that childishly delighted the massive man. As he moved across the central chamber of the enormous structure, he stepped over a body lying face down in a pool of dried blood. Torn robes of a priest marked the corpse as an Orthodox cleric, and a large gash exposed a section of the ribcage, where a crusader's blade had plunged into the man's back. Had he been fleeing? Pleading for mercy? It didn't matter – they hadn't traveled all the way to Byzantium to make peace. Heinrich grimaced, noticing the telltale bloat of decay beginning to settle into the body – someone would have to move these remains soon or they would start to smell. The fact was likely true for corpses all across the city.

Heinrich drew in a breath, his barrel-like lungs sucking deeply at the air. It tasted like garbage, but underneath the stench he could detect smoke and ash, with just a hint of the metallic odor of blood to it. Underneath that, he noticed that he could even still pick out the multitude of spices that had given the city its exotic scent he had first noticed upon arriving. The invader thought of smells layering upon of one another like cities built atop ruins. Spices and commerce had given way to violence and death, which in turn was succumbing to decay. He finished his drink in another large gulp and threw the vessel into the pile of garbage they had created next to the patriarchal throne.

Clémence was still awake there, lounging on the throne while loudly singing something in French. One or two of the French soldiers were still awake, and they sat near her feet singing along. Heinrich didn't speak the language, but felt confident based on her accompanying gestures that he could guess at the translations. The woman had followed the crusaders all the way from Venice, and he wondered if there were acts in any of her songs he hadn't seen by now. Von Krosigk sometimes frowned on whores, but Clémence was worth the man's disdain. He'd miss her when it was time to go home.

Heinrich realized he had to piss, and aimed for the gash in the corpse's back. He wondered how much was actually making it in, imagining the cleric's body inflating like a swollen bladder full of stinking urine and rot, ready to burst when some Greek bastard tried to move it. He chuckled to himself as he finished up, and then staggered into a back room to look for something to defile – it was becoming harder and harder to locate anything unspoiled in the once proud city. The few tapestries and paintings hadn't been smashed and torn apart now sat in the soldiers' private stashes. The bare walls of the formerly glorious room spoke to the crusaders' thoroughness.

The back room was small, bare and largely uninteresting - little more than an alcove tucked behind the throne room. It appeared as though the room had once been used for storage, although it sat empty now. Bored and tired, Heinrich absentmindedly stumbled through the room and leaned against a small stone shelf jutting from the wall. The shelf had once held a marble bust of some Byzantine great, but that had been smashed days ago. Now it was simply a convenient thing to lean against, and Heinrich was growing weary.

He felt the wall give a little. Not much, but enough to know that the wall was not what it seemed. Puzzled, Heinrich examined the structure for a better purchase, and finding none, he returned to his previous ledge. He grunted, leaning on the lever harder, and felt the wall give another inch. The brute strained against the ledge, pressing all of his weight into the wall, almost stumbling when it silently slid away on a hidden inward track. He found himself standing at an opening in the church into a secret mausoleum. The black entrance yawned at him, silent aside from the faint echo of dripping water. Heinrich drew his short sword and cautiously stepped through the newfound opening and into the darkness before him.

The door opened to a stone tunnel leading downward for some distance, apparently to an underground chamber or cavern. The air was cool, but carried with it a dank, stale scent from the bowels of the Earth. There were no breaks in the roughly hewn stones to his sides to allow any natural light to penetrate the walls; Heinrich strained his eyes, and even then could only see the faintest of glows coming from the end of the walkway. No decorations adorned the walls, only the harsh cyclopean stones – a stark contrast from the opulence of the church above. Curious, Heinrich lurched down the narrow passageway, carefully keeping his hand on the damp stone wall for balance in the dark.

When he finally reached the end of the tunnel, Heinrich found a large, dimly lit chamber, dominated by an elaborate shrine. Formed by equal parts rock and bone, it jutted from the floor like a skeletal hand from the grave. Tatters that were once yellow banners hung from the ceiling with a strange, incomprehensible language written upon it. In the center of the shrine rested a jet black statue, engraved with bizarre hieroglyphics, and a large, heavy tome. The book was bound in thick, ancient leather, worn smooth with time. Gold and silver arcs and spirals were inlaid along the spine, giving the thing an air of magnificence and grandeur in the otherwise bare chamber. He opened the text and leafed through, and pleased to find it dominated by pictures, tucked it and the strange statue into his satchel. Heinrich Weder would not leave Constantinople empty handed.

Chapter 1

# Dreams and Nightmares

"Imagine the web of a spider – intricate and delicate, but wholly inanimate. A web cannot speak, a web cannot think – it is a thing. It has no senses of the world, no means of observing the world, and no means of conceiving of the world. No eyes, no skin, no ears.

Now imagine that same web, but alive. It is still blind – an imbecile groping in darkness. It is still deaf – unaware of songs of nature that surround and even pass through it. It is aware only of itself, and even then, wholly within itself. The blind observer attempting to measure his own face in a mirror. With its perceptions limited exclusively to its own internal measures, it cannot hope to gain any true understanding of its real form.

Now suppose a fly were to land on this web. The ultimate goal of the web is achieved! To capture an insect is the sole reason this web exists. You could call such a capture its life's work; its purpose. But what does the web perceive? An alien thrashing through its innards. Terror. Invasion. Such is the life of those who cannot understand the world in which they live. Drawn by fate for purposes they cannot fathom, towards goals they do not even realize they have."

-Gregori Weder
The room was bright, with harsh, halogen light piercing the air. Detective David Burfict watched the naked man seated before him with a mixture of unease and interest. "You sure you don't want a lawyer, or a doctor or anything?" The man nodded. "And you understand that we're going to record this? All of it." Another nod. A fly buzzed somewhere in the room, tapping against the light arrhythmically. Burfict watched as the man's tongue licked where his lips once were and then retreated behind his bared teeth. Something had torn his lips off, leaving nothing but a leering grin in the place of his mouth. The torn meat on his cheek was ragged, but not bleeding – the wounds were a few days old \- too fresh for much healing. The man's nose was intact, although the skin just below it was shredded red hamburger. Bits of saliva mixed with blood dribbled from his chin in a pink slime, adding a shock of color on the man's otherwise gaunt, pale face.

David pushed the button to start the recording and began, his eyes tearing themselves away from the wounds of the man sitting in front of him. "This is the recording of the confession of Nathan M Sullivan, 27, on the night of June22nd." He looked up at the figure seated across from him. "Whenever you're ready." The words seemed to hang in the air, and for a moment neither man moved. Two more flies had joined the other one, buzzing stupidly among the lights. Metallic glints shimmered off of their fat bluish bodies, and blots of darkness danced wildly across the walls.

Finally the man spoke. His ruined mouth opened and shut, but only gibberish came out - a garbled language of grunts and consonants. "Krck'ron grunsntch'tak rl'ynoq kllnsh. Iä! Iä! Shub-Niggurath! Koln'grth! Grnr'urck kngg'urn fth'ok!" Spittle trickled down his shredded chin as he worked to make the noises without his lips. Burfict looked at the two-way-mirror and shrugged. Samuels and Grange were probably back there laughing at him for having to interview the crazy this time. It always seemed like he drew the short straw when it came time to do this sort of thing.

Abruptly the gibberish stopped, and Burfict turned back to Sullivan, his stomach tensing – something wasn't right. Above Sullivan hovered a now massive swarm of blue flies, lighting on him at their leisure. The man was sitting perfectly still, his dark eyes having developed a blank glaze, as flies lit upon the gaping wound on his chin. Burfict paused for a moment, looking for a sign of breathing, before the scent of rotten meat and carrion struck him like a sledgehammer. He turned, gesturing wildly at the two-way mirror and shouted to the back room. "Samuels! Get the fuck in here!" He waited in silence a beat for the door to clang open, but no one came. Panic gripped Burfict as the intercom remained silent. David had the sudden sense of being utterly alone.

Sullivan fell onto the floor, and the cloud of flies followed him, feasting on his rotten body as it crumpled into a heap. Burfict stood up and backed to the door, his eyes never leaving the corpse on the floor. His senses were assaulted by the scene before him; the smell so thick he could taste it – rancid and spoiled; the sound of the flies a roar, echoing through the tiny room. Thousands of tiny wings beat at the air in a chorus of carrion, and Burfict heard the dead man's words again in the vile cacophony. "Iä! Iä! Shub-Niggurath!" boomed into his ears, over and over. Without taking his eyes from the body sprawled on the floor, Burfict groped for the doorknob, found purchase, and swung it open. He turned to leave the interview room, only to see three hooded figures standing in the shadows, blocking his path. Yellow, tattered robes hung from their shoulders, and their ragged hoods hung low, shrouding their faces in darkness. Fear gripped his throat, and he felt his pulse pounding in his ears in perfect rhythm with the mad chanting of the insects. David tried to turn, to will his body away from those hooded beings, back into the interview room, but his stubborn flesh remained rooted to the spot.

The wings of the insects were still screaming that accursed chorus, but somehow Burfict could make out the faintest whisper from the hooded being closest to him. _"Dream deep, Last Son. Your_ _fhtagn is almost at an end. Eschaton_ _approaches."_ The voice was quiet but deadly, the light caress of a viper flitting over your leg, the distant roar of a predator.

David felt nauseous as panic rose from his throat. Revulsion and terror gripped him in equal measure. The way the figures stood - the stoop to their backs and the turn of their heads – it was all just so inhuman. Unnatural, like a crude machine. Abominations. David couldn't see their forms beneath the shadows of the robes, but he knew that something terrible gazed out at him from the darkness. He screamed, his voice echoing off the walls, joining the mad buzzing of the flies.

Burfict awoke in his bed trembling, his ears still ringing. He had broken out in a cool sweat, and the pale moonlight glistened off of the goose bumps on his forearm. It had been another one of his dreams, the ones he saw before something terrible, but he'd never had one quite so vivid or nonsensical. He lumbered out of bed and slumped down at his desk where he began writing down everything he could remember before wakefulness stole the memory away.

"Nathan Sullivan... corpse... flies..." he murmured quietly. He'd had these dreams since he was a child; always about something vicious, and always true. As a boy, he'd thought they were simply nightmares, fantasies turned to terror. He didn't realize the truth behind them until when he was older, when he happened to be in the room while his father was watching the evening news. David had seen a man from his dreams. Stanley Warrant was taken away by police after the body of a local boy was found in a nearby dumpster. David had dreamt the dumpster, had seen what happened in the dark alley behind it. It was days before he slept again, years before the sleep was sound.

As he grew, Burfict noticed other ways he was different. He could feel people – their minds, their moods, even their souls. It was an instinctive action, reaching out and affirming other humans, almost testing them. He would plumb the depths of person and feel their life-force, taste their moods and persona. This second sight, coupled with his nightmares, had made him a very effective detective, particularly on the more brutal cases. His closure rates for the strange or violent cases were always the highest. It was almost unfair - those minds were always so raw, so easy to find, as if the violence had left their souls spattered in crimson. The only hard part was finding enough evidence to conclusively prove what he had already seen.

"torn lips... bite? Gibberish..." Finally he finished, rubbed his eyes and looked at the clock. It was 4:00AM. Almost time to wake up anyway. David sighed, and prepared for work. Whatever trouble lay on the horizon, he would be prepared.
From the journals of Dr. Alan Kaspars

9/21

_New patient came in today by the name of John_ _Baldassare_ _. I'm really not even sure where to begin with this guy. According to the police report, he was found running naked through the streets of Gatherstown, screaming and cutting off large sections of his own skin. He'd managed to remove most of the skin from his scalp as well as large areas off of his chest before he was restrained. He's lucky the police were so close, or he probably would have killed himself right there in the street._

They brought him to the hospital, and aside from the missing skin and blood, he was given a clean bill of health. No drugs in his system, no brain damage, nothing. This was all a while ago – since then, they've patched him up the best they could and checked him out of the hospital. He's sedated now, but I'm really not sure how to approach him at this point. I hate to use restraints, but with someone this potentially violent, we might not have much of an option.

I went through his effects, looking for anything useful. Pretty standard stuff – a driver's license, voter registration card, a Tuscaron University Library card, and a couple of business cards. Just his name and contact information. On the back of one business card he had stuffed into the cash section, he had written "Stephen Melker - 1288 Juniper Lane." I thought at first that might be the name of someone I could contact to talk about John prior to his episode, but I did some digging, and found out that the man's been dead for over ten years. Cut his arms and legs in half lengthwise with a circular saw. I'm not entirely sure how he did it - I guess he started with his legs, and managed to maintain consciousness long enough to cut his arms in half too – all the way up to his elbows. He must have mounted it to a table of some kind. Bled out almost immediately. Apparently 1288 Juniper Lane was where he was staying. I don't want to make any assumptions, but given the nature of his injuries and the fact that John had information linking him to a violent suicide makes me suspect that this Melker was perhaps the inspiration behind John's episode.

Anabelle is the orderly on station in the mornings, and as such, she's been made responsible for changing the wrappings over his injuries. I happened to be in the room while she was doing it, and I caught a glimpse of his head. He's missing his entire right ear, and has a massive scar running along the top of his head where the skin graft meets his original face. You can tell which skin he removed, because the hair wasn't growing back there and it was paler than the rest of him. The grafts must not include the hair follicles - it makes him look like Frankenstein's Monster.

The orderlies have to change his dressings every day and add some antiseptic to the scars. The doctors said there really shouldn't be much of a chance of infection, but better safe than sorry, I suppose. Anabelle's a saint for doing it though – I'm not sure I could handle it. I've never really liked the sight of blood.

Wish I hadn't seen it, because now I don't want my lunch.

# Chapter 2

# Of Minds and Madness

"Why do we dream, David?" The child said nothing, but continued to sob quietly into Michael's chest. It was the third night in a row that his son had woken him by crawling into his bed and staining his pillow with tears. He held the boy's little body, feeling it shudder with sobs and wished he could bear the nightmares for him. "We dream so we're ready for the real world. We have happy dreams so when we see things that make us happy, we know it."

David's little face turned up to his in the dark, awash with tears and snot. "But what about the scary ones?" the boy whimpered.

"You have scary dreams so that when you see something bad in real life, you won't be as scared. They make you brave."

"I don't like the scary ones," breathed the child.

"I don't think anybody does. But someday, when something scary happens in real life... You'll know you can be brave, because you've already seen scarier things in your dreams. You'll be ready for it." Michael Burfict kissed his son's forehead, and then gently held the boy as he drifted back to sleep.
The station was quiet at this hour – too early for most people to get into much mischief, just too late for bar crawlers. For the moment, he had the serenity of the office to himself, and as he often found himself doing after his dreams, Burfict's thoughts turned to his father, and the last time he'd seen the man. David's mother had died in childbirth, so his father had raised him entirely on his own, and as such, the two had been extremely close. The fact that David was a spitting image of his father probably helped relationship – both were large, broad men with wide features and curly, almost wild dark hair.

It had been a cold December evening, two years prior that his father had died. Cancer had eaten Michael Burfict away, leaving nothing but a husk of the man that David had grown up with. But it wasn't his condition that David thought of now – it was his final words. David thought back to the last time he was sitting beside the ailing man, listening to the weak rasp of his breath. He remembered how his father's head lolled slowly to look at him with eyes clouded and unfocussed from the pain killers \- the dry tongue that kept trying to wet cracked lips.

