The Artifact: I. The Testimony of Inspector Donald Hart, Pt. 1

(This is my first story on this website, so I made the title before reading the rule about "flooding." I can change the title but not the post's name, so I guess it has to stay like that. Please excuse the fact that this forum context is removing the tabs originally placed into this text. Thank you and enjoy "The Artifact", Chapter I. More chapters will come as replies in this thread.)






I. The Testimony of Inspector Donald Hart, Pt. 1

“Do you mean the beginning of the case as a whole, or just when I got involved with it?” Donald Hart asked, speaking louder than usual so his voice would carry over the dull, ambient buzz of halogen lights. He stared across the table waiting for an answer from his questioners, two federal agents now themselves getting involved in the case. ‘My case…’ he thought, disgruntled. It was always like the feds to swoop in on a big case as soon as a lead cropped up.
“Take it from the top, please,” the federal agent who had not yet taken off his black sunglasses looked down at his chart briefly, “Mr. Hart.”
“Again, we really appreciate you cooperating with us in these investigations” said the federal agent who had taken off his sunglasses. He put his hand down on the table, almost as a sign of understanding. “We know these are touchy subjects.”
Donald put his left hand in his pocket and fumbled with his fingers idly. He had been appointed to the rank of inspector for the NYPD a few years back, but he had learned the part quickly. He was a well respected man, known for getting the job done and having a reliable, no-nonsense attitude. He grumbled in his head, ‘If you appreciate it, why are you still trying the good-cop bad-cop routine? ****in’ feds…’ With a deep, resigned exhalation, he said, “Then I guess I’ll start with the theft at the Museum of Natural History. I don’t know what else you think I can tell you that you haven’t already heard though; I’ve told you everything I know and I wasn’t even in New York at that point yet.”
“Any information at all you can give us would be helpful, Mr. Hart.” The fed without sunglasses said reassuringly.
The inspector composed his thoughts for a moment and shivered a little, despite his best efforts to conceal this reaction. The fed in the sunglasses wrote a quick note on his chart and then nodded at Hart to continue. “Well, about a month ago that paleontologist I mentioned, Crane, he got back from some expedition for the Museum. I never got to talk to him about the stolen artifact; he’s become somewhat of a recluse since the first death. Apparently he came upon some sort of ancient burial chamber, everyone was excited about it. Something about predating a lot of human activity. The researchers at the Museum said it was going to be a pretty big deal.” Hart looked into the corner of the room, just for a moment so as to not raise the suspicions of the agents. “Well, most of the artifacts from the find were pretty simple: bones, clay pots, a few ceremonial clay knives, nothing really out of place. Except that one, of course, that cursed thing.”
The fed with the sunglasses raised an eyebrow above the concealing black lenses. “Cursed?”
In his head, Donald reprimanded himself for so clumsily saying such a thing. “Oh, yeah, sorry. In the precinct some of the guys were joking around that maybe this was like a ‘mummy’s curse’ sort of thing.” Both agents stared at him blankly. “What, you don’t have gallows humor in the bureau?”
The fed with the sunglasses said “Let’s try and be professional here so we can stop wasting your time and you can stop wasting ours. Tell us what we need to know and we can all go home.”
“What else can I say that I haven’t already ****ing told you yesterday? It’s not like the story’s going to change.” Donald yelled for a second but then realized his mistake, pushed his hands into his pockets, and took a moment of silence to again compose himself. “Sorry. This case just has me kind of tense. You know how it is.” After another suppressed glance to the corner of the room, he continued.
“So according to the Museum officials, Crane brought the artifact in question with the others but it wasn’t put on display due to its off-putting nature.”
“Off-putting?” asked the fed without sunglasses, a curious look in his eye. “How was it off-putting? What exactly was this artifact?”
“Damned if I know what the hell it really was.” Hart said curtly. “All I know is some people were disgusted by it, but sometimes…Well, sometimes people seemed to develop a sick fascination with it.”
“Go on.”
“Well when I asked around in the precinct there were some rumors about a complication when Crane first found the item in question. All I know about it is that Crane left with two assistants and came back alone. He himself could never even stare directly at the thing, they said, but some people just got lost in it. We think that’s what happened to Richard Prentke, he was the main suspect in that particular case. Prentke was working as an intern with the researchers in the Museum, and they say he very often had his eye on the artifact.”
“And what did it look like again? Refresh my memory.” Donald was beginning to dislike the fed with sunglasses still on.
“It’s like a…It’s hard to describe, I have no idea what it was used for.” He tapped his fingers on the table idly as he began to describe it, almost trying to distract himself from his memories. “It was flat and made of some kind of brownish-gray stone, and could fit in the palm of your hand. It looks kind of like an eye, with another eye inside of it. There were some strange swirling marks on it and little pockmarks, but I couldn’t tell if they were from design or age. The object narrowed to a tapered point on both sides of the outer eye, and each side had strange, twisted protrusions emanating from the eye. One side vaguely resembled a series of hook-like appendages, and the other…I guess I should call them clusters of teeth. Long, sharp fangs just jutting out of the rock. It was a very strange artifact, that.”
“And what happened with Prentke?”
“Well, nobody knows exactly. He offed himself before we could get any answers, and his family’s testimony is a little too traumatic to really give any valid insight to his motives. With the exception of the one phrase he, er, painted everywhere we really don’t have any leads- and I wouldn’t even call that gibberish a lead.”
The fed without sunglasses said, “Do you think you could run us through that again?”
Donald Hart’s eyes filled with pain and discomfort for a moment, but he was trained to process and deal with these feelings regularly. He said, “Yeah, sure. Poor kid, it’s really a shame.
Prentke was a grad student working with the Museum of Natural History’s intern program, couldn’t have been older than 23. The researchers there said he was always a little thin-skinned, and that he got freaked out easily. They seem to think something about the artifact just pushed him over the edge. They’d all be doing work, and time and time again one of them would catch Richard absent-mindedly looking at it.”
“The artifact?”
“Yeah, they had it in a little glass case and they told me he’d wind up just staring at it. Then one day, it was gone. The glass case was smashed and Prentke was missing. His family, a married couple and his little brother, says they don’t remember him coming home that night, but that he was already there when they woke up. He must have come home pretty late. Poor kid, his little brother must be only eight or nine.”
The fed with the sunglasses on leaned in. “And what happened next?”
Donald cocked his head and said, “I wish I knew for a fact, it’d make my job a little easier. If he did take the artifact, he lost it by the time we found his body. According to his family he just woke up and started screaming at the top of his lungs.”
“What was he screaming about?”
“Nothing coherent, not even words according to them. Just screaming. I wish that was it, though; when his family came into his room to check on him they unfortunately witnessed the final proof that he had clearly become unstable. Prentke had slit both of his wrists with a small penknife, and was using the blood to write the nonsense phrase “Aasahna No’aktu” on all the walls of his room, over and over again.”
“Hold on, let me make sure I have that right here.” The fed without sunglasses flipped some pages over his clipboard and then clicked his pen in preparation. “‘ah-sah-na no-ach-two’, is that correct?” Hart nodded grimly. “What language is that?” He asked, half to himself.
“Hell if I know. Crane would probably know, you should ask him.”
“Dr. Jacob Crane, you said?” The fed with sunglasses asked matter-of-factly.
“Yeah, him. Good luck finding him, though- we couldn’t. Like I said the other day, he just up and left after dropping that thing off at the Museum.”
“Right, right. Sorry, go on.” The fed without sunglasses said in a casual tone. Donald looked him in the eyes for a second, curious as to his motives and the calm nature of his voice. He put his sunglasses back on.
Inspector Hart continued, “But yeah, all over the walls. He was pretty prolific about it. His family says they tried to restrain him but he kept pushing them back to write more of that strange phrase, all the while still screaming. Eventually, his efforts and the screaming stopped. They moved in close to him to try and help, but when they were about a foot away he perked up as if in a moment of clarity and sprinted off, taking a flying leap through the window into open space.”
“At which point he fell to his death” one of the feds finished for Inspector Hart, who nodded. “And this was the first death in the case?”
“If the deaths are linked, yes. There still isn’t enough evidence to suggest that.”
“Of course. Then what happened?” Inspector Hart sighed and looked past the two men across the table from him, seemingly lost in thought. He sat there for a minute, tapping his fingers and gazing into space. “Hart?” the fed continued, “We agree with you that something about this doesn’t add up, so we need to pull together as much info as possible to try and find out exactly what’s going on here.” After a minute of silence, he said “How exactly did Jessie Larson factor into the case? From what you’ve told us this is where she came in, right?”
“Yes, hers was the next in a series of strange occurrences. Again I must stress that none of this is conclusive, really- it’s just at this point a coincidence like this is worth considering. A week and a half or so after the Richard Prentke incident, Larson gets institutionalized. Drowned her two year old daughter in the bathtub, wouldn’t stop explaining it was just to ‘satisfy the hunger’ whatever the hell that meant.”
“Interesting.” responded one of the agents, briefly scanning his notes. “And one more time, how did she connect to the case?”
Hart added, “She was the one who called the police for Prentke’s suicide. He hit the pavement right in front of her.”
“Maybe the trauma just got to her.” One of the feds suggested.
“Probably, yeah. We don’t have any proof to indicate anything else so we don’t want to jump to any conclusions, but… Honestly, **** like this doesn’t just happen- there has to be a connection. I still say if you really want information your best bet is to look out for that Carmichael girl.”
“Ah yes, Ms. Carmichael. What was her name again? Mary?”
“Maggie.” Donald corrected the agent. “You find that girl and keep a close eye on her, I’d bet my career that she’s gonna get it next.”
“And why exactly is that, Mr. Hart?” The other agent asked, scribbling down some quick notes.
“I already told you that, she’s the one who has the artifact now.”
“Interesting. And you said she took it from the evidence locker? How did it get there?”
Donald rubbed his head for a moment as if straining to remember. “The boys took it in after Daniels went postal. I’m sure you read about it before I gave you my accounts, that’s probably why you’re here now, isn’t it?”
“We can get into that later, Mr. Hart. Right now we need to ask you a few more questions. Where were you at the time of Deputy Henry Daniels’ shooting spree?”
“I told you yesterday,” Donald said, growing exasperated at how many times this question had been asked, “I was on vacation with my family in New Hampshire. We have a nice little timeshare and it was real pretty. The end. I had nothing to do with that shooting and you know it.”
“Actually, Mr. Hart, we don’t know it; that’s one of the reasons why we’re here.” One of the feds said, his voice growing stern and harsh. “So, just help us out and we can all move on.”
“None of the guys at the precinct knew why he did it. He just lost it.” Hart begrudgingly admitted. “He shot up five civilians, killed four of them and put the fifth in the hospital. They locked him up and tried him, but his lawyer had him plead insanity and now he’s in a padded room somewhere. It’s not surprising either, after that it was like his mind just didn’t work anymore. I even got to see him once or twice after I got back. He just kept talking about eyes and got real paranoid, talked a lot about everything having eyes and everyone being watched. The doctors chalked it up to caving under the stress of the NYPD, but I don’t know. Us in the precinct, we don’t know what’s going on but something’s not right here.”
“And the artifact?”
“Oh yeah, that. He had it on his person when they finally subdued him. It fit the bill of the missing artifact from the Museum but they said they had to hold it in the evidence locker until we were done looking into the case. Things got a little complicated.”
“What do you mean, complicated?” one of the feds asked.
“Well when a deputy goes on a killing spree while in possession of a stolen historical good, it makes you think. They called me back when they identified the artifact as the missing one from the Museum of Natural History so I had to end my already brief vacation early and come back to New York, but the week was almost over anyway so my family didn’t really mind. Once I got back to the precinct, we were working under the impression that maybe Daniels had stolen the thing in the first place, but after that Carmichael girl took it now I’m not so sure. There’s something strange about that artifact, let me tell you.” Neither of the agents said anything for a little while, and Donald Hart added, “I know you don’t believe me. Again.”
“Strange how?” the other fed asked after a brief pause.
“Strange like witnesses saying when Daniels started shooting, he was holding the artifact. The coroner says he’d been squeezing it so tight in his hand that the teeth were cutting into his palm.”

