Miskatonic Dreams Read online

  MISKATONIC DREAMS

  edited by

  H. David Blalock

  and

  Herika R. Raymer

  Published by Alban Lake Publishing at Smashwords

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording or by any information storage and retrieval systems, without expressed written consent of the authors and/or artists.

  Miskatonic Dreams is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the authors’ imaginations. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Story copyrights owned by the respective authors.

  Cover illustration “Come Hither”copyright 2016 by James Brey; Samantha Novak, model

  Cover design by Laura Givens

  First Printing, October 2016

  Alban Lake Publishing

  http://albanlake.com/

  email:[email protected]

  Visit http://albanlake.com/ for online Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Scifaiku, and more. Also visit the Alban Lake Publishing bookstore at http://store.albanlake.com/ for paperbacks, magazines, anthologies, and chapbooks. Support the small, independent press…

  FOREWORD

  Miskatonic University. The name conjures images of unearthly beings striding haunted halls, of a library replete with unholy tomes, and laboratories in which scientists tinker with the mechanics of life itself, usually with horrifying results.

  In these pages you will find out more about that storied University, its denizens, its faculty, and its students. Some of the best writers in the horror genre have lent their talents to bringing you insight into the mysteries that reside within it. From the terrifying to the humorous, the stories in this volume reflect university life in all its variety. We're sure you will find something to your liking.

  We would like to thank Jennifer Vos for her aid in reading and recommendations. Her help was invaluable. We would also like to thank all those authors who are returning from the previous anthology in our Lovecraftian series, The Idolaters of Cthulhu, for lending their hands to making Miskatonic Dreams a reality. Welcome back!

  And welcome to you, gentle reader. May you find within the walls of Miskatonic University the answers you seek... and live to tell the tale.

  H David Blalock

  Herika R Raymer

  21 July 2016

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  ORIENTATION

  If These Shadows Could Talk... by James C. Simpson

  Dear Mother and Father by Dave Schroeder

  Bridges of Arkham County by Guy Riessen

  TOMES AND RITUALS

  Your Special Advocate by Chad Eagleton

  Residue by Gregory L. Norris

  The Darkness Makes Us Whole by S. L. Edwards

  How I Died by Jill Hand

  STUDENT ACTIVITIES

  Authorised Librarians Only by DJ Tyrer

  They Come Crawling by Logan Noble

  One Last Death by Eric Tarango

  The Accursed Lineage by Aaron Vlek

  CAMPUS PERSONNEL CORRESPONDENCE

  Miskatonic University Email Updates by Lyssa Wilhelm

  Those Were the Days by Robert J. Krog

  YEAR'S END

  The Eldritch Dark by Clark Ashton Smith

  I have scann’d the vast ivy-clad palace,

  I have trod its untenanted hall,

  Where the moon writhing up from the valleys

  Shews the tapestried things on the wall;

  Strange figures discordantly woven, which I cannot endure to recall.

  I have peer’d from the casement in wonder

  At the mouldering meadows around,

  At the many-roof’d village laid under

  The curse of a grave-girdled ground;

  And from rows of white urn-carven marble I listen intently for sound.

  From “Nemesis”

  H. P. Lovecraft

  ORIENTATION

  If These Shadows Could Talk...

  James C. Simpson

  There was a peculiar silence that fell over the university in the early summer days. For a majority of the calendar year, the University of Miskatonic was alive with the sounds of the living; the students, the faculty, and the many visitors who chose to walk in the halls of this most notorious of public institutions. If these walls could speak they would have many stories to tell. Most of these stories were of the most horrid kind. They were written over nearly two centuries, as long as the building existed, and longer still. They told of ardent researchers who branched into archaic fields better left to the ages. Many were well acquainted with the blasphemous tomes, the Necronomicon having a special significance here, though it was hardly the only hellish book referenced. There were other stories of The King in Yellow and Cathacara that were also known here. And the rumors that many of these men of the past had conjured up demons in these halls, creatures that should have remained in shadows, come to light.

  Some remembered the story of a student who had supposedly reanimated the dead. There were others who would question the validity of a certain picture of a meteor fragment, a fragment said to drain life from all it came in contact with, now since vanished. Some of the students still whispered the name “Cthulhu,” in reference to the rumored god said to have been encountered by past alumni.

  Some of the names were still referenced in the classrooms, especially if one were to take a course in parapsychology or metaphysics. There they may hear the names of Randolph Carter or Charles Dexter Ward or Herbert West. Even in the anthropology department, a professor might amuse his class with a story regarding the late Arthur Jermyn.