"David?" the dying man had wheezed.

"I'm here Dad. It's ok." He'd held the man's hand and tried to administer whatever comfort he could.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry you have to be the Last Son. I didn't know." This was the first time anyone outside of David's nightmares had called him the Last Son, and the shock of it had rendered David speechless. His father continued on. "If I knew then. I wouldn't have. But I didn't. And I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." David remembered the fat tears rolling down onto thin, nearly translucent skin.

"It's okay, Dad. Nothing's wrong. You don't have to be sorry for anything."

"But I do. She's coming, David, and it's all on you. It's not fair. You're the Last Son, and I'm so sorry. I wish..."

"Dad, it's fine. You did everything you could for me. You don't have to-"

"I'm sorry," he'd murmured one last time before trailing off into a sleep from which he never awoke. It had been the last thing his father ever said to him.

Last Son. To this day, David had no idea what that meant, or why in his final moments his father had used the phrase. How had his father known that the whisperers that haunted David's dreams called him that? The unease gnawed at the back of Burfict's mind, but try as he might, he could make no sense of it.

David sighed, and tried to think about the matter at hand: the first nightmare always heralded two more. Without fail, there were three nightmares, always in the same pattern. The first night, he'd interview the person responsible for the crime. In the next, he would witness the crime – always ghastly; he only ever got his dreams for the messy ones. The last night was always the worst, though. David shuddered as he thought about the men in yellow. They always came on the third night, and would whisper to him from the darkness beneath those hooded robes. He called them the Bogeymen as a boy, and would live in dread of the third night, hopelessly fighting the inevitable sleep that brought them. He'd never seen their faces, and had no idea who they were – just that even in the dream their mere presence sent shudders up his spine.

It was another hour before Ben Samuels showed up. "Morning Burfict. You're in early today." His gait was the easy and flowing walk of someone who had slept well the night before. Samuels was oftentimes grating – he was crude, blunt, and almost painfully playful, as if he were a good-natured bulldozer, happily burying everything in his path. Despite his volume, something about him was disarming as well. A shorter, heavier set man, with a stocky build, his demeanor belied a razor sharp intelligence and attention to detail. David sighed and looked up from his now-cold coffee, realizing he'd been thinking about his dream for the past hour.

David felt his mind reach out and touch Samuels' consciousness. It felt alert and vibrant, strong and full of vigor. "Morning, Samuels." The man's mind felt particularly sharp. Ready. None of the grogginess that Burfict felt clouding his own mind. He envied the man's sleep.

"Man, you look like shit. You know that?" Samuels laughed as he eased himself into his chair at the next desk. Burfict rubbed his chin and realized he had forgotten to shave.

"I looked great till you walked in." Samuels chuckled. A few minutes passed in relative silence, Samuels making a little small-talk about whatever TV drama he'd watched last night, Burfict nodding in all the right places. The one-sided discussion ended abruptly with a ring of Samuels' phone. He answered and after a brief conversation, started jotting down notes. His round face scrunched into a thoughtful, although concerned expression and Burfict wondered if whoever was on the other side could picture the look through the phone. Samuels then repeated an address back into the receiver and hung up. Burfict braced himself – something terrible had happened, and this was the call. He knew it – could feel it in his gut. He tried to act surprised when Samuels delivered the news.

"Apparently someone found a body in an old barn just outside of town. Leanne's there now and wanted us to come help out."

"Just a single victim?"

"Yeah, but apparently it's kind of a messy scene. No climate control, dirt floor, animals potentially contaminating the evidence... I mean, it's a barn." Samuels looked up and shrugged. "She wanted some extra pairs of eyes to make sure she doesn't miss anything."
From the journals of Dr. Alan Kaspars

9/23

I had my first conversation with John today. Anabelle saw that he was stirring first and alerted me. By the time I got to his room, John was fully awake and looking around, obviously terrified. He had managed to get the bandages off of his head despite his restraints. I guess it wasn't on there all that securely, and that pale, scarred head was whipping around so fast that I was worried he might hurt himself. When he saw me though, he stopped flailing and just stared at me. But the funny thing was, he wasn't staring at me, he was staring through me. It was unnerving, to say the least. I've seen the thousand-yards stare. I've seen soldiers returning home so scarred that they just completely dissociated – just those blank faces and bottomless eyes. John's eyes were more vacant than anything I'd ever seen. It was like something had sucked him dry.

I entered the room calmly and introduced myself. Before I could get very far into the traditional pleasantries he interrupted.

" _Have you seen her?" At least, I think that's what he was asking. It was so quiet, I could barely hear him. Just his lips moved; the rest of his face was frozen on me._

" _Seen who?"_

" _She's there you know, always watching us. You haven't seen her, but she's there." It was still a little more than a whisper._

" _Who's always watching us, John?"_

" _Every time I close my eyes I see her, because she's always there and she's outside of us and inside of us, and we are all hers." His eyes still never left mine._

" _John, who are you talking about? Nobody can hurt you here - you're safe."_

" _We aren't safe anywhere because she's everywhere." He was starting to shake, trembling all over like a leaf. "We are hers and we are of her and we are from her and we are for her..." He was trailing off now, almost just whispering to himself. He was still speaking, but it was so quiet I couldn't hear it. His eyes still hadn't left me, though. It was like they were trying to burn right through me._

" _John, it's ok. I'm here to help you. No one's going to hurt you." I couldn't tell whether he was terrified or in awe of whatever it was he was talking about. Perhaps it was both – a terrified reverence._

He whispered the last part. I had to lean close to him to hear. "We're not safe anywhere. We're all a part of her. Strings in the web of the Spider Queen." And then he started making these sounds – guttural as though he was choking on something. It sounded sort of like words, but I couldn't place it. Whatever it was, it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It was as if a panic was coming over me – my breath was suddenly short, and I could barely think. It was all I could do to suppress a shudder. I don't know what came over me. Maybe it was just my nerves from being so close to his mutilated face.

" _Spider Queen? Who's that, John?" He just kept making those noises. I'm sure they weren't any language I'd heard before, just a stream of syllables I didn't even know a person could make. "John? John, can you hear me?" He just kept going with his noises, working his jaw into the bizarre pronunciations. They were like words without vowels. After a while, John trailed off into silence and I could get nothing else from him._

# Chapter 3

# The Nekrodeus

The sun was just rising over the forest as Gregori stared from the upper windows of the manor, watching the golden sliver consume the night. He liked to come here when the sun was cresting the horizon, gazing patiently as the autumnal trees cast long, hand-like shadows from the tips of their branches – shadows that danced delicately and ephemerally, free and alive. But Gregori knew the truth. They were never free – born slaves to the wind through the trees and the rising of the sun. A man's shadow could move and run as any man, but could never truly live. It was merely an illusion of life. A mockery of the true form – a black penumbra pretending to be that which is. The boy savored the thought and turned it over in his mind.

When he'd first had thoughts like this, it had frightened him. He'd felt as if he had ever so briefly ripped a veil from the world – that the ugliness of creation had been partially laid bare, and he alone had stolen a glimpse of it. He avoided the book and the thoughts that came with it for months, until he had grown accustomed to the whispers of his own mind, and eventually learned to accept the knowledge. It was a forbidden fruit – an unutterable secret few could ever guess, and even fewer could ever appreciate; a secret whispered in the unknown words and forgotten feelings of the dark.

He resolved to look through Father's book again when he got the chance. The oaf had brought the tome back from his war before Gregori had even been born, and thought of it only as another thing of value. Father had beaten Gregori when he had last caught him with it, as if it were nothing more than one of his stolen paintings displayed around the manor. He knew nothing of the passages within, of the deep, forgotten secrets buried in its pages. But Gregori knew. He had learned the many languages of the tome, gobbling up new vocabulary as fast as his tutors could supply. Greek, Latin, and even Arabic flowed fluidly from Gregori's tongue.

Young Gregori read from the Nekrodeus, and he understood.
Burfict eyed the barn as he and Samuels approached it. The structure was weather-worn and decrepit, with a slight list to the walls, almost as if it was slouching under its own weight. The dried paint was faded and chipped, leaving mostly greying wood exposed, while tall grass and weeds sprung up from the ground along the walls. Leanne Grange saw them pull up and walked over to the car. She was a smaller woman, but moved assuredly, in an almost angry march of a stride. Samuels would often describe her as a "firecracker" to those who she had never met, and Burfict felt that the description fit. A relatively new addition to the force, she brought an enthusiasm and assertiveness that they'd been missing for some time.

She brought them up to speed as they walked into the building. "Farmer who owns this land says he found the body this morning. Victim's ID says his name is Nathan Sullivan, local. No signs of a struggle, but he's got extensive injuries around his mouth. Looks like somebody tried to rip his face off. Nothing we can see under the nails, no other major injuries." Burfict sensed a certain amount of fatigue, but also excitement in her. Alertness spurred on by the task at hand, like a hound after a fox.

"Any idea how long's he been here?" asked Burfict, taking in the interior of the structure - it smelled like mold and rotted wood. Burfict wondered how much longer the structure would stand; surely no more than a few years.

"Coroner guesses a couple of days based on the flies, but we won't know for sure until the autopsy. Farmer said he shows up about once a week, so six or seven days at the most." The three stopped at the nude body crumpled in a heap on the earthen ground. Burfict recognized the pose from the corpse in his dream. A swarm of blue flies hummed greedily over their feast, lighting on it at random. The remains of five candles circled the corpse, long since melted down. It didn't make sense – he never saw the victim in his first dream, it was always the perp. But if the perpetrator was here and already dead, what was the crime?

"You think he was here for a little romance?" murmured Samuels. "Guy goes to some abandoned spot, sets up a ring of candles, gets naked. Sounds like a sex thing to me."

Leanne thought for a moment before replying. "So what killed him? And why did nobody report it until the guy who owns this farm happened to swing by?"

"Drugs? He ODs and the chick gets scared and runs off. Something eats his face post-mortem. A dog or raccoon or something." Grange cocked her head to the side and mulled the thought over.

Burfict left the two of them to their debate and began examining the rest of the barn. In a pile by the door were Sullivan's effects – some clothes, worn out shoes and a backpack. Nothing interesting was in the clothes, just a wallet with little more than a long-expired license. The address looked familiar somehow, as if he'd seen it before somewhere. He frowned and tried to think.

1288 Juniper Lane

He was certain he had seen it before, but just couldn't place it. He opened the backpack and started rummaging through it, looking for anything that might be enlightening. He found a lighter, a few more candles and a tattered cloth wrapped around a rod. Curious, he unrolled the cloth and was surprised to see an image painted on it. It was old and faded, but Burfict could clearly see the figure that had once brightly been depicted. A goat-headed man sat cross-legged raising his right arm towards a crescent moon. Something in Latin was printed on the inside of his arms, and from his back sprouted two large black wings. A thick pentagram adorned the figure's forehead. "Samuels, Grange, you might want to take a look at this." The two hurried over to look at the scroll.

"Well, shit. What is that? Some sort of Satanism thing?" breathed Samuels.

"Five candles back there, right? So it's probably a pentagram, not a ring," agreed Burfict.

"Maybe this wasn't an accident. Maybe it's like a ritual suicide or something." Leanne sounded intrigued. "Either way, we need to get this autopsy done ASAP." Burfict and Samuels murmured in agreement as they all three watched the coroner load the body into a bag. Burfict couldn't shake the feeling that the leering, mutilated face was peering out at him as the zipper was slowly drawn up.
From the journals of Dr. Alan Kaspars

9/29

_John's library account with Tuscaron has been active within the last year. It took some convincing, but I eventually got the librarian to tell me the book he had been looking into most recently. It was an extremely old tome of occult studies dating back to the 11_ th _century, along with the modern translations. One of the librarians took me down into the basement of the structure so I could get it out and examine it. For obvious reasons, I couldn't take it home._

Down in the basement of the library, there were hundreds of these ancient books. The entire cellar was humidity controlled, and you could just smell the age in there. It was incredible. Who knew a quaint little college like Tuscaron could have such an amazing collection? I mentioned the breadth of the library to the librarian, and she told me that the entire university had been privately founded in order to create a repository and center of study for these books. Apparently, Roger Weder, the founder of Tuscaron, was a collector of these ancient books on the occult. I had no idea.

_The book I was looking for must have been especially prized though, because it was sealed away in a safe. The librarian explained to me that the book had been written by a Byzantine priest in the early 11_ th _century, later resurfacing in Germany sometime in the 14_ th _century. It was believed to have been brought there by survivors of Bishop Conrad of Halberstadt's army during the fourth crusade, and then lost sometime thereafter._

Entitled The Nekrodeus de Antichronos, the book seemed to be some sort of description of various ancient monstrosities and rituals. It was grotesque, with illustrations only a diseased mind could come up with. Inside each page was a smaller laminated sheet of paper, containing the English translations. The foreword in the notes told me to take any translations with a grain of salt though, as the book was a bizarre mish-mash of Greek, Latin and Arabic sometimes even within the same sentence, making translations dodgy. I guess one language didn't have the words needed to explain some of the things in here.

_Eventually, I came to the page of what must have been the Spider Queen that John had been raving about. I could understand why this thing had frightened him so badly. The illustration was simply a large dark triangular shape, with legs stabbing out of it at sharp, angry angles. The page had faded over the years, such that the details of the image were unclear, but the effect was unsettling none the less. The shape reminded me of shadows cast on the ceiling of my bedroom at night, of dark corners where nasty things could brood. Common childhood_ achluophobia, but still unnerving.

According to the translation, the Spider Queen is very similar to the Greek Fates, or Germanic Norns, in that she weaves destinies. The beast lives in a web formed by those destinies, in someplace called "the place between." I can't really figure out what that's supposed to mean. It might have been a difficulty with the translation, or possibly just a very cryptic line of text. Still, I feel like this excursion was a success – I might actually be able to carry on a discussion with John now.

Chapter 4

Shadows and Spiders

"In the blackest hour of the darkest nights, one can still see should they look hard enough.

I know. I have tried.

I saw her then, in the corner where the darkness was most thick.

The Fateweaver. The World Spinner.

I lay trembling in awe and terror of equal measure, gazing at the shadow within the shadow.

I watched as she wove, and saw the web in all directions.

Past and present, here and there, it passed through all. Became all. Was all.

When day broke, the corner was empty. But it has never been truly empty.

She is always there in every corner. In every now she sits and weaves and waits.

This I know, because I have seen it.

I have not slept in months. If only to see her again.

I think of that night and tremble.

In love.

In fear.

In despair.

My Spider Queen, I wait for you."

-Unknown Author, Nekrodeus de Antichronos
The autopsy would take hours, and while Samuels and Grange wrapped up scouring the barn for anything useful, Burfict took an image of the scroll and traveled to Tuscaron. Upon arriving, he entered the McComas building, and took one flight of stairs up to the History and Religion department offices. Dr. Tanya Brown sat at her desk, reading a manuscript of some kind and making notes in the margin with a red pen. David had found he could rely on her being here, even in the hot summer months when there was no school. He'd first met her several years before while investigating a particularly bizarre case that involved the occult. She was an expert on ancient world religions, and had come to Tuscaron to study some of the rare books housed in the library, and Burfict had found her expertise to be invaluable at times. Dr. Brown looked up when he entered, her dark eyes studying him from behind her thin glasses. David always enjoyed touching her mind – it was turgid and twisting; complex, like heat rising from asphalt on a summer day. He found the woman fascinating.