* * *

I only gave this a quick glance originally - not easy to read such a densely formatted block of text.

It's easier on the eye when you insert line spaces between your paragraphs..... but anyway, I persevered and quite enjoyed the story.

Opening with dialogue is always a good way to start any story - the reader's 'radar' immediately switching on. But you need to take advantage of it, not allow rather weak, unnecessary descriptions of the characters to switch the 'radar' off again (which is what happened to me here).

Secondly, avoid annoying the reader by constantly referring to one agent who wears shades and the other who doesn't. Giving your characters such cumbersome labels means you constantly have to use them so we know who's who. And it gets so tiresome to read. There are better ways of letting the reader identify your main players - give them all names or particular ways of talking for example.

Similarly, describing arbitrary body movements - putting hands on a table, into a pocket, etc. - becomes distracting. The reader ends up focussing on nonsense like that instead of the plot (unless this fidgetting is fundamental to the story - and in this case it's not).

Anything that fails to drive the story forward should be cut out. You have to be ruthless, but if you're not your readers will quickly lose interest (particularly in a short story or an action piece).

There is room here for some trimming -

I wasn’t even in New York at that point yet

Any information at all you can give us would be helpful

when Crane first found the item in question

and there are times when you use 'pretty' or 'really' to emphasize an adjective when there's no need.

Over-writing is a sign of not having enough confidence in your ability or your story - adding filler because perhaps you feel the piece needs stretching out.

But this is a good story and with some editing can be standout. Just get yourself a red pen and score out any words or sentences that don't add much to the story. Aim to make your sentences concise and clear (some of them tend to ramble).

It might finish up 25% shorter but readers value tight plotting rather than a high word count.

Good luck with this.

H

Sorry, I didn't know what a good way to format it would be. Thanks for the advice but I suggest you wait until I post the remaining chapters to give proper criticisms due to things changing and developing meaning over the next three chapters. Expect them by the end of the night.

-Bill

II. Nightmares


I smile wickedly, admiring my bloody handiwork below me. My hand is warm and wet, dripping and red.

To say that the nightmares ever stopped would be a blatant lie. However, to say that they ceased being nightmares would be far more accurate, as one can only have nightmares when one is asleep and dreaming, locked in the relative safety of one’s own head. So while the nightmares technically ended, it was only because I could no longer view sleep as any form of release from consciousness. No, sleep was something I learned to do without, but regardless the terrors followed me, hounding even my waking mind until the faint light of reason was almost completely extinguished from my being.

I feel the dead man’s tendons slowly give way as I sever his hand from his arm. It’s not like he can use it now.

I began my internship at the Museum of Natural History inconspicuously enough, at the bottom rung on the scientific ladder. I hoped to one day become an archeologist, and the fact that I got to work with the great Dr. Jacob Crane was something I truly viewed as a gift. However, I had always been on the sensitive side, and all my co-workers in the Museum picked up on this. I was sent to work with the researchers instead of going into the field myself; a deal which I was all too happy to accept.

Bodies, rapidly cooling, arranged in a circle around me. There are ten of them. I do not remember killing them but I know I have; I feel a sick, gleeful pride for having done so, for doing something so forbidden.

My timid nature would have been reason enough to be comfortable staying in the labs, but my true motivation was fear. I had been having recurring nightmares of ancient, dark things, foul things that should never have been brought to the light; these dark thoughts were enough to scare me away from field work completely. The things I saw, the horrors I lived through each night; I felt as if actively participating in the field work, searching through dead relics from ancient times, would bring me ever closer to experiencing the haunting dreams that never let me be. I could picture it all, stumbling through ancient ruins to accidentally find that terrible Thing. I thought rigorous scientific testing and subtle, interesting breakthroughs would take my mind off the night terrors and eventually let me leave them behind as I focused on a new path.

I was wrong.

Satisfied with my work, I put the knife in the center of the circle. I search through a satchel on the floor and pull out a large, black book.

I was very wrong.

A Book of Hunger.

For nearly a year I worked with the researchers on various finds: a cache of trilobites and ammonites from the Late Devonian, some parchment found in caves along the Dead Sea, and other fascinating studies. I was perfectly satisfied to leave my old goals of exploring temples and ruins behind for this new life, but it wasn’t long before the nightmares started.

I turn the Book of Hunger so that the spine is facing up, revealing a large mouth occupied with the gnashing of its many fangs. I hear a deep growling faintly in my mind, and I suddenly remember why the book would not open.

I had no idea what to make of It at first, but after Dr. Crane came back from that expedition a dark realization came to me. I became acutely aware of my own mortality in a way that is hard to describe. The nightmares were terrible, horrific scenes of ancient and black magic. In my dreams I speak and read words that I do not recognize, and yet I know what they mean. For many a night I watched myself do horrific things in the service of something I could never truly comprehend; a deity of sorts, but to call it a deity would mask the true terror that is the Thing. In my nightmares I was but one worshipper of a black cult hidden from sight in a time that was not our own. Every time I would appear standing in the center of a small, circular room with no windows and stone walls holding a knife, decently covered in blood. I would see ten bodies arranged in a circle all around me, but I wouldn’t feel scared or disgusted. Then, always I proceeded to initiate a foul, ancient ritual and call upon the Thing itself. In the dreams I always took a sick pride in the dark blasphemy I performed, enjoying every twisted step of the path. There was nothing I could do. In the morning I would be filled with nauseating repulsion and more than once had to run to the bathroom to keep my sheets clean.

It needs to feed.

The nightmares continued at a pace of two or three nights a week for about two months. I didn’t want to see a therapist for fear that she’d accuse me of being insane. Once I began having the nightmares every night I began going without sleep for as long as possible. I always had coffee brewing, and I often brought energy drinks to work. I did anything I could to avoid having to relive that horrible, twisted scene.