  Miskatonic had a storied history and even after all the living inhabitants vacated the premises, there was still much to be said. The building loomed large in a massive clearing, surrounded by trees and yards and shrubs finely trimmed and maintained. It was a handsome building and despite the occasional repair and repainting, it still resembled its past self from its most “infamous” period of nearly a century before. It was not a foreboding structure by any means and actually with its idyllic surrounding of hanging trees, green grass, benches and tables, it appeared rather inviting. In the summer days, it almost had the look of some southern plantation, the kind a person would retire to if they had acquired enough wealth. A lake lie behind the building and its blue water shimmered in the noon sun, not even hinting at the horror that may have lurked in those waters many years before. Like most of the building, that past is now relegated to amusing stories whispered by students and staff, for few took most of these old accounts seriously. There were always eager types willing to research that past, but Miskatonic was apt to tell the stories but retain the secrets.

  A cold breeze blew past the trees, a jarring contrast to the sunny and warm summer day, a suggestion of the approaching night and its own dark secrets. Some were still wary of the evening hours alone here, the superstitious sort mainly, but also those who were wise enough to believe more than they were taught.

  An eerie stillness overcame the building. The chirping of birds died and even the insects seemed to depart as if to hide away from the night's arrival. The shadows loomed across the yards of the building and the appearance of the property changed ev
er slightly from something pleasant to something vaguely sinister. The air grew cooler and it was at this time that the living would not be welcomed at Miskatonic University.

  The chinks of a dying light shone through the cracks of doors and windows that held the immobile books and instruments left ignored for the summer months, the light receding inch by inch until the rooms were left dark and lonelier than before. Even the shadows departed the halls and what remained was a blanketing darkness. Nothing moved in these halls and even the sound of some vague rodent could not discerned within these walls.

  Yet, there was a stirring to be heard across the university of something awakened from a long slumber. By the time the moon had kissed the building, appearing behind the billowing distant clouds in the void of sky above, something had made its appearance in the hallways of the old Miskatonic University.

  At first, they appeared to be stray reflections of moonlight passing through windows, cracks in the doors, and other orifices. Then they took shape, vaguely familiar and all the more frightening to the eyes of the living if any were there to perceive them.

  The figures were spectral and colored a luminous green or yellow and appeared to float through the very walls of the building. Upon closer inspection they bore an uncanny resemblance to those once living and the faces, if one had dared to inspect them, recalled a few dusty photographs still hanging in the archives of the building. These restless spirits, if spirits they may be called, glided across the halls and went about their business, frequenting the labs and classrooms. No words were audible in the night air, nothing relative to any known language but an eerie humming was heard among the departed that permeated the building and seemed to have been carried by their sudden appearance.

  While the creatures did not lift any objects and it was doubtful if such lifeforms were capable of such physical contact, things did occur and change within the rooms they occupied. As if by some magic, words appeared stenciled on the walls, some written in paragraphs and resembling the notes of a madman bearing a language long since discarded. Equations and formulae, their purpose forgotten, were among the stenciled writings found on the walls. None were ascribed to a particular individual but if one were to discern the words they could likely match them to one of the many departed researchers who helped create the university's haunted legacy. It was certain that many mysteries of the past could be unlocked if one so learned would read these words, but perhaps it was better that they remained unseen by mortal eyes.

  Some of the words apparent were names including Azathoth, Yog-Sothoth, Cathacara and of course, the most dreaded of all, Cthulhu. One might feel these creatures were present even now, biding their time, waiting patiently for their time to arrive again.

  In the basement of the building, where the archives gathered dust through the century, a green bilious light emitted from behind the closed doors rising from the floorboards and recalling an ancient evil forgotten even by the superstitious students and researchers who still chose to believe such stories. There was an obscene gurgling heard beneath the floor of something insidious and best left unseen. A slime slowly crept up from the cracks but barely made it, as if lacking the power to thrust forward into this previously mortal realm. The floor throbbed with life nonetheless, pulsating as if alive.

  With a sudden fury, the door of the vault flung open with the force of a strong gale, except there was no breeze and the heavy metal door could never have been swung open with such efficiency by such natural means.

  Within the vault was an embarrassment of treasures; discarded relics of an ancient time. Some were of the useful archaeological design, pieces of stone and material from ancient cities, while others were some preserved organic monstrosities only a select few among the living had any knowledge of. The decaying tomes within were worth their weight in gold to whomever could translate them and included the translated Necronomicon, the journal of Charles Dexter Ward, various laboratory reports involving conjurings, other dimensions, the mythic “Borderland” and even some journals involving the subject of reanimation. A few glowing green test tubes still remained packed away, left untouched by modern hands – a great pity the secret to life would be left so ignored through nearly a hundred years.