"It's been a while, David. What brings you here?"

"I've got some evidence I was hoping you could help me out with." He wished he had better excuses to come see her, but could never seem to build up the nerve. Rejection was even harder when you could feel the truth in someone's mind as they let you down softly. Best not to risk it.

"The Kaspars case again? That was nearly six years ago. I figured you'd given up on making sense of that one by now." David looked down at his feet sheepishly. That had been one of the few cases he'd never been able to make any progress in – nothing added up. He'd always come back from time to time to speak to Tanya about some new angle he'd worked out, only to leave empty handed. He was beginning to worry she might begin to suspect the real reason he wouldn't let the case fade – it was his only real excuse to keep visiting her. He cleared his throat and looked up.

"No, something new. I need you to tell me what I'm looking at here." He withdrew the picture of the scroll he'd found in Sullivan's backpack and laid it down on her desk. He watched as she studied it carefully, and felt the spark of recognition bloom in her mind.

"Looks like the Sabbatic Goat," she said after a moment. "A little faded, but I'm certain that's what it is."

"So what does that mean?"

"The Sabbatic Goat is an image drawn by Eliphas Lévi in the mid-1800s. He was a notable occultist who wrote about magic, the pentagram, and some other vaguely pagan ideology. The goat is his depiction of the sum totals of the universe in a binary form." Burfict blinked at her, and Dr. Brown smiled. "It stands for both sides of the same coin – good and evil, female and male, together and apart. The goat itself is not really a symbol of evil, but more harmony and union. It was influenced heavily by the ram-headed Egyptian god Amun, the god of fertility."

"Doesn't it have something to do with Satanic groups? I feel like I've seen that before."

"Well, not originally, no. However, when the pentagram was adopted by the Church of Satan as a symbol, it sort of got lumped in there with it." Dr. Brown removed her glasses and wiped them thoughtfully. "It's not originally a satanic symbol though."

"Can you tell me anything else that might be useful about it? What kind of person might be carrying that around?"

"Well, the Goat is associated with Satanism now, so it could easily be someone who is just not very knowledgeable and thinks it's satanic. If they're a lone wolf, or some part of some modern, amateur cult, that would be my guess. If he's more knowledgeable about the symbol then he's likely to view it as either a fertility symbol, or as a deity which can be prayed to for some sort of reward or knowledge."

Burfict remembered Samuels conjecture. "Given what we saw at the crime-scene, I'd say fertility symbol is a better guess. So, is there any kind of fertility cult or ritual regarding this goat that you know about?"

"Nothing organized, really. If it's viewed a fertility symbol, it's not the work of a Satanist, or any other group that I'm aware of." She shrugged. "Certainly not anything organized. I'm sorry I can't be more useful."

"No, you've been helpful. Just one last quick question - Does the phrase 'Iä Iä Shub-Niggurath' mean anything to you?" Tanya Brown dropped her pen on the desk and stared at Burfict for a moment.

"Did he say that? The person with that picture?"

"No, he's..." Burfict searched for a way through the conversation that didn't involve him telling Tanya he heard the phrase in a dream. "It's just something that's come up. Does it mean anything?"

"I've heard it before, but..." she trailed off. Burfict could sense unease, and possibly a hint of fear leaking to the forefront of her consciousness. "I'll need to pull some literature to be sure, but yes I think I've heard that before."

"Is everything ok?"

"It's fine. I just never expected anyone to have heard about that name. It's..." she paused, searching for the correct word. "Obscure. Very obscure."

"Well, please do look into it if you have any time." Burfict started towards the door.

"I'll pull some literature. And, is there any way I might get a chance to interview this guy? Someone with knowledge about these cults and religions would be worth their weight in gold to me."

"I don't think that'd be possible," said Burfict, remembering the flies swarming the rotten body.

Tanya nodded, and Burfict felt her grasp the implication. "I'll call you when I find something," she said finally.
From the journals of Dr. Alan Kaspars

10/1

I got in late today. Didn't sleep well all weekend. I just kept tossing and turning thinking about the Nekrodeus de Antichronos. When I finally would fall asleep, I just kept having nightmares about that dark triangle moving through the shadows, its long legs stabbing out of it terribly. Spiders and webs. It's all just so surreal. And what happened at that house...

I'll have nightmares of that till the day I die. Just the way they all came over me. It was like a blanket, or a wave. How were there so many of them? What did they eat?

I guess I should start with the discussion I had with John. It seems like the first useful one in a while, and maybe by the time I get to what happened afterwards I'll at least be coherent. I need to get this all on paper so I can remember it later. For once, I'm glad I record all of my sessions with John so I can make sure I get the conversations just right - it all just seems so important, and after what happened in that house, I worry my memory won't be adequate here. Too distracted.

" _I saw your book. Nekrodeus de Antichronos. In the library." I was stammering in short sentences - I guess I was nervous. John's face seems to have that effect on me. He still just stared at me – vacant, like a machine. "It was pretty old. Some really strange things in there. Want to talk about it?" I just kept trying to engage him; anything to stop that lifeless gaze. And then he smiled, and I instantly wished he was just looking through me again. The sides of his face crinkled along the scars, and his eyes seemed to sink deeper into his face as he leered at me._

Once as a boy, I'd seen a pig getting butchered. The animal was lying on its back, sliced open along its belly, and I swore it was smiling at me. That's what I saw when I looked at John's grin – the slaughtered pig grinning back at me.

" _You saw the queen?" he breathed. Something about his face reminded me of a rotten jack-o-lantern. Grinning maniacally, its decaying, stinking skin wilting. Then he made one of those noises again, "Rogenshnack." Something like that. I have no idea how to spell it. I sat down on the chair near him and tried to force myself to make eye contact. Every nerve in my body wanted to run from him, but I steeled myself._

" _I read about her. Saw the picture in the book, if that's what you mean."_

" _Then you know there's no escape. We are in the trap, and we are the trap."_

" _John, it's an ancient cult. She isn't real. This room is real. You're real. I'm real."_

" _You read, but you do not understand. Her web makes our reality."_

" _Who is Stephen Melker?" I was trying to shift gears. Debating theology wasn't going to get me anywhere. "And why did he kill himself?"_

" _A feh-thog. Just like you and I. A witness. "_

" _A witness? A witness of what?"_

" _The truth –I found it too."_

" _What truth?"_

" _Strithgek lit. See for yourself. It's still in his room." And then he started making those noises again – grunts and words without vowels. I tried to get him to speak, but he just kept going: "Rogenshnack shrug-unthkaa feh-thog ref-lie-uns grats clench strith gek lit." I think that's how I'd spell it phonetically – just complete gibberish._

I decided to check out Stephen Melker's old house. God, I wish I hadn't. What I saw there... But John seemed to think that whatever he'd found was extremely important, and I hoped to be able to use it to perhaps get to the bottom of his delusions.

Juniper Lane was an abandoned subdivision outside of town. I guess it had probably been nice a few decades ago, but for some reason, the place is totally vacant now. There were no cars on the street when I pulled up, no people anywhere... I didn't even see a bird in the sky - it's almost as if the whole world shunned this place instinctively. Not one house had lights on, and maybe half of the street lights still shone. The whole block was dead. I parked my car on the opposite side of the street, and then walked around the derelict house at 1288. The sun was setting, while a cool breeze promised rain.

I found a waist-high window with the glass shattered out that hadn't been boarded over in the back, and crawled through. The house smelled like piss and water damage, and I kept expecting some lunatic strung out on who-knows-what to come charging me any second. Why was I there? Why was I exploring this abandoned house like this? I still don't have an answer that really satisfies me – I told myself it was to further engage John, but I don't really buy that. Perhaps curiosity drove me on. I had to know what could drive a man to do that to himself.

I made my way through the house slowly, and eventually ended up in what appeared to be the master bedroom. What was left of the bed had collapsed in corner into a pile of mildew and rusted springs. Tattered rags lined the walls, but the center of the room was clear. In it, there was a small rectangular door, curiously devoid of dust. The door seemed to access some hidden crawlspace under the bedroom, and had been opened somewhat recently.

It slid open silently, and I peered in, not really knowing what I expected to find down there. Given John's mental state, it could have been anything. On the back side of the door was carved an elaborate hieroglyphic. It was a series of lines and curves mashed together at uncomfortable angles that almost looked like an image I just couldn't quite make out - like one of those magic eye books. Something about looking at the glyph made my head pound and my eyes water, like gears were grinding together inside my head. I felt a sharp pain in my abdomen, as if my guts were twisting themselves into knots. I averted my gaze and peered into the crawlspace.

Using my cell phone as a flashlight, I looked down, and was surprised by how much room there appeared to be down there. The floor just seemed to fall away into a pit. A cave, maybe. Large white curtains hung around the door, preventing me from seeing longitudinally into the room – only the dirt floor below was visible. The curtains were thin, almost sheer, and appeared to be made out of some exotic silk. I reached in to brush them aside, but slipped, and tumbled into the crawlspace. I grabbed at the curtain, trying to break my fall, but it tore away in my hands.

I righted myself, and realized the material I was holding wasn't a silky curtain. It was a web. Spiders. Thousands of them. They poured out of the webs around the door like a river. The wave of them crashed over me, and I flailed to keep them off. I could feel their little legs scuttling across my skin, under my shirt, through my hair. I can still feel them - when I close my eyes, every inch of me tickles from the little pricks of their legs. I remember noticing this keening sound that echoed through the chamber that I couldn't place. As I flailed in the lake of spiders, I heard it getting louder, as if it were a beast approaching from the darkness. That noise will haunt me the rest of my life. I realized it was screaming. My own screaming.

_I don't remember getting out of that hole. I don't remember the drive home. Just the shower afterwards - checking every nook for a rogue stow-away. I burned my clothes - not like I'd ever want to wear them again, and now I'm relieved to say that I couldn't find a single spider.  
_

# Chapter 5

# The Damned and the Dead

"Consider the chain – harsh and unyielding, it confines and restrains. A chained man is a prisoner to the metal, his freedom subverted by the uncaring iron that binds him. But what of the chain? Every link within it is itself a prisoner to its peers – held in place by the cold metal on either side. The links are as much a prisoner to the chain as is the man they collectively bind.

Now consider the child – born into time, it lives then dies. Each birth is then merely a link in an unfurling chain through time, binding past to future. A constant, unchanging bond forged of the blood of forefathers, creating an unbroken thread in the web of time. Blood begetting blood. It is written in you, in your blood, in your very fibers and is as inescapable as your own flesh, a story burned into the deepest reaches of your being. You are a walking link – a memory of the past, and a premonition of the future, and like a chain, you are bound. Prisoner to your past, slave to your future, you struggle in your now."

-Gregori Weder
The initial autopsy was complete by the time Burfict got back to the station, and Grange was already leafing through it. "A couple interesting bits here," she murmured. "Initial tox-report says no drugs found in the guy's system – not even caffeine. He was totally clean."

"Shoots the shit out of the OD angle," sighed Burfict as he sat down.

"Yeah, and it gets weirder," she continued. "Those injuries on his face – pre-mortem, but not by much, and they didn't contribute to the death." She began reading from the page. "'The death was caused due to a sudden cessation in cardiac function, although no trauma to the organ or defects were found. Further analysis required to determine the cause.' The guy's heart just stopped beating and he died. No drugs, no deformities, no trauma to the organ... nothing." Burfict rubbed his eyes and then looked up at Grange.

"Any idea what did that to his face?"

"Coroner's guess was some kind of animal. Definitely not human, and he said that judging by the teeth marks and tearing, not something with sharp teeth. A cow or pig or something like that. He's bringing in a biologist from Tuscaron tomorrow to maybe narrow it down." She shrugged and sat down on her desk, still reading the report.

"How long ago did he die?"

"Estimated 3 or 4 days, based on the flies and how warm it's been lately. Oh, and I almost forgot the grossest part – he'd been sexually active lately. They found DNA all over his genitals." She looked up at him with a wrinkled nose.

"So? We'd guessed that."

"Well, we tried running it through the database to look for a hit, and we got an error. Turns out, DNA wasn't even human!"

Burfict groaned. "Any idea what it is?"

"Not yet. They're looking at it now." Just then, Samuels burst in the door.

"Holy shit! You guys hear? This son of a bitch was a motherfucker too!" He cackled as he sat down at his desk, obviously pleased with himself.

"Yeah, Leanne just told me."

"Wasn't drunk, wasn't high, just in the mood to pork some pork," laughed Samuels, still delighted. Burfict and Grange both smiled in spite of themselves. "I've been working on those since I got word. Anyway, what'd you find out at the college?" Burfict noticed that Samuels didn't tease him about Tanya this time, which he appreciated. The dead horse had been thoroughly beaten.

"Just some stuff that makes a little more sense now. Apparently that goat he had a picture of had something to do with fertility. It's not Satanism, probably. When you were at the scene, did you notice any foot or hoof-prints in the mud?"

"I don't remember any," answered Grange. "Definitely no footprints other than Sullivan's, but we'll need to go back tomorrow during the day and look for hooves, though. I've gotta admit, I wasn't really looking for them. It's a barn – I figured any hooves we found were part of the scenery." Samuels murmured in agreement.

"So, if there was no other person there, why didn't we find a car at the barn? I mean, how did he get all the way out there?" Samuels scratched his head thoughtfully.

"No tire tracks – I was under the impression he walked there."

"That's three miles from the main road, and another five before we get to any housing. Do we know where Sullivan lived yet?"

"Still working on that," muttered Samuels. "The guy wasn't exactly living on the grid. We're trying to track his home address down, but not having much luck. His address listed on his license is this abandoned complex way outside of town. Nobody's lived there for years. And the license has to be a forgery – it says it was issued in the seventies, but there's no way that guy was in his forties. Thirty at the most."

"And I've already put out calls to cab companies, asking if any of the local drivers dropped someone off in the area," chimed in Grange. "Nothing yet, but they're still asking the drivers." Burfict nodded and sighed.

He looked at the clock – the day was nearly over, and he had little to show for it. The seconds just kept ticking away, like a maddened countdown. Inexorably, indefatigably, time marched towards the night, bringing with it the promise of violence. The next nightmare would be here soon. Burfict suppressed a shudder, and tried to concentrate on the case.
From the journals of Dr. Alan Kaspars

10/2

I couldn't sleep at all last night. I guess that scare from that crawlspace got to me. I swear, when I lay down, all I can think of is those little legs scuttling over my skin. How if I were to lift up the covers, I'd see them, crawling all over me. Just a mass of black bodies and legs down there. I know it's just my imagination, that all of it is in my head, and that I'm just freaked out. So I lie there, pretending not to pretend that I'm covered in spiders.

There was also something sitting in the seat of my car today. It was a statue of some kind. Or more like an idol, I guess. Like the kind of thing you might see a cult worshipping in some over-dramatic horror movie. It must have gotten stuck on my jacket or something when I fell into the crawlspace. Or maybe I grabbed it when I was climbing out of there and didn't even realize.

