Into the Nightmare INFINITUM

I write today of a most curious phenomenon. One that has zero recording but has been discussed in the hushed whispers of academics at the Archer University for decades. I myself am a new teacher at the University, having gone to school here in my youth. I'd been here but a week when it happened to me. I dreamed of my mind and body becoming separate entities as I slept. My body resting, remaining in the corporeal world, and my mind free to explore the limitless possibilities surrounding it. My curiosity got the best of me, and my mind headed towards the stars.

My mind took off like a slingshot through the cosmos. The vast unending space was an exciting prospect, not one I feared, as I should have. I thought this all a curious, vivid dream, nothing more. What harm was there in exploring? As my mind blasted passed planets and into other galaxies, a cold feeling began to envelop me. Where at first my mind felt nothing of external influence, now the chill grew stronger the farther I became from my body. Until I felt as if frozen solid, yet still propelled by my earlier speed, hurling me farther and farther away from the Earth.

What was a wildly exciting venture had quickly grown dreadful as I grew less enamored with the discoveries I made and more disturbed by them. I saw planets not shaped like anything we had dreamed of. Some like pyramids, twirling on an axis set by a blood red jewel. Others had no set shape, ever changing, expanding, shrinking, reforming, a world of pure chaos where nothing was set in stone. My eyes remained frozen wide open, unable to snap shut, forced to see everything.

Eventually, after a few more galaxies had been pierced and shot through like a bullet, my speed began to slow. What at first had me thankful to finally end, only began to instill more dread as I realized I could see things from thousands of miles away with crystal clarity. The slower I moved, the longer I was forced to witness bizarre alien worlds, with horrid ritual sacrifices. One such planet had a vast swath of creatures, vaguely humanoid in shape, but mostly comprised of tendrils jutting out every which way. Their bright, gem like glowing scarlet eyes had me transfixed in horror and wonder. I watched them bring up a younger looking being to a stone tablet, and then several stone daggers were ritualistically stabbed into the young thing as it writhed and squirmed in pain, held down by it's elders as it was cut open and carved into, symbols I could never guess as to their meaning adorning it's desecrated corpse. I did not even know the thing, and I pitied it.

I know not how long I slowly floated through space. Gone was any sense of adventure. All that remained was the cold feeling that engulfed my every senses. By the time I was nearly stopped, I was weeping through the cosmos I dreamed so eagerly of exploring. My mind felt fractured, forced to endure things it should never have even fathomed a small piece of. I had seen dark rituals, and worlds of no rhyme or reason, just pure insanity. It was all too much, and I desperately hoped to awaken.

Little did I know, all I had endured up to this point was not the phenomenon of which I write today. It was merely the prelude to the true horror that awaited me on the other side of the universe. When it felt like I could take no more and surely I would wake up back in my bed, I saw it. A crack, simple and small, right on my trajectory. I was nearly stopped, but floating just a few more feet, right towards it. It had a dark green glow, and a welcoming aura poured from it, inviting me in. In my weakened mental state, I tried to rush into the arms of this mysterious crack in the universe. Thinking it my salvation and escape from this hell of eternally drifting.

What I wrote of up to this point is commonly referred to as Astral Projection. Though most cases do not always speak of going the lengths I did, there have been countless stories of people leaving their bodies in dreams and wandering all sorts of places. Some of these stories seem easy to explain away as dreams, something I believed to be the case for many years. I had never done this before, not until my time as a teacher, for whatever reason. I never had such dreams as a boy, though I never lived on the campus until now.

Whatever the cause, my first experience with astral projecting through space was most assuredly not a dream. I felt that ice cold, I saw everything in vivid detail and heard things no mind could make up even in the most feverish of dreams or nightmares. Though God help me, I wish it was all a dream, a simple explanation to chase away the fear that now lies in my belly each night before I go to sleep. Fearful I may find that tear in the cosmos once again and be exposed to what waited inside.

I confess to stalling somewhat when attempting to recall my time in the INFINITUM, as I now know it to be called. I fear if I can truly write my experience, and if I succeed capturing even a tenth of that Hell, will it drive me mad to commit it to the written word? So please be patient with me as I take my time and tell you what I now know of my experience from my colleagues. It is easier to try and understand what happened by correlating their own experiences and tales.

