Wednesday, May 04, 2005

Main Story: Chapter Three - The Voices of Dream

The Deep One Project

By David John Reichen

Chapter Three - The Voices of Dream

Lief enters the living room, lays down on the sofa and appears to fall asleep. After a moment he gets up and prepares for what is to follow. He changes out of his usual jeans, T-shirt and sneakers uniform and puts on a uniform of quite another nature. One of the most striking things is that it is all in one monochromatic color, a very dark blue, almost black. He even exchanges his glasses for a pair of the same hue. He sits cross-legged on the floor, his fingers entwined and laying upon his lap. He is wearing a medallion that is on a chain that hangs around his neck. It consists of two squares, woven together to form an eight-pointed star, with wires running between opposite corners of each square. In the middle, where the wires meet, there is a clear yellow topaz that seems to flow with a faint energy. He waits like this, expecting something to happen.

As soon as I hear the kid screaming upstairs, I know that it has gotten to him too. My only hope in keeping my promise to his parents hinges on whether the ones outside have not added any more bugs to the room that he is in since the last time I visited him. I take out my squawk box, just before I step into the room and have it check the room out. It is clear of any new ones so I move into the room and closer to the kid so that I can get his attention.

"Quiet!" I shout, above the noise, hoping that the voice scrambler, that is imbedded in my scarf hiding my face, is working properly. "You're being observed. Don't talk, don't make any sudden moves and calm down a bit."

After a moment the kid's screams change from a wail to a whimper and then silence, smart kid.

"Come here, to the window. There is something that I want you to see," I continue, as I move to the window and motion for him to come to my side.

"Look outside. Is there a van out there?"

The kid looks out the window and his eyes open wide.

Ha! I was right. They are still out there.

"What's a van from the Arkham Sanitarium doing outside?" he whispers to me in a soft voice.

"You have a choice to make, either way, you may end up at the same place, if you're lucky. Come with me and I will try to fill you in on what your parents and I were working on. Go with them and they will take you in for observation and eventually, if you survive, you will end up where we would be going anyway but blissfully ignorant. I'll wait downstairs for fifteen minutes and then leave, with or without you. I can't tell you why or what we were doing right now. It's to important to be jeopardized by them knowing. I'll leave it to you to decide which choice you take." I conclude and leave the kid to think it over by himself.


I knew it, I think triumphantly, the guy is a crypto spook. And what's with that hookey costume, I wonder if he got it from Spies R Us. I decide that if I am going to end up at the same place, I might as well know why, I pack a few things and join him at the bottom of the stairs.

We make our way out to his car, get in and drive off. As we get close to the van, he stops, lowers the window and waves at the people looking furiously at us from inside the van. He then closes the window and continues driving down the street.

"So, how did you know that they were out there," the kid asks, "and why are you dressed up like that?"

"I am dressed like this so that I can move around without being recorded. It's sort of like the TV Weather Man but in reverse. It avoids having to answer unnecessary questions.

"The reason why I knew that they were out there watching us is that they knew you might be suffering from a pecuiliar form of insanity aflickting those who are from Innsmouth."

"But, I'm not from wherever that is. I was born here in Arkham, why would they be interested in me?"

"All four of your grandparents were from there. Your parents knew that but did not want you to know because it might of upset you. Make you do something rash, like tell people that your family was from there."

"Why did they not want me to know this?" the kid wonders outloud.

"Because not everyone from Innsmouth seems to lead such a sane life," Lief answers.



In one avoided corner of Arkham is the Arkham Sanitarium, Gothic and brooding, even in the brightest of light. The reason why I'm here is that there have been to many suspicious deaths here lately. Deaths that may have been caused by other things than the suicides, accidents and even a few murders that have been reported.

The first thing that I did was to interview the head shrink, er, doctor, yea, that's it, Dr Hienrich Schmitt. According to the wall patches, he was from the University of Heidelberg and had received all of the usual honors that accumulate from a prestigious carrier. He also had a certificate from the same place I was going to at the time, good old Miskatonic U.