I opened the car door and took the thing out, and immediately was struck by the oddness of it. The statue is made of some sort of ceramic or maybe stone material, but it's very smooth and light. It doesn't look like anything I've seen in nature, but I suppose it could be some kind of volcanic rock I've never heard of. The material itself is jet black, and almost looked like it would be clear if it didn't swallow up the light passing through it. The figure is a large rounded triangular shape, and jutting out from the central mass are 6 long, thick legs, which look like they turn into braided cords or ropes at the end. A round, oblong shape at the narrow point of the triangle must be the head, although the mouth looks more like another braided tube than any jaws. Two smaller arms protrude around the head, and hang down limply – these also end in those ropey coils. The entire thing stands maybe 8 inches tall, including the base. There are some inscriptions there – some sort of language or hieroglyphic I can't recognize. They're different from the glyph on the door yesterday – of that I'm certain.

I can't explain why, but something about the statue looks obscene. It's like I'm looking at some sort of bizarre fetish that I don't understand – I'm sure it's distasteful, but I couldn't tell you why. Something in the pit of my stomach just tells me that it's wrong. I took it out and set it on my porch in the back yard. Don't want it inside my house or my car.

It really is wonderfully carved. The craftsmanship, I mean. I'm looking at it out there on my back porch now, and I can't find a single tool mark over the entire surface of the thing. I can see why John was so taken by it. I spoke to him about it. It could have gone better, but I'll transcribe it below. Maybe something will jump out me after a good night's sleep tomorrow.

" _I went to a house at 1288 Juniper Lane." He said nothing – just stared out the window. "John? I was at Stephen Melker's house."_

" _You've seen the idol, then?"_

" _That statue? Yes. How did you-"_

" _The idol. Of the queen. Rogenshnack"_

" _Rogenshnack? You keep saying that. Is that her name? The Spider Queen's?"_

He laughed. It was an insane laugh, like a man who has no recourse left but laughter. Finally, "She has no name. She needs no name. She is our rogenshnack, and our grats clench." I have no idea what he was trying to tell me. Gibberish defining gibberish. I decided to change the subject.

" _Who made it? Was it you?"_

" _It was given to me. Just as it has been given it to you. And just as you have already gifted it to the prey when you have become witness." He changes his tenses - a sign of dementia or Alzheimer's. Another clue, or more babblings of a madman?_

" _Did you know Melker before he killed himself?"_

" _Dead men tell no tales. Dead men – "_

" _John, why did Melker kill himself?"_

" _\- no tales. Dead men tell no tales."_

He continued to repeat that over and over. I could get nothing else out of him. Still, I feel like I've made some sort of progress.
Grange lifted the glass to her lips, and Burfict watched as the amber colored liquid slowly disappeared, a whitish ring of foam about the cup the only sign that there had once been beer there. She put the glass down on the table, sighed, belched, and then bowed deeply to Samuels' applause. David smiled in spite of himself – he generally hated going out, but somehow these two managed to make him enjoy the time anyway, as long as the crowd remained small.

He felt his mind flick along the other patrons of the bar, and wished he could stop it. The waitress was melancholy, a sick sister. He felt her pain as his mind slid to the next patron. A drunk in a dead-end job and failing marriage. He felt the man's self-loathing like an ache in the pit of his stomach. David had tried drinking his talent away before, and it just made the probing less controlled, as if he were opening the nozzle on a fire-hose. The result ended up feeling like a sloppy grope as his mind plumbed the others nearby even more intimately. The process was unavoidable, so Burfict remained sober and let his mind rove on like a man with a key to an unknown lock, trying every door on a street. It was exhausting.

David took a drink of his beer, and listened as Samuels told his joke. The man prided himself on his jokes, this one in particular. Burfict had heard it before, but enjoyed watching the excitement in Samuels' eye as he told it, as if the punch line were a glorious, but closely-guarded secret. Grange was listening with rapt attention, and Burfict realized this joke was not meant for his enjoyment. He savored the peace of the evening as his mind slipped along to the next group of patrons – a pleasant looking young couple in their twenties.

He tasted fear, anger and resentment. Shame and hidden bruises. The girl's bitterness so strong it ruined his drink. "Stop," he thought to himself. "Please, just give me one night to relax. Just one night without this," but he inexorably felt his mind touching that of the man. Red was smeared across his being like the girl's bruises had been across her several weeks before. Unwashed stains. There they sat, talking just a few yards away, and Burfict had to force himself to take another drink. This was why he never came out. Grange could call him an agoraphobic all she wanted, but David was confident she would surely change her tune if she only knew what it was like. Burfict stayed another half an hour, all he could stand near the couple, and then drove himself home. He was dreading the coming dreams, but that suffering was unavoidable. He might as eliminate the unnecessary grievances. Burfict fled home to his empty house, towards loneliness and nightmares.
Nathan Sullivan looked through the telescope to the sky, searching for Sagittarius. It had become a nightly ritual under the tutelage of The Whisperers, scanning the blackness in between stars for the sign. He found the centaur with ease, and from there it was simply a matter of habit to find the glow of the Omega Nebula – at once both a deathbed and birthing place of the stars. The Harbinger lie there, 8,000 light years away. Nathan's heart skipped a beat – it was brighter. The stars were right.

He'd had visions of this moment as a boy, when he would lie in bed trembling from fear and the cold; when the angry shouts of his parents reverberated through the halls of his home as if the voices themselves had a physical presence. The slamming of doors, the threats, and finally the crying were his lullabies then.

The Whisperers had first spoken to him as a child, ushering him from that place into their world beyond. He listened to their wisdom in rapt wonder, trembling now with apprehension, a nervous excitement. He had seen so much from beyond the veil, where there is no time. He remembered watching his parents' home collapse into disrepair and abandonment as years ticked by. He remembered their worry at his disappearance, their mutual suspicion and gradual self-destruction with a certain satisfaction.

As he gazed through the telescope, Nathan remembered the world 8,000 years prior, the men with their simple copper tools on a fertile crescent, unaware that in the cold void of space, the Harbinger had already torn itself apart in an apocalyptic super-nova. He remembered the Romans, marching in their columns, conquering their speck of dust in the cosmic abyss, oblivious to the light streaming at them through the blackness between stars. Nathan had watched the nations in amusement as they went about their petty wars, all in denial that their end had already been written deep in the gulf of space eons prior. As the light from the death-throes of the star finished its long journey to the telescope of Nathan, he smiled for the first time in decades. The end had arrived.

He entered the derelict building in which he had been living and walked to the bedroom. Tonight he would achieve his destiny. He would finally fulfill his purpose. He would fulfill mans' purpose. He opened the trap door and gazed at the glyph there. The abstract geometries fell away and Sullivan stared into the endless abyss of the Strythgk'lt. The three Whisperers in Yellow gazed back at him from beyond, wordlessly beckoning him through.

# Chapter 6

# The Black Goat of the Woods

"They carry me with them, always. My line bears my mark and my blood; I flow through their veins and course through their lives until the very last. I am Petir, fleeing in the blackness of night. I can taste my terror. I am Andrei, mourning my sweet Elena, raging against the loss of my love. I am Dmitry, departing the Báthory Castle for the last time. I am Alexander, butchering the whores in Whitechapel. I am Roger, listening to the screaming child as I die in the hall. I am The Marked One. The Last Son, gazing up at a screaming sky. I have run the length of the chain, the ribbon of blood stringing us along. The things I've seen through their eyes, tasted on their tongues."

-Gregori Weder
The moon-less sky was black except for the scattered points of light. Burfict was shocked how bright they looked beyond the light pollution from local Gatherstown. One could just make out the sweeping glow of the Milky Way, lightening the opaque blackness like a thin watercolor stripe. The night air was warm and muggy, heavy with humidity. The highway was miles away, and the only sound was the soft rustle of the warm breeze through the overgrown weeds, and the incessant chirp of crickets.

Ahead, Burfict could see a figure moving into the dilapidated barn. Wordlessly, he followed the shadow inside the structure, stopping just within the door as it noisily swung shut behind him – its rusted hinges squealing in protest. He waited for his eyes adjust to the pitch blackness of the barn's interior, while he stood patiently in the inky darkness. The room was silent aside from the soft rustle of fabric and Burfict's own breathing. Suddenly, there was a flare of light, as the figure before him lit a candle and placed it on the ground. The soft glow of the tiny flame reminded Burfict of the stars outside, fluttering silently in the blackness of this place. Sullivan's nude body stood before him, lighting additional candles, glowing softly in the orange hue. He was scrawny, his back looking like nothing more than webbing between his jutting ribs. Sullivan's scraggly black hair was greasy and unkempt, kept short to avoid upkeep.

Sullivan moved quickly and purposefully, lighting the five candles and then standing in the center of the pentagram, facing the back wall of the structure. He arched his back and shouted, his voice booming in the stillness of the night "Iä! Iä! Shub-Niggurath! The Black Goat of the Woods! She with a Thousand Young! The stars are right! Hear this f'thagh; I have for you, grunsntch'tak! Rend this veil, and make this place yours!" Burfict was amazed such a voice could be issued from such a pathetic creature. It hung in the air, and then the Earth grew silent. The wind ceased blowing through the bare-timber walls, and the insects were suddenly soundless. All of existence collectively held its breath in terrible anticipation.

Then he felt it – a ripple through the air, distances and times were distorting. The very fabric of creation stretched and Burfict could feel something slide across our existence, as a water spider may feel the ripple of a fish. Though distances between things remained the same, Burfict felt the room contract and contort, like a camera zooming in a Hitchcock film. He felt a wave of nausea take him as his world rocked wildly on the ocean of beyond. A point on the wall in front of Sullivan seemed to fall away, as if it was retreating to a horizon, and then with a crack, the world tore asunder. The wall was replaced with a hole, unfathomably black, perfectly round, and approximately the size of a man. The air felt cool, and a soft breeze seemed to be flowing from behind Burfict towards the rift, as reality tried to fill its emptiness.

Burfict stared into the torn existence, utterly fascinated. It was impenetrably dark, almost as if it were opaque. Perfect darkness. The pentagram of candles surrounding Sullivan continued to burn, casting an orange pallor over everything in the barn but the hole in the world – it swallowed the light. As he stared transfixed into the abyss, he suddenly felt movement through the opening. He still couldn't see anything, but he could feel a form beyond the mouth of the hole – something ravenous and insatiable. His heart raced, and he felt an unnamable dread grip his belly as long-buried instincts sensed a predator. "Stop this," he whispered. "Stop this before it's too late." But Sullivan could not hear him. Something began straining against the inky blackness of the abyss, stretching it into the room, like a face against a sheet.

"Shub-Niggurath," whispered Sullivan, still standing in awe of the form strained against the nothingness in the air. The blackness finally gave way and something heavy fell to the floor, flopping on the earthen ground like a freshly caught fish in a boat. In an instant, the hole was gone, the wall replaced as if it had never been missing. Burfict strained his eyes in the darkness to make out the now still form on the floor, and then gasped. It was a person, crouched into a fetal position, their back to the two men, just visible in the soft reddish glow of the five candles. And then the figure moved, slowly rising to its feet.

It was a woman, and her movements were elegant, almost graceful. She was still standing in the shadows, the small flames of the candles barely silhouetting her form against the dark walls. She took a step into the light, and the golden glow of the flames slowly crawled up her long, lithe leg. Burfict was reminded of a ballerina – her movements carried with them a certain perfection unseen in nature. Wide, curved hips swayed effortlessly into the light next, her smooth, creamy skin almost radiant in the soft orange light. There was no sound as she moved, as if everything waited on her. Her breasts were large and firm, rising slowly with her gait, as she purposely strode towards Sullivan. It wasn't until her head came into view of the flame that Burfict realized in horror what he was looking at. The head of a large goat rested upon her shoulders, with massive, curved horns thrusting from the crown of its head. Thick, coarse black fur came to a small beard under her chin, and continued down to her shoulders where it stopped abruptly. Slitted eyes stared out at Sullivan, inhuman and unfathomable. Sullivan said nothing for a moment as the two regarded each other in utter silence, until he finally shouted again "Iä! Iä! Shub-Niggurath!"

The beast pushed Sullivan onto his back and straddled him, mounting his prostrate form, and brayed loudly at it lowered itself onto him. Sullivan continued chanting "Iä! Iä! Shub-Niggurath!" as the two began thrusting into one another. For a moment, they moved slowly, warming to one another. The only sound was Sullivan's chanting and the horrible panting of the goat woman. Soon, they sped up, almost into frenzy, and the goat-woman leaned close to Sullivan's face, seeming to lock her inhuman eyes with the man beneath her. Slowly, the goat's head turned to the side, and her mouth met that of Sullivan's. It could almost be mistaken for a passionate kiss until the goat's head pulled away, dragging chunks of sinew and flesh with it. The scent of blood hung heavy in the air, as Sullivan's chant gave way to a scream of surprise and pain. His body stiffened, and the woman ground into him, blood dripping from the flesh hanging from her mouth, and dribbling down her body. She breathed heavily now, a cloud of hot breath and blood escaping her mouth as she pinned the thrashing body under herself, her movements slowing to a stop.

Sullivan screamed again, and began twisting in agony on the ground, his hands contorting into claws as he grabbed at his chest. The woman rose off of him slowly and strode past Burfict towards the door of the barn, not looking back to see the now still body of Sullivan. The man's last breath gurgled through the blood pouring out of his mouth and he was still.

Burfict turned to follow the thing, and watched as she silently exited the barn. He looked for foot-prints, but she left none, even in the soft earthen ground. She moved without a trace, like the whisper of a departed lover. He followed her outside and watched as she gazed into the night sky. Appearing to see something, she then set out in a southerly direction, striding slowly and inexorably, her nude form barely a penumbra against the black featureless shadows of the moonless night. Burfict awoke as a wave of nausea took him.

From the journals of Dr. Alan Kaspars

10/4

Nightmares again last night. I've never had any quite so vivid. I dreamt I carved off the rest of John's face - I didn't want to, but I had to. It was the only thing I could do. Is there such a situation where the only rational recourse is madness? I used one of the knives from the office kitchen, and he was screaming, and there was just so much blood. Chunks of his skin were coming off in my hands like I was carving a steak. The worst part – afterwards I was going to turn the knife on myself. What the hell is that supposed to mean?

I'm sure it doesn't help that the damned statue is still out there on my porch. I was looking at it as I ate breakfast this morning, and the way the light plays in it, I swear you can almost see it move. After breakfast, I stopped by the library again, to see if maybe the inscriptions on the base of that statue mean anything. I feel like maybe if I can trace this thing's history, figure out where it came from originally, I might get a better idea as to how John's whole psychosis began. It has to be linked to this statue – why else would he go through all the trouble to hide it in that crawlspace? And if I could help John, I could wash my hands of this whole thing. No more nightmares or creeping around in abandoned houses – this whole thing has gotten far too macabre for me. But I need to see this through, because I'm so close to helping him... And maybe myself, as well. I'm wrapped up in this now too. I have to prove that it's all just some ancient dead religion. I have to trace the thread to the source.