I grin and pat the side of the Book of Hunger reassuringly. It is rough like leather, yet distinctly oily to the touch. The growling I hear in my head is elevated to a grunt for a moment. It is getting impatient. A twinge of fear goes up my spine as I pick up the man’s hand and feed it into the gnashing mouth of the book. The growling slowly becomes replaced with a soft cooing and then nothing. I feel a brief feeling of gratitude to my father for his offering of flesh and flash a wan, taboo grim as the black, oily tentacles locking the covers together slowly unwind from each other and recede into the spine of the book.

I began to get edgy and nervous in the office due to my lack of sleep, but still the dreadful nightmares pervaded my thoughts. I was near the end of my rope and was beginning to think there was nothing I could do, but then Dr. Jacob Crane called the Museum with big news from his expedition.
He said he had stumbled upon something unprecedented and found truly ancient human activity perfectly preserved due to some form of circular, underground room. He briefly described the impressive structural qualities of the stone walls, made an amazing discovery due to their sheer age. I was gripped by fear like I had never known, but I would reach an even greater plateau of terror when he excitedly mentioned how he had found eleven bodies in the room, ten of which were arranged in a circle. His theory was that the one in the middle was a grave robber who had accidentally locked himself in some form of incredibly ancient family burial chamber.

The Book of Hunger is full of blasphemous spells of decay and terror. When I open it, I feel a deep gratitude to my brothers in the cult who made this possible. It is a relic of sinister magic, imbued with the entropic energy of The Devourer and his dark hunger for order. To see every page, even only in passing towards the spell that is tonight’s destination, sears dark thoughts into my mind and rattles my very essence.

Everyone was stunned by his find of this monolithic mausoleum. I slipped away from the celebrating group to assure myself it was all a coincidence in an effort to maintain a failing grip on my sanity. I kept telling myself it couldn’t be real, that there was no way it was the same. It was just a terrible coincidence.

My thoughts are suddenly streamlined as I find the right page. There is no title, only a design of a massive black mouth adorned with spikes like a perverse crown on both the top and bottom and a disembodied eye floating in the void of the middle. I take a moment after I read the page to glance quickly around the room to check that the bodies are arranged correctly. After double-checking that my dark wardings are still protecting the chamber, I begin chanting the spell.

Roughly a week and a half of travel separated Dr. Crane from the Museum, and in that time I did not need a single drop of caffeine to stay awake. The fear was more than enough to keep me preoccupied, but still I would doze off now and then. When I did, the dreams were all the more vivid and horrific for having been away.

“AA SAH NA, AA SAH NA.”
“NO’AKTU, NO’AKTU.”

As Dr. Crane’s return drew ever closer I tried to do as much research as possible on the mysterious ritual of my nightmares and the bizarre phrase on which it seemed focused, half out of my desperate desire to prove it to be nothing more than a creation of my mind and half out of morbid curiosity.

A thin, hollow scraping noise begins to slowly increase in volume. Space and time begin to rip along a very small tear in the wall in front of me, and soon it grows wider. I immediately feel as if I am being watched.

I found nothing. There were no listings in our records or any of the libraries at our disposal of Books of Hunger, the cultist’s mysterious phrase, or any of the dark titles of that Thing.

It watches. The Black Gaze, the Eye of the Void, the Maw of Darkness.

I couldn’t even really describe what I saw, not completely anyway. It went against so many concepts I had held to be immutable that whenever I saw It in my nightmares It was always the most disconcerting part. The thought that my subconscious could concoct such a terrifying presence alarmed me enough already, but I only grew truly afraid after considering the implications of Crane’s discovery. Every morning I would remember Its piercing stare as if it was seeing through the dream and watching me instead.

The Mouth of the Devourer.

It seemed to me as if It was a faintly glowing eye, suspended somehow inside a large black chasm, however upon further progression into the dream the chasm was revealed to be a gaping mouth lined with fangs. There were protrusions of spikes all above and beneath the mouth, with terrible sickle-like curves to them, and the mouth connected at the end to a long, twirling string of filament-like tentacles cascading back into the oblivion behind the Thing like the optic nerves of some cosmic eyeball torn from its previous owner.

“Great No’Aktu, Watcher in the Shadows, please hear my call.” I cry out to the inconceivable thing on the other side of the cosmic window. I hear a grating hissing noise as I begin to shake, but I suddenly find a moment of clarity. It speaks to me in my own tongue now, but I hear it as a voice in my head.

Dr. Jacob Crane came back to the Museum of Natural History, and all staff members were called in to help catalogue and analyze his huge find of artifacts.

‘What is it that you seek, simple one?’ It speaks in all voices as one. I can barely handle the mental strain. My knees buckle, but I fight to keep my composure lest I be overcome.

I came into work, hoping with all my heart that I could put my fears to rest. I sorted through a few hours’ worth of artifacts with my colleagues and had no problems, so I began to feel a bit more at ease.

“I seek the truth!” I proclaim strongly into the void. The eye in the darkness seems to rise a little at the edges, or maybe this is merely what I perceive It to do. It seems to relish my request for a moment.

With a more level head on my shoulders I began to appreciate how impressive of a find it really was. There was a large amount of decorative pieces and tools and each item proved to be consistently older than we expected. This was groundbreaking information. ‘Rewrite-some-history-books’ groundbreaking.

The room begins to spin and I fall to the ground. I black out for an undetermined amount of time. When I wake up the cosmic window is closed, the Thing and the Book of Hunger are gone, and my head is pounding. I see a small circular stone charm on the floor. It has two prominent spikes on either side, and has designs of fangs and hook-like tentacles, and in the center is the symbol of an eye within an eye. “It worked.” I mutter.

We were getting near the end. I began to feel uneasy again, figuring that that cursed stone object must be waiting at the bottom of a box somewhere.

The Thing that we can only call No’Aktu, the Eye of the Void, Mouth of the Devourer, has gifted me a portion of the Devourer’s great power that I may see the truth! I pick up the charm.

It was almost five o’clock, and we had just finished cataloging the last item and scheduling a few tests for the coming weeks. We were almost completely done for the day and had only a few tasks remaining. I felt immensely grateful to whatever divine mercy had spared me from having to face my nightmare as a reality, and thought on the uncanny nature of coincidences. Dr. Jacob Crane came into the back rooms after leaving earlier to check on our progress.

At that moment my mind becomes opened to the truth of the existence my family, my brothers, and humanity had come to know in the vault chambers, of what came before, of the darkness and the fire and the grand cosmic need for entropy, the divine orchestrator of destruction.

His face turned serious for a moment as he mentioned an artifact not intended for public display. He pulled a sterile baggie out of his chest pocket containing a small circular stone artifact roughly the size of a golf ball of a unique appearance due to a design of hook-like tentacles and clusters of fangs surrounding an eye within an eye.

I see the cataclysm that brought us here. I see the threat that caused it.

I remember wanting to scream out for all that was left of my now rapidly eroding mind but not being able to. There is no word to describe the fear I felt, and yet I did not care anymore. Only one thought filled my mind and that was a call to meet the gaze of the eye within an eye.

I see the inevitability of that same threat returning, too far removed in the eons for any of us to do anything about it.

I remember not being able to look away. I remember wanting to. I remember feeling the same as when the Eye of the Void was watching me in my nightmares. Here is where, technically speaking, the nightmares stopped for my world had become the nightmare.

I see that which was the Devourer and the mere thought of his terrible hunger scourges my mind of order and reason.

We started to work on it, all of us taking every precaution to protect the fragile, ancient artifact. I tried to leave it and focus on the remaining work I had, but I kept getting distracted staring into it and many times the researchers had to get my attention and bring me back to working. By the end of the day I couldn’t pull myself from its gaze anymore.
Crane had left immediately after he dropped off the artifact, so I could not ask him any further questions about it. All we learned was about it was that it was a historical anomaly, a rare work of intricately detailed art in a time when man was barely man. We placed it in a little glass case and deemed it indeed too off-putting for public display. My colleagues often simultaneously experienced feelings of being watched after working around the artifact for too long. I could never be near it, because I always ended up trying to meet Its gaze.

I slowly return to awareness of my own reality and realize I am slumped in the corner of the room. I get up wearily and cast a brief look around the room.

We clocked out for the day and began to leave, but I lied to my colleagues and said I forgot my hoodie jacket in the back room. They didn’t give it a second thought. I could feel It calling again. The nightwatchman wouldn’t have given me any trouble, but I took special care to avoid him. The Thing was saying that no one else should know.

I stumble to the center of the room and look around for the book, to see if hopefully it had not been taken through the gate. I find nothing, but I hear a quick stirring and pick up the ceremonial dagger, still dripping with the blood of my friends and family, and look around nervously. I cannot find the culprit of the noise. I should be alone. Fear begins to grip me, and I squeeze the artifact.

I found my way to the back rooms and slowly approached the little glass case that the repulsive, ancient artifact had been placed in. I don’t know how long I stared into it; it could have been weeks as soon as minutes for all I could tell. Eventually I knew nothing but desire for the Charm, so I smashed the glass with my fist and grabbed it.

My little sister’s leg begins to twitch, slightly. I watch with wide eyes and my back against a wall, clutching tightly at both the knife and the Charm.

