The Dunwich Horror

 

Screams of agony and fear echoed in the cool night air as people from the small gathering of homes fled, scattering down the old forgotten road towards the salvation of another town. They left their lives behind them, dinners unfinished and cattle abandoned. Nightime settled in, claiming the houses as its own and blanketing them in darkness. 

Despite the fleeing people, I found myself inexplicably drawn to whatever lurked in the sleepy land. A great altar sat on a hill, ancient words long forgotten inscribed upon it. I stood beside it, fingers touching its sacred surface, watching the community flee. Something haunted them, filling their dreams with terror until the tension was palpable in the air, driving them out as rats on a sinking ship.

Its smooth surface held stains of years of sacrifices. The air smelled of blood and sex. A place of ritual sacrifice and lust, where the human and the inhuman met. Sometimes in offered death, other times in wanton abandon. Fireflies alighted, swarming in the air, blinking around me. Yet none dared to touch the altar.

I turned, glancing about the homes, seeking the darkness within. Lights flickered in all of them, abandoned without a thought. The cattle and sheep pushed against the fences. I walked between them, unhooking the latches. They fled, silent, into the night. Anything to get away from the collection of houses where chaos had made its home.

Only one home held what I sought, deep within its creaking bowels. In the field, nothing stirred, despite the barn promising cattle. Not an animal could be found. Yet a trail of blood stained the earth, drag marks showing where the poor creatures had been killed and brought to the ominous house. 

It teetereed, additions reenering it unstable andd daangeruos. As I approached it, it became apparent the house had been transformed into a barn of sorts, housing something within. There was no longer a pathway to the house, for it had overgrown in months of neglect. The smell of decay and rot filtered out from it.

I covered my mouth with a cloth, grimacing at the rank smell before stepping forward. The black door was half-open, too heavy to sway in the faint breeze that touched Dunwich. Silence met me as I stepped inside, fingers pushing the door open, my lips grimacing at the loud creaking sound that emanated from the door’s whining hinges. 

It was an old home, cluttered and filled to the brim with things unimagined. Small tables and roughly assembled bookshelves lined every wall, their surfaces covered in the esoteric and the macabre. Skulls, bones, feathers, and beaks mingled with strange sculptures, low relief sculpts, and old books. 

The well-worn pathway within the home took me from the first room, where once I assumed people had dined and shared their day, to the next. This wide, vast room had one door that was barricaded with multiple metal and wooden bars. Against one wall was a vast aged table, upon which sat a great book, open. In a corner a nest had been made of cloth, some of it was blankets, other old shirts, and clothes. Decaying bones with some flesh still upon them sat beside the nest, maggots crawling upon their rotten meat. 

A door led to the outside, towards the cow field where nothing but hints of blood remained. I glanced out the window, imagining the person who stared out, counting how many cows remained. Hunger was always the downfall of those who sought to protect their loved ones. 

Small mountains of ancient books were piled in the corner, some going up to my chest. I skimmed the spines, noting the esoteric languages they were written in. Spells and divinations from another time, of sorcerers no longer alive. Books that promised the great unknown and infinite knowledge.

The great book on the open table rested, begging to be read. Slowly I approached, keeping my eyes softly unfocused to avoid reading the text. My fingers caressed the page and wandered to the spine, noting the ripped page edge where once another page had been. Brows furrowed, I grimaced and focused my eyes, casting them over the two pages on either side of its missing companion.

Words swarmed my mind, echoing about in tongues I didn’t speak. Visions of a sacred rite, upon a woodland altar, filled my head, overwhelming my sight. The smell of blood and flesh hung in my senses, mixed with the unearthly smell of another estranged place, strange and wet. I shuddered and stumbled backward, falling to my knees.

Darkness crept into my sight, swallowing what I could see and leaving only the visions of the great opening, a void into which one could dive. A gateway, a promise of another place, expanded in my mind’s eye and threatened to pull me in. It beckoned with hushed words whispering promises I understood but couldn’t comprehend.

My body shuddered and fell, although into what I could not say. In the unending chaos, I floated, caught in the coils of time and space. Great eyes beheld me, sinking profound meaning into my mind, expanding my thoughts until they shattered on the precipice of realization. I became aware that I was screaming, my cries echoing in the darkness around me. 

The whispering words didn’t stop, even as my vision cleared and the darkness that had threatened to swallow me receded. My body laid on the floor, fingers clenched, my lip bloody from biting it. I swallowed the taste of blood and blinked back the rest of the darkness, shivering in the cold emptiness of the world.

I turned my head, letting the whispered words pull me away from the brink into the reality around me. My fingers touched the bars over the door, delicately feeling the wood and metal as my body felt more real than it ever had before. I pressed my ear to the door, eyes widening as the whispers intensified.

