The Horror in the Museum - H. P. Lovecraft (best books to read now TXT) 📗

and he could not recall any gas or electric fixture near that point. Another look defined the glow as a large vertical rectangle, and a though occurred to him. It was in that direction that he had always noticed the heavy plank door with the abnormally large padlock—the door which was never opened, and above which was crudely smeared that hideous cryptic symbol from the fragmentary records of forbidden elder magic. It must be open now—and there was a light inside. All his former speculation as to where that door led, and as to what lay behind it, were now renewed with trebly disquieting force.

Jones wandered aimlessly around the dismal locality till close to six o’clock, when he returned to the museum to make the call on Rogers. He could hardly tell why he wished so especially to see the man just then, but there must have been some subconscious misgivings about that terribly unplaceable canine scream of the afternnon, and about the glow of light in that disturbing and usually unopened inner doorway with the heavy padlock. The attendants were leaving as he arrived, and he thought that Orabona—the dark foreign-looking assistant—eyed him with something like sly, repressed amusement. He did not relish that look—even though he had seen the fellow turn it on his employer many times.

The vaulted exhibition room was ghoulish in its desertion, but he strode quickly through it and rapped at the door of the office and workroom. Response was slow in coming, though there were footsteps inside. Finally, in response to a second knock, the lock rattled, and the ancient six-panelled portal creaked reluctantly open to reveal the slouching, feverish-eyed form of George Rogers. From the first it was clear that the showman was in an unusual mood. There was a curious mixture of reluctance and actual gloating in his welcome, and his talk at once veered to extravagances of the most hideous and incredible sort.

Surviving elder gods—nameless sacrifices—the other than artificial nature of some of the alcove horrors—all the usual boasts, but uttered in a tone of peculiarly increasing confidence. Obviously, Jones reflected, the poor fellow’s madness was gaining on him. From time to time Rogers would send furtive glances toward the heavy, padlocked inner door at the end of the room, or toward a piece of coarse burlap on the floor not far from it, beneath which some small object appeared to be lying. Jones grew more nervous as the moments passed, and began to feel as hesitant about mentioning the afternoon’s oddities as he had formerly been anxious to do so.

Rogers’ sepulchrally resonant bass almost cracked under the excitement of his fevered rambling.

“Do you remember,” he shouted, “what I told you about that ruined city in Indo-China where the Tcho-Tchos lived? You had to admit I’d been there when you saw the photographs, even if you did think I made that oblong swimmer in darkness out of wax. If you’d seen it writhing in the underground pools as I did… .

“Well, this is bigger still. I never told you about this, because I wanted to work out the later parts before making any claim. When you see the snapshots you’ll know the geography couldn’t have been faked, and I fancy I have another way of proving It isn’t any waxed concoction of mine. You’ve never seen it, for the experiments wouldn’t let me keep It on exhibition.”

The showman glanced queerly at the padlocked door.

“It all comes from that long ritual in the eighth Pnakotic fragment. When I got it figured out I saw it could only have one meaning. There were things in the north before the land of Lomar—before mankind existed—and this was one of them. It took us all the way to Alaska, and up the Nootak from Fort Morton, but the thing was there as we knew it would be. Great cyclopean ruins, acres of them. There was less left than we had hoped for, but after three million years what could one expect? And weren’t the Eskimo legends all in the right direction? We couldn’t get one of the beggars to go with us, and had to sledge all the way back to Nome for Americans. Orabona was no good up in that climate—it made him sullen and hateful.

“I’ll tell you later how we found It. When we got the ice blasted out of the pylons of the central ruin the stairway was just as we knew it would be. Some carvings still there, and it was no trouble keeping the Yankees from following us in. Orabona shivered like a leaf—you’d never think it from the damned insolent way he struts around here. He knew enough of the Elder Lore to be properly afraid. The eternal light was gone, but our torches showed enough. We saw the bones of others who had been before us-�ons ago, when the climate was warm. Some of those bones were of things you couldn’t even imagine. At the third level down we found the ivory throne the fragments said so much about—and I may as well tell you it wasn’t empty.

“The thing on the throne didn’t move—and we knew then that It needed the nourishment of sacrifice. But we didn’t want to wake It then. Better to get It to London first. Orabona and I went to the surface for the big box, but when we had packed it we couldn’t get It up the three flights of steps. These steps weren’t made for human beings, and their size bothered us. Anyway, it was devilish heavy. We had to have the Americans down to get It out. They weren’t anxious to go into the place, but of course the worst thing was safely inside the box. We told them it was a batch of ivory carving—archeological stuff; and after seeing the carved throne they probably believed us. It’s a wonder they didn’t suspect hidden treasure and demand a share. They must have told queer tales around Nome later on; though I doubt if they ever went back to those ruins, even for the ivory throne.”