_I asked the librarian about the inscriptions on the statue, and she took me back down to the basement. I'm still shocked how much stuff is down there! There's a whole selection of reference books devoted to ancient translations and lost languages. I guess I completely lost track of time, because I was in the basement for several hours, but eventually I picked up a book entitled Forgotten and Dead Languages. The book surprised me, because some of the more obvious languages (like Latin or Hebrew) were omitted entirely, while large sections of it were devoted to dialects I had never heard of. They were sorted by time and geographical location, so remembering the Nekrodeus was supposedly written by a Byzantine, I started in South-Eastern Europe and the Middle East in the 10_ th _and 11_ th _centuries. No dice. On a hunch, I traced the Nekrodeus' travels to the Holy Roman Empire, and was surprised to find a banned language there corresponding to the same time period. Even more promising – it was apparently known as "Flüstern der Vermaledeit" or "Whispers of the Damned." That sounds to me like the kind of language one would carve onto the base of the Spider Queen. The librarian assured me that a book with the translations existed somewhere, and that she would track it down for me._

After I was done at the library, I stopped by the hospital to speak to John. I think I'm just going to transcribe it here, and then try to figure out what the hell he was saying later. I've got a splitting headache, and don't really feel like trying to slog through this predetermination crap.

" _Hi John. How are you today?"_

" _..." I'm not even sure he noticed me._

" _I was looking at my notes from our last talk, and you kept saying 'Dead men tell no tales' when I asked you about where the idol came from. Want to talk about that?"_

" _Have you ever seen a marionette?"_

" _The puppets? Yes, I've seen them."_

" _Someone took the wood, and made them, but they're dead. The wood was dead – it was always dead. They sing and dance and talk like they're alive, but they've been dead the whole time. Before they even existed, they were just a piece of a dead thing. A fuh-thag"_

" _Marionettes are things, John. They were never alive. Not like people."_

" _Do marionettes think they live too? Do you think they forget they have strings?"_

" _I doubt they think much of anything, being inanimate objects. Is this what you meant by 'Dead men tell no tales?' That you're already dead?"_

" _We are all already dead. We were never alive."_

" _I'm sure most doctors would argue otherwise."_

" _You will understand. You just need to see."_

" _See what, John?"_

" _Grats clench. The puppeteer."_

" _The Spider Queen?"_

" _..."_

" _John?"_

# 

# Chapter 7

# Forbidden Secrets

"Language is the map by which we form the path through sensations. It allows us to characterize and understand what we perceive and think to both others and ourselves. An idea without the language to express it is ephemeral - an inkling beneath the surface. A gut, instinctive reaction. Comprehension without language is like trying to picture a fish, having only seen the ripples on the surface of the pond. With the proper language, one can see through the surface of his reality to the beasts of forgotten thoughts and lost understandings that dwell beneath."

-Gregori Weder

It was early, and David was in the station again, staring into an uneaten cup of yogurt. His stomach was still in knots from his dream, but he forced down another bite. Something told him he'd need a full belly if he was going to get through the day. He was thinking about his nightmare and the goat woman when his ringing phone startled him from his reverie. "David, it's Tanya. Is it too early?" He detected a hint of nervousness in her voice that he couldn't remember having heard before.

"Hi Tanya. No, never too early. What's up?"

"I found that name you were asking about - Shub-Niggurath." She paused for a moment, unsure of how to proceed. "Are you certain that's what the person was saying?"

Burfict remembered his dreams, the terrible roar of the flies, and the chanting of the dead man. "Positive," he confirmed. "Why? What's up?"

"Well, it's just..." she hesitated into the phone. "There's a history to this stuff. I mean this deity in particular." She paused again and Burfict waited for her to go on. "I've seen some of the people who have gotten messed up from this stuff. It gets strange." Burfict thought back to his dream – to the impossible goat-headed woman emerging from that hole in the world. He understood strange more than she knew.

"Someone died, Tanya. I need to know why." He felt her still hesitating on the other line; unspoken words dying in her throat.

"I had a friend who started studying her. Shub-Niggurath, I mean. Customs and ancient beliefs. He kind of lost it. Just kept rambling about 'insights' and 'patterns' he'd found in time. I asked around and apparently it's not uncommon for people studying this particular deity to just go off the deep end. Totally normal people."

"Good thing I'm not normal," Burfict joked, hoping to lighten the mood. "But now you've gotta tell me. If people go nuts from these stories, I need to know why. Someone might've died over this stuff, and I'm not sure I can establish a motive without it." He did need to know why. His dreams never lied, and he needed to know what that goat-woman was and where she came from. He was certain now that Tanya had information he needed.

Tanya sighed, and began to speak softly. "The name turns up surprisingly regularly, but just as an exclamation – never any context or explanation. It's like a celebration or exultation of something. The name almost feels like an achievement or an event. And they keep mentioning it in conjunction with this other figure – 'The Black Goat of the Woods.' The two are connected somehow, but they seem to be different beings entirely." She had whispered the last part like it was a taboo secret. "It kind of reminds me of Christianity's Holy Trinity – there are these distinct parts that are all sort of different aspects of the same whole." Burfict took a moment and pondered what she'd said.

"So if Shub-Niggurath is like their god, then the Goat would be their Jesus?"

"Sort of. It's not a direct translation. But the idea is similar – I think The Black Goat of the Woods is the avatar that Shub-Niggurath takes to interact with our world, because she can't come here herself. Something about higher dimensions of existence, or something. That's where it really goes off the deep end. The only people who write about that part are nuts."

"I guess that picture I showed you yesterday would be what the goat would look like?"

"I'm not sure. There's never really any indication of what this Black Goat of the Woods looks like at all. It's possible the two are related somehow, although I'm not really sure how – the guy who first wrote about your Sabbatic Goat, Lévi, he had no connection to Shub-Niggurath. Never mentioned her once. I guess it's possible that Lévi was influenced by a pre-existing belief, even if it was only tangential, or that the two beliefs had a common ancestor."

"What does Shub-Niggurath want? To rule the world, or something?"

"Your guess is as good as mine. The only descriptions of it I can find explain what will happen when it breaks through into the world, but there's nothing about its motivations. I think the goat though, is supposed to be some sort of way for her to get in. The goat is a herald - it comes first, and then it paves the way for the true form of Shub-Niggurath to come through after it." Burfict paused for a moment, taking this in and thinking about Sullivan in the barn.

"Why would someone want to summon the Goat?"

"The only thing I could find was some allusion to the goat emerging when the stars are right. Some groups think that has something to do with the galactic year; others say it's more about the emergence of new stars. I don't think it's something you summon. It seems like it sort of works on its own timeline, by its own agenda. It's an outsider. Again, your guess is as good as mine." Burfict only dreamed about crimes, but if Nathan Sullivan didn't summon the goat-woman, what was his crime? The sex? Was that the crime? Burfict's mind raced through possibilities, while his mouth, seemingly on its own accord kept questioning Tanya.

"Once the goat comes through, what happens?"

"There's some vague allusion to a key and a gate that it creates to somehow usher Shub-Niggurath into our world. After that, it's game over."

"What do you mean?"

"An eternity of darkness, terrors unseen by man... that type of stuff.There was something called 'The Great Feeding,' so maybe it eats us? I'm not entirely sure, but it sounds apocalyptic. Not too many books even talk about Shub-Niggurath, and those that do are pretty sparse."

"For someone who thinks stuff is dangerous, you seem to know an awful lot about this deity."

Tanya paused again before speaking, gathering herself. "Like I said before... I had a friend who was studying her. One morning he just started ranting about how he had 'lifted the veil.' I think he had a nervous breakdown."

"Is he ok?" Again, Tanya hesitated.

"I'm not sure..." He could almost see her biting her lip through the phone, the way she did when she didn't want to discuss something. "He put out a paper on the topic a few years back, but it was a bunch of speculation about other dimensions and religions and ESP... No-one took him seriously. I mean, it was crazy. After that he sort of became a recluse. He just lost it. I tried to keep in touch, but..." she swallowed. "Last I heard, he was working on another paper, but he wouldn't see anybody."

"That's terrible. I'm really sorry."

"It's alright. I keep telling myself it was just the stress. Pressure to publish and research, you know? I mean, can there be such a thing as dangerous information?" The question hung in the air, as both parties sought for something to say. Burfict resisted the sudden urge to laugh - to laugh aloud and tell Tanya about the dreams, and the Goat and the Bogeymen. Everything. If only she knew. The thought of her never speaking to him again was all that held his tongue.

"Can I see his paper? There might be something useful in it. You never know what detail'll crack a case."

"I'll email you a pdf," she said after some hesitation. "It's called 'Studies of Ancient Beliefs,' I think. I don't think it'll help, but if you want it, you can have it." Burfict thanked her, trying not to sound too eager. "I've got to go," Tanya finally said. "You be careful. I mean it."

"Thanks, Tanya. This has been really helpful. Take care." There was so much more he wanted to say. There was always so much more to say – words left hanging in the air between them, like pregnant clouds ready to pour at a moment's notice. They both hesitated for a beat, and the moment passed.

"You too," she said, pausing again before hanging up. Burfict slowly hung up the phone and stared at it in silence.
From the journals of Dr. Alan Kaspars

10/6

I awoke this morning to a ringing phone. How long was I asleep? I can't even remember going to bed. I had the dream again – the one where I skinned John. Spiders came out of him. Thousands of them just poured out from under his skin, like they were wearing him as a suit. Then they were all over me and I was trying to stab them, but I just kept putting holes in my own stomach, and they crawled inside of me, and I could feel them in there. Crawling around my belly, their legs pricking me from the inside.

The phone call was the librarian calling to tell me she found a book that may help in the translations on the base of my idol. Strange thing – the idol was inside the living room this morning. Did I move it last night? I must be more tired than I thought.

I headed over to the library, and was able to ascertain two of the people who have previously looked at the book about the Flüstern translations. The most recent was John, as I expected. I asked the librarian to check for a Stephen Melker, and sure enough, he read the book too – a couple of months before he died. Clearly I'm on the right track. I was able to start studying the Flüstern der Vermaledeit – hopefully it'll lead to a transcription of the symbols on the idol, and then maybe I can make sense of this gibberish. Or at least find the inspiration behind it.

_The language itself is impossible to pronounce. Almost all consonants, and throaty sounds people aren't supposed to be able to make. It's also quite complicated, with words having extremely complex meanings that you really can't translate very well into English. For example, the word "_ _fhtagn_ _" means "dreaming," but not "dreaming" as any normal person would mean. It almost means something more like "dreaming with apprehension and expectancy," or "death given life through purpose." The words are all so loaded with intent that it's amazing anyone could ever use this language to express any kind of rational thought. Still, there's something about them. Some sort of significance I keep coming back to. It must be the gothic history surrounding them, but I can't shake these chills I keep getting thinking about it all._

I also read up on the history of this stuff – and it gets even stranger. A lot of information about it has been lost, but apparently it was the language-du-jour of various cults in Eastern Germany in the early 1300s. It's not really clear where the language originated from, but speakers claimed it was a language of "those from beyond." In 1337, Holy Roman Emperor Louis IV secretly charged the Teutonic Knights with eradicating the language and any who spoke it. Hundreds of cultists were burned alive, along with all known copies of their books, as the order chased heretics as far as Russia and Lithuania. I've never heard about any of this before – what the hell happened? It must have been a pretty well-established organization if the Emperor got involved. How was all of this covered up?

I've made copies of the pages of translations and hieroglyphics, and plan on starting the translations tonight.
Excerpt from

Studies of Ancient Beliefs – Insights into Time

-By Phillip Kindred, PHD Tuscaron University

"Consider the implications of string theory: that every subatomic particle making up the vastness of the universe is, in fact, composed of one-dimensional 'strings' of energy. The vibrations and interactions of these strings create everything tangible in this universe, from solid stones to electro-magnetic forces. We are notes from the violin, echoing through ourselves in a void.

Our very consciousness is a symptom of these vibrations – as the electrons firing through synapses are dictated by the strings. More importantly, the cosmos surrounding us in both time and space is formed and controlled by this unseen energy. Our awareness of our surroundings is all merely a predictable function of the infentesimally small. If these vibrations could be felt, the veil of time itself could be penetrated. By sensing the trembles in the quantum space time, we can feel any past, present and future formed by these strings.

But what then, lies beyond the strings? At the time of this writing, there are 11 dimensions predicted by string theory. Within the universe created by this web of vibrating energy there are already dimensions beyond both our time and space. What could lie beyond that? And how could we ever hope to gain even an inkling as to its nature, when the machines we are using to measure it are composed by the strings themselves?

The solution becomes obvious – we must examine the vibrations of our own universe for persistent alterations from the outsider echoing through time. By tracing vibrations through space-time to their source, we can gain a sense of the force or being creating them. The process is analogous to using the sound of a guitar and knowledge of the guitar's strings form to make guesses as to the shape of the strumming hand. But what is strumming our strings, and when in time could this strumming originate from? And why is something interacting with those strings that form us in the first place?

The answer comes from a surprising source: the widespread beliefs of mankind, particularly those of isolated communities. It has been widely suggested that some individuals are more perceptive to these vibrations of space-time than most humans, manifesting visions or feelings traditionally labelled 'extra-sensory.' These persons appear to be distributed evenly throughout the human population, and oftentimes influence local beliefs according to their visions. These are our prophets, seers and shamans – the shapers of our very basic beliefs. As such, a common, reoccurring belief found in multiple isolated communities which could have no possible way of communication suggests that there might be some type of substance to the worship. This belief needs to be specific, and we must be careful to weed out archetypes that arise in belief structures due to human psychological needs for such a deity, but if we are careful in our analysis, the results still prove stunning.

In the ancient city of Mendes, there was an Egyptian cult devoted to god called Banebdjedet. He bore the head of a goat, and was a god of fertility – believed to be the father of Ramses II. Certain sects believed that at the end of time, his appearance would mark the dissolution of the world.

In Western China, there lived an isolated tribe deep in the Gobi Desert which worshipped a being known as Chúle Shén, which literally translates to 'Beyond God.' Chúle Shén was a beast of enormous power that took the form of a woman with the head of a goat in order to first copulate with and then destroy men. The tribe was eventually conquered by the Shang Dynasty sometime in the 13th century BC, but evidence of their beliefs has been found carved into the bones of their dead.

The Aztecs told legends of a titanic beast named 'Xuitechtuli' who lived above the sky and would transform itself into a goat-headed woman in order to trick men into fathering itself. The beast would then continually be reborn from the ashes of our world.

Before the fourth crusade, a small Byzantine cult worshipped a being known as Shub-Niggurath. This being was associated with another outsider known only as 'The Black Goat of the Woods,' and was believed to be the herald of the end of times. Much of the information regarding this cult was lost during the sacking of Byzantium, but it is believed to have predicted that the appearance of The Black Goat of the Woods would signal the end of the world.

There are many more examples of this singular religious belief, with evidence of it even bleeding over into the better known major western religions with deities like Pan, the Greek goat-legged god of debauchery. While it is impossible to rule out that these beliefs are all the result of coincidence, the notion that this specific belief structure arose independently in each corner of the globe is startling. If these are the result of sensitive individuals feeling the vibrations of an unseen hand, perhaps they can tell us more about the unseen world beyond our web of strings than any experimental method."

# Chapter 8

# The Unfolding Mind

Gregori stood staring into the crimson pool on the floor as it spread slowly from the body at his feet. The body was still twitching, gasping with its dying breaths, and Gregori almost pitied it. Too stupid to know it was already dead, too frightened to not struggle against the inevitable. A low moan escaped from the figure as he withdrew the blade from its belly. He studied the now-crimson weapon and marveled at how something so small could slay something so large. How a simple piece of unfeeling metal could, if slid into the right place, spill the life-blood of the mightiest of men.

