When Spellman was very close to the giant, no more than a score of paces away, his movement towards It ceased. The Thing had still been turning away from him, but, as he came to a halt, Its motion also faltered.
Then The Thing stopped turning altogether!
For a moment the scene seemed frozen, the only movement being the fantastic billowing of the green cloak, then, slowly but inexorably, the monstrous form began to turn back towards the paralyzed dreamer.
Soon the great figure halted again, facing squarely in Spellman’s direction, and he screamed voicelessly as the blasphemous cloak billowed out more violently than ever, parting to permit the dreamer one mad glimpse beneath its green folds. There, about the pulsating black body of the Ancient One, hugely winged reptilian creatures without faces cluttered and clutched at a multitude of blackly writhing, pendulous breasts!
This much Martin Spellman saw—
—And the next thing he knew was that he was being roughly shaken and slapped awake!
Harold Moody, pleasantly drunk, having just returned on foot from Oakdeene village, had “dropped in” to see if Martin fancied a brew of coffee; he knew that Martin often worked quite late. But he had found his young friend in the throes of nightmare. Never was a man—half inebriated or not and despite the hour—more welcome than Harold Moody; for, even realizing now that he had only been dreaming, Spellman sat and shivered uncontrollably on his bed while has late visitor brewed hot coffee. He could remember his nightmare clearly, and what he remembered was quite the most hellish thing he had ever known.
The monstrous dream-jungle had been bad enough…and the blossom-bloated insects…and the clearing of dead and crumbling earth. Worse still had been the membranous, blind, winged creatures beneath the sickening green cloak of the giant. But worst of all had been the eyes in the head of that slowly turning colossus….
• • •
The next morning, despite an odd listlessness against which he had to fight very hard, Spellman set himself to the long task of searching diligently through the Cthaat Aquadingen. The dream of the previous night had been so real—and yet for his life he could not remember having seen in Larner’s “Black Book” a description of anything remotely like the nightmare vision he had experienced. Even in broad daylight, with a weak December sun shining in through his window facing the exercise yard, Spellman shuddered as he recalled The Thing of his dream. Other than Ernst Kant’s description of “a thing with black breasts and an anus within its forehead”—not from the Cthaat Aquadingen but a comparatively modern work on singular foreign mental cases, similar to the book Spellman was trying to write—there was nothing. From where, then, had his subconscious conjured up the monster of the dream?
Spellman realized that he must after all have a mind far more open to suggestion than he would ever have formerly believed. He had, of course, dreamed of The Thing after reading of the supposed method of “scrying Yibb-Tstll in Dreams.” Ridiculous though it all was, the idea had strongly influenced his subconscious, and the nightmare had been the result….
• • •
For the next ten days and through Christmas, Spellman’s time was taken up in the main with matters far less to his liking than the work he had thus far been doing. In short, while he was free most nights, his day-duties included being instructed in methods of keeping the more dangerous inmates “neat and tidy.” He had to learn how to feed and bathe violent patients, and how to clean out the cells of those disposed to animal-like habits. He was glad when the lessons had passed, when he could settle once more to his old routine.
It was the 27th December before Spellman found himself on night-duty again, and as the fates would have it his name appeared on the roster opposite that especially offensive duty: the lower wards, and particularly the one called Hell.
That night, on his very first visit to Hell, Spellman found Larner waiting for him at the spy-hole of his cell.
“Nurse Spellman—at last, it’s you! Did you…did you…?” Eagerly he peered out through the bars.
“Did I what, Larner?”
“I asked you to copy down the Sixth Sathlatta—from the Cthaat Aquadingen. Did you forget?”
“No, I didn’t forget, Larner,”—though in fact, he had—“but tell me—what do you intend to do with…with the, er, Sixth Sathlatta?”
“Do with it? Why!—it’s—it’s an experiment! Yes, that’s it, an experiment. In fact, Nurse Spellman, you might like to help us out with it?”
“Us, Larner?”
“Me—I meant me—you might like to help me with it!”
“In what way?” Spellman found himself interested, and despite the circumstances he was impressed with the lunatic’s apparent lucidity.
“I’ll let you know later—but you’ll have to let me have the Sixth Sathlatta soon—and a few sheets of paper and a pencil….”
“A pencil, Larner?” Spellman frowned suspiciously. “You know I can’t give you a pencil.”
“A crayon, then,” the man in the cell begged in seeming desperation. “Surely I can’t do any harm with a crayon?”
“No, I don’t suppose so. A crayon would be all right, I should think.”
“Good! Then you will—” The madman let the question hang.
“I can’t promise, Larner—but I’ll think about it.” It would be interesting, though, Spellman told himself, his hideous dream of a fortnight gone dim now in his memory, to see just what Larner would do with the Sixth Sathlatta.
“Well, all right—but think quickly!” the man’s voice cut into his thoughts. “I’ll have to have the things I need well before the end of the month. If I don’t—well, the experiment would be no good—not for another year, at any rate.”
Then Larner’s eyes quickly went wide and vacant, his positive expression altering until his features seemed vague and weak. He turned and walked slowly over to his bed with his hands behind his back.
“I’ll see what I can do for you, Larner,” Spellman spoke to the man’s back. “Probably tonight.” But Larner had apparently lost all interest in their conversation.
It was the same later, when Spellman returned to the basement ward after a quick visit to his room. He spoke to Larner, passing through the bars a crayon, blank paper, and that sheet with the Sixth Sathlatta copied from Larner’s book, but the lunatic sat on his bed and made no attempt to answer. Spellman had to let the articles the man had requested fall to the floor within the cell, and even then Larner showed not the slightest flicker of interest.
Toward morning, however, when the stain of approaching dawn was already making itself known through the snow-laden clouds to the east, the young nurse noticed that Larner was busy writing; working furiously with his crayon and paper, but as before he ignored all of Spellman’s efforts at communication.