  A tentacled monstrosity loomed somewhere in the glowing green of the closed archives and sat patiently as it had for aeons in the corner of the room, awaiting a moment to welcome a night visitor. The hands of the clock in the upstairs hallway, counting off every second unafraid and in perpetual motion much like life, forever marching even when death looms, now neared the midnight hour. This was the time that the superstitious claimed all the evils of the world would hold sway and one had to wonder what sort of malicious spirit would arrive in a place like this at that much feared hour.

  The clock chimed, announcing to the wandering denizens of the night that it was indeed their time. By now, the rooms, the halls, the grounds were alight with a curious luminous glow which pulsated a sickly yellow color, the figures floating in the halls and rooms like living shadows.

  In the distance, something lumbered toward the building arriving shortly after the clock's hands reached the 12. It was at first a looming shadow but when it crossed over the grounds its appearance became visible and it was certainly an appropriate visitor for such an evening.

  The shapes in the basement began to take definitive form though none were familiar to mortal eyes. They bore appendages perhaps associated with creatures remembered by learned biologists and zoologists but what they were attached to looked entirely alien and indeed, they likely were. The basement had little of the moonlight that flooded the upper floors but glowed from its own hellish emission, a bilious green and yellow color that acted luminescent in the dark. Tentacles and claws grasped in the dark, eyes both red and yellow and other colors of the spectrum and beyond blinked and gazed over volumes of forgotten lore, the words archaic and indecipherable except to the few scholars who dared through the centuries. There was a sense of anger in the air, a frustration caused by these things for, while they possessed the very books needed for absolute power, there was a catch and that was of a human presence.

  Something crashed open the doors upstairs and that was only vaguely human.

  It descended the stairs, the spirits of the long dead and departed passing through it, fascinated by its structure and its living dead flesh. The shadowy figure hulked and walked with an odd gait, each step measured and careful as if both legs did not have the same owner. Its arms hung loosely, apelike in appearance, the hands dangling from a coat much too short for its massive frame.

  The thing was drawn to the basement and the evil within even if it was not necessarily so. The green hues of the basement gave an odd pallor to the already sickly yellow skin of the creature that appeared that evening. It strode across the floor of the basement, not paying heed to the dark denizens that shared its space. The creature's focus was on the opened vault and it lumbered through the door leading toward it to enter the vault, briefly riffling through some paraphernalia before acquiring what it came for. The things in the darkness whispered softly amongst themselves in a tongue obscure and sometimes almost human. In its huge hand, the creature held an ancient leather tome blackened and yellowed by the ages to its breast. It looked upward toward the world of the living and contemplated for a moment. Its face was a mismatch of scars and a skeletal visage that could have come only from the grave and perhaps that's why these things were so fascinated by its appearance here. This solitary figure was as one both content with the world of the living and the dead.

  A few strands of greasy black hair hung across its distorted face. Its yellow eyes scanned the darkness and it began its ascension to the world above once again. The creatures below stirred and continued to whisper after the thing left. Perhaps they wondered of its purpose.

  The book it had taken was a journal detailing a reportedly successful alchemical experiment involving the philosopher's stone and the resurrection of some stitched together charnel fragm
ents that became life. It was supposed that whatever that “man” had been, perhaps he was the result of that long ago experiment. Miskatonic had many such visitors. It was as if they were drawn here by instinct. In many ways, it was the hideaway for the darkness when light departed the world of man and all such creatures found a kinship with its peculiar atmosphere.

  The grounds surrounding the university were alive as well. The dark waters of the ponds began to send up bubbles from some unknown origin and whatever was down there dared to make an appearance. Beneath the black waters, an eerie glow emitted, resembling what a flashlight might look if submerged. The waters appeared to boil but it was really a sign of several lives below the surface wanting to taste the night while they still had the opportunity.

  The trees swayed unnaturally around the property back and forth, for there was not even a gust of wind to make them do so. There was something alive under the ground and the roots of the ancient trees were controlled by another malignant energy. It was supposed that this was a result of the spillage of a strange alien fragment that an errant scientist had dropped in the 20s. It was the very same discovery that yielded a destructive force on a farm in the Arkham valley, a thing which fed on the life force of all living things in its vicinity. It was described as a “colour out of space,” and this alien thing was still apparent here at Miskatonic.