Gregori imagined the blood an animal, caged inside the veins, a slave to the never-ending drum of the heart. He had freed it with the sword – released it into the ground. The body mewled again, its struggles slowing. The wild blood fled its former master, down gullies in the masonry and across the flat stone of the floor.

He felt his own blood flowing through his veins, the same wild animal held in check by the walls of his arteries. The blood would surely die if freed – dry into a powdery grit, or soak into a stain. Its servitude allowed it to survive, just as it maintained the continuance of the slaver's life. But the blood, when liberated, would still spill forth freely, caring nothing for either its life, or the life of the master. It could not be trusted to behave rationally, to see the larger picture. The blood did not understand that it was expressly made to serve, that its very nature was servitude, and that was why the heart needed to hold it in check. Gregori thought of blood as he watched his father die, knowing his future as master of the Nekrodeus was secure.
"We've been here before," muttered Burfict under his breath, as he stooped under the sloping roof to get out of the cold drizzle. He had recognized the address, and now that he was here, he could finally put his finger on why. The connection to the Kaspars case bothered him.

"You sure? What for?" Grange was puzzled.

"The Kaspars case, a couple years back. You weren't with us yet," replied Samuels. "Place was a shit-hole then too." The rotten door cracked and flung inward under Burfict's heel. The house was empty, had been for some time. A condemned sign fluttered from the broken door, its fall cushioned by the layer of grime and dust on the floor. Burfict followed Grange through, with Samuels moving in slowly from behind. The address was the same as the one on Sullivan's license, but it was clear that the place had been abandoned. The three detectives split up as they pressed deeper into the ruin, moving slowly and looking for any sign of recent habitation.

"So why were you here before?" inquired Grange, obviously expecting to hear the rest of the story.

"Some doctor claimed his patient sent him here to find something. Guy was a loon – the place was abandoned and we didn't find any of the crazy shit he'd said he saw. This Sullivan guy wasn't living here then, either." Samuels was standing in the kitchen, searching the shelves for any sign of food or habitation. He frowned in disappointment.

"Was that the case you keep bugging that professor about?" Grange had seen Burfict working on it from time to time, and Burfict sensed a brief hint of worry about him slide across her consciousness. He ignored her and moved to the bedroom, examining the false floor in the center of the room. The floor opened up on a hinge to reveal a carving on the underside – a series of slashes and grooves carefully carved into the wood, making some sort of image or hieroglyphic. Burfict remembered the carving from the last time he had been here – how it almost seemed as if it were falling away into an image. A baby, a behemoth blotting out the sky, an eternity. Beneath the glyph was a second floor, such that if someone opened the trap-door, expecting to find a space, they would only be met with a solid surface, itself also covered with the strange carvings. Burfict closed the trap door and rubbed his eyes. He hated this place, hated that glyph, and hated this case. Nothing about it made sense, and that infuriated him. He preferred his world to fit into nice, neat explanations, and was frustrated when it confounded him. He wanted that satisfaction he got when he put the pieces together, and the further he got into this case, the more he felt that feeling might be elusive. He dreaded this case becoming another unsolvable mess like the Kaspars one – like an itch he was never able to scratch.

Burfict walked to the broken window and peered out between the boards crisscrossing over it and into the backyard. Something red out there caught his eye, a shiny, metallic reflection in the drab grey and brown gloom. Puzzled, he strode quickly to the back door and opened it, calling his two partners as he went. They convened in the backyard, where they found a large, red telescope, pointing upwards into the sky. Beads of water dribbled off of the metallic case, as the cold drizzle continued to fall. The item looked new and very powerful – it was completely out of place in dilapidated squalor like this. Grange took off her poncho and draped it over the telescope. "We don't want the rain washing off any more fingerprints than it already has," she explained as she slid under the leaky back porch to keep dry. "And we don't want to move it, either." Burfict and Samuels nodded in agreement.

"Tanya mentioned something about stars this morning to me," murmured Burfict. "That this cult may be waiting on the stars to do something."

"That makes sense, I guess," replied Samuels. "This guy sees whatever it is he's looking for, and then goes and fucks a goat or whatever in celebration."

"So we're just assuming it's Sullivan?" asked Leanne from the porch. "I mean, it's not like the guy had any money to buy something like that. Where'd it come from?"

"Stolen? Maybe it belongs to an associate?"

"Maybe someone who was there when he died. Could tell us what happened."

Burfict sighed, and walked back to the house. He was certain no-one would ever be able to tell them why Sullivan died. He had seen it himself, and remembered that choking groan as the man had become a corpse in front of him. His nightmares never lied – the only other witness to the death was the monstrous goat woman. "I'm going to keep looking inside. Looks like he was definitely here recently. Or someone was, at least." Samuels and Grange nodded in agreement, although neither moved to join him.

Burfict moved through the remains of the living room, when he heard a noise from the bedroom. Curious, he quietly slid closer, his ears alert for any more noise. As he approached the door, he became more and more certain that someone was in the bedroom, shuffling around. He reached the door, and slowly drew his weapon before bursting through the door.

The room was empty and silent, aside from a bit of rain dribbling in through the broken window. Trash and ruined furniture sat in the corners as before, and the trap door in the center of the floor hung open, displaying the bizarre hieroglyphic. His stomach knotted – he was certain he had closed the hidden door when he had been in here just moments ago. Had Samuels or Grange re-opened it? Could it have opened itself? He walked over to the trap door and closed it again, pausing a moment to be certain it stayed shut, before then turning to leave. As he turned towards the door, Burfict froze, his mind racing to understand what he was seeing. There in the doorway stood Nathan Sullivan, his face unmolested, and his dark eyes fixed upon Burfict. David stumbled backwards, tripping over debris and landing on his side. By the time he looked back to the door, Sullivan was gone. Burfict moved to the doorway, and looked, but found no sign that anyone but he, Samuels and Grange had moved through the area recently.
From the journals of Dr. Alan Kaspars

10/7

I woke up standing in the living room, staring at the idol. It's after midnight now, and I'm not really sure I want to go to sleep. How long was I standing there? How long have I been sleep-walking? My heart keeps pounding like something's going to happen, although I have no idea what. I can't help but keep looking at the translations for Flüstern der Vermaledeit. I'm curious about what's on the idol. What is it about this thing that made John so crazy? Madness can't be contagious, can it? I'll take a crack at the first symbol before going back to bed. Maybe I can talk to John about it tomorrow.

rog'nshgnak – The spiteful womb. The unloving mother. The uncaring creator. One who bestows life upon another, but cares nothing for it. The desert's apathy towards the wilting flower.

Once I'd translated the first symbol, I felt something. Rog'nshgnak. That word. It was like I've known it all this time, just forgotten it. I wonder if this is how orphans from another country must feel when they hear their native tongue again for the first time. I need to know the next one.

shrgunth'ka – To give without intent or caring. To gift, but forsake. A blessing of indifference.

_The perfect word. Shrgunth'ka. The feeder delivering sustenance to the bacterium in his gut - without caring, or contempt, or even contemplation. More ancient puzzle pieces lock into place. I can almost feel forgotten synapses firing life._ _Fhtagn thoughts of ancestors awaken._

f'thagh – We who are worthless. Ones blind to their own lack of form. Mockeries of being.

I see now what John tried to tell me. The marionettes on the strings – f'thagh. How did I not see before? Our existence an illusion of the senses, our reality a small raft on the sea of madness. My mind unfolds like a map – connections I have never considered before now clear.

rflyuns – Existence without meaning. Dust screaming in the void of space, inaudible and irrelevant.

How was this forgotten? How could this be suppressed? Language shapes our understanding of existence, mapping the consciousness to the perceptions. Rflyuns. The sister of f'thagh. Are these the words of babies' screams?

gratsh'klnsh – The one whose presence gives significance.The hand to the glove, the viewer to the painting, the prey to the trap.

The unread page – rflyuns. The reader - gratsh'klnsh – the giver of meaning. Remove the gratsh'klnsh, and the page returns to rflyuns. I think of the sun, and hear the stars murmur in tongues eons old.

strythgk'lt – The lair between spaces.The throne between the present and the future, between here and elsewhere.

_Strythgk'lt. I realize our fragile underpinnings from which we define our reality are worthless. Past, present and future collapse when viewed from strythgk'lt. The present is merely a memory of the future, a fate of the past, making us but memories, ourselves. F'thagh. The rememberer the gratsh'klnsh. I am but the memory of a corpse. I am the unborn and the_ _fhtagn_ _dead._

Rog'nshgnak shrgunth'ka f'thagh rflyuns gratsh'klnsh strythgk'lt. A more beautiful symphony has never been uttered. I can feel the stars scream in delight. Existence trembles with my breath. The uncaring mother who gifts us worthless ones with meaning from her lair in the spaces between. The English language cannot begin to express the glory of it.
Burfict knocked on the door, and rocked back on his heels. He'd been to Tanya's home more times than he could count, but he still felt awkward waiting on the front stoop. He'd once had a key, back when they thought it might get serious. Before he sensed her cooling on him and retreated before any conflict could occur. He hated himself for retreating; for only speaking to her when he needed her help. He felt as if he'd given up on them without a fight – like a coward who slunk away into the night instead of taking a chance for what he wanted.

The door opened, and Tanya welcomed him in with a confused smile. He thanked her and entered, then stood in the doorway while she looked at him quizzically.

"What can I do for you, David?" It was something he'd been turning over and over in his mind since they'd been to that house.

"They're connected. This new one and the Kaspars case. I'm not sure why or how, but they are." He walked to the kitchen table and sat down staring at his hands. Tanya moved silently across from him, puzzlement etched into her face.

"What makes you so sure?"

"Sullivan – the new case. He lived in that same house that Kaspars said he'd been sent to. The Melker house. And some of the words... I can't remember them exactly, but they sound the same."

"You mean those words Kaspars was babbling about in those diaries you showed me?" Burfict nodded.

"I think I've heard them in this case too. I've read through those diaries over and over trying to make sense of them, and I'm sure I heard them used again in this one." A frown briefly crossed Tanya's face, and she reached out, taking Burfict's hands.

"Do you ever think that maybe it's best you not know? I mean, they're both dead. What good can come of figuring out why?" Burfict sensed her concern and looked up, holding eye contact for only a moment before looking away.

"I'm so close though," he whispered. "So close to seeing the answers, that I can feel it."

"But why does it matter why these two did what they did?"

"It just bothers me," was all Burfict could say. He wanted to tell her that maybe if he knew why the nightmares would stop. Maybe he could banish those whisperers back to the hole they crawled out of. He felt like he was caught in a trap – that his whole life was a guided wire and he was just being strung along for the ride. Maybe, if he could figure out how the trap worked, he could escape it. But he bit his tongue. "I think I want to interview your old co-worker. Phillip Kindred." Burfict felt her head snap up, and her eyes burning into him, but he continued. "You say he's nuts, but he was writing about this goat stuff years ago. Maybe someone has contacted him about it."

"I don't think you'll be able to get anything useful out of him," she said after a pause. Burfict could sense her concern and turmoil. He hated making her feel like this, but he knew that Kindred might have the answers he needed to stop Sullivan's goat woman.

"I need to try. Please," he locked eyes with her, almost pleading. "If I don't get anything, I'll drop it. I just need a lead here before the trail goes cold." She reached for a nearby pad of paper and began writing.

"Here's his address. If he doesn't live there anymore, I really can't help you. And I still don't think you should expect much. You'll see what I mean if you meet him." Burfict took the piece of paper and tucked it into his pocket, managing a sad smile as he looked at her.

"You ever think that maybe there's something to this stuff? The crazy shit, I mean." He thought back to the goat-woman devouring Sullivan's face or to the scene in the sanitarium and suppressed a shudder. "Some of the things I've seen... You know there was a telescope in Sullivan's back yard? Watching the stars for whatever the sign was, I guess."

"David..." it was just a whisper. She was pleading with her eyes.

David dropped his eyes back to his hands clasped on the table in front of him. "What if there really is a Shub-Niggurath? What if the Goat has already broken through?" He felt her eyes burning into him, her worry creeping towards fear. "If it were true..." he was speaking quietly, almost a whisper, "then it still wouldn't matter. We'd all be dead anyway, right? Unless there was some way to stop the Goat. To save everyone." Burfict stood and headed towards the door. Tanya stood, but stayed by the table, her face knotted into a frown.

"Don't go," she said softly. David didn't know if she was asking him to stay, or to not go to the Kindred house. Perhaps both. He doubted she knew either. The look on her face was like a knife driving into him – pain and fear carving itself deeply into his memory.

"I'm not crazy. I know you think I am, but I'm not," muttered Burfict as he opened the door and stepped out into the late summer drizzle.

# Chapter 9

# The Marked Ones

Roger stared down the hallway at the sobbing woman. Somewhere in the other room, the baby cried, though neither parent moved to comfort it.

She was standing several feet away, and the hallway was narrow. No room to move laterally – he'd have to come at her straight ahead. He tried to stall for time. "Listen... you don't have to-"

"Shut up," she snapped, raising the pistol in her shaking hand. "I found them. All of them." Ah, so she'd found the remains. He'd thought they had been hidden far enough away to keep her prying eyes from finding them, but he had known that this was a possibility. She was a clever woman. He was ready for it. If he could just get a few steps closer he just might be able to reach her.

"Susanne, my dad was-"

"No. It was you. How could you?" He hated her. Why did she have to be so stupid? Why couldn't she understand that none of them had any choice in the matter?

"I was born for it. Just like my father was. And just like my son is." At the mention of Steven, her eyes turned away for a second, and he inched closer.

She looked back at Rodger, her face twisted into a snarl of hate. "No. Not Steven. You're not poisoning him."

"It's too late. It's already written. Don't you see?" He took another slow step forward. Almost there. Just one more moment of hesitation. She was just beyond an arm's length, now. But if he lunged...

"All I see is a man who is never seeing my son again." She steadied the weapon and eyed him coldly. "You're a monster." She was not about to let him get any closer. This was it.

Roger lunged, his large hand finding a fistful of his wife's hair.

She screamed.

He heard the shot ring out in the hallway, booming like thunder in the tight corridor.

A blow slammed into his chest as he fell atop her, knocking the wind from his lungs as his massive frame pinned Susanne to the floor. "You stupid bitch," he whispered through gritted teeth as his hands found her throat. "You can't stop it. You can't fight the inevitable." She clawed at his face, her fingers raking at his cheeks, gouging at his eyes. "It's written in the strings of time." It was more of a snarl than a statement, the hate of it tangible on his breath. It tasted like blood. He coughed red onto her face, as her eyes bulged and her lips turned blue.

Eventually, she stopped thrashing, and he collapsed onto her. He couldn't breathe. Blood poured from his mouth, and Roger felt cold. The bullet wound was fatal. He needed no more information than the numbness rapidly seeping into his fingers. The floor was red and sticky, and as he watched it flowed freely from his chest. Had he done this before? It all felt so familiar. He watched as the red stain on the hardwood floors grew rapidly outward from their tangled mess of limbs.