Rogers paused, felt around in his desk, and produced an envelope of good-sized photographic prints. Extracting one and laying it face down before him, he handed the rest to Jones. The set was certainly an odd one: ice-clad hills, dog sledges, men in furs, and vast tumbled ruins against a background of snow—ruins whose bizarre outlines and enormous stone blocks could hardly be accounted for. One flashlight view showed an incredible interior chamber with wild carvings and a curious throne whose proportions could not have been designed for a human occupant. The carvings of the gigantic masonry—high walls and peculiar vaulting overhead—were mainly symbolic, and involved both wholly unknown designs and certain hieroglyphs darkly cited in obscene legends. Over the throne loomed the same dreadful symbol which was now painted on the workroom wall above the padlocked plank door. Jones darted a nervous glance at the closed portal. Assuredly, Rogers had been to strange places and had seen strange things. Yet this mad interior picture might easily be a fraud—taken from a very clever stage setting. One must not be too credulous. But Rogers was continuing:

“Well, we shipped the box from Nome and got to London without any trouble. That was the first time we’d ever brought back anything that had a chance of coming alive. I didn’t put It on display, because there were more important things to do for It. It needed the nourishment of sacrifice, for It was a god. Of course I couldn’t get It the sort of sacrifices which It used to have in Its day, for such things don’t exist now. But there were other things which might do. The blood is the life, you know. Even the lemures and elementals that are older than the earth will come when the blood of men or beasts is offered under the right conditions.”

The expression on the narrator’s face was growing very alarming and repulsive, so that Jones fidgeted involuntarily in his chair. Rogers seemed to notice his guest’s nervousness, and continued with a distinctly evil smile.

“It was last year that I got It, and ever since then I’ve been trying rites and sacrifices. Orabona hasn’t been much help, for he was always against the idea of waking It. He hates It—probably because he’s afraid of what It will come to mean. He carries a pistol all the time to protect himself—fool, as if there were human protection against It! If I ever see him draw that pistol, I’ll strangle him. He wanted me to kill It and make an effigy of It. But I’ve stuck by my plans, and I’m coming out on top in spite of all the cowards like Orabona and damned sniggering skeptics like you, Jones! I’ve chanted the rites and made certain sacrifices, and last week the transition came. The sacrifice was—received and enjoyed!”

Rogers actually licked his lips, while Jones held himsef uneasily rigid. The showman paused and rose, crossing the room to the piece of burlap at which he had glanced so often. Bending down, he took hold of one corner as he spoke again.

“You’ve laughed enough at my work—now it’s time for you to get some facts. Orabona tells me you heard a dog screaming around here this afternoon. Do you know what that meant?”

Jones started. For all his curiousity he would have been glad to get out without further light on the point which had so puzzled him. But Rogers was inexorable, and began to lift the square of burlap. Beneath it lay a crushed, almost shapeless mass which Jones was slow to classify. Was it a once-living thing which some agency had flattened, sucked dry of blood, punctured in a thousand places, and wrung into a limp, broken-boned heap of grotesqeness? After a moment Jones realized what it must be. It was what was left of a dog—a dog, perhaps of considerable size and whitish color. Its breed was past recognition, for distortion had come in nameless and hideous ways. Most of the hair was burned off as by some pungent acid, and the exposed, bloodless skin was riddled by innumerable circular wounds or incisions. The form of torture necessary to cause such results was past imagining.

Electrified with a pure loathing which conquered his mounting disgust, Jones sprang with a cry.

“You damned sadist—you madman—you do a thing like this and dare to speak to a decent man!”

Rogers dropped the burlap with a malignant sneer and faced his oncoming guest. His words held an unnatural calm.

“Why, you fool, do you think I did this? What of it? It is not human and does not pretend to be. To sacrifice is merely to offer. I gave the dog to It. What happened is It’s work, not mine. It needed the nourishment of the offering, and took it in Its own way. But let me show you what It looks like.”

As Jones stood hesitating, the speaker had returned to his desk and took up the photograph he had laid face down without showing. Now he extended it with a curious look. Jones took it and glanced at in in an almost mechanical way. After a moment the visitor’s glance became sharper and more absorbed, for the utterly satanic force of the object depicted had an almost hypnotic effect. Certainly, Rogers had outdone himself in modeling the eldritch nightmare which the camera had caught. The thing was a work of sheer, infernal genius, and Jones wondered how the public would react when it was placed on exhibition. So hideous a thing had no right to exist—probably the mere contemplation of it, after it was done, had completed the unhinging of its maker’s mind and led him to worship it with brutal sacrifices. Only a stout sanity could resist the insidious suggestion that the blasphemy was—or had