Professor Gabriel Zarka was the first man I spoke to the next day. He had come to greet me and ask I join him for a quick meal before class. He knocked at my door to no answer. Only when he found it unlocked did he also find me on the floor, frothing at the mouth, writhing on the floor not unlike the young alien I saw as he was violently murdered. He awakened me with some cold water and after I cleaned myself up, he asked me, right away, if I had seen It, out there among the stars, the INFINITUM. I almost didn't know how to reply to him, so stunned that anyone could have an inkling of what I just went through.

Professor Zarka than sat down with me, poured us some tea, and told me everything he knew. That for the last several decades, teachers would occasionally have an astral projection, and feel compelled to fly into space and see it's wonders. As if a great presence was tugging on a leash. I too had felt that powerful tug, it's unbending will forcing me to shoot through space certain of it's majesty and not comprehending the horror that truly lies in wait.

The first professor ever known to have experienced it was in 1834, but a year after the school's founding. Tomas Rowell was found contorted in his bed, screaming in a tongue never known to any of his colleagues. When he awoke, he was feverish, telling the story so fast that people could barely understand him. After his senses returned properly, he began to ramble about a sliver in the space time continuum, the tiniest of cracks that was slowly growing larger. He dubbed it the Nightmare INFINITUM, dying but a few weeks later of a bad heart. Never writing down a single piece of it, merely passed down orally among the other teachers.

It was a strong belief among Rowell and the educators that followed him that the INFINITUM should never be committed to paper. Up to Professor Zarka himself refusing to even write the word down. When I inquired why, Professor Zarka grew nervous and confessed he had no explicit reason. It was simply another compulsion after seeing it, fearing that writing of it would somehow give it more power over them. I found this a rather silly superstitious explanation and is thus why I am committing this to my typewriter this very evening. I must purge this demon from my mind of my experience, and only writing of it helps calm the scratching sensation in my skull. No amount of superstition will deter me from my task of recording this horror.

After our breakfast and tea, Professor Zarka said there were several other teachers and staff who lived in the school that had experienced the INFINITUM as I had. He invited me to join them that night and recount my story with them. I was apprehensive to say the least. I did not see what good could come in merely talking about it, keeping the story just between ourselves when a psychic phenomenon of epic proportions was occurring in our school. Perhaps sensing my hesitation, Professor Zarka merely told me the time and place of their meeting, and left me with my thoughts. I had no classes to teach this day, my world was wracked with thoughts of what I had seen.

I am a God fearing Christian and a man who has utmost faith that there is a higher power watching over me. But even my faith has become somewhat shaken by the things I saw out there. God may watch over me, but I felt no protection from him that night as I drifted. I felt only the icy chill of space embrace me, cold comfort as they say. I tried to hold my crucifix and felt nothing from it, only the cold of the metal, which made me shirk away from it in fear. Every bit of cold felt like an unwanted reminder of my time out in space. I wrapped myself in several layers of blankets and clothes, still feeling the odd chill and being terrified whenever I did.

After an entire day of wallowing in fear and uncertainty, I went to the designated meeting area Professor Zarka spoke with me about. It was one of the abandoned wings of the University, left forgotten after it no longer had much use when they built new classrooms onto the premises. While most of the wing was in disrepair, one room at the very top of a long winding tower was in immaculate condition. Kept up by the various professors who had communed here frequently. They had dubbed it the Infinitum Parlor.

When I arrived, there was wine being poured and good spirits among friends. I felt a little peculiar entering this place. It felt like somewhere special, and I was not sure I entirely belonged among these associates. Some of them were older professors with years and years of tenure like Zarka and Bradley, while others were newer faces like myself. It was as if age did not matter, merely that we all experienced this horror. With some uncertainty still boiling in my stomach, I sat down to hear what they had to say.

The oldest professor there was Bradley. A man who looked more like a skeleton with loose-hanging skin barely clinging to it. How the old man could even walk when his body made such awful creaking noises I cannot understand. He'd been here for so long he couldn't even remember what year he started. But as he started the discussion, he recalled crystal clear his first time going into the void and seeing what the INFINITUM had waiting for him. He told me it in detail, every second from when he first went crashing into it, to when he was awoken by Gabriel Zarka, much like myself, but a student here back then.

I did not even realize that by the time Professor Bradley finished his tale, I was shaking in my chair. Gripping it with pure terror, holding on for dear life as if it were a boat and I was being thrashed about by the sea. Professor Zarka kept a steady hand on my shoulder to calm me. I listened to each story, all different but with one underlying theme: Horrors, a show of nightmares that could not come from the source of another man's imagination.