After a few pleasantries, like I mentioning that I was originally from St Galen, Switzerland and that I was doing research at the Moo on a fellowship grant, we got down to business.

"So, my inquisitive friend, what brings you to such a moody place?" Dr Schmitt asked.

"Deaths," I replied, getting right to the point, "way to many deaths to be easily accounted for."

"Yes, we do seem to be having a string of bad luck with some of the patients"

"I would more likely call it a rope, with a Hangman's Noose at the end of it. It's as if you have the Grimm Reaper in your employ, judging by the number of bodies that have need to be disposed of. You must be getting a great group rate on the deal."

"Now see here!" he interjected, "No need to be insulting"

"Insulting, you think I'm insulting, tell that to the bereaved. It's a wonder that the CDC doesn't come and close the place down because of the plague of death festering here."

After my calculated outbust, I gave him a few moments to absorb what I had said and then continue, "so how about giving me a bit more detail on these incedents than what is in the death certificates. Maybe I can help you find out what is causing this."

"I will do better than just telling you," he said, with a sigh," I will show you exactly what we have been dealling with here."



We make our way to the third floor and enter what looks like a high security area of a prison, very out of place in a hospital. As we passed through the check area, I showed them my NSA badge by accident instead of my Moo Card. They threw a hissy fit but ended up letting me through anyway.

"All of the patients in this area are considered self destructive, which is why they are here, as special precaution," the doc said. "The ones you are interested in are here as well because of the symptoms they have.

"They suffer from a peculiar form of dementia. It only effects them while they are asleep. They thrash about and yell. Most of the times, when they wake up, they have no knowledge of what it was that they were dreaming of, not even under hypnosis. However, " he pauses, "sometimes the dreams are so lucid that when they awake, they act as if they are still dreaming.

"At first, the patient, once they have reached this stage, becomes violent in their efforts to escape and have uncontrollable rages, which explains the deaths that have been occurring," the doc said.

He moves into one of the rooms and to a patient sitting laggardly in an armchair. As the patient looks at us with uncaring eyes, he concludes his presentation, "As you can see, there are also some physical deformities that they exhibit: elongated fingers and toes, nails which resemble claws but more importantly or disturbing is the bone loss around the eye sockets making the eyes look as if they are trying to pop out.

"He is currently on tranquilizers, as with the others during this time of year; otherwise, they would be unmanagable."

"You mean that this is a yearly occurrence?" I asked him, looking at my watch to check what day it was. Sure enough, it was October 31, good old Hallows Eve, when the spirits of the dead arise from the grave to lay claim to those still alive.

"That is correct," he confirmed, "Halloween is what those of this country call it. We will have to wait until they fall asleep naturally before things become."



That night, interesting things did become. When I reentered the patient's room, I noticed that he was thrashing about, trying to brake loose of the straps holding him down on the bed. He was screaming an inarticulate gibberish. As I paid closer attention to what he was saying over and over again, it came to me that I had heard of a phrase similar to the one he was shouting. A phrase inscribed in a book that I had read before. The book of which only two copies that I knew of existed. One of the books was the one that I had read, the one stored in the locked columns at the library in St Galen. The other book, I later found out, was in the rare books vault of the Miskatonic University's library. A book written by the mad monk Abdul Al Hazred. A book written in such arcane languages as Tocharian, containing tales of unspeakable horror. A book called the Nerconomicon. This was the phrase he was shouting in a ceaseless eulogy, "Ia, Ia, Cthulu ftang."

They tried to calm the patient, which did nothing to improve the situation. As one of the orderlies moved toward the patient, with a syringe, he tripped, plunging the syringe into the struggling patient's heart and emptying its contents directly into its furiously beating chambers.

