“For the image on the artifact was the face of Cthulhu, exactly as I have described it.
“In my anxiety and apprehension, I do not know how it was possible for me to fall asleep that dawn, but later, shortly after the sky had just blued with the rising sun, I awoke, dripping in a gelid sweat, from a singularly horrific night terror.
“In my childhood, as you know, I was constantly tormented by recurrent nightmares in which a monstrous race of entities I called Night Gaunts would clutch me by the stomach and bear me up through the black air over towers of the most horrible, dead cities. They would drop me through a gray void, down onto the needlelike pinnacles of mountains miles below, and in the midst of my relentless plunge to those jagged and tooth like peaks, I would start awake and have no desire ever to sleep again.
“This night I had a similar dream it was the lean, black Night Gaunts, with their rubbery bat wings and barbed tails that visited me again. The flock of Night Gaunts tormented me like Harpies, and then, after their ritual tickling of my belly, the minions lifted me in their claws and flew with me high, following their master and his two captains, who flapped their way before us in a pointed V, toward some nameless range of precipices in the remote distance. But this time, unlike the other occasions, the dream ended differently-they did not drop me upon the jagged peaks below. The minions deposited me atop a bleak, oblong plateau, and then scattered to reconfigure themselves, flapping madly until they formed a black vulturous circle in the steely gray sky overhead. And the master of the Night Gaunts, with his two captains, alighted before my prostrate form, hideously folding their leathery wings and proceeding to approach me upon their scratchy claws.
“The Night Gaunts are entirely faceless-indeed, that is one of the qualities that makes them so terrifying to me-but on this occasion, as the trinity loomed before me, they thrust forward the obscene blankness where their faces should have been, and though they were as featureless as ever, I had the sudden, disturbing intuition that I knew who they were. Some instinctual part of me recognized .their faceless faces, and the clutching terror of that realization was what woke me.
“Two nights running, I had had this dream, each night the realization growing stronger and somehow more desperate. But on this third occasion, as the unholy trinity stood before me, their featureless faces took actual shape. I say the master of the Night Gaunts was a he, but in actually, as it loomed over me, leering at my helplessness, readying itself to utter its blasphemous words, its face was that of my deceased mother. And its two captains-they wore the guises of my aunts.
“The terror those faces invoked within me was truly unendurable. There was something so uncannily accurate about their features, something so palpably evil, that I found myself teetering precariously on the very brink of madness. I was at the verge of a profound and unholy realization, the very thought of which would drive me forever into the other side of sanity as, simultaneously, it would drive me over the precipice to my death. I looked at this black trinity for that final clue, and the master opened his mouth and silently formed the syllables of the words that would be my final undoing. The lips moved, drawing closer to me until they filled my vision, and as the first wet syllable formed itself, I bolted upright in my bed, too terrified even to scream.
“When I had gotten my wits about me, I realized I had been awakened by a rustling noise emanating from the sitting room. I rose quietly, and with my fire poker clenched in my trembling hands, I cautiously stepped. into the shadowy chamber, peering fearfully about. There, in the shadows, lurked. three dark figures with glowing eyes. The instant I perceived them, two of them blurred blackly inward to the left and right, vanishing. without a trace. The one in the center seemed to take on a darker visage, as if it had absorbed the other two, and its eyes glowed a brighter, nacreous green. I confess to you that my legs were trembling, and like so many of my own weak heroes, I was on the verge of swooning; but I somehow drew up the courage to lift the poker over my head and take an aggressive step forward. Then the black, hooded thing leaped at me, engulfing me, and I bolted upright in my bed, once again, covered in a cold sweat.
“I had been dreaming. I had dreamt that first awakening, for when I paused, this time for a longer duration, to let my racing pulse grow reasonably calm, I heard once again the rustling noises from the sitting room. Now I did not know if I was still trapped in the world of dream, whether this waking was, itself, a false one. This time, I chose not the heroic course, but quickly dressed and packed my suitcase and travel bag.
“The remainder of my time in Providence is difficult for me to recall. I know I wandered the length and breadth of the deserted city with lurking shadows constantly on my heels. I cannot clearly distinguish between dream and memory and fancy here, for I was uncertain, that entire duration, of my psychic state. On the one hand I felt the constant possibility of yet another false waking, relegating my experience to yet another layer of dream. On the other hand I believed none of it had been a dream, but merely brief lapses of memory, and that the Night Gaunts and the bleak, black world of my nightmare was entirely real. I half recall passing the Halsey mansion on Prospect Street because I heard an alien gibbering issuing from within. I recall haunting the cemetery of the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John for a time, winding my way among the fog-enshrouded headstones and the mausolea as I heard, and perhaps even saw, sinister half-things flittering at the periphery of my overtaxed senses.
“Toward daybreak I found myself at the bus station with a ticket in my hand, boarding a westbound bus, and it was not until we had been under way for several hours that I realized I had eluded the monsters, whether they were of the dream world or of this one. And I realized, too, that I had purchased a ticket with my meager funds to come petition you for your assistance.
“For the duration of my trip, I have been lapsing in and out of states which I cannot clearly distinguish as contemplation, daydreaming, sleep, or hallucination. In Oklahoma, a mysterious man boarded the bus, a man whose face I could never make out, a faceless man. If he is an intruder from the world of the faceless Night Gaunts, I must still be dreaming, Bob, but I believe this mysterious odd man has been following me ever since, and that he is somewhere in Cross Plains, biding his time, even as I narrate this fantastic tale.”
3
THERE WAS A LONG SILENCE punctuated sporadically by the sounds of the storm, which was gathering strength once again. The two men did not look at each other. Lovecraft sat on the edge of the davenport, hunched forward over his empty cup of coffee; Howard seemed to be looking somewhere into the distance, considering how to respond to the wild tale he had just heard.
“Have ya had supper?” Howard spoke so suddenly that Lovecraft started and jerked upright at the unexpected question.
“Why, no, I have not.”
“Look,” said Howard, “you dig through your stuff and fish out that Kachina of yours while I make us a fresh pot of coffee and rustle up some grub. I get the feelin’ we’re goin’ to be talkin’ for a long stretch here.”
Howard rose stiffly to his feet and bent down to lift the coffee tray.
“Know how to shoot?” he asked.
“In my opinion, the ability to pull a trigger is innate to all humans.”
“Well,” said Howard, “if that odd fellow should barge in while I’m in the kitchen, just ventilate him with that.” He motioned, with his eyes, to the .45 on the coffee table.
“That was my intention, quite independent of your suggestion.”
They both laughed uneasily, but the release of tension allowed Lovecraft to sit back at ease for a moment while his friend was absent in the kitchen. Now that he had told his story, he wondered again if he might be asleep at that very moment, dreaming the entire episode. He casually gave himself a pinch, smiling tiredly at his half joke.