After hearing each story, I recollected my own. At some point during my tale, I broke down in tears, sobbing uncontrollably as I went on. An absolute snot-nosed and bumbling mess by the end, I was met not with judgmental glances but understanding, empathetic eyes that had felt my pain. Growing up in a strict household, with a father who was a Judge, it was the exact opposite of what I expected. I was thankful for their kindness, even though I knew it would not change what we all endured.

It was after a moment to collect myself, cleaning my face and steeling my resolve, that I listened to the speculations of the evening. There was a theory for every man there that night. Professor Bradley thought we were seeing the dreams of a sleeping ancient God. This crack was not to some hell dimension, but rather into it's very mind. Professor Zarka had a more scientific idea, thinking it to be some parallel dimension that terrifies us, solely because of our lack of reference for what anything is there. His attempt to rationalize as best he can the irrational world we all glimpsed.

I think the most outlandish theory I heard that night is that the school was built over an old witching hour ground. A site that witches would perform black masses. While it's true the school is very secluded, and surrounded by trees on all sides along a great precipice, I have my doubts any sane man would knowingly build over such defiled ground. Though wild as the thought it, I had a disturbing notion that in a strange way, all of their theories were right. That the INFINITUM was not one simple easy explanation, but a myriad of pieces to various other puzzles, forming their own abstract image that was far too large for us to comprehend.

I drank and listened for most of the evening. Wine made everyone's tongues all the looser and the more they began to ramble on about what they saw. You see, for everyone, the INFINITUM shows something unique. While still maintaining some images that repeat for others, no experience into this terror void has been the same as the last, or the one to come after. They would speculate as to their own personal fears reflected out there in space, how the hollow feeling of the emptiness around them made their fear all the more potent.

It was near the end of the gathering that I spoke about my own theory. That each of us had a small piece of it, but could never see the whole. I was fearful they would shun this idea, each of them clinging to their own little pieces of truth. It was not uncommon in most men to clutch tightly to whatever they had thought right. Perhaps if I brought this up earlier in the evening, they would have dismissed my words, but I think the wine had loosened their minds enough to the idea. Professor Bradley, with his dual canes in hand and heading for the door, gave me a curious wink and said “You might be on to something, my boy, you just might.” before he took his leave.

I was the last one to leave, still left pondering all I had heard and still trying to process my time in the INFINITUM several hours, and several glasses of wine, later. So much of what I heard was fantastical, almost impossible to even imagine, had I not seen it myself. Were my eyes not still scarred with the images I saw there. Yet etched into my retina they were, forever scratched into my vision so that each time I close my eyes, I see the things that were waiting for me out there. That are still waiting for me, for another chance to pull me into their webs, to devour me whole.

It was during this time that I decided I would commit the story to pen and paper. I had heard enough fascinating tales that I did not see why anyone would not want to properly record them. So many experiences had already been lost due to this silly game everyone played. I did not believe the thing would derive any power from merely writing of it. I knew in my heart that pen and paper had no more power over me than the power I give it. If anything, fearing these stories and keeping them as hushed whispers cloistered in but one room gave it far more power over us.

So I returned to my room, and attempted to write of my tale. I did not get far, the feeling of unease coming upon me. It was late, I had drank much, so I decided to sleep on this story and recount it another day. Another day became another week, another month, and it has now been a full year since I first attempted to write of my experience in the INFINITUM. I have put it off long enough. I have spoken with the members of the Infinitum Parlor Every time one of us returns there, out in space, seeing things and places he prayed to never see again. Hoping to learn a little more of the puzzle, to see another piece. Often the stories were rarely changed, but the most minute of details would stand out, painting a another stroke of the picture.

Now, after much conferring with my colleagues, they have endorsed my recording of the INFINITUM. Should I successfully retell my own story, many have considered having their tales recorded as well. Professor Zarka has already been excitedly discussing a series of audio recordings of his visits. Professor Bradley is sadly no longer with us, but one of his last sessions at the parlor had him being the first to endorse my writing. I only knew him for but eight months, but despite how unsettling I once found the man, he became a dear friend.

I settled on tonight, the one year anniversary of the first evening I ever went into the INFINITUM. I have felt the pull of it since, but always fought it, desperate to stay in my body and avoid the nightmares that awaited me. I wonder if my hesitation to endure it again had any influence on my difficulty writing of it. As now that I am committed to write this tale, I feel a certain weight lifting off me, escaping out my fingers with every tap of the key on my typewriter. I can face what I saw in the dark of the void.