He let a ragged breath and tried to relax. The collection and fortune would be protected as per the stipulations in his will. It was already taken care of. The remains were hidden far enough away that if discovered, they would never be traced back to him by any rational investigation. There would be rumors, of course, but those would be forgotten in time. The baby screamed in its crib two rooms away, and Roger Weder closed his eyes, comforted that Gregori's line would endure.
The home was probably once quite nice, Burfict noted as he walked up the stoop. Now tall weeds worked their way up from the remains of dead grass and broken sidewalk. The roof was dilapidated, and probably needed replacement a year or so ago, and what paint was left on the window panes peeled. Cardboard filled the windows, even where the glass was complete, blotting out any sign of habitation or light from inside. Attached to the door were several notices from utility companies, preserved by virtue of being under the overhanging stoop. Burfict stepped up onto the stoop and prepared to knock, before the noting the door was slightly ajar. It yawned open ever so slightly, allowing a glimpse into the darkness within. Cool air wafted outward into the warm evening, carrying with it the scent of weathered paper and rotten food.

From deep in the recesses of the house echoed "Come in, Detective. I've been expecting you." The voice sounded frayed and worn, ragged at the edges like jagged metal. It was little more than a croak. Inside, the clicking of a typewriter could be heard chattering like the teeth of a freezing man. Burfict pushed his head into the house and frowned. Everywhere papers were piled from floor to ceiling, stacked neatly atop boxes. A narrow path through the paper wound from the foyer, through the living room and into the rooms beyond creating a deep chasm in the stacks. Burfict followed the path into the building, letting it lead him into a small, dimly lit kitchen. Sitting at the circular oak table was the husk of a man staring at an old-fashioned typewriter. His clothes were unwashed rags, and his skin hung loosely on his skeletal frame. Large, sunken eyes peered at his document in the soft glow of an oil-lamp, as he tapped on the letters rapidly with long, yellowed fingernails.

The man smelled like he hadn't bathed in months - it briefly reminded Burfict of a trip to visit his father in the hospital, when he had seen a patient with terrible bed sores. The rotten smell was similar, but this man also had the acrid aroma of urine to mask the scent. Burfict stood regarding him silently, trying not to retch at the odor coming off of him.

He felt his mind reach out to the man, only to find it strangely rebuffed, as if he had struck a solid wall. It was a surprising sensation – one he had never felt anything like before. "You're just in time. I'm almost finished," muttered the man. He gestured out towards the stacks of paper in the other room. "My treatise on Shub-Niggurath."

Burfict looked at the reams of paper filling the house. "This is all one document?"

"It's my masterpiece. I need to explain her. And time is short, isn't it?"

"Why not use a computer? Save some space?"

"Has to be on a typewriter, I'm afraid. No electricity. Fuckers shut it off." He waved a bony hand in the air, as if the gesture conveyed meaning. Burfict thought back to the aged looking papers on the door, and looked at the reams of paper in the living room. The power had been off for a long time. The watery eyes turned towards Burfict, looking up at him from the skeletal face, and paused for a moment while they studied him. Finally, the cracked lips parted, and the man whispered to Burfict. "I know it. I can see it in your face. You're marked like me."

"Marked?"

"We dream things. Things of the future. I dreamt you. I dreamt this very moment. We are Marked Ones, in tune to the vibrations of the reality and time."

Burfict was shocked – never before had he met someone else who carried a similar burden. "You dream things too?"

"Only brief snippets. Not like you. I've never met another Marked One like you. Someone special marked you. You glow like a beacon. The rest of us..." he trailed off and shrugged, the threadbare rags on his shoulders threatening to fall apart from the slight movement.

"Who marked us? Why?"

Again, Phillip Kindred shrugged. "I don't know. Whoever made us, I suppose. You wouldn't happen to be related to any madmen, would you?"

"No. Of course not."

"Well, none that you know of. Your grandfather was adopted, you know."

Burfict stood, his mouth agape. "What are you talking about? No he wasn't."

Kindred turned to him with a wry smile. "Trust me. He was, when his parents met their rather.... Unfortunate ends."

"How would you know? Who told you that?"

"Do you know how many nights I've dreamt this moment, David? I've lived this moment a thousand times. I could be sleeping right now for all I know."

"So you know all about me? You know why I'm here?"

"I just know the questions and the answers we're about to speak. We're scripted, you see. You. I. Everybody. I know the script of this moment. The rest is not really my area of expertise."

"What is your expertise?"

"Shub-Niggurath. She of a Thousand Young. The Black Goat of the Woods. The Invader. She's sending tremors through the web. Through space and time. Even now." He paused and cocked his head as if listening to a far-off noise. "She's close. You've seen the Goat, haven't you, detective?"

"Only in a dream."

Kindred's eyes lit up and he sucked air through his teeth. "She's here! The Goat has arisen! Then it really is Eschaton, isn't it? The End Times." He turned and started typing again, hammering into the keyboard in a blur. "I need to hurry,' he murmured.

"Wait! What is she? I read your last paper, but couldn't make any sense of it. What's happening? How can I stop it?"

Kindred turned slowly, his face clenched in a look of irritation. "This." He gestured about the room. "All of this. It's all formed by strings. One-dimensional strings, vibrating. They form everything you can see and touch and taste. They form the very molecules that make you up. But they make more than that. They form the very dimensions in which these molecules exist. They are the X, Y and Z axes, and everything located in them. They are time. Past, present and future, all stretched out in four dimensions. They form even more than that – dimensions we can't even sense. That's what you and I see when we dream – the vibrations in the webs of these strings. You and I. The Marked Ones. We can feel them undulating. But Shub-Niggurath... She's not made by these strings. She's from something else. And somewhere in time and space, she is touching our world. Pressing up against the fabric of space-time. Vibrating the strings herself."

"But that hasn't happened yet, has it? She's not here yet. Only the Goat. How would you know ahead of time?"

"Time is a dimension, just like up and down, or left and right. Tremors from the future can be felt in the past by those sensitive enough to feel it."

"And the Black Goat of the Woods? What is she?"

Kindred smiled, revealing a mouth full of rotten, blackened teeth. "She's nothing. Nothing real, that is. Shub-Niggurath isn't made of the same stuff that we are. She doesn't even exist here. She's not written into the vibrating strings of the web, so she can't be here. The Goat is her avatar. An impression of her. The interaction between the multi-dimensional reality created by the web of strings, and Shub-Niggurath. Think of the Goat as a faint hint of static electricity between two differently charged surfaces. Her form is what that manifests itself to us as, though we are ourselves merely manifestations of interwoven strings of energy." He gestured out into the buried living room with a crooked finger. "It's all there," he said quietly. "But then, I guess you probably don't have time to be reading that."

"If Shub-Niggurath doesn't exist here..." he was going slowly, trying to make sense of the matter. "Then how can she break into our world?"

"She would need something in common to bridge between the two worlds. Something native to both of them. A gate to translate herself through into matter. Our matter."

"Can I stop her?"

Kindred only shrugged and turned back to his typewriter. "Not here, you can't."

# Chapter 10

# Wisdom and Prophecies

Gregori crouched low over the spider, watching her scuttle in her web towards the vibrations of a kicking fly. Young Petir knelt next to him in rapt attention. "Why does a spider build her web?" he asked the boy.

Petir looked up at him questioningly. "For a home?"

"A spider could live anywhere. The web is for feeding. For catching the fly." Gregori watched as the fly struggled in the web, flailing desperately for its life, but only tangling itself deeper. The web tugged and twisted, but held firm. Petir nodded, seeming to grasp the point of the lesson.

"Both the spider and the fly are needed for the web to have purpose," the boy concluded. Gregori smiled – Petir may have been a runt, but he was sharp. He would sustain both the line and the knowledge that accompanied it well. He would be ready for the language of Those From Beyond soon.

"And how does the web feel?"

Petir looked up at him puzzled. "The web can't feel. It is a thing. It catches as it was made to." Gregori waited for a moment for Petir to gather his thoughts. "Even if the web could feel, it wouldn't matter. Its entire purpose is the spider and the fly. Without them, it is nothing."

"What if capturing the fly made the web suffer?" asked Gregori.

"Then the web will suffer."
Burfict found himself standing in a dark room. Massive stone arches stretched to unfathomably tall ceilings above him, while a strange, dim light seemed to illuminate the area from everywhere. He recognized the room from previous dreams. He was in the chamber of the whisperers. Silently before him stood the three men in the tattered yellow robes. Burfict backed away instinctively, his eyes darting from one to another trying to watch them all. For a long moment, nothing moved. "Who are you?" he asked finally, shattering the long silence.

" _We are the prophets,"_ they answered as one. _"Seers of the web."_ Their voices were deep and powerful, seeming to echo from the walls like distant thunder. Burfict was reminded of the low rumble of a lion's snarl. He felt it in his gut and bones as much as he heard it. David tried to peer under their hoods through the gloom, but found the darkness to be impenetrable.

Burfict swallowed, summoning his courage. These specters had haunted his dreams for decades, but always carried with them the wisdom he sought; he needed to be brave now. He steadied himself and looked towards the nearest one. "Are you going to tell me about Shub-Niggurath? How do I stop her?"

" _I_ _ä!_ _I_ _ä!_ _Shub-Niggurath!"_ they exclaimed. _"The Black Goat of the Woods_!" said the first. _"She with a Thousand Young!"_ proclaimed the next. _"She From Beyond_!" shouted the last. The middle prophet stepped forward, and in a low voice whispered _"She is your purpose, Last Son."_ Burfict felt himself instinctively shrink back from the advancing figure, his heart racing.

"Why do you call me that? 'Last Son?'"

" _You are the last of your line. Ten generations of lineage. The Last Son. The Omega."_

"What's so important about the Burfict family tree?"

" _Burfict blood does not flow through your veins."_

" _You are borne from the blood of Gregori Weder."_

" _With you, the line ends."_

David thought back to Phillip Kindred – so he had been right about the adoption. But what difference did that make? "So? Who the fuck is Gregori Weder, and what does that have to do with anything?"

" _You have been marked."_

" _Chosen by your ancestor, to save your people."_

" _Shub-Niggurath approaches!"_

That caught Burfict's attention. If he had been chosen to save mankind, then perhaps he had the means to stop The Black Goat before Shub-Niggurath ever broke through. He faced the center prophet, swallowing his revulsion and terror. "Sullivan has brought Shub-Niggurath into our world somehow? Hasn't he?"

" _She is not yet born into your world, but she will be soon._ _"_

" _Rog'nshgnak can feel her approach."_

" _The web sings in her shadow."_

"Who is Rog'nshgnak?" asked David, straining to pronounce the bizarre name. "And why is that name so familiar? What does she have to do with Shub-Niggurath?" He felt ill speaking to these beings, but the importance of his task before him steeled his resolve. They had the knowledge he sought.

" _Rog'nshgnak is the mother,"_ whispered the third-most figure from the shadows of his robe.

" _She is the life giver and the death bringer."_

" _The writer of the web."_

"And Shub-Niggurath? Who is she?"

" _The Invader."_

" _The Thing from Beyond the Web."_

" _The Black Goat of the Woods."_

The air seemed to tremble with their words, as if Burfict's skin could feel the vibrations from their breaths. Goosebumps broke out along his arms, and he felt a shudder run up his spine. He swallowed and pressed on. "And what do you want? Who are you working for?"

" _We are dead things,"_ whispered the first.

" _Fhtagn,"_ murmured the second.

" _Ghosts of the dreaming past,"_ hissed the last.

" _We want nothing."_

" _Serve nothing."_

" _Seek nothing."_

"What are you?" David regretted the question as soon as it had left his lips. The three leered back at him from gloom, unmoving.

# 

# Chapter 11

# A Mind Unbound

From the journals of Dr. Alan Kaspars

14/81

I am now in the office. Or the memory of myself is standing where the office stood in the past. The millennia of the eons stretch open before and behind my memory. My mind's eye pierces the veil into oblivion and through it. It's all there. There is so much. If only they could see.

Is it before or after I learned the words? They were always there. There is no "before" or after. Time is a series of moments, each simultaneous yet distinct. Our fractured ordering is arbitrary and irrelevant. I will learn them all. Or have I already? The words. The moments. Have I always known them?

I remember the blood as the knife drove through the f'thagh I called John's head. Have I done this already? Am I doing it now? It doesn't matter. He screamed and I will scream with him. The flesh will peel off of his scalp. I will hang his flesh. I have already hanged his flesh above his bed. My memory is now cutting through the scalp to remove his flesh. I will cut. He will bleed.

He will understand the gratsh'klnsh. He thanked me in our native tongue as I cut. The tongue of screams. Words from beyond. The four flayed limbs were left. The four empty limbs of skin make the eight. Four gratsh'klnsh, four rflyuns. Eight limbs. Beautiful symmetry. A tribute for rog'nshgnak in her strythgk'lt. She has seen, and does not care. Uncaring birther. Forsaking creator. Woven into her strythgk'lt. It happens. Has happened. Will happen. Shrgunth'ka.

_I will slice my belly. Have I already? It's so hard to tell where you are in strythgk'lt. The web of nows. My memory foresees me pulling. The tubes - they are thick like ropes. Were thick like ropes. I am so empty. A vessel. A sarcophagus. A mausoleum. A dream. My hands - there's so much blood. Is it mine? Was it ever mine? Can the unborn bleed? Can a memory? I will slash the ropes. Filth pools on the floor – I am become rog'nshgnak, the uncaring birther of a trillion. Blood. Life. Disease. Shit. I am all. I am nothing. I am the memory of a dreaming corpse. A ghost._ _Fhtagn._

# Chapter 12

# The Flayed Man

David shuddered as the first prophet stepped forward and opened his robe, shattering the uneasy stillness of the chamber. It appeared to be a normal man, standing nude before David. Then the being stepped out of the robes and David could see its arms and legs in the gloom. They had been sliced lengthwise from fingertip to elbow, and from toe to knee, swinging apart as he walked, each half seeming to function on its own accord. The man stood still and extended his arms and legs outwardly, splaying them open to give the impression of a nightmarish Vitruvian Man. The prophet looked at David, and David felt his soul wither under those lifeless eyes. They were empty, black holes gazing through him into oblivion. _"Behold,"_ he said, _"I am the Divided Man."_ Before he could stop himself, David felt his mind reach out to touch the figure before him, and recoiled in horror. There was nothing there. No soul, no life. Just a husk of a man. An abomination.

" _Krck'ron grunsntch'tak rl'ynoq kllnsh. I_ _ä!_ _I_ _ä!_ _Shub-Niggurath! Koln'grth! Grnr'urck kngg'urn fth'ok!"_ The figure screamed Sullivan's gibberish, but somehow Burfict understood it. _"I who have nothing have gifted the seeds of oblivion, and so have become immortal! Great Shub-Niggurath, the Black Goat of the Woods! Your spawn! I have drawn you into this world to make it your own!"_

The second prophet then opened his robe and stepped forward, revealing a skinless body. He moved silently, and then peered into Burfict with similarly empty, bottomless eyes. _"Look into my eyes and see oblivion,"_ he whispered, _"for I am the Flayed Man."_ David felt the same emptiness inside this being, and as his mind groped through the darkness inside this form, he trembled.

