from a dream 3/9/1994
I enjoy walking through old cemeteries, and this one, by the look of the
stained & elaborate grave markers and monuments was truly ancient, at
least for this country. The sandstone was pitted & worn, so that the
strange runic markings were barely discernable, and gave to them on the
whole an ithyphallic appearance, which may have seemed almost natural for
a seaside town, but which was disconcerting to find up in these remote
mountains, so far from any coast. And although the graveyard was deserted
when we arrived, except for its usual—dead—inhabitants, tucked away as it
was into a remote yet pleasant forest of cypress, hemlock and oak, before
long a procession of cars appeared, winding upward toward us from the
valley below.
Upon entering the cemetery's large iron gates the occupants appeared
to take no notice of our presence so that we were able to get quite a good
look at them, I'm sorry to say. It was the eyes that were most
disconcerting—black, wide-set, slightly protruding, and devoid of that
indefinable spark of human soul. For the rest, the face was broad, and the
nose somewhat flat, and the lips active, even prehensile, no doubt the
result of some fearful inbreeding. I immediately thought of the south sea
island of Panopeh, where, beneath the waves once great Ry'leh must yet
lie.
Though these sinister creatures seemed to take no active notice of us, yet
we felt somehow that we should not be allowed to leave should we attempt
it, & so we followed the somber procession of black cars, which stopped at
the top of a natural amphitheater of grass to discharge their occupants,
who drifted to various positions on the lawn, and in silence in the
gathering twilight, waited. Their drivers were arrayed as somber
sentinels, their mirrored sunglasses reflected in their eyes the dying
sun. And curious as to what we might next see, we waited for all to take
their places.
Night comes slowly to the mountains, and I recalled that this night was
that of the Summer Solstice, that night of all nights when Ras al Ghul,
The Demon's Head, the Star of Lilith, most evil star in the heavens rises
with the setting of the sun to rule the night. And I was chilled by a
shiver of premonition, as the high mountain mists began to grow and gather
in the hollows, and moved with a kind of sentience toward the central
depression. Dressed all in white, they watched, faces expectant. From the
shadows of the graves that ringed us, it was as if the dead had joined the
living for the spectacle which was all too soon to come. This night there
was no moon, yet the faces shone, expectant against the night and the
white clothes looked like so much litter scattered by the wind across the
grass. It was then the mist ignited, and suppressed whispers of "wild
fire!" rose from the excited crowd.
There was a sudden hush, for forming in the mists before our eyes was a
kind of demon, horned & hooved, and black against the burning night. "Shub-niggarath",
they began the chant, moving as one body toward the center and the
apparition of the demon, "She-goat with a thousand young". And we watched
in fascinated horror as one by one they embraced their goddess and suckled
her dark wine, then disappeared into the whirlpool, a dense black hole of
space and time to be reborn into unknown dimensions. Luckily, we were
dressed in black as always so that we were invisible to the mirror-shaded
men in black as they herded the last of the crowd toward their dark
destiny at the hand of the demon goddess of the night.
As the last offering was sucked into that awful vortex of desire, a
sound rose, deafening as the cries of a thousand locusts. It was an
ear-splitting, high-pitched shriek, as of electronic feedback, shrill and
keening that knocked us to the ground.
"Shit! Put that fucking thing out," he hissed, as I pulled deeply on the
forbidden cigarette—a strangely human act, considering. The ember
burned, elongated, reflected fire in the dark and dreaming eyes of the
Ones that had been called from dimensions of deep space, triggering the
nictitating membranes so necessary to them on their alien world burned by
the horror of two suns.
And the last we saw were the vacant eyes
of the man in black, who had at last removed his mirrored shades.