Now we may return to that horrid drifting from one year ago. When I saw the bright glowing green slice of space opening up before me. Like an open wound being pried open by a surgeon's tools. It enveloped me. I had hoped it would dispel the biting cold, but the opposite was the affect. Inside the INFINITUM, the starlight was gone. At first it was pure black, and that lack of sight made the cold all the more intense. I tried to scream in pain from how much it hurt. I could feel no bone, but was still chilled down to the marrow and felt the waves of pain that came with it. As I attempted my scream, nothing came out, not even a whisper. Sound did not exist here, at least, not sound as we know it.

I drifted again, certain that this was my punishment from my divine creator. I am not a pious man, I have sinned, and I was sure in my heart this was Hell. Infinite darkness, an absolute absence of sound, surely madness would follow. Were it only the darkness, I would be relieved to be done telling this story. But the darkness was merely the opening act of the horror show that unfolded in a time out of space.

Slowly, a light began to fill my senses. Dark red, it illuminated a totally black sphere. A planet, I assumed. It seemed like my only hope for sanctuary, so I tried to push my mind towards it. Somehow I succeeded, and when I touched down, I felt my body again. But when I looked down, I did not recognize myself. I did not even realize what I looked at were hands at first. They were claws of some sorts, massive like a lobster's, but malformed, covered in ridges and massive warts that made them a hefty burden to lift. My skin moved constantly, a viscous liquid that ebbed and flowed along my skeleton. Which I could see parts of exposed. What I could only guess was a kind of rib cage had jutting sharp bones that parted the liquid I called my skin.

I attempted once more to scream, but found myself with no mouth to open. I could feel a tearing of skin as I desperately tried to let something out. It was pure agony to even make the attempt, and after a solid minute of trying, I ceased. I was some kind of abomination, with bones that ground into muscle and tissue, making every movement painful.

Somehow I forced my sluggish, mismatched and ever-aching body forward. I walked through the blackness. Only the dark red sky lit up just enough for me to see on the horizon. At the tip top of a hill, surrounded by dead trees, looked to be a temple of some kind. I could not help but anguish at the prospect of climbing this hill in my disheveled form. I thought of my father, overcome with arthritis in his old age, every tiny movement causing him immense pain near the end. So doped up he could barely comprehend his own son sitting beside him. I felt that lethargic quality of being drugged, my mind and body only held together by the loosest tether.

As I ascended the hill, in the trees I could finally hear something. It was the first sound I caught the entire time inside the INFINITUM, and it was the most ghastly thing to hear after such prolonged silence. A chattering sound, soft and sweet, like a lullaby calling out to me. I peered into the trees, one of my eyes becoming loose as I tried to focus it, sliding out of my skull. It was useless now, pointed at the ground, and I having no way to grasp it and put it back in my head. With my other eye, I spotted the things. They clutched the tops of the trees with insect like arms, almost blending in with the lengthy branches. Their bodies were swollen, covered in sores, pustules and other disgusting scars that never seemed to heal. Their bellies had a patch of tendrils that reached the very bottom of the forest floor, wiggling and writhing to beckon me towards them. I ushered my gaze away, and carried on. I knew only a slow, painful death awaited me in their embrace. I had to see what was atop the hill, what had summoned me here.

If my trek took hours, or days, I do not know. I trudged up this hill, ready to face whatever awaited me. I would hear more curious sounds, things calling me away and whispering promises of escape. I ignored them all, my path was set. When I finally reached the top of the hill, I was an even worse mess. Much of my flesh was pierced by the sharp bones, and the liquid spilled out among my ribs, dripping and escaping, losing pieces of myself until I had arrived at my destination.

When I stood at the top of the hill, I finally got a good look at the temple. It was spherical in shape, but it did not touch the ground. It floated perfectly still in place, and I saw no visible doors along it. It was smooth as a pearl, and it shimmered curiously the more I stared into it. I could see patterns in the glow and strobe of the light along. It didn't bend like light naturally did, it contorted to whatever shape it needed to try and convey some alien message to me. A warning? A greeting? I doubt I will ever know.