Whatever was inside wanted to be released. 

I shifted, pulling the metal bars off and dropping them to the ground, each clanging loudly. The wooden beams followed, a furious intensity settling in my bones as I worked. Finally, I pulled the great old chain from around the door handle that linked it to the wall, freeing the door entirely.

It expanded outward, the wood creaking from the pressure. I watched, eyes wide and fearful, yet reaching for the straining wood as though what I was seeing wasn’t possible. My fingers touched it, felt the growth before it suddenly disappeared, leaving the door in its original shape. 

Cold fingers gripped the door handle before I pulled. The door opened with strange ease to a massive room, ass though a barn had been attached to a normal home. I coughed the smell of death and rot overwhelming me briefly as I stared at a hollow room. Nothing inside saved the half-eaten corpses of dozen of cattle and the odd sheep. 

I stood in the house, listening to the breathing of something I couldn’t see. Around me, the walls shuddered and creaked, bulging in areas where nothing touched it. Slowly I turned, looking around me as though something would manifest in the dark, only to see the rafters high above me and nothing else.

Despite the rampant death, no flies buzzed. Nothing lived in this hollow room save whatever breathed. Each breath was raspy and grumbling, betraying its massive size to my ears. My heart thud as the whispering voice grew closer and closer until the heat of its rotten breath brushed my neck while it spoke into my ear.

Nothing it spoke was understandable and yet my mind clawed at the words, trying desperately to understand what the thing spoke. I held perfectly still, listening to its creeping chaos that swirled inside me, planting seeds of corruption with each syllable. A moan escaped my lips as I stumbled, my vision swimming once more with the great gate that needed to be open and the crawling beldam.

A thick, strong invisible cord wrapped about me, closing around my stomach as I swayed. It lifted, pulling me upwards easily and off the ground. My fingers grabbed the flesh, feeling slime and slickness beneath yet nothing could be seen. I searched the darkness, patting around to try to feel whatever had me.

The words grew stronger and louder as it chanted. With a great step, it pushed against the side of its home, snarling at the wood that stopped it. I cried out, shielding my eyes from the splinters as the wood cracked and shattered, opening the night to the creature’s girth. 

In the moonlight it stumbled outward, thundering on the ground with each step. The fences below buckled and surrendered as its body tangled with them. Invisible hands plucked up the fence remains and pulled them apart. I slid my hand down the thing that held me, tentacle or appendage I wasn’t clear. Each stroke was soft and gentle, doing my best to draw its attention from the world below.

Its movement paused. Even the constant gibbering ended. I could feel but not see its eyes on me, watching my movements as I pet the part of it that had me held. A soft gurgling noise escaped it, a near cooing sound that rumbled in its mighty throat. Something wet and muscular slid across my arm, up my shoulder, to my face.

Despite the chill it sent through my body, I moaned in response. My fingers move to the wet thickness and stroked, guiding up and down the muscular appendage. Another gurgling sound of excitement filled the night air as its wet extremity caressed my face and throat, sliding downwards to pull at the shirt I wore.

It moved forward, new and excited words pouring from its unseen mouth. A third protuberance caressed my thigh, leaving a wet trail behind it of invisible slime. It slid upwards, pulling at the fabric I wore before bunching it together, closing around it, and pulling. The cloth ripped off with ease and drifted to the earth below me as we crossed the property towards the hilltop where the altar awaited.

Trees bent and cracked before the creature that held me, fences broke, and houses shuddered as it lumbered its way through the wood and field towards the hill. Its gurgling murmurings whispered in my mind, pulling me between the world where its arms and tentacles held me, slowly ripping the fabric off of my body, to a world where an ancient creature watched, eyes boring into me, filling my mind with knowledge it could not contain.

I felt the stone beneath my naked body and opened my eyes though they were already open. Nothing was near me. For a moment I lay there, shocked and stunned as the fireflies moved around the altar, landing on my body but never daring to touch the stone. The whispering had stopped for the briefest of moments, leaving me alone in the peaceful night.

My mouth opened in silent wonder, questioning my reality, mind suddenly racing to recall how I had appeared on the stone altar. A slimy appendage slid across my lips, tiny finger-like projections playing across my flesh. The head pressed against my partially open mouth and I opened to it, letting it slide inside and climb deeper. 

A strange moan escaped my body as the creature furrowed further, filling my throat. A hand gripped one of my arms, long-nailed elongated fingers holding the wrist before dragging my arm upwards over my head. It gathered my other arm and held both in one massive hand, nails digging into my soft flesh.

The words began again, filling the air around me and swarming my mind. Within me, the appendage squirmed, sliding in my belly in strange ways that made me shudder. Great, thick tendrils curled around my ankles and thighs, covering my legs in the same invisible slime while holding me down securely.