I pushed the orderly out of my way, who still held the syringe, took of the medallion from around my neck, held it dangling in my right hand and recited in English a larger version of what the patient was trying to convey to us:

"Ia, Ia, Cthulu ftang.
That is not dead which can eternal lie,
in strange eons, even death itself my die.
Trapped in the state between not being and to be,
he is imprisoned, bound by the seal of Ralyeh.
Great Cthulu slumbers in his palace beneath the sea,
dreaming of the moment he shall be free.
Ia, Ia, Cthulu ftang."

As I said the final phrase, I bent over, undid the straps around his wrists and handed him my medallion. He took it in his hands and hugged it to his chests, where blood was oozing out of his pierced heart. A deathly calm fell on his face as what was injected in him overcome him. I then whispered what few words of comfort I knew as he died, "may Dagon embrace you in his home in the Sea."

I took the medallion back and hung it around my neck, not caring about cleaning the blood from it. I then straightened, turned on the Doctor, who stood there like some deer trapped in the headlights of an oncoming train. "So that's what all of this secrecy is about."

"What do you know of Cthulu and his minion Dagon?" he asked suspiciously.

"Only what I learned from the Necronomicon and Fo Ungesprichts Kultan."

"Should that not be Unaussprechlichen Kulten, by the Herr Doctor Von Juntz?" he said, trying to correct me.

"Nah. I read the original version at St Galen, not that pellagrous one that quack wrote. You do realize that it was so sloppily written that it even has a grammatical error in its title. They must not have been paying attention to manuscript editing when they published that book."

"Either way. I do not care which version is accurate or not, we here do not operate under such metaphysical delusions." he said, getting huffy on me.

"Delusions? Since when do delusions bring about these types of physical changes in the body?" I try to derail his train of thought, gesturing at the dead body laying in the bed next to us.

"Stigmata!" he answered, as if that could explain away all that has been going on here.

Sometimes, desperate acts are required in certain circumstances. I closed my eyes, took of my glasses and said, "I wish you could see the error of your ways on your own but it is too late for that now. The voices that they are hearing are real and it is your imagination that is preventing you from realizing this. Look into my eyes and glimpse at what they are experiencing."

I open my eyes.



Nothing in my life could have prepared me for what I was to suffer. Not even what I had learned at the University of Heidelberg. The young man removed his glasses and showed me his eyes. The eyes of a demon or beast, for surely such as he should never be considered a man.

His eyes were at first black. Black as the far outer reaches of space or the very lowest depths of the ocean. After a moment, it seemed that they ignited and became like the very cauldrons of Hell. The color of his skin turned black. It was not the black of any human hue but the blackness of utter void. The back of his head, how hideous, grew to a bulbus mass. It was like looking at an octopus perched on top of his shoulders where his head would have been.

What came next was so loathsome that I hope in God's Name never to experience its likeness again. He moved his hands so that they framed that gruesome face that had formed in front of me. His fingers grew and grew, becoming the tentacles of a cephalopoda. They reached out to me and encircled my head. Cold, clammy and slimy the things were, wrapping around my head, keeping me riveted, unable to turn away from that awful visage.
Then I heard it, the Voice that my patients were surely hearing in their tormented sleep. It was a voice capable of rendering the sanity of the strongest of minds. And it was angry!




I finish my briefing with the kid for now and tell him this, "That was one year ago. Three months before I meet your parents. It is why I knew that those connected with the Arkham Sanitarium would be watching you. It is also why I showed up last week to compromise the cameras they were using, in order to aid in our escape.

"There is an old Zen proverb that goes like this:
At night I had a dream and in the dream I dreamt that I was a Butterfly.
When I awoke, I wondered, if I had dreamt that I was a Butterfly
or that I am now a Butterfly dreaming that I am me."

I take my glasses off and let the kid see what is hidden from normal view, "I hear the voices of dream also. I have a question for you and maybe you can answer it for me. Can you tell me whether or not I am dreaming? I have forgotten how to tell the difference."

A phyco driver twisted in my head.
Silence broken but there's nothing said.
I got a nightmare from a fantasy,
will these voices ever set free.
{SIN, by Ozzy Osborne, from No More Tears.}