And then, finally, a door opened near the middle of the pearl. It stretched for what looked like miles to open up, and then I realized it was not a door. It was skin, peeling back, peeling off the pearl, to reveal what was beneath. And then....and then and then and thenandthenandthenandthenthenthenheandthenandthendandthenandthenandhethencameandthenhethenisandthenhethenisandthenisfreeeeeeeeee

My name is Professor Gabriel Zarka and I am the associate written of in this text. My colleague Wilfred Carterson was the one writing this paper. I found him the next day, wrapped around his typewriter: Dead. A mad grin on his face as his corpse stared up at me. He had mutilated himself, many of the curious symbols he wrote of earlier displayed along his skin. The police have given me his writing after finding it of no use, certain it was the fiction of a madman's fevered brain in his last few hours of life. I knew Wilfred better than that, he was of sound mind, and it was our faults for letting him attempt to record his experience.

I will retain this text in my private estate, to be passed on to my oldest son, Nicodemus Janus Zarka, upon my death.

The Doom Over Daemonsmouth and an Introduction to Winterbone

Basil Winterbone is a little known writer. Whenever I bring him up, I'm universally greeted with puzzled looks. It appears his short stories never were reprinted outside of the old magazines that bought them up decades ago. Being such a huge fan of Winterbone's work, and his stories having long since fallen into public domain, I am reintroducing them to the world. I have most of his entire published works, but there are some later stories I am still searching for. I happily share them with you all, in the hopes you enjoy his work as I have.

We begin with his very first published work, from the October, 1928 issue of Strangest Tales.

The Doom Over Daemonsmouth

By Basil Winterbone

We were a fishing town from the first day settlers set foot in the land that would be called Daemonsmouth. Far up north, cut off from most of the world, it was like a planet all it's own. I'd grown up here, only leaving during my years at college, and deciding to return to write about this place. While I enjoyed modern society, my home town held a certain aura that I could find nowhere else. It inspired me in my youth, and I sought to reclaim that inspiration in my adulthood. A pity that my only story of Daemonsmouth, will be it's last story ever told.

It had begun before my return home. Though I know little of all the events that transpired before then. I can recollect but a few stories my friend Oswald told me upon the evening of my return. Things first started with the fish. Small at first, one out of a hundred would have some curious deformity that made them look unappealing to try and sell. I know not the specifics of these curious mutations, only whispers of limbs growing from eyeballs, and bones contorting ways they were never meant to. Most of it, I only briefly heard of in passing at the pub among the fishermen.

At first, the small amount made it little concern that an occasional fish would appear queer. Then more and more fish began to arrive either rotten, or malformed. What would appear fine and healthy on the outside, had been rotten from the inside whenever the fish were cut open. This started happening with the mutating fish as well. Many of the fishers around here are superstitious, fearing whispers of old things that have a hand in such strange happenings. So they would burn the fish, thousands of dollars wasted, in the hopes to purge what little fish they could muster that were still alive and healthy.

By a few months after my arrival, over half the fish in the surrounding waters were tainted in one way or another. The mayor ordered an investigation into it, hoping to find someone's polluting responsible. Something rational to quiet the nervous murmurs of the seamen around town. They found nothing, at first. Search parties would meticulously scour the woods, nearby waters, only finding the usual nature and occasional hermit who kept to himself.

I grew unsettled almost immediately after my return home. Daemonsmouth was not ever a bright, cheery place. It wore it's gloomy New England weather with pride, like a badge of honor that we barely saw the sun, and were blessed with calm waters for good fishing. Now it's naturally dark days and cold nights had become alien to me after my time away. I see the looks in the fishermen eyes that I am not of them any longer. I have become an outsider where once I was home. I am unsure if it is my fault for leaving and returning after so long, or if the sense of dread that overtook the town was what stoked the fears of distrust among them.

I had only a few associates at the University, even fewer who would write to me after I left. In town, Oswald was the only companion I had for regular nights at the pub and to discuss my writings. It was this feeling of isolation that compounded the already intense dread overtaking Daemonsmouth for me. Oswald was a company man for the fishing distributors, the people who would come to take what little fish the town had to sell. Barely enough to keep everyone fed. Oswald always lived fat and happy though, thanks to his cushy desk job. He was unwelcome among the town people as well, and this only strengthened our bond together in these tough times.

I learned more and more of what was happening throughout the town thanks to these regular visits to the pub. Even if they would not speak with us friendly, the seamen still shared their tales loud and drunkenly just as when I was a boy at this same watering hole with my father. More fish were turning up rotten every day, and the fishermen were growing nervous as to their prospects in the coming months. Little did they know the strange fate of the fish in these waters was only the beginning of what was happening to our town.