I fled, but I could not remember what happened on that night after that. I still do not. The next thing I knew, I was in my bed the next morning and waking up, as if from another nightmare. I was confused and did not know what was going on, until I saw the artifact on my desk. I stared at it for a while and it stared back, and we stayed that way for a while.

Slowly her body begins to move, and the others join her. They softly cry as they slowly regain control of their limbs, flailing weakly like babies still learning to use their arms and legs.

Eventually I had to break the gaze, however, because I heard a soft crying from somewhere in my house. I stepped into the hallway; it seemed to me that everyone else must have still been asleep. I crept through the house searching for the source of the noise and before long I realized it was coming from the basement. Without thinking I opened the door and ran down, fearing that something had happened to my younger brother, perhaps he had fallen down the stairs.

As soon as they can lift their heads they stare at me with white, dead eyes. There is nowhere I can run.

I saw my father and mother at the end of the room, leaning over my younger brother. He was asleep, but crying out as if plagued by bad dreams. I saw that they each were laying a hand on his forehead. I looked at them, confused and scared, but saw that something was not right. They were not my parents, but they were hollow husks of my parents. Their eyes were sunken and white, and their faces bore a look of emptiness. I do not remember which damaged my psyche more, the hurt for my family or the fear for my life, but I called out to them, at which point my younger brother sat up abruptly and opened his eyes. In a matter of seconds they too became sunken and white, and his demeanor became as theirs as he stood up.

They stand up now, gathering close together. They are all staring at me, and I cannot handle the dead, white stare of their eyes. I stare into the Charm of No’Aktu as my grip on the knife tightens.

I slowly backed towards the stairs muttering hopelessly to myself when they all turned at once to face me with those empty, dead eyes. They began to walk towards me. I screamed and sprinted up the stairs, running galvanized by fear all the way up to my room, at which point I locked the door. Eventually they found their way up and shuffled around at the door, trying to get in. I knew it was only a matter of time until they broke the door down or simply got the house master key from my parents’ room. I was faced with the fear that whatever foul affliction had come to them that they had given to my brother was about to come to me. I stifled the horror and emotions, and in desperation I looked around the room for a way to barricade my door from the hollow ones on the other side. I found nothing substantial.

They start walking towards me. I am surrounded as they close in on me. I don’t want to die like this, I don’t want to become one of them with that horrible hollow stare.

I heard a sound, then perked up and looked at the door. My eye twitched in terror as I recognized the sound of someone fumbling with a key. They were using the master key.

I watch as I stab the knife into my chest and stomach several times. I’m not going to be one of them. The pain is too much. I fall to the ground.

They opened the door and pushed aside the meager barricade I managed to arrange. I tried to push them away from me but they kept coming. Eventually I fell down and they converged on me, smothering me, placing their hands on my forehead. Everything started to become white.

Everything fades to darkness as I bleed out. I fall in and out of consciousness.

I summoned one last burst of strength and pushed them off of me. I was not going to die like that, not going to become one of those things. I grabbed the artifact and made a run for the window. I jumped through it, pain washing over me for one brief, glorious instant; a last beautifully visceral moment of the sensations of life. Time slowed down as I squeezed the artifact in my hand, yet still I saw in full detail the ground approaching at its own pace with no intention of stopping.

This is how the nightmares end.

That is how the nightmare ended.

* * *

II. Nightmares


I smile wickedly, admiring my bloody handiwork below me. My hand is warm and wet, dripping and red.

To say that the nightmares ever stopped would be a blatant lie. However, to say that they ceased being nightmares would be far more accurate, as one can only have nightmares when one is asleep and dreaming, locked in the relative safety of one’s own head. So while the nightmares technically ended, it was only because I could no longer view sleep as any form of release from consciousness. No, sleep was something I learned to do without, but regardless the terrors followed me, hounding even my waking mind until the faint light of reason was almost completely extinguished from my being.

I feel the dead man’s tendons slowly give way as I sever his hand from his arm. It’s not like he can use it now.

I began my internship at the Museum of Natural History inconspicuously enough, at the bottom rung on the scientific ladder. I hoped to one day become an archeologist, and the fact that I got to work with the great Dr. Jacob Crane was something I truly viewed as a gift. However, I had always been on the sensitive side, and all my co-workers in the Museum picked up on this. I was sent to work with the researchers instead of going into the field myself; a deal which I was all too happy to accept.

Bodies, rapidly cooling, arranged in a circle around me. There are ten of them. I do not remember killing them but I know I have; I feel a sick, gleeful pride for having done so, for doing something so forbidden.

My timid nature would have been reason enough to be comfortable staying in the labs, but my true motivation was fear. I had been having recurring nightmares of ancient, dark things, foul things that should never have been brought to the light; these dark thoughts were enough to scare me away from field work completely. The things I saw, the horrors I lived through each night; I felt as if actively participating in the field work, searching through dead relics from ancient times, would bring me ever closer to experiencing the haunting dreams that never let me be. I could picture it all, stumbling through ancient ruins to accidentally find that terrible Thing. I thought rigorous scientific testing and subtle, interesting breakthroughs would take my mind off the night terrors and eventually let me leave them behind as I focused on a new path.

I was wrong.

Satisfied with my work, I put the knife in the center of the circle. I search through a satchel on the floor and pull out a large, black book.

I was very wrong.

A Book of Hunger.

For nearly a year I worked with the researchers on various finds: a cache of trilobites and ammonites from the Late Devonian, some parchment found in caves along the Dead Sea, and other fascinating studies. I was perfectly satisfied to leave my old goals of exploring temples and ruins behind for this new life, but it wasn’t long before the nightmares started.

I turn the Book of Hunger so that the spine is facing up, revealing a large mouth occupied with the gnashing of its many fangs. I hear a deep growling faintly in my mind, and I suddenly remember why the book would not open.

I had no idea what to make of It at first, but after Dr. Crane came back from that expedition a dark realization came to me. I became acutely aware of my own mortality in a way that is hard to describe. The nightmares were terrible, horrific scenes of ancient and black magic. In my dreams I speak and read words that I do not recognize, and yet I know what they mean. For many a night I watched myself do horrific things in the service of something I could never truly comprehend; a deity of sorts, but to call it a deity would mask the true terror that is the Thing. In my nightmares I was but one worshipper of a black cult hidden from sight in a time that was not our own. Every time I would appear standing in the center of a small, circular room with no windows and stone walls holding a knife, decently covered in blood. I would see ten bodies arranged in a circle all around me, but I wouldn’t feel scared or disgusted. Then, always I proceeded to initiate a foul, ancient ritual and call upon the Thing itself. In the dreams I always took a sick pride in the dark blasphemy I performed, enjoying every twisted step of the path. There was nothing I could do. In the morning I would be filled with nauseating repulsion and more than once had to run to the bathroom to keep my sheets clean.

It needs to feed.

The nightmares continued at a pace of two or three nights a week for about two months. I didn’t want to see a therapist for fear that she’d accuse me of being insane. Once I began having the nightmares every night I began going without sleep for as long as possible. I always had coffee brewing, and I often brought energy drinks to work. I did anything I could to avoid having to relive that horrible, twisted scene.

I grin and pat the side of the Book of Hunger reassuringly. It is rough like leather, yet distinctly oily to the touch. The growling I hear in my head is elevated to a grunt for a moment. It is getting impatient. A twinge of fear goes up my spine as I pick up the man’s hand and feed it into the gnashing mouth of the book. The growling slowly becomes replaced with a soft cooing and then nothing. I feel a brief feeling of gratitude to my father for his offering of flesh and flash a wan, taboo grim as the black, oily tentacles locking the covers together slowly unwind from each other and recede into the spine of the book.

I began to get edgy and nervous in the office due to my lack of sleep, but still the dreadful nightmares pervaded my thoughts. I was near the end of my rope and was beginning to think there was nothing I could do, but then Dr. Jacob Crane called the Museum with big news from his expedition.
He said he had stumbled upon something unprecedented and found truly ancient human activity perfectly preserved due to some form of circular, underground room. He briefly described the impressive structural qualities of the stone walls, made an amazing discovery due to their sheer age. I was gripped by fear like I had never known, but I would reach an even greater plateau of terror when he excitedly mentioned how he had found eleven bodies in the room, ten of which were arranged in a circle. His theory was that the one in the middle was a grave robber who had accidentally locked himself in some form of incredibly ancient family burial chamber.

The Book of Hunger is full of blasphemous spells of decay and terror. When I open it, I feel a deep gratitude to my brothers in the cult who made this possible. It is a relic of sinister magic, imbued with the entropic energy of The Devourer and his dark hunger for order. To see every page, even only in passing towards the spell that is tonight’s destination, sears dark thoughts into my mind and rattles my very essence.

Everyone was stunned by his find of this monolithic mausoleum. I slipped away from the celebrating group to assure myself it was all a coincidence in an effort to maintain a failing grip on my sanity. I kept telling myself it couldn’t be real, that there was no way it was the same. It was just a terrible coincidence.