Each word began to become rhythmic, patterned like drum beats that hit crescendoing notes. Strange ethereal darkness began to fill the sky above me, swallowing the stars one by one until nothing but the vastness of deep space swarmed the sky. The great eyes didn’t appear but I felt them peering at the scene below, of my body shuddering, taking in the ritual happening.

The thick wet entity I vaguely knew slid between my thighs and up my body, lapping at my stomach and between my breasts before it lathered my face in its secretion. My body arched up, meeting its touch, another moan slipping past the thing that invaded my throat and body. It gurgled in response, its wet length slowly moving across my face, then back down to my throat.

Hands wandered my body with it, caressing roughly, as a well-meaning child would maul a pet. With each hand thin tendrils and tentacles traveled, roaming my body in both worship and ritualistic wonder. The slime was lapped over my breasts and stomach, to the softness between my thighs, where the thick muscle explored, tasting every part of my body.

Haunted words became whispers once more as the invisible creature spoke near my ear, their gibbering nonsense beginning to becoming clearer. A spell wove in the air, whispered from the lips of the invisible sorcerer creature that ensnared me. I whimpered, feeling the words begin to become true and whole. 

My eyes opened, briefly glimpsing the truth before me. It loomed, gigantic, with dozens of limbs and tentacles, swarming over every inch of my body, one of its long limbs deep in my throat and body. Its wide body leaned so that a grotesque head waited by my face, whispering into my ears. Its eyes looked into mine, fracturing the foundation of reality within.

I screamed although no sound escaped, muffled by the creature within me. Its eyes had been the eyes I saw in the darkness, in the chaos of life and death, in the deep truth of bedlam with the heart of another world. The creature within and around me was the progeny, a child of human and elder creature, a divine creation seeking its family.

Its voice of discord whispered again and I opened my eyes to the ancient thing that swarmed above us, its unbidden voice joining the cacophony. The creature climbed over me, covering me in its ooze and secretion, as something otherworldly pressed against my opening. The words swirled in my mind, forming the question, the ask. 

I looked back into the eyes of the creature and moaned as its claws pinched my nipples, pulling, drawing just enough blood for the ritual to begin. Profound understanding hit my mind and the thing in my throat slid outward, leaving behind the taste of elder magic and discord. Slimy tentacles encased me, writhing over my flesh and along each side of my face as it whispered the words I needed to say.

My lips parted, speaking the ancient edicts to the swirling mass of tentacles and eyes above us, letting it rip through into our world by the crack I had whispered into existence. The elder-spawn slid forward, sliding inside of me, entering my most sacred of spaces, and filled me. I cried out and then whimpered as it pushed deeper, expanding inside of me as more tendrils filled me, exploring each crevice within. 

Pain and pleasure seared through my body as the creature moved even deeper, opening me further and slipping within my womb. My stomach protruded, small movements showing each tendril and its wiggling motion. Sensation overwhelmed me, my body throbbing with each word the elder god whispered and its progeny echoed. We moved as one, combining in words and spells and magic I didn’t understand.

Somewhere else I heard screaming, a man’s voice yelling and commanding, and the shrieks of someone whose eyes bore witness and could not endure. Yet the creature didn’t flinch, instead, its pulsing grew faster, throbbing inside of me before the tentacles above reached us, caressing us both with the power of its knowledge.

Time bent around us, warping the world as my lover expanded me, body and mind, making space for its desired seed within. The world shuddered, collapsing in on itself as I watched trees disappear, reappear, and bend. Swirling darkness encircled us and flew down my throat, filling me with its ancient caress that tore through my mind and filled me with an unending ecstasy.

The creature’s whispered spell became screams of passion, words tumbling out of its strange lips before it released its rage and fear to the sky as the way to its origin welcomed it. Within me, it erupted, spilling eldritch seed within my womb, filling me with the future. It slowly oozed out of me as the creature slid away, leaning into the caress of its father as it disappeared into the swirling chaos above.

A bright light of discord flashed, forcing my eyes to close as I lay on the altar, panting. A crack of thunder sounded, the sound of reality breaking, ending the ritual and silencing everyone, and leaving the known world in perpetual darkness.

I blinked, seeing the sky above me, blue and easy. Birds sang and on my belly, a caterpillar crawled. Slowly I sat up, clothing over my body, doubt swirling in my mind. On the hill several men stood, their eyes wide and unbelieving before one broke into a laugh, delirious and victorious.

With a sigh, I realized he thought he had won. The brave human who had dared face the great unknown. A small smirk touched my lips as I caressed my abdomen, the promise of life within. I stood, giving the altar one last caress of longing before I stepped away, walking towards the road to home.