In mid-Winter, yet another of the Mayor's search parties were sent out. Most of the men had little faith they'd ever find anything, but the mayor, desperate for anything, clung to the hope that something was out there to explain this all. That search party left January 23^rd, and vanished into the woods that very evening. Not a soul returned, and not a soul has been found since. It was a full three days before another search party was sent after them. They found the parties clothes, bags, supplies, weaponry, everything, at the edge of the forest. All neatly folded and placed, as if waiting for the next group of searchers to find it. Seven men went into the woods and by God, I have not a clue what could have taken them. What possessed them to disrobe and leave all their things behind, or if something forced them to do so.

This was when the town began to slowly crumble in on itself. Losing most of their fish had been a hardship, but one they were hardy enough to survive with some belt-tightening. I myself was enjoying a modest salary from my publisher for a few short stories I submitted while first home, so my comfortable living made the townspeople resent me all the more. Oswald and I could always afford as many beers as we could handle, while most of the men around us had nursed half-empty glasses for over an hour to stretch what little funds they had. We could feel their disdain for us growing, becoming something tangible that would only grow stronger the longer things went on.

The Mayor was now certain something more was going on. He tried to keep everyone's attention off Oswald, I, and the few other well-to-do members of town like himself. Over time, his town hall meetings were beginning to sound more like preaching sermons. Our own Man of the Cloth could not rile up such fire and righteousness in his flock as the Mayor could. He spoke powerfully and forcefully of an outside force, something out there killing our fish, now killing our men. He used the seven men who died as a boon to rile up more fear and hate in the town. Hoping to weaponize it against whoever had attacked our home.

I attended many of these meetings, and the continued feeling that I was more in a cult than a community gathering became eerie. I eventually stopped going, though Oswald would still attend, just as riled up as the rest of the town to find whoever had done this and beating them to a bloody pulp. My home was not far from the public courthouse where everyone met, and each night I would hear the Mayor's loud professing of the Outsiders that must be found and purged. I grew unsettled speaking with my own friend, as our conversations became dominated with talk of violent retribution on whomever had made the mistake of plaguing Daemonsmouth.

In my hopes to pacify the one comrade I had out here, I would nod my head along and agree to all the disturbing ideas he would list off. Right in the middle of the pub, as I tried to eat my food, he would go into grotesque detail on how he wanted to hurt this man. By now our Mayor turned Priest of sorts had convinced the town it was a man, a stranger from another foreign land, poisoning our water, cursing it with some magicks from a far-off land. He was referred to as the Devil Haunting Daemonsmouth. At first, I was highly skeptical. Certain this was all the ramblings of a madman who had whipped the town into his frenzied logic of some mysterious source of our turmoil.

It was when the children became ill that the madness began to boil over. Up until this point, a veneer of civilization still permeated the town. The Mayor, crazed as he was, still had a sense of control over the townspeople and the talk of violence and anger remained contained to his nightly sermons. When the Mayor's own youngest son fell ill, he grew more paranoid than ever. Overnight, other children became seriously ill. But parent's would refuse the treatment of doctor's, insisting they knew the source of the illness: the Devil, he was out there, and he had sank his poisonous fangs into their children. Infrequent search parties had become constant, day and night, searching the woods, the water, anywhere remotely near by. What few hermits were in the woods were shaken down, one even supposedly beaten for any information as to the Devil, but to no avail.

I saw one of the ill children. Their illness was something so curious that the sight of it remains deeply ingrained in my memory. Their skin lost all color, as most sickness does. Their eyes became sunken in, glassy, almost resembling a fish eye. They had difficulty breathing unless they had constant water. Their skin was clammy, cold to the touch, and they secreted some odd jelly like substance all over. A boy was on his porch, guzzling water as if his life depended on it. Perhaps it did, for all I knew. He looked like in a dream when he finished drinking, breathing steadily but for a moment before he needed to drink again. I was disturbed at this, and did my best to avoid the children of the town after learning of their mysterious illness.