Again, the prophet spoke the mad words of Sullivan, and again Burfict understood, although the translation was different. _"This mockery of being has performed his master's task, as has always been written in the web of nows! Great Shub-Niggurath, She with a Thousand Young! Your gate! Your life has been forever added to this tomb and you have forever become entangled within it!"_

Finally, the last prophet opened his robe and let it fall to a heap. The man's stomach had been slashed open, his guts pooling on the ground about his feet. They dragged as he soundlessly shuffled forward. It wasn't until Burfict looked up to the prophet's face that the true horror set in. _"Gaze upon me, for I am the Gutted One,"_ whispered the face of Doctor Kaspars. David plumbed the depths of the being before him, looking for some vestige of the man that was once there, but found nothing. He was staring into Kaspars's eyes and saw only an abyss.

The last prophet spoke the gibberish of the madman, and David understood – the words meant many things at once. _"I have with jubilation ensured our fate, and have begat our purpose! Great Shub-Niggurath, She From Beyond! Your doom! I have welcomed you to this space and time to begin your reign of agony!"_

"Y-you're Alan Kaspars! Doctor Alan Kaspars! You skinned your patient and slashed your own stomach! I worked on your case!"

The Gutted One peered at Burfict through the gloom, and then spoke. _"I am two beings, the dead and the dreaming. In one, I am the unborn dead thing like yourself. A_ _f'thagh. A blind, meaningless existence, given purpose only through Her needs. In the other, I sit aside the strythgk'lt, the lair between spaces, and read the web of nows. A_ _fhtagn. Dreaming dead given life through purpose and terrible expectancy._ _"_

"You've only been dead for six years! How have you been haunting me since I was a child?"

" _Here, we are beyond time. Past and present, order and disorder are irrelevant in places beyond time itself."_

"I don't understand. What are you? Why are you in my dreams?"

The Flayed Man answered, his deep voice echoing through the windowless room. _"_ _Your_ _gratsh'klnsh approaches. Your time of purpose is at hand. We are your shepherds through this moment, to guide you to your destiny. To ensure, that when the stars are right, the trap is sprung."_

"Are you Kaspars's patient? The one he skinned?"

" _We three are tied to one-another through our agony and purpose. We are puppets of the same thread."_

The Divided Man shambled forward, and David tried not to cringe as the being brought his mutilated hands to David's face. Two fingers and a thumb rest on each of David's temples, while two more fingers held each of his shoulders. _"The time is upon us. The stars are right! Shub-Niggurath's birth is nigh. You are the key to your peoples' salvation. Draw her into the web so that our_ _Rog'nshgnak, the creator, might consume her."_

# Chapter 13

# Shub-Niggurath

"Three prophets exist beyond space and time to guide us in our search for purpose. There is a natural progression to them; predictable, measurable and reasonable. They consist of The Divided Man, the Flayed Man, and the Gutted One, each a tribute to Rog'nshgnak, the great mother in her Web of Nows. These three exist beyond time, yet are born from it. They are the manifestation of the will of the creator – enlightened to all that is, was and will be. They are the binding threads of the web – the lynchpins to its structure. Only through them can we achieve our destiny."

-Gregori Weder
David awoke in his bed, shuddering. It was 2 in the morning, but he was no longer tired. Restlessness had overtaken him, some reserve of energy he had not known he'd possessed. David sighed and collapsed into the armchair in front of his television. He had no idea where else to go, or what to do. He flipped on the news while he sank deeper into the cushions of the chair, hoping the droning of the anchor could bore him back to sleep. Instead of sleeping, he found himself listening wearily, his eyes blearily staring at the pale electric glow.

"There's a new star in the sky that has astronomers abuzz!" chirped the reporter cheerfully. "WR-104, a star normally invisible to all but the strongest telescopes, is now brightly shining in the night sky!" Burfict felt his stomach cramping into a knot as panic gripped him. "Scientists say the brightening is a result of the star exploding into a supernova nearly 8,000 years ago, although the light is just now reaching Earth!" It couldn't be true. He gaped at the screen. "They expect it to keep brightening for the next day or so, before gradually dimming. Amateur star-gazers should look South for the constellation Sagittarius."

Burfict ran outside and looked to the South. There, low in the sky hung a new star, brighter than any other in the sky. The stars were right. He raced into his apartment, dressed and jumped into his car, speeding away into the night.
Gregori looked down from his pulpit at the young man before him. Petir was smaller than Gregori, and his father before him, but he had excelled at grasping Gregori's teachings. He had no doubt that his instructions would be carried out perfectly. The door sealing the inner sanctum thudded loudly as something on the other side hammered against it, cracking the heavy wooden bar sealing it shut. Gregori knew he must hurry.

"Take these books," he said, handing the prized Nekrodeus de Antichronos and his own set of writings regarding the language of Those From Beyond. "Make haste, and flee to the East. Continue our line. The chain must not be broken." Petir nodded and took the heavy books, slinging them over his back before crawling into the hidden passage in the floor. Gregori slid the rug over the concealed entrance to the tunnel and turned to face the door. Another jarring blow hammered the door, cracking it open. He could hear the shouts of men on the other side, and just see the flash of armor and blades. He steeled himself for the end – the writings found in the Nekrodeus had held off his death for so long, that he almost longed for its embrace. After 130 years of life, he was ready.

A final blow against the door broke the brace and soldiers spilled into the sanctum. Gregori recognized the black cross of the Teutonic Knights, and held still as they poured into the room. A regal-looking man entered last, his armor especially ornate, with a yellow halo circling the crown of his helmet. His breath rang out in the hall like a trumpet. "Gregori Weder, you have been accused of heresy, witchcraft and subversion and sentenced to death." Gregori only smiled as the steel blade thrust into his innards, spilling his lifeblood onto the floor. The blade was cold, chilling him as it stole his life. He felt his organs contort and rupture about the steel, and fell to his knees. "May God have mercy on your soul," murmured the warrior above him.

Gregori turned, feeling the wet sticky warmth of his lifeblood as it dribbled freely from his mouth. He looked up into his executioner's eyes and whispered his last words. "No God. No soul." As oblivion overtook him, the ancient man found peace; pleased to know he had fulfilled his task.
David arrived at the dilapidated barn, only to find the three prophets already there waiting for him. _"We knew you would arrive,"_ murmured the Flayed Man from the shadows. _"We are here to follow you to Shub-Niggurath; to witness her destruction."_ The sight of them rocked David, who even after a lifetime of nightmares had not expected to see the three while awake.

He gathered his breath and calmed his nerves before stepping forward. "I'm not doing anything for you, and you're not following me anywhere." Standing up to them felt right, he felt righteous, even if he was panicking on the inside. The Divided Man shambled up to David, his arms and feet swinging apart and together as walked like some form of hideous insect.

" _We are your guides. Your guardians. You need us."_

"For what?" David spat, anger rising in him, replacing his earlier fear. He felt emboldened and alive. "You've haunted me all my life, and now you expect me to do something for you? Fuck off."

" _It is not for us. It is for all the things that call themselves mankind. It is for Leanne Grange and Ben Samuels. For David Burfict and Tanya Brown. We are merely guides and observers. The historians and prophets. The seers and dreamers."_ David felt his heart quicken again.

"What does this have to do with my friends? What does this have to do with anyone?"

" _The stars are right,"_ the Divided Man pointed up to the blazing star in the sky. _"Shub-Niggurath approaches. For your kind to have any purpose, she must be caught and destroyed. You are the key."_ David stood still and took this in. He debated whether he could trust these things when they claimed to be here to help him. After decades of nightmares at their hands, he found it hard to acquiesce to their suggestions, regardless of what they told him. It wasn't the mutilations that repulsed him so; it was the emptiness of them all. How could he trust something so empty?

The Flayed Man seemed to sense his unease, interrupting David's thoughts. _"For her salvation."_ David's thoughts travelled to Tanya, to the simple pleasure he took from being around her. The prophets had never lied to him before – even when the information was horrifying, it was always true. What if they were telling the truth? What if the only way to save mankind was to follow that star? They were offering a chance to destroy the invader. He had to take it. He felt the comforting weight of his side-arm on his hip and drew in a deep breath, and keeping an eye on the three figures set off, towards the star.

It seemed they walked for ages – David's feet ached, and he was chilled by the cool air. The night had not changed a bit, almost as if time itself were waiting for them. The air seemed to hang, pregnant with expectancy. In the windless night, the only sounds were David's own footsteps and breathing. The prophets moved silently behind him, seemingly implacable. He had tried to talk at first, about what he would find, or what he would need to do once he got wherever he was going, but was met only with stone-faced stares and empty eyes.

Eventually, they came to a small structure. It had no walls, just a roof to divert the rain, with a large feeding trough in the middle. Sitting against the trough, watching his approach was the goat-headed woman. She sat crossed-legged, her back to the feeder, and in her arms, cradled something small. David drew his weapon and approached her cautiously, occasionally sneaking glances at the three things behind him. It wasn't until he stepped closer that David realized that the small thing the Goat held was a child, newborn. The beast looked up at him with her slitted eyes, and David almost thought he detected a sadness to her expression, as if grief could somehow show through those animal eyes. The night was silent but for his and the mother's breathing. She laid the nude infant on the ground, and David was struck by the paleness of it. It seemed to radiate its own faint sheen in the bright starlight.

He looked at the child for signs of deformity, and found none - it looked like a normal human baby. He approached slowly, and when the woman made no sign of moving, he picked it the infant up, realizing it was as cool as the night. He felt for a breath and found none. Stillborn. "It's dead. The baby. I thought she was going to give birth to Shub-Niggurath. To end the world."

" _That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die,"_ whispered The Flayed Man.

" _The child is a vessel. A gateway into this tomb,"_ said The Gutted One, his insides trembling as he spoke. _"The stars are right. The key approaches."_

"What's going on?" asked David. "I don't understand."

The Flayed Man turned and answered. _"Shub-Niggurath has broken through into your world. You have been brought here to destroy her."_

"How do I do that?"

" _The stars are almost right. You are the link. The key. You shall open the gate."_ Then, the three things that were once men knelt before The Black Goat of the Woods, and one by one spoke.

" _I_ _ä!_ _I_ _ä!_ _Shub-Niggurath!"_ said the Divided Man. _"I offer you the gift of life."_ He extended his mutilated hand and caressed the head of the goat.

" _I_ _ä!_ _I_ _ä!_ _Shub-Niggurath!"_ said the Flayed Man. _"I offer you the gift of knowledge."_ He held his forehead to that of the beast, and they gazed into one another's alien eyes.

" _I_ _ä!_ _I_ _ä!_ _Shub-Niggurath!"_ said the Gutted One. _"I offer you the gift of destruction."_ He cupped the woman's hand, almost tenderly, and then produced from seemingly nowhere a small obsidian sculpture, nearly invisible in the starlight, and laid it at her feet.

David felt a cool wind blow, as if the world was exhaling. Every fiber in his being felt alert and alive. Something tensed in his stomach – he was ready for this moment, and he knew it. He had been ready his whole life, perhaps even before it. He knew he was the pinnacle of life on this small rock, and had been readied for just this purpose. The apex of evolution. He gazed up at the burning new star, and saw the color change from a beautiful white to a red, casting the world in a crimson pallor.

" _The time is upon us. Kill her."_ David was unsure if he thought it or heard it, but he looked down from the crimson sky just in time to see the woman rising to her feet. The Black Goat of the Woods moved quickly and silently, closing the several yards David had between himself and the monster, her teeth barred in something akin to a snarl. There was no time to think. He aimed his weapon and squeezed the trigger, feeling the satisfying jolt of a slug leaving the chamber. The woman staggered backwards silently into the manger, and David squeezed the trigger again, feeling the satisfying pop of the weapon as it flung metallic death at thousands of feet per second. David watched as the goat woman crumpled into a heap, the dead animal's tongue hanging limply from its mouth. He squeezed the trigger again, and watched her jump as the third bullet imbedded itself into her chest, but she remained otherwise still.

He stepped close to touch her neck, looking for a pulse, but the body seemed to melt away into nothingness - ethereal, like a zephyr. The malformed slugs fell to the ground – the only sign that she once existed. He turned to the swaddled corpse sitting on the ground, and instinctively picked it up, looking at it closely. The eyes were open. David tried to drop the baby, but found himself rooted to the spot, frozen there by a mixture of fear and confusion. The eyes were twin black orbs in the face of the child, dark like the blackness he had seen in his dreams. It reminded him of an oil spill – black inky suffocating death. He thought of a bottomless abyss, endless and dark, of black holes roving through the depths of space. There was nothing in those eyes – they were the eyes of the void, and yet, behind them, David's mind felt something massive. Shub-Niggurath. She stretched back into a place beyond space and time, looming over the plane of our existence like a fly over a rotten piece of meat.

Through the child. That was the gate – the being of both words. Born of both man and outsider. The thought echoed in Burfict's mind as he stared into the endless orbs in the newborn's eyes.

" _Feel her. The prey approaches."_

David felt his mind reach out through the stillborn thing in his arms and run along the length of the God before him. It was immense and timeless, inscrutable and unfathomable. He felt like an ant staring up at a dragon – it was too large to take it all in. It was so much more than he had ever seen. It was worlds and centuries and forever and nothing all rolled into one vast organism. It was too much. The pain began to build behind his eyes as David remained staring into the coal-black eyes of the unborn thing in his arms. David felt the presence reach out to him, like a moth to a flame. He instinctively fled from it, trying to pull his mind back from beyond its grasp, but felt it close in around him. When it touched his mind, pain seared through his body like coursing electricity, fixing him rigidly to the spot. He groaned, the only thing he could do, as the being in the corpse coiled itself around his mind like barbed wire. The three prophets circled him, whispering.

" _I_ _ä!_ _I_ _ä!_ _Shub-Niggurath! May her reign of agony –"_

" _-the key, and the gate is open –"_

" _-confined to the web of nows-"_

" _-trapped-"_

" _-tomb-"_

" _-death-"_

" _Rog'nshgnak!"_

David screamed as pain exploded behind his eyes, and the stillborn child screamed with him. He felt his mind drawing back to him through the child, but the being beyond clung to it. As he retreated to the safety of his own body, he sensed himself dragging the massive being out of the corpse and into the world. The birth-throes of a god wracked through reality, as the invader poured into our four dimensions. Reality shuddered and contracted as the alien forced its way into it. Black tar-like resin wept from the eyes of the child, as if they were tears of oil. The thick tendrils curled up into the air, coalescing in the burning sky like long thin tentacles. He felt his mind continue to pull itself back from the corpse, drawing more of the outsider with it. The pain was insufferable now, threatening to blot out everything. David fell to his knees and groaned. He thought briefly of Tanya, of his friends. Had he chosen this? Could he have averted it somehow? Did he ever truly have a choice?

He watched as the growing monstrosity blotted out the stars, a massive behemoth of undulating arms and searching eyes. The atmosphere shuddered with screams as the beast roared in many voices at once, shouting the truths of past, present and future. The world burned as men turned upon another in fits of madness. Iä! Iä! Shub-Niggurath had entered her tomb, bringing life to this otherwise dead world. Rog'nshgnak, the Spider Queen from her web of nows had captured her prey.

"Do not mourn man, for there is nothing to mourn. No man has ever truly lived, nor will any one ever truly die. That which was never alive cannot die. To weep for our end is to weep for the end of a character in a story – we exist only as our author demands, and then, only to her whims. When the world burns and the outsider breaks through, our thoughts should be of joy, for we will have completed our great task. The fly will be caught, and the spider shall feed."

-Gregori Weder