My thoughts are suddenly streamlined as I find the right page. There is no title, only a design of a massive black mouth adorned with spikes like a perverse crown on both the top and bottom and a disembodied eye floating in the void of the middle. I take a moment after I read the page to glance quickly around the room to check that the bodies are arranged correctly. After double-checking that my dark wardings are still protecting the chamber, I begin chanting the spell.

Roughly a week and a half of travel separated Dr. Crane from the Museum, and in that time I did not need a single drop of caffeine to stay awake. The fear was more than enough to keep me preoccupied, but still I would doze off now and then. When I did, the dreams were all the more vivid and horrific for having been away.

“AA SAH NA, AA SAH NA.”
“NO’AKTU, NO’AKTU.”

As Dr. Crane’s return drew ever closer I tried to do as much research as possible on the mysterious ritual of my nightmares and the bizarre phrase on which it seemed focused, half out of my desperate desire to prove it to be nothing more than a creation of my mind and half out of morbid curiosity.

A thin, hollow scraping noise begins to slowly increase in volume. Space and time begin to rip along a very small tear in the wall in front of me, and soon it grows wider. I immediately feel as if I am being watched.

I found nothing. There were no listings in our records or any of the libraries at our disposal of Books of Hunger, the cultist’s mysterious phrase, or any of the dark titles of that Thing.

It watches. The Black Gaze, the Eye of the Void, the Maw of Darkness.

I couldn’t even really describe what I saw, not completely anyway. It went against so many concepts I had held to be immutable that whenever I saw It in my nightmares It was always the most disconcerting part. The thought that my subconscious could concoct such a terrifying presence alarmed me enough already, but I only grew truly afraid after considering the implications of Crane’s discovery. Every morning I would remember Its piercing stare as if it was seeing through the dream and watching me instead.

The Mouth of the Devourer.

It seemed to me as if It was a faintly glowing eye, suspended somehow inside a large black chasm, however upon further progression into the dream the chasm was revealed to be a gaping mouth lined with fangs. There were protrusions of spikes all above and beneath the mouth, with terrible sickle-like curves to them, and the mouth connected at the end to a long, twirling string of filament-like tentacles cascading back into the oblivion behind the Thing like the optic nerves of some cosmic eyeball torn from its previous owner.

“Great No’Aktu, Watcher in the Shadows, please hear my call.” I cry out to the inconceivable thing on the other side of the cosmic window. I hear a grating hissing noise as I begin to shake, but I suddenly find a moment of clarity. It speaks to me in my own tongue now, but I hear it as a voice in my head.

Dr. Jacob Crane came back to the Museum of Natural History, and all staff members were called in to help catalogue and analyze his huge find of artifacts.

‘What is it that you seek, simple one?’ It speaks in all voices as one. I can barely handle the mental strain. My knees buckle, but I fight to keep my composure lest I be overcome.

I came into work, hoping with all my heart that I could put my fears to rest. I sorted through a few hours’ worth of artifacts with my colleagues and had no problems, so I began to feel a bit more at ease.

“I seek the truth!” I proclaim strongly into the void. The eye in the darkness seems to rise a little at the edges, or maybe this is merely what I perceive It to do. It seems to relish my request for a moment.

With a more level head on my shoulders I began to appreciate how impressive of a find it really was. There was a large amount of decorative pieces and tools and each item proved to be consistently older than we expected. This was groundbreaking information. ‘Rewrite-some-history-books’ groundbreaking.

The room begins to spin and I fall to the ground. I black out for an undetermined amount of time. When I wake up the cosmic window is closed, the Thing and the Book of Hunger are gone, and my head is pounding. I see a small circular stone charm on the floor. It has two prominent spikes on either side, and has designs of fangs and hook-like tentacles, and in the center is the symbol of an eye within an eye. “It worked.” I mutter.

We were getting near the end. I began to feel uneasy again, figuring that that cursed stone object must be waiting at the bottom of a box somewhere.

The Thing that we can only call No’Aktu, the Eye of the Void, Mouth of the Devourer, has gifted me a portion of the Devourer’s great power that I may see the truth! I pick up the charm.

It was almost five o’clock, and we had just finished cataloging the last item and scheduling a few tests for the coming weeks. We were almost completely done for the day and had only a few tasks remaining. I felt immensely grateful to whatever divine mercy had spared me from having to face my nightmare as a reality, and thought on the uncanny nature of coincidences. Dr. Jacob Crane came into the back rooms after leaving earlier to check on our progress.

At that moment my mind becomes opened to the truth of the existence my family, my brothers, and humanity had come to know in the vault chambers, of what came before, of the darkness and the fire and the grand cosmic need for entropy, the divine orchestrator of destruction.

His face turned serious for a moment as he mentioned an artifact not intended for public display. He pulled a sterile baggie out of his chest pocket containing a small circular stone artifact roughly the size of a golf ball of a unique appearance due to a design of hook-like tentacles and clusters of fangs surrounding an eye within an eye.

I see the cataclysm that brought us here. I see the threat that caused it.

I remember wanting to scream out for all that was left of my now rapidly eroding mind but not being able to. There is no word to describe the fear I felt, and yet I did not care anymore. Only one thought filled my mind and that was a call to meet the gaze of the eye within an eye.

I see the inevitability of that same threat returning, too far removed in the eons for any of us to do anything about it.

I remember not being able to look away. I remember wanting to. I remember feeling the same as when the Eye of the Void was watching me in my nightmares. Here is where, technically speaking, the nightmares stopped for my world had become the nightmare.

I see that which was the Devourer and the mere thought of his terrible hunger scourges my mind of order and reason.

We started to work on it, all of us taking every precaution to protect the fragile, ancient artifact. I tried to leave it and focus on the remaining work I had, but I kept getting distracted staring into it and many times the researchers had to get my attention and bring me back to working. By the end of the day I couldn’t pull myself from its gaze anymore.
Crane had left immediately after he dropped off the artifact, so I could not ask him any further questions about it. All we learned was about it was that it was a historical anomaly, a rare work of intricately detailed art in a time when man was barely man. We placed it in a little glass case and deemed it indeed too off-putting for public display. My colleagues often simultaneously experienced feelings of being watched after working around the artifact for too long. I could never be near it, because I always ended up trying to meet Its gaze.

I slowly return to awareness of my own reality and realize I am slumped in the corner of the room. I get up wearily and cast a brief look around the room.

We clocked out for the day and began to leave, but I lied to my colleagues and said I forgot my hoodie jacket in the back room. They didn’t give it a second thought. I could feel It calling again. The nightwatchman wouldn’t have given me any trouble, but I took special care to avoid him. The Thing was saying that no one else should know.

I stumble to the center of the room and look around for the book, to see if hopefully it had not been taken through the gate. I find nothing, but I hear a quick stirring and pick up the ceremonial dagger, still dripping with the blood of my friends and family, and look around nervously. I cannot find the culprit of the noise. I should be alone. Fear begins to grip me, and I squeeze the artifact.

I found my way to the back rooms and slowly approached the little glass case that the repulsive, ancient artifact had been placed in. I don’t know how long I stared into it; it could have been weeks as soon as minutes for all I could tell. Eventually I knew nothing but desire for the Charm, so I smashed the glass with my fist and grabbed it.

My little sister’s leg begins to twitch, slightly. I watch with wide eyes and my back against a wall, clutching tightly at both the knife and the Charm.

I fled, but I could not remember what happened on that night after that. I still do not. The next thing I knew, I was in my bed the next morning and waking up, as if from another nightmare. I was confused and did not know what was going on, until I saw the artifact on my desk. I stared at it for a while and it stared back, and we stayed that way for a while.

Slowly her body begins to move, and the others join her. They softly cry as they slowly regain control of their limbs, flailing weakly like babies still learning to use their arms and legs.

Eventually I had to break the gaze, however, because I heard a soft crying from somewhere in my house. I stepped into the hallway; it seemed to me that everyone else must have still been asleep. I crept through the house searching for the source of the noise and before long I realized it was coming from the basement. Without thinking I opened the door and ran down, fearing that something had happened to my younger brother, perhaps he had fallen down the stairs.

As soon as they can lift their heads they stare at me with white, dead eyes. There is nowhere I can run.

I saw my father and mother at the end of the room, leaning over my younger brother. He was asleep, but crying out as if plagued by bad dreams. I saw that they each were laying a hand on his forehead. I looked at them, confused and scared, but saw that something was not right. They were not my parents, but they were hollow husks of my parents. Their eyes were sunken and white, and their faces bore a look of emptiness. I do not remember which damaged my psyche more, the hurt for my family or the fear for my life, but I called out to them, at which point my younger brother sat up abruptly and opened his eyes. In a matter of seconds they too became sunken and white, and his demeanor became as theirs as he stood up.

They stand up now, gathering close together. They are all staring at me, and I cannot handle the dead, white stare of their eyes. I stare into the Charm of No’Aktu as my grip on the knife tightens.