Oswald became more invigorated than ever, searching with every party, never returning home for sleep, only for food. It was one of these frantic nights of searching that he knocked at my door. They needed more bodies for the hunting. Not searching parties any longer, they referred to themselves as Devil Hunters. After the bastard in the woods. Oswald had asked me a few times to join him and I would always feign a small cold or make some half-decent excuse as to why I could not. But on this night, well passed one in the morning, I saw the crazed look in my friend's eye and began to grow concerned for him. So I agreed to join, just to keep an eye on Oswald, try and convince him to get some sleep. He looked haggard, as if he'd not slept in days. My once portly little friend had shed much of his weight yet still wore the baggy clothes. As if he cared not for his horrid appearance. Only the Hunt.

On my night joining the party, there were fifteen men and ten women all searching. The Mayor was there, along with his wife and his oldest son. I carried my torch but no weapon like everyone else. I figured the party was more than well armed with pitch-forks, knives, guns and anything else they could procure. Oswald himself brandished an ax with a gleeful glint in his eye that seemed peculiar for one such as him at the promise of violence.

We searched for hours and the usual amount of nothing was what I was sure would be our entire evening of searching. But just passed four in the morning, we found it. A small shed, mostly cloaked in trees. It would be easy to miss no matter how many times you passed it, even in the dead of Winter it was camouflaged perfectly. Everything changed. The party went ferocious, the Mayor tearing the door open with his metal cane. Bashing the lock on it and then exposing it's contents for all to see. It was everything the Mayor had preached about, the books of ancient spells, the strange circle of symbols, candles still burning. We'd found the bastard.

Yet, I'd found it all too convenient. It almost looked set up for us to find, as if someone had listened to the Mayor's ramblings and constructed this place to fit his narrative. There were far too many people to fit in the small domicile, so I, Oswald, the Mayor and his son first entered. Exploring it, my suspicion grew. Everything felt so fresh, even the markings on the floor couldn't have been more than a couple hours old. When I tried to discuss this with the Mayor, he was far too ravenous for rational thought. At first planning to set up a trap for the Devil, only to bump into something that changed his plans.

He happened upon a robe in the corner. Hoping to find anything else he could learn about his adversary, he searched it, finding of all things a wallet. Oswald's wallet. I recognized it instantly, though the Mayor did not. Oswald had a very unique dark crimson red wallet, embroidered with his initials. When the Mayor opened it and saw my friend's identification, the tables turned on Oswald. The Mayor grew angry instantly, damn near foaming at the mouth. He pointed to Oswald and screamed at the top of his lungs “I'VE FOUND THE DEVIL! HE'S HERE! HE'S BEEN RIGHT IN FRONT OF US THE WHOLE TIME!” and last few vestiges of sanity snapped in the group. They all filled the shack, over-filling it's capacity to get at Oswald. His expression was wild with fear, shock and not understanding what was happening. He made no attempt to defend himself, merely a scream of fear as the masses attacked.

I was pushed to the back of the shack, forced to watch as the mob began to attack my friend. He only got the one scream, as his own ax was buried in his throat by the Mayor's son, barely sixteen, still a boy yet he'd struck the first blow. From there, it was fists, knives, everything at once coming down on Oswald. He was right in the center of the shack, in the odd circle, beaten into the very floor. His blood, viscera splattered along the symbols. He was already well dead, but they did not stop. I heard them laughing, singing, screaming with joy that their demon was destroyed and all would be well.

I must have passed out, for I only awoke again when the shaking walls of the hut began to settle down as the mob slipped out. I caught but one glance at Oswald before I lost what dinner I had prepared myself that evening. He was unrecognizable. I struggle even now to find the words. If you have ever seen ground meat, so beaten and smashed that it appears more like paste, than you know what remained of Oswald was a horrifying sight. I rushed out, vomiting along myself and all over the forest as I fled the scene.

I truly believe that this was the final nail in the coffin of Daemonsmouth. When an innocent man was beaten and ground down to mush by his compatriots, driven mad by their leader. I stayed in, always locking my door, often watching, waiting for them to come for me. But they never did. I received but one knock at my door, a week to the date of Oswald's brutal murder. It was the Mayor, at my door, around the same time Oswald had been killed. He waited a while outside, then when I did not reply, he began to speak.

“We know you're in there. But everything is fine now, Mr. Melgrave. Our children are fine, our fish is bountiful once more. Won't you come out and celebrate with us?” When I still did not reply, he merely laughed and said “He's watching right now, you know.” and took his leave, finally. I was well shaken, desperately clinging to alcohol to maintain my own sanity. But no reserves of wine could really clear the burden in my head, the horror I had witnessed.

