from a dream 3/9/1994

I enjoy walking through old cemeteries, and this one, by the look of the stained & elaborate grave markers and monuments was truly ancient, at least for this country. The sandstone was pitted & worn, so that the strange runic markings were barely discernable, and gave to them on the whole an ithyphallic appearance, which may have seemed almost natural for a seaside town, but which was disconcerting to find up in these remote mountains, so far from any coast. And although the graveyard was deserted when we arrived, except for its usual—dead—inhabitants, tucked away as it was into a remote yet pleasant forest of cypress, hemlock and oak, before long a procession of cars appeared, winding upward toward us from the valley below.

 Upon entering the cemetery's large iron gates the occupants appeared to take no notice of our presence so that we were able to get quite a good look at them, I'm sorry to say. It was the eyes that were most disconcerting—black, wide-set, slightly protruding, and devoid of that indefinable spark of human soul. For the rest, the face was broad, and the nose somewhat flat, and the lips active, even prehensile, no doubt the result of some fearful inbreeding. I immediately thought of the south sea island of Panopeh, where, beneath the waves once great Ry'leh must yet lie.

Though these sinister creatures seemed to take no active notice of us, yet we felt somehow that we should not be allowed to leave should we attempt it, & so we followed the somber procession of black cars, which stopped at the top of a natural amphitheater of grass to discharge their occupants, who drifted to various positions on the lawn, and in silence in the gathering twilight, waited. Their drivers were arrayed as somber sentinels, their mirrored sunglasses reflected in their eyes the dying sun. And curious as to what we might next see, we waited for all to take their places.

Night comes slowly to the mountains, and I recalled that this night was that of the Summer Solstice, that night of all nights when Ras al Ghul, The Demon's Head, the Star of Lilith, most evil star in the heavens rises with the setting of the sun to rule the night. And I was chilled by a shiver of premonition, as the high mountain mists began to grow and gather in the hollows, and moved with a kind of sentience toward the central depression. Dressed all in white, they watched, faces expectant. From the shadows of the graves that ringed us, it was as if the dead had joined the living for the spectacle which was all too soon to come. This night there was no moon, yet the faces shone, expectant against the night and the white clothes looked like so much litter scattered by the wind across the grass. It was then the mist ignited, and suppressed whispers of "wild fire!" rose from the excited crowd.

There was a sudden hush, for forming in the mists before our eyes was a kind of demon, horned & hooved, and black against the burning night. "Shub-niggarath", they began the chant, moving as one body toward the center and the apparition of the demon, "She-goat with a thousand young". And we watched in fascinated horror as one by one they embraced their goddess and suckled her dark wine, then disappeared into the whirlpool, a dense black hole of space and time to be reborn into unknown dimensions. Luckily, we were dressed in black as always so that we were invisible to the mirror-shaded men in black as they herded the last of the crowd toward their dark destiny at the hand of the demon goddess of the night.

As the last offering was sucked into that awful vortex of desire, a sound rose, deafening as the cries of a thousand locusts. It was an ear-splitting, high-pitched shriek, as of electronic feedback, shrill and keening that knocked us to the ground.

"Shit! Put that fucking thing out," he hissed, as I pulled deeply on the forbidden cigarette—a strangely human act, considering. The ember burned, elongated, reflected fire in the dark and dreaming eyes of the Ones that had been called from dimensions of deep space, triggering the nictitating membranes so necessary to them on their alien world burned by the horror of two suns.

And the last we saw were the vacant eyes of the man in black, who had at last removed his mirrored shades.