I slowly backed towards the stairs muttering hopelessly to myself when they all turned at once to face me with those empty, dead eyes. They began to walk towards me. I screamed and sprinted up the stairs, running galvanized by fear all the way up to my room, at which point I locked the door. Eventually they found their way up and shuffled around at the door, trying to get in. I knew it was only a matter of time until they broke the door down or simply got the house master key from my parents’ room. I was faced with the fear that whatever foul affliction had come to them that they had given to my brother was about to come to me. I stifled the horror and emotions, and in desperation I looked around the room for a way to barricade my door from the hollow ones on the other side. I found nothing substantial.

They start walking towards me. I am surrounded as they close in on me. I don’t want to die like this, I don’t want to become one of them with that horrible hollow stare.

I heard a sound, then perked up and looked at the door. My eye twitched in terror as I recognized the sound of someone fumbling with a key. They were using the master key.

I watch as I stab the knife into my chest and stomach several times. I’m not going to be one of them. The pain is too much. I fall to the ground.

They opened the door and pushed aside the meager barricade I managed to arrange. I tried to push them away from me but they kept coming. Eventually I fell down and they converged on me, smothering me, placing their hands on my forehead. Everything started to become white.

Everything fades to darkness as I bleed out. I fall in and out of consciousness.

I summoned one last burst of strength and pushed them off of me. I was not going to die like that, not going to become one of those things. I grabbed the artifact and made a run for the window. I jumped through it, pain washing over me for one brief, glorious instant; a last beautifully visceral moment of the sensations of life. Time slowed down as I squeezed the artifact in my hand, yet still I saw in full detail the ground approaching at its own pace with no intention of stopping.

This is how the nightmares end.

That is how the nightmare ended.

* * *

III. A Curious Find

At approximately 9 in the morning on September 15th a small biplane touched down in a wide river next to an Indonesian delta. A thick forest was spread out over the inland parts of the landmass and a thick, dry heat pervaded the air, even in the early morning. Dr. Jacob Crane, PhD in paleontology, stepped out of a small biplane and his two colleagues Cindy Wordsworth and Dian Guntur followed quickly behind. They had left to search for ruins in an area of supposed ancient human activity. After logging many hours of research into the area Crane had informed the Museum board of officials of his hunch that a big discovery was to be found in Indonesia several times, but even he did not expect to find what he did.

Cindy was a bright young archeologist from the Museum of Natural History with a degree in anthropology whose quick wit, intelligence, and skill in many ancient languages had more than once saved Dr. Crane from delay at the hands of obfuscation. Dian was a guide who Dr. Crane had paid to help them navigate the forests and rivers of the mass of island jungles that was Indonesia. The journey was made difficult by the treacherous jungle terrain and the stifling heat, but mostly because nobody really knew what to look for. Crane tried to put a positive spin on it.

“I say we just survey a few of the areas. If there’s nothing to find, at least we’ll know we’re not missing anything.” He said to Cindy. He couldn’t talk directly to Dian but Cindy would translate for him when he needed it. After the translation, Dian nodded in agreement and he and Cindy followed Dr. Crane up the bank of the river and towards the jungle.

Cindy had worked with Dr. Crane before and never knew him to follow a hunch only to have it turn out to be a false lead. Normally she’d have her doubts about wandering into the jungle with no clear motive, but if Dr. Crane was behind it then she was too. The grass became progressively less sandy as they approached the line of thin and wispy trees, leaves sagging with the heat. Cindy looked over the shoulder of Dian, who was walking behind Dr. Crane, to see deeper into the forest and she saw that it wasn’t long before the thickness of the canopy increased, obscuring countless photons from the ground below and shading the forest in moderate darkness.

When they came to the tree line of the shadowy woods, Dr. Crane and Dian continued walking without missing a beat, but Cindy hesitated for just a moment, pushed away a sudden and frightfully unpleasant feeling, and continued following them. ‘The only thing worse than wandering in a dark forest is being lost in a dark forest,’ she thought as she picked up her pace.

As they walked they each slowly lost track of time, wandering through a lush verdant labyrinth brimming with hostile teeth and foul poisons with no temporal significance to any of them. They visited a few of the areas that Dr. Crane had studied. The first was marked by four or five odd, square-ish pillars apparently placed haphazardly in the ground. Excitedly, Dr. Crane explained to his colleagues, “See, these little structures…they are clearly not natural, and look at their age. There was definitely human activity here.” Their surfaces had been severely eroded with age but they clearly had once born intricate designs and etchings. Cindy knelt down with sketch paper and a piece of charcoal and quickly took a rubbing of the worn designs. They investigated the area very thoroughly but found nothing further of interest.

The next two sites were empty, the fourth was after a little excavation revealed to contain a crude foundation to some impressively ancient house, and the sixth contained more of the small, square-ish pillars. However, the fifth was a matter of great interest to Cindy and Dr. Crane, albeit off-putting to Dian. At first it looked similar to all the others; overgrown with verdant, tropical plants and, in the case of ruins and rocks, so eroded and worn that they truly must have been ancient indeed, but what set this spot apart was that a brief weak spot in the canopy allowed a few golden rays of sunshine in, illuminating a small, circular plain in the tropical forest. There were strange, mostly uniform stones dotting the field here and there, but most of them were obscured by underbrush and violently oppressive plant life. After a bit of searching, however, Cindy was the first to make a possible connection between the regularity of the size of the worn, decorated ancient stones and the structured order in which they had been laid. “It’s a graveyard,” she breathlessly remarked.

Dr. Crane looked up and squinted one eye a little, as he often did when processing a great many thoughts. Suddenly he looked around and he could see the signs too, and said “This must mean they were advanced enough to have a society…look at these stones, Cindy.” He could not speculate as to the vastness of their age. Cindy cleared a little of the underbrush away revealing yet more graves and exposing a dichotomy in the stones. Roughly half were low, squat cylinders with spiral designs so worn that one could only barely discern them by touch, and the other half were taller, rectangular shapes. These only bore designs and markings on one side, yet all the designs of all the rectangular headstones were on the same sides. “Remarkable,” Dr. Crane muttered, as he made a mental note about the location.

Dian cocked his head and asked Cindy about leaving quickly with a slightly awkward tone in his voice. “Dian’s nervous.” Cindy said, and then asked Dian in Indonesian if there was any danger or something they should be concerned about. He told her no, so she asked him next about what was bothering him.

He proceeded to explain that he had grown very uncomfortable with this location and that a strong sense of foreboding filled his being. He wanted to leave but could not leave his employer, Dr. Crane. His family needed the money and he’d only get paid at the end of his service. In an increasingly worried tone, he suggested again and again that they leave. Dr. Crane asked Cindy, “What’s wrong with him?”

“I guess he’s just getting a bad vibe. He says there’s no danger or anything, but he really wants us to leave. Soon.”

“How much does he know about this site?”

“Not much, he’s never been here before.” Cindy looked over at Dian, who shot her a piteous look.

After a moment, Dr. Crane said “He doesn’t speak English, right?” taking care not to gesture at Dian.

“Not a word of it. What is it?” Cindy replied.

“I think it would be best if we don’t tell him this is a graveyard until we leave. He seems…fragile.”

Cindy paused for a moment. Then she said, “Agreed.” She calmly told Dian that there was nothing to worry about and that they’d only stay at the site for a little while longer.

The rest of the graveyard was filled with more of the headstones and nothing else. Dr. Crane was not satisfied with this find, as he knew there was something more that they were missing; something bigger. After scouring the site a few more times, he had Dian lead them further into the jungle past the final row of graves, and they continued onwards for roughly two hours. The noon sun burned high in the sky, but back under the canopy it was dark and cool again. They began to grow weary and decided to take a lunch break.

Nobody wanted to eat in the darkness under the canopy, so they decided to backtrack and return to the venerable field of headstones to enjoy the soothing light of the sun. Even Dian had calmed down after sitting for a moment and seeing that there was no danger.

They all enjoyed a brief lunch together and talked about their find, gently suggesting the graveyard theory to Dian when he had calmed down more. He started to get afraid again but Cindy talked to him in kind, soothing tones while Dr. Crane walked around the graveyard to take another look. He looked at each stone more carefully, examining each one. ‘What if it isn’t a graveyard?’ he wondered. Suddenly he heard a brief crumbling and lost his footing, feeling the rush of terror flooding over him as the ground gave way and he fell into darkness.

Cindy and Dian heard Dr. Crane’s screams and turned immediately. Dian started running first having still been on edge about the place, but Cindy followed quickly after him and caught up soon enough. It didn’t take long for them to find where Crane was, as there was a sinkhole in the ground so large that it would be impossible to miss. “Jacob?” Cindy called out, desperate to quell her fears for Dr. Crane’s safety. The sinkhole was about six feet wide but deep enough to absorb even the sunlight of the forest plain. Dian peered over the edge of the hole and was instantly hit by a pungent stench. He stumbled away from the hole and vomited behind a tree as it had caught him off guard. There was a gagging noise from inside the hole as Dr. Crane, who had been holding his breath, tried to breathe again. He retched for some time, but eventually composed himself enough to respond to his colleagues.

“Hello? Can you hear me?” Dr. Crane called out from inside the hole. “Don’t worry, I’m alright!”