I was awoken late the next evening. Not by a knocking, or any disturbances at my home. Instead I was awoken with the screams of fear all over the town. Every home, terrible screaming reverberated out and over the town. Screams of the older, the younger, everyone but myself was screaming in terror. I myself felt compelled to scream, but fought the urge. When I went to my window, I saw why everyone in town was screaming with such intense fear. The Thing had come, perhaps it was always here, or perhaps we summoned it with Oswald's death, but whatever reason, it had come to Daemonsmouth to complete the nightmare it unleashed over a year ago.

It was in the center of town, barely even moving, almost as if a statue. It was composed of so many limbs that I dare not say where it begins or ends. The Thing was covered from head to toe in grotesquely long arms, far too long and withered to appear human. They swayed and swirled in the oddest spiral pattern, never staying still long enough to discern it's form fully. These arms were turned into makeshift legs it stood upon, with a lower half that appeared more like a centipede of all the various limbs that kept it upright. Among the maddening display of arms reaching every which way, several orifices covered The Thing. All of them gasping, gnashing at the air with teeth that were too crooked to ever have fit symmetrically in it's mouths. There were no eyes, no nose to distinguish a face, and there were too many mouths to guess which was the primary one.

Many people began to flee, running from their homes covered in a strange fire. It was unlike a typical flame, not orange and yellow as we know it, but luminescent. It glowed a bright variety of colors, never holding on one for long. Some seemed in pain from the fire, running, screaming to try and escape it as it enveloped them. Others walked out, their heads on fire,but they made no show of pain. They were calm, approaching the Thing single-file to address it. While the runners would reach the water, and as they touched it, the fire seemed to shine around them and their bodies vanished. With their clothes falling to float off into the sea.

I watched this all from my window, just as mesmerized by it was I was horrified. At first my attention was on those still screaming, the ones attempting to escape but still captured by this Thing. When I turned my attention to the calm ones approaching the Thing, my terror intensified greatly. It's various arms would grab the calmly waiting townsfolk, then deposit them in one of the gasping hungry mouths. As they were devoured alive, the teeth crushing bone and muscle, they made no sounds. No sign of pain, they looked at peace as they were eaten whole.

By now, a powerful compulsion was all that kept me watching. I desperately wanted to tear my eyes from this sight, but was not allowed to. I truly believe it was the Thing, that hellish monster wanting me to clearly see everything it did. I felt compelled to open my door, to leave my home and watch with more clarity what would happen next. It had made it's way through most of the people awaiting it's hungry maws, now the children came out to join the horror. They stumbled out slowly from their homes, heavily breathing, I had to cover my mouth not to scream when I saw them. Their head had flattened, and gills had sprouted along their thin necks. Scales were clearly growing and piercing their ways out of the skin. They were fish-like now, gasping for air, heading towards the water to find the oxygen they desperately needed now. The fish had indeed returned to Daemonsmouth, just not as expected.

As the children cleared out and made way to their new homes beneath the sea, the Thing had finished the last of the complacent townsfolk. I stood before it in awe and terror, unable to move, unable to even consider fleeing. Even without eyes I felt it's gaze upon me. The Mayor's words coming back to me, how he was always watching us. No words would come from my throat, and no rational thought carried for more than a second in my mind before the terror overloaded it. The multi-colored fire began to surround the creature, only the very tip of one long finger remaining untouched as it reached for me. It touched my forehead once, then made a strange motion with the same finger before the fire wrapped around that too. Once it was covered in flames, the flames shimmered brightly, brighter than any light I think mankind will ever make, and the Thing was gone. Daemonsmouth gone with it.

So now here I am, the last one alive in town. I have so many speculations. Was someone responsible for the Thing coming to our town, or had it always been here? I would rather forget this whole ordeal, leave town and never think on these terrors again. But it will not let me leave. Whenever I attempt to pack my things, my clothes are all unpacked seconds later. As I attempt to write correspondence for help, all my pens go dry. Unless I write of the Doom that came to town, of the nightmare that unfolded and swallowed us whole. I am not allowed to forget this horror, it will not let me. I must record the story, for whatever reason it wants me desperately to write and share it with you all. I do not know if I am spreading this creature's mad will, or merely serving it, trapped in my own Hell, never allowed to leave. I can only write, and hope that Death comes swiftly when my task is done.

- Cyrus Melgrave, Daemonsmouth, 1921