Apologies to H.P. Lovecraft, whose masterful writings served as the inspiration for this terrifying tale of macabre erotic horror...
I. The Dreadful Machine
The pen trembles as I write this with a shaking hand, an infinite sense of overwhelming dread stealing over my very bones as I await the inevitable end to stumble forth from the dead shadows to claim my unworthy soul. My hideous fate has been sealed as was the fate of Herbert Hattlefield, amateur man of science; sealed the moment he switched on his unspeakable machine. The memories are beyond my ability to describe them, and I am plagued by dreams nightly, dreams of abhorrent slimy things sluggishly creeping through tepid filth in the dark.
What's this? A noise from outside the window, a peculiar scratching from the inky black darkness of this never-ending night. A shuffling of something, possibly only the trees caught in a whisper of cool air. Possibly something else... I may not have much time...
As I have already stated, our particular troubles began with the machine. It was a monstrous mechanical entity, a robotic Frankenstein pieced together with coils and wires rather than natural flesh and blood. The contraption appeared nonsensical at best, a dubious collection of metal spheres, blinking bulbs, connecting keyboards of hieroglyphic keys with shapes I could not discern as belonging to any language known to man; and bundles upon bundles of electrical cords snaking out of consoles and computing monitors like Medusian tentacles. Connected to all with stringing wires and overloaded plugs was a metal platform centered within this mechanical mayhem of unrecognizable wickets and doohickies.
Herbert incessantly babbled on as he introduced me to his bastard robotic child spawned by some imaginative abyss within his unfathomable mind. He flicked switches, pulled levers, mashed uncountable buttons and typed instructions on the unreadable keyboards. Through it all, a chill of suspicion and unbelief clouded my churning consciousness.
"The dreams, dear Wilcox. It was the dreams that allowed me to put it all together. They were my guides on this path of discovery and unearthly achievement," Herbert told me with eyes gleaming with what I now believed to be madness. His face was pale, his complexion sickly, the skin pulled taut over his skull like a gray canvas painted with the dull colours of a life isolated for days within his lonely laboratory.
"The books," I tried to convinced him, hopefully appealing to whatever slivers of sanity remained behind his animalistic eyes. "The books you inherited from your sick and unstable uncle is what has invaded your mind and tortured your nights with these dreams!"
The books of which I spoke were an ancient tome brimming with the lunatic ravings of a mad Arabian monk called Abdul Alhazred, his blasphemous words a revolting poison to all those who read them; and the other was the journal of Herbert's own insane uncle, a man who had shortened his pitiful life by leaping headfirst from his bedroom window to the stony street below only after passing his complete and utter madness to paper to be inherited by his favored nephew and last living relative.
"You cynical fool! Where is your faith, man? Do you not realize what I have created with mine own two hands? Do you not understand this will take us to the heralded OTHER SIDE? Oh, how your knees will tremble when you stand face-to-face with your GOD!" Herbert raved, his eyes growing despicable with the fire of his lunatic passion. He clenched my shoulders with a superhuman strength that was beyond him, and I helplessly met his wild gaze with my own quivering expression of fear. After a lingering moment, he must have finally recognized how nervous and concerned I had become for his failing health and sanity, and he patted me in his old friendly way, a look of sense returning to his eyes and veiling the madness that must still lurk there.
"Forgive me, old friend. Soon enough you shall relate to my excitement and claim it as your own. However, first you must assist me. It is for this reason that I have called you to my side this night as I cannot both work the machine and test it on myself," he uttered, his gaze traveling to the metal platform at the center of his daemonical device. My sense of dread heightened as I began to understand what he meant to do.
"Test on yourself!" I cried with an alarmed amount of disdain. Herbert held my gaze steady with a pair of stony eyes, his hands still clutching my shoulders in an inescapable grip, and he allowed a decadent smile to crease his thin and cracked lips.
"No worries, Wilcox. I assumed you were of the opinion that my invention would not work in any case, considering it is nothing but the impetuous trapping of some peculiar dream caused by my deceased uncle's writings," he replied, logically enough. In some faculty of my nervous brain, I knew he had something of a point though the unhappy situation at hand still had me uneased and terribly unnerved. Herbert decided to try a different route to soothe my sensibilities and convince me of his evident sanity.
"I have called you my friend in the past, and I have placed infinite trust in your capability as you have with me. I request that you put your undying trust in me now. Nay, for just this once, I BEG you to do so," he implored, endearing himself to my kind and natured heart.
"Indeed, we are friends, and on this basis, I shall assist your endeavor," I said though a disgusting twist of innards shrieked at me to turn down his offer and escape his lunacy before it became my own. However, I knew that I could not desert my friend and held a slim hope that I might save him from himself and the disease caused by his uncle's mad rambling journals.
Hattlefield prepared his machine, describing calculations and mathematical formulas I believed to be impossible. When I spoke as much to my fateful friend, he shook his shaggy head in disappointment and explained his newfound knowledge was not of this world and the ordinary workings of the normal human brain would never be able to grasp them without the help of otherworldly assistance, an assistance Hattlefield claimed to receive from his feverish dreams. I bit my tongue; did my oldest and dearest colleague believe that he ascertained his dreams from some extraterrestrial presence signaling waves to some invisible beacon within Hattlefield's mind? His madness was obviously more complex and complicated than I had first feared.
Completing his lengthy and arduous preparations, Hattlefield stood on the center of the metal platform, a precautionary pistol in one hand and a strange looking remote in the other.
"Flip the orange lever on my count. When I am ready to return to this rudimentary reality, I will signal you with this." He dramatically raised the remote in one steady hand. He appeared to have complete control over his senses and exhibited no signs of the acute nervousness that trembled my own hands both then and now as I recollect those moments for this written warning. "The overhead light will blink red, and the siren will notify you I am requesting transport. Flip the orange lever back, and simply enough, I will return to this very spot as if I never left. Ready? On the count of three, Wilcox..."