Cindy slowly crept alongside Dian, testing the ground before every step and covering her mouth and nose. “Dian, get the rope. Tie it to a tree and come down here, I think I’m in a room. Get the flashlights too. I broke mine in the fall. We found something.” Cindy’s eyes grew wide as she thought of their names being recorded with the discoverers of great archeological finds in history. She watched the darkness of the sinkhole and waited as Dian sprinted back to their bags.

“Are you okay down there, Jacob? How deep is it?” She asked.

“Not that deep, ten or fifteen feet at the most.”

“What’s with that smell?” Cindy asked after coughing briefly.

“It must have been fermenting down here for thousands of years. And if this really is a graveyard…Well, don’t think about it.” He said while stifling another gag.

Cindy thought about it, but it wasn’t long before she then thought about how Carter’s discovery of King Tut’s tomb was nothing more than glorified grave-robbing anyway.

Dian returned with several flashlights and a long nylon rope. He tied one end of the rope to a thick, low-hanging tree and secured with it a carabiner and a knot, then slowly lowered himself in. Before he was fully submerged, however, he quickly told Cindy that he brought the small filtered gasmask from the pack for her so it would be easier to deal with the smell. She smiled thoughtfully as she yelled out a quick “Thanks!” and went to his pile of supplies to find the gasmask.

Dian handed Dr. Crane a flashlight as soon as he touched down in the strange, dark room. Cindy’s legs had just poked through the sinkhole as she was beginning the descent on the nylon rope. Dr. Crane turned on his light as walking a short distance scanning the walls of the room, admiring the intricate and perfectly preserved designs all over the walls all done by stone etchings and engravings. Dian however, perhaps more concerned with his safety at the moment, turned on his flashlight and looked at the floor to see where they were standing. Dr. Crane’s accidental entrance to the room had crushed the bones of two of the eleven skeletons in the room, and Dian himself was standing on a third. For a moment he found that terror had stolen his voice, but within a few seconds he cried out in fear and ran to one of the walls, observing that the bodies were all near the middle of the room. Cindy jumped at this exclamation and lost her grip on the nylon rope, but was close enough to the ground that her fall was non-threatening. Luckily, she did not fall on a corpse.

“What the hell is this?” Dr. Crane said as he shone his flashlight over the bodies. Ten of them had been arranged in a circle, all lain out perfectly. However, there was one body out of place; an eleventh body, haphazardly lain to rest on his stomach in the middle of the circle.

Cindy stumbled around to pick herself up in the darkness, but when she had composed herself she came to Dr. Crane’s side and took a flashlight from Dian, who was now trembling next to them both. “This man had a knife when he died here.” Dr. Crane said, gesturing to the short obsidian knife under the skeleton. “Maybe he was a bandit or a grave robber. Look at these bodies. I guess this is a graveyard after all.”

“So you think this was…” she paused, then correct herself, “is a mausoleum, then?” Cindy asked.

Dr. Crane shone the light once around the room very quickly, observing some household items and practical things like tools and food containers. Some thin mattresses were laid out on one side of the large circular room. “I wouldn’t be surprised. Look at all this stuff. It could’ve been a family plot, the Egyptians used to provide a lot of goods for the dead like this.”

Cindy, Dian, and Dr. Crane began to look at more of the fine details of the room. Several of the bodies were adorned with subtle necklaces or jewelry of beads and gems, and many of the artifacts in the room were excellently preserved. Dian was still panicky but through shock or resilience he had caught a brief toehold on his mind. Dr. Crane now felt satisfied with his find, and they, especially Cindy thanks to the mask, had all gotten used to the stench of millennia-old decay.

As they were each looking through the ancient simplicities of whoever had been laid to rest in the mass tomb, Cindy walked over to the circle of bodies and slowly looked at each one. There was something about how carefully they were laid out, and the person in the middle who was breaking the pattern. ‘What could he be trying to steal?’ She wondered as he crouched down and look at his body more closely.

Then, she saw it.

She tried to alert Dr. Crane or Dian, but she couldn’t, because she didn’t want them to take it. She wanted it. She tried to look away, but she found no strength with which to break the hold of its gaze. The more she stared at it, the more she wanted to. Trembling, she desperately reached out and grabbed the small, circular artifact in hand of the skeleton in the middle, the stone artifact roughly the size of a golf ball with the curious design of teeth and tentacles around an eye within an eye.

Dr. Jacob Crane called out, “Dian, Cindy, come here quick!” There was excitement in his voice as he stared up at a wall panel of etchings and engravings not unlike a circuit diagram. Dian came over, but Cindy did not. At the center of this diagram was a large sphere from which several ball-tipped lines were emanating. These lines worked their way to other etching designs and spread out into more lines, full of corners and sharp angles there.

Between the lines there were designs of swirls and curves, and many humanoid shapes were frequently present, all of which being either short or tall. There was no variation in the humanoid shapes aside from height. The walls were all adorned with this elaborate etched plan, preserved in time due to the structural integrity of the circular underground chamber. Apparently the room was very structurally sound, despite the large sinkhole in the roof. Dian considered this hole and thought about leaving soon.

Cindy heard Dr. Crane call for her, but she did not care. She had grabbed the artifact from the dead man’s hand, and quickly thereafter dropped her flashlight. Breathing rapidly into the small gasmask, she picked up the small obsidian knife in her free hand and began stumbling towards the two men.
Dr. Crane was looking at the circuit diagrams on the walls and did not notice the other, subtler features of note in the room. He did not know what to make of the two collapsed stone walls in the chamber and as such did not question them. He did not see the collection of circular shapes not unlike the circular stone room they were in. He did not see the thin lines connecting several of them together in a network of sorts. He did not see Cindy approaching them with the man’s knife until she had stabbed it through the back of Dian’s neck.

Dr. Crane cried out and thought to reach for his gun, but he hesitated when he recognized the assailant as Cindy. Dian sputtered for a moment as he clutched at his throat and then fell to his knees, soon falling over. Cindy was still holding the knife but paused for a moment, watching Dian bleed out on the ground with a deranged look in her eyes. In the gasmask, spattered with Dian’s blood, she looked to Dr. Crane like more nightmare than human. With heavy breath she turned slowly turned to face Dr. Crane and then without a moment’s pause launched herself at him, ready to bring the knife across his neck in a fierce slash. His hand had already been on the handle of his revolver, so he quickly drew it and fired.

Cindy collapsed on top of him as she fell, the knife and artifact flying into the corner. Dr. Crane made an anguished face and lashed out with his limbs until her body had rolled off of him. He saw that she had dropped her knife, so he shone a flashlight in the corner where he heard it fall. He made an attempt to wipe some of Cindy’s blood off him. He failed. Dian’s body lay cooling on the floor of the room in large pool of his blood.

Dr. Crane found the bloody ceremonial knife but also saw something else, that repulsive artifact. He was not lured to it, but severely disturbed by its presence. He put on gloves and took out two sterile baggies; one for the knife and one for the other artifact. He kept the artifact in his pocket for safety, but stashed the knife in his bag for evidence of his innocence in the two deaths. He did not know what happened, nor did he even see the artifact in Cindy’s hand when he shot her.

After writing down the coordinates of the site, he walked through the jungle and back to the shore. He radioed for help from the plane, reporting his two colleagues dead and also his discovery. Dr. Jacob Crane then sat in the cockpit of his bi-plane and waited for help, feeling utterly overwhelmed.

About a week and a half later he dropped a good many artifacts off at the Museum of Natural History so they could analyze, catalog, and potentially display his find of ‘the burial chamber of ancient proto-humans!’ Everyone was excited. Right before he left town, he remembered the off-putting little thing in his pocket. For a second he debated just keeping it, but after looking at it for a few seconds he promptly dropped it off at the Museum and left New York immediately.

* * *

IV. The Testimony of Inspector Donald Hart, Pt. 2


“So then you had this artifact at the precinct?” One of the agents asked.

“Yes.” Inspector Hart replied.

The same agent followed up with, “And the last place you saw it was in the evidence locker?”

“Well no, I told you the last place I saw it was in Carmichael’s hand as she was running away.”

“And could you run us through this ‘Maggie Carmichael’ thing one more time?” The other agent asked attempting a friendly manner.

By this point Donald Hart had given up being frustrated and resigned himself to the inevitability of repeating his story once more to the federal agents in front of him. He looked to his right, to the large mirror on one of the walls. Inspector Hart watched the polished surface for a few seconds and began to feel as if he was being watched. ‘Crafty feds,’ he thought. Donald knew a two-way mirror when he saw one. “Well, when Daniels went on that killing spree I got called back to work; you know about how I took a week’s vacation.”

One of the federal agents looked down at his chart, then up at Inspector Hart and said, “Yes, I remember. You said you and your family went to New Hampshire, correct?”

Donald had told him three times now yet confirmed a third time that, “Yes, yes that is correct. When the precinct identified Daniels’ artifact as the one missing from the museum, they called me in to look into it. The chief thought it was my kind of case and with the tragedy of what happened to Daniels, we needed all the help in the field as we could get. I didn’t mind covering it.”

“So then would you say you looked extensively into the case of Deputy Henry Daniels?” the agent with a clipboard said.

“Yes, very much so,” replied Inspector Hart. “I found some interesting connections that make finding Ms. Carmichael a very important goal for us, as I already told you. I don’t know why you still have not taken action.”

“Don’t worry, Mr. Hart,” the federal agent without a clipboard said, “I assure you that all necessary action is being taken in tracking down this ‘Maggie Carmichael’ and yet we still have more questions that we need to ask of you.”

“Fine. Ask away.” Donald Hart said curtly.

“Alright.” The fed with a clipboard said as he leaned forward and put down his clipboard. “Did you take the artifact?”

Donald Hart was shocked at this accusation. “What? Of course not, I would never dream of taking that infernal thing! Not after seeing what it can do. You know I investigated Deputy Daniels fairly thoroughly in this case, and what I found was disconcerting. He was the one who answered the domestic disturbance call when Larson drowned her kid.”

Neither of the federal agents said anything for a moment, so he continued, “The one who almost got hit by Prentke’s body.”

“Yes, nobody is denying any of this. It’s a strange coincidence indeed and that’s why the Bureau sent us to look at this case to begin with. We just need to know exactly to what extent you were involved with it.”

Donald Hart sighed and prepared to continue. “Daniels just lost it a few days after reporting the Larson incident. I’m sure you read the reports on his case, about the victims. Shot five people, four of them fatally. Witnesses told the boys at the precinct that he pulled out his gun on a crowded street and shot two civilians at point blank range in the backs of their heads. As the crowd began to flee he shot three more civilians: one in the head, one in the back, and another in the leg.”

The inspector swallowed hard and continued. “The latter two were still alive, so he began to reload as the officers were closing in. When his gun was again loaded he shot the man in the back again and this time he stopped moving. He looked around for the fifth victim, Maggie Carmichael, who had been shot in the leg. She claims to have tried to crawl under a car, but only managed to hide next to one. Before he could find her, however, Officer Stein and Sheriff Hooker announced their presence and told him to put down the gun.”

He paused before continuing the story, a faintly unpleasant look in his eye. “They say he just turned around really casually and shot himself. Daniels put the gun to his temple and pulled the trigger before Stein even had the pin out of the tear gas grenade. That’s how we usually would derail a suicide attempt like this, but he was just too quick. I guess they just didn’t expect it.

“Long story short, he was holding the artifact when he ended it and they found Maggie alive but she seemed to not care about her injury. She kept trying to go for the little stone ball that Daniels had been holding in his free hand. There was a little bit of blood on it. One of the guys on the scene recognized it from the description of the Museum of Natural History case, so they slipped it into an evidence baggie and sent it to the locker. Maggie’s interest in the little thing was always of interest to me, but now I wish I had paid more attention to that hunch.”

“And why exactly is that, Mr. Hart?” One of the agents asked in the same way he had asked for the past few hours.

Inspector Hart quickly responded, “Because then I could’ve prevented her from stealing that artifact. I told you already, I think it does weird things to people.” He trailed off for a moment. “I visited Maggie in the hospital and gave her my card. I told her that her testimony would be very useful to our case and that she should stop by when she was feeling better. Luckily her gunshot wound wasn’t that bad so she would be out again soon, albeit on crutches.

“That night I had nothing better to do than research exactly what this artifact was.” Donald continued, a small glimmer in his eye. “I had a few questions about it that I wanted answers to.”

“Like what?” The other agent asked after not speaking for a while.

“I wanted to know what exactly it was, and if maybe it was indeed the link between the deaths of Prentke, Larson, and Daniels.” Donald Hart said, certain integrity present in his voice. “Ms. Carmichael’s actions may have proven my hunch, in which case I fear for the safety of us all.”

The federal agents met each other’s stares for a second, and then one of them said, “So how did she steal the artifact?”

“She came in the next day. The doctors said she’d be fine in a week but she was walking on crutches at the time. As soon as I greeted her at the front door she asked to see the artifact in the evidence locker with a hint of fear in her voice. She asked me several times if it was okay and if it had been properly okay, and I assured her of the safety of the evidence locker each time as we approached it.

“When I showed her the baggie with the little stone artifact inside, she stopped asking questions and looked at it for a good while. When I asked if it was indeed the same artifact, she simply nodded and continued staring until I put it away. I proceeded to lead her back to the interrogation room so I could officially record her report, but she asked for a bathroom break beforehand. I led her to the bathroom and waited outside for her to come out, and when she did I again picked up the path back to the interrogation room.”

“Then what happened?” One of the agents asked. “If I remember correctly you didn’t make it back to the room,” he said as he looked down at his clipboard, “and I have no report here filed by you of Maggie Carmichael.”

Donald, slightly flustered, said, “That’s because you called me in for interrogation about all this just a day after she stole it. And besides, I already told you how she fled the station.”

“Yeah,” the other agent nodded, “tell me about that again. She just slipped off?”

“Unfortunately, yes.” Inspector Hart nodded grimly. “Eventually I noticed that she wasn’t responding to any small talk I made, and turned around to discover that she’d quietly snuck off. I searched around for her but only thought of where to find her when I noticed that she had also lifted my key ring from me before going. I headed off to the evidence locker, fearing she was after the artifact.”

He scratched the side of his head and looked away for a moment, unable to meet the gaze of the federal agents. He knew he was at fault for letting his guard down around the girl, but he continued his story anyway as honestly as he could. “When I got there, though, the key ring was in the door and she was gone with the artifact. I grabbed my keys and ran off into the streets after her and I saw her turn into an alley between two buildings. I sprinted over and drew my gun, ready in the event of another grisly situation caused by that thing. When I turned into the alley I saw her, standing there with her back turned. She was tightly holding something in her left hand. She slowly turned around when she heard me take a few steps closer, and…” his story trailed off as he looked down, scratching his arm.

“Please go on, Inspector Hart. This part is crucial to our own investigation.” The federal agent without the clipboard leaned in, holding his chin in thought with his free hand.

Donald Hart apologized and continued after taking a few breaths to compose himself. “I know you didn’t believe it last time, but I swear her eyes were white. It was like they were rolled up into her head.”

“We never said we didn’t believe you.”

Donald snorted at this statement and continued, “But I swear it’s true. She stared at me for one long, terrible second and then sprinted around the corner. I ran after her but as soon as I turned the corner myself I was confronted with a dead end and she was gone. I don’t know where she ended up but she’s the one with the artifact and a terrible fate will befall her soon enough. You’ve got to listen to me; we need to find her.”

“Davis, come with me.” The federal agent with the clipboard said to the other. They both got up and approached the door.

Inspector Donald Hart called out as they were leaving, “You need to find her before it’s too late.” They closed the door and walked into the room with the two-way mirror to confer with a third agent who had been sitting behind the glass and recording the conversation. ‘****in’ feds.’ Hart thought once more as he nervously thrust his hands into his pockets.

The federal agent Davis asked his colleagues in the room, “So what do you make of this guy? Still think he’s lying?”

The one recording the conversation looked up. “I think so, it’s the same bull**** story he gave us yesterday. All of the victims of Daniels’ spree were reported as DOA, including the girl Carmichael. There’s no way she could’ve stolen the artifact, Daniels bashed her head in with the butt of his gun before offing himself. You read the report. It doesn’t add up.”

“I know. Plus, have either of you read the dossier on this guy?” The other agent from the interrogation interrupted. “There’s no record in any of the precinct’s tax information that Hart ever had a wife or any kids. Other local officers say he never even went on vacation last week.”

“So what do you make of all this?” The first agent asked no one in particular. “What could he have to gain by giving us pointless false information?”

The agent sitting at the recording booth said “I don’t know, but I don’t like it” as he stared through the two-way mirror at Inspector Donald Hart, who under the table silently squeezed the small, stone, circular artifact in his pocket with the bizarre shape of hook-like tentacles, clusters of fangs, and an eye within an eye.
* * *

Wow - a lot to work through, and you have obviously spent a great deal of time and effort on this story.

I still stand by my original crit of Part I - and Part II displays the same weaknesses. Far too much internalised dialogue about having noghtmares and needing to stay awake.

The italicised segments are gripping and propel the story forwards - but then we're side-tracked to be told again and again how the nightmares have become too much to bear. I suggest you reduce the amount of repetitions - the reader will have got the message first time.

But Parts III and IV are a vast improvement as you get into your stride and the plot expands. You are obviously having great fun.

One other minor query - why trilobites and ammonites? Both are extinct marine invertebrates (presumably fossils in this context) so I'm wondering why they would be classed as artefacts.

H

Yeah, I just was hit with an idea a few weeks ago and fleshed it out, and here we are. Thanks for taking the time to work through it, I know it's a little lengthy for a short story. I've recently starting trimming the fat, but I wanted to include the other chapters because certain things don't have meaning until later in the story.

As for the trilobites and ammonites, they are indeed fossils because the story never limits the research of the staff at the Museum of Natural History to just artifacts; they would be put to use on whatever was sold to the museum, brought to the museum, or uncovered in an